Author: Camara Dia Holloway

I am the Project Manager for the Romare Bearden Digital Catalogue Raisonné at the Wildenstein Plattner Institute. I earned my PhD at Yale University in the History of Art Department and specialize in twentieth century American art with a particular focus on the history of photography, race and representation, and transatlantic modernist networks. I also serve as a Founding Co-Director of the Association for Critical Race Art History (ACRAH).

EXH: Wrapped in Pride: Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity @ Fitchburg Art Museum

AKWAABA!  means welcome — and the Fitchburg Art Museum welcomes you to the opening celebration of the exhibit Wrapped in Pride: Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity on April 15, 2012. The exhibit is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and this version of the exhibit by the Fowler at UCLA.

Massachusetts boasts a large Ghanaian community, in the thousands, and our honorary chair is Nana Yaw Ampong II, Wabiri Asonahene of Breman Asikuma (currently resident in Westminster, MA). Opening festivities include an Afternoon Dance Party hosted by Gordon Halm of Lowell with cultural performances from traditional to contemporary, an African market, a weaving demonstration by Edward Brempong (currently resident in Worcester) and an “Africa Today” Forum featuring Ambassador Thomas Hull (Sierra Leone 2004-2007) as keynote speaker along with other distinguished guests.

On April 29, Professor Emeritus (University of Calgary) Daniel Mato
will give a lecture “Woven Words” on the symbolism of Kente and other Akan art forms followed by
a performance of traditional drumming and dance by Nani Agbeli and the
Agbekor Ensemble (associated with Tufts University).

On May 13, we will be having an African fashion show and family activities day.

Please share this information with friends, and please join us.  The exhibit will run through June 3.
The Fitchburg Art Museum is open from 12-4 Wednesday-Friday, 11-5 Saturday and Sunday.
On the first Thursday of each month we are open until 8pm and admission is free after 4:00.

http://www.fitchburgartmuseum.org/exhibitions.php

LMU Professor Examines Race in Comics

Corey Blake's avatarThe Comics Observer

Loyola Marymount University‘s Dr. Adilifu Nama, Chair and Associate Professor of African American Studies and author of Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black Superheroes, will hold a conference tomorrow on race in comics.

Dr. Nama shares some of his findings in this video produced by LMU:

His take on Luke Cage as more than simply a blaxploitation character, which is typically how he’s dismissed, but a reflection of the debate about the criminal system and rehabilitation going on at the time, particularly stands out to me. This isn’t just another regurgitation of comics history but an indication of someone bringing their own knowledgeable perspective to the ongoing dialogue and analysis. I’m bummed I can’t make this conference, but I’m very interested in checking out his book as a consolation prize.

The colloquium ran from 9 AM to 4 PM and included a line-up of professors and professional…

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Video of the Week: The (S) Files

blackatlanticresource's avatarBlack Atlantic Resource Debate

This week’s video feature is a bumper package of 9 short videos each relating to El Museo del Barrio’s 2011 Bienal: The (S) Files. The exhibition ran from June 2011 – January 2012 in numerous venues across New York. Although the exhibition has now ended it leaves behind this great online resource of interviews with the curators and artists involved – and a bit of funky music thrown in too.

The first video introduces the concepts and rationale behind the 2011 bienal theme of the street and features short interviews with curators: Rocío Aranda-Alvarado, Trinidad Fombella, and Elvis Fuentes.

“El Museo’s Bienal: The (S) Files 2011 is El Museo del Barrio’s sixth biennial of the most innovative, cutting-edge art created by Latino, Caribbean, and Latin American artists currently working in the greater New York area. This year’s edition spreads all over the city, showcasing a record 75 emerging artists in seven different…

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Antonio Martorell Completes Sculpture of Ramón Emeterio Betances for the Puerto Rican Athenaeum

Vejigante: Creator of Carnival Masks Brings Puerto Rican Tradition to Hartford

LEC: The Gertrude Stein Paradox @ SVA

Jeff Edwards's avatarThe Visual & Critical Studies blog

This Monday, April 2nd at 7:00 p.m., the Visual & Critical Studies Department will present “The Gertrude Stein Paradox: Michèle Cone heads a panel of renowned Stein scholars.” Here is a detailed description of the event from SVA’s Press Resources page:

School of Visual Arts (SVA) presents The Gertrude Stein Paradox, a roundtable discussion led by historian and SVA faculty member Michèle C. Cone about Gertrude Stein, patron of the arts and mercurial author and thinker. The panel discussion coincides with “The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso and the Parisian Avant-Garde,” the exhibition on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from February 21 – June 3, 2012. Dr. Cone will be joined in conversation by Mary Ann Caws, distinguished professor of English, French and comparative literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York; Catharine Stimpson, University Professor and Dean Emerita of the Graduate…

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Exhibition: ‘Teenie Harris, Photographer: An American Story’ at Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Dr Marcus Bunyan's avatarArt Blart _ art and cultural memory archive

Exhibition dates:  29th October 2011 – 7th April 2012

 

Teenie Harris (American, 1908-1998) 'Construction site with bulldozer, two men, including one in front holding child, large tank with hose, and car on right, possibly in construction site of Belmar Gardens' c. 1954

 

Teenie Harris (American, 1908-1998)
Construction site with bulldozer, two men, including one in front holding child, large tank with hose, and car on right, possibly in construction site of Belmar Gardens
c. 1954
Gelatin silver print
© Carnegie Museum of Art

 

 

What an astonishing photographer this man was. These photographs are a revelation. African American artist Charles “Teenie” Harris, captured “the essence of daily African-American life in the 20th century. For more than 40 years, Harris – as lead photographer of the influential Pittsburgh Courier newspaper – took almost 80,000 pictures of people from all walks: presidents, housewives, sports stars, babies, civil rights leaders and even cross-dressing drag queens.”

While Harris is most famous for depicting an innovative and thriving black urban community – daily life in Pittsburgh’s Hill District – it is the less figurative, more abstract urban landscape…

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CFP: Feminist Art History Conference @ American University

Announcing the Third Annual
FEMINIST ART HISTORY CONFERENCE
at American University in Washington DC

Friday-Sunday, November 9-11, 2012

CALL FOR PAPERS: please submit via email a one-page, single-spaced proposal and two-page curriculum vita by May 15, 2012 to fahc3.cfp@gmail.com. 

Notification of acceptance by July 1, 2012

This conference builds on the legacy of feminist art-historical scholarship and pedagogy initiated by Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard at American University. To further the inclusive spirit of their groundbreaking anthologies, we invite papers on subjects spanning the chronological and geographic spectrum to foster a broad dialogue on feminist art-historical practice. Speakers may address such topics as: artists, movements, and works of art and architecture; cultural institutions and critical discourses; practices of collecting, patronage, and display; the gendering of objects, spaces, and media; the reception of images; and issues of power, agency, gender, and sexuality within visual cultures. 

Keynote address:
“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Feminism, Art History and the Story of a Book”
Whitney Chadwick, Professor Emerita of Art History
San Francisco State University

 Sessions and keynote will be held on AU’s campus

with additional events at the National Museum of Women in the Arts

in conjunction with its 25th Anniversary celebration

 

Sponsored by the Art History Program, Department of Art,
College of Arts and Sciences at American University
Organizing committee:  Kathe Albrecht, Juliet Bellow, Norma Broude, Kim Butler,
Mary D. Garrard, Namiko Kunimoto, Helen Langa, and Andrea Pearson

SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR: VISIONS OF VICTORY AT THE WOLFSONIAN

"The Chief"'s avatarWolfsonian-FIU Library

Today’s blog post comes to you courtesy of Sharf Associate Librarian Rochelle Pienn. Rochelle has been processing and cataloguing recent additions to the Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf Collection at the Wolfsonian, and has also been selecting objects and writing interpretative text for some of the Spanish-American War materials that will be featured in an exhibit on the fifth floor gallery. In the course of culling items and condensing the interpretative text down to very concise labels, lots of information gets left out. Rather than see that exhaustive research go to waste, we thought that we would share some of it with you, as a teaser to entice you to visit the show which will be up in time for the 110th anniversary of Cuban Independence celebrated in Miami on May 20th, 2012.

My dear friend Isis took a harrowing boat ride from Cuba to the United States at…

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CFP: Extended Deadline for Proposals for AHAA-sponsored session @ CAA 2014

DEADLINE REMINDER: Proposals for the AHAA-sponsored scholarly session at CAA 2014 are due April 1. Because April 1 is Sunday, proposals will be accepted through Monday, April 2.

As an affiliated society of CAA, AHAA (Association of Historians of American Art) sponsors two sessions at the CAA annual conference: a one-and-a-half-hour professional session and a two-and-a-half-hour scholarly session.

AHAA-sponsored scholarly sessions are similar to the scholarly sessions generally held at CAA, although sometimes more topical issues are addressed. Scholarly session proposals should be sent by email to Katherine Smith, AHAA Sessions Coordinator (kasmith at agnesscott.edu). Successful chairs will be notified by June 1, 2012.

AHAA seeks to include new voices, and younger scholars are encouraged to make submissions. Chairs of AHAA-sponsored sessions must be current members of both AHAA and CAA. Proposals should include a title for, and short description of, the session along with the proposer’s c.v. and a statement of expertise on the topic or area proposed. For examples of appropriate topics, see the list of past AHAA-sponsored CAA sessions at ahaaonline.org.