Nick Cave: Meet Me at the Center of the EarthMar 28–Jul 5, 2009

http://www.ybca.org/tickets/production/view.aspx?id=8191

African American, African

African Diaspora

Jacob Lawrence (US, 1917-2000) Migration of the Negro # 3 (left), #17 (right), #58 (below) 1941. Heritage of the Harlem Renaissance, 1920s & ‘30s

Romare Bearden (US, 1912 – 1988) in his New York library 1970s

Romare Bearden in his Long IslandCity studio c. 1980 with a photograph of his paternal great-grandparents.

Bearden (second from right in hat) in Paris, 1950

Duke Ellington, 1943

(left) Harlem row houses 1943; (right) Romare Bearden, Black Manhattan, 1969, collage of paper and synthetic polymer paint on composition board, 25 x 21”

(right) Romare Bearden, Rocket to the Moon, 1971

Hannah Hoch, Dada Ernst, collage, 1920

George Grosz Gray Day, o/c,1921. Dada/ Neue Sachlichkeit

Stuart Davis, Swing Landscape, 1938, oil on canvas, 86 3/4 x 172 7/8 in.

(left) Georges Braque, Still Life, Cubist collage (papier collé) and graphite, 1913(right) Picasso, Three Musicians, o/c, Synthetic Cubism, 1921

"The more I played around with visual notions as if I were improvising like a jazz musician, the more I realized what I wanted to do as a painter, and how I wanted to do it." Bearden

Three Folk Musicians, 1967

Jazz, 1974

"I think the artist has to be something like a whale, swimming with his mouth wide open, absorbing everything until he has what he really needs. When he finds that, he can start to make limitations. And then he really begins to grow.”

Romare Bearden

Paul Gauguin (French Post-Impressionist Painter, 1848-1903) Spirit of the Dead Watching, 1892 compared with Bearden, Patchwork Quilt, c. 1972

Primitivism or Identity?

Robert Colescott (b. Oakland, California, 1925) Demoiselles D’Alabama, 1985 compare with Picasso, Demoiselles D’Avignon, 1907

Betye Saar (US, b. 1926), The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, 1972

Faith Ringgold (US, b.1930), Aunt Bessie and Aunt Edith, fiber, 1974

Faith Ringgold, Whose Bad? 1988 (left) African-American story quilt, c. 1860

David Hammons (US, b. 1943) photo of artist in Zurich, 2002

David Hammons, Higher Goals, 1986, basketball hoops, telephone poles and decorative detritus such as bottle caps, Cadman Plaza, Brooklyn, NY.

"Those who know, don't show" - David Hammons

David Hammons, Champ, 1989, rubber (inner tube) and mixed media

Hammons, How Do Ya Like Me Now? Washington DC, 1989

Hammons, How Do Ya Like Me Now? With sledgehammers and flag, Washington DC, 1989; literalization of a stereotype

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WaBJrAxxgo

Tyree Guyton (US b. 1955) Heidelberg Project, Detroit.

photo: August, 2007

Fred Wilson (US, 1954) 2003, artist ><curator

“I get everything that satisfies my soul from bringing together objects that are in the world, manipulating them, working with spatial arrangements, and having things presented in the way I want to see them.”

Fred Wilson

In the archive, Museum of World Culture in Sweden

Fred Wilson, Mining the Museum, 1992

Fred Wilson, Atlas, 1995

Fred Wilson, Museum Guards, 1997

Fred Wilson, Road to Victory, online project for MoMA NYC, 1999

Fred Wilson, Me and It, video installation, 1995

Fred Wilson, Pangaea, 1999, Townsend Harris High School149th Street and Melbourne Avenue, Queens, (fence & gate)

Fred Wilson, American Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 2003, black glass chandelier

Fred Wilson, from Speak of Me as I Am, Venice Biennale 2003 installation

Fred Wilson, Aftermath, 2003, installation for Berkeley Art Museum

Kara Walker (US b. 1969), No Mere Words can Adequately reflect the Remorse this Negress feels at having been Cast into such a lowly state by her former Masters and so it is with a Humble Heart that She Brings about Their Physical Ruin and Earthly Demise, 1999. Installation view at the California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, California. Cut paper and adhesive on painted wall, 10 x 65 feet. SFMoMA collection

Kara Walker, Darkytown Rebellion, 2001, Installation view at Brent Sikkema, New York, Projection, cut paper and adhesive on wall, 14 x 37 1/2 feet

“Kara Walker at the Met: After the Deluge” NYC Metropolitan MA installation, 2006. Artist as curator combined her own work with pieces of African American art from the museum’s collection.

Kerry James Marshall, Souvenir II, 1997, acrylic, paper, collage, and glitter on unstretched canvas, 108 x 120 inches

Kerry James Marshall, Souvenir IV, 1998, acrylic, collage, and glitter on unstretched canvas, 108 x 156 inches, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Carrie Mae Weems (US b. 1953) publicity photo for film, Conjure Women (available in CSUS library)

Weems, Untitled from Kitchen Table Series, 1990, edition of 5

Weems, Untitled, from The Kitchen Table Series, 1990

Weems, Untitled, from Kitchen Table Series, 1990

Weems, Ritual and Revolution, digital photographs on fabric, installation, Berlin, 1999

Weems, Ritual and Revolution, Berlin, 1999

Weems, Ritual and Revolution, 1999

Weems, The Capitol Building, from The Jefferson Suite, 1999

Weems, Enactment of the Jefferson-Hemmings Affair, The Jefferson Suite, 1999 digitally printed photograph on muslin

Weems, Gibbon and Child at Play, The Jefferson Suite, 1999

Africa & African Diaspora

Composite photograph – Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco http://www.moadsf.org/ Original photo by Chester Higgins, interactive collage by Robert Silvers and Runaway Technology, 2005

Marlene Dumas, Couples 1994, oil on canvas, 39 x 118”

Dumas, The Witness, 2002

Jane Alexander (South Africa, b. 1959) The African Adventure, 2002

details

Sonia Boyce, From Tarzan to Rambo: English Born `Native' Considers her Relationship to the Constructed/Self Image and her Roots in Reconstruction 1987, photograph and mixed media on paper. 1240 x 3590 mm (c. 4 X 12 ft)http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/ram/2007_31_mon_02.ram

Yinka Shonibare (England, b. 1962 to Nigerian parents, raised in Lagos) Dressing Down, wax printed cotton textile, crinoline display stand, 1997 “Afro-Victorian” headless mannequins dressed in Dutch wax prints: hybrid colonial fabric.

Example of trans-textuality of contemporary global artists

Yinka Shonibare, Diary of a Victorian Gentleman, 14 Hours, photographic series, 1998(right) Poster in London Underground, 1998

Yinka Shonibare, Diary of a Victorian Gentleman, 21 Hours, photographic series, 1998compare (right) William Hogarth (English, 1697 - 1764) ) Marriage-A-La-Mode: The Toilette, 1735

Steve McQueen (England, b. 1969, lives in Amsterdam), 2 stills from video, Western Deep, 2002, Documenta 11. Taken in the deepest gold mine in the world, the Tautona mines near Johannesburg in South Africa.

El Anatsui (Ghana, b. 1944), Sasa, 2003, Aluminum (bottle caps and commercial metal detritus), copper wire, 640 x 840 cm

Africa ReMix exhibitionBeaubourg, Paris2005

Detail showing bottle caps etc.

Hover, 2002 Flag for a New World, 2004

Ghanaian Kente cloth – a source

http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/gawu/artworks.html

El Anatsui, Sasahttp://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2009/02/22/style/t/index.html#pagewanted=0&pageName=22nigeria&

El Anatsui, Versatility, 2006 Venice Biennale

Chris Ofili (UK, 1968) The Virgin Mary, paper collage, oil, glitter, polyester resin, elephant dung, on linen, 1999

Sensation show at the Brooklyn Museum of Art 1999-2000: controversy over exhibition of the Charles Saatchi collection of Young British Artists (YBAs). Museum complicity with private gallerist / collector and “sensational” artworks. NYC Mayor Giuliani: “[There is] nothing in the First Amendment that supports horrible and disgusting projects."