Call for papers: deadline Friday, July 22, 2016.
Black Chronicles at the National Portrait Gallery. Installation photo: Zoe Maxwell at Autograph-apb.co.uk
Author: Jacqueline Francis
Writer, researcher, educator, curator, arts consultant, and occasional artist in San Francisco, California. I'm Dean of the Humanities and Science Division at California College of the Arts.
Watch and learn: the hidden messages in children’s movies
Ever suspected Frozen was more than a simple singalong? Have the false promises of Emerald City ever rung alarm bells? Here are nine family flicks that have been mined for underlying meaning
See Ben Child‘s article in The Guardian, Jul. 13, 2016.
The Visual Propaganda of the Brexit Capaigh
The world of “Tarzan” and ours
In a searching review from yesterday’s The New York Times, critic Manohla Darghis writes in the concluding paragraph:
“Part of Tarzan’s appeal–at least to some–is that he inhabits a world that resembles ours, but without the unsettling distractions of real suffering. It’s become trickier for pop entertainments to gloss over historical traumas, which may be why so many modern colonial struggles involve deep space or an alien invasion. Perhaps it’s easier to rewrite history through futuristic fictions, where worlds can collide before everyone moves on. . .”
I wish Dargis had written more about the intersection of contemporary Hollywood’s vision with Tarzan’s creator Edgar Rice Burroughs’, and about why the blond, muddied, bare chested Alexander Skarsgard (in the role of Tarzan), is a called-for element of our twenty-first century visual culture. Utterly fictive images of transcendent white masculinity have to written, consumed, and rewritten, I guess. . .
“Tarzan has always had bad optics–white hero, black land–to state the excessively, obvious,” quips Dargis.
No kidding, and suddenly Hollywood gets it, too!
If only this was a case of better late than never. . .
Divided cities: South Africa’s apartheid legacy photographed by drone
A Davila, “Latino/a Art: Race and the Illusion of Equality”
What does diversity look like?
On top of the Brexit vote, there’s another pitched battle being waged in the UK right now—it’s over a commissioned statue of Mary Seacole (1805-1881), a recognition for her aid and service to the wounded during the Crimean War (1853-1856).
Martin Jennings’s Seacole sculpture is scheduled to be installed at St. Thomas Hospital in London later this month. Opponents say it doesn’t belong at that hallowed site where Florence Nightingale established a nursing school. The opponents double-down when accused of racism by the artist Jennings and other supporters of the monument: Seacole, they claim, wasn’t a nurse nor did she–the child of a free, black Jamaican woman and a white Scottish solider–identify as “black.”
This is a row of great proportions. In the interest of Critical Race Art History, my raised question is “What does diversity look like?”
Sandra Gunning’s essay of 2001, “Traveling with Her Mother’s Tastes: The Negotiations of Gender, Race, and Location in WONDERFUL ADVENTURES OF MRS. SEACOLE IN MANY LANDS,” is a serious consideration of Seacole’s life and times.
Correcting Yellowface: Asian American blogger reworks film images – in pictures | Film | The Guardian
Call for Paper Abstracts: August Wilson Society Conference (June 30, 2016 deadline)
MoMA 12-month Internship for African American & African Diaspora graduate students (MAs)–applications due Jun. 24, 2016
Aimed at diversifying the institution and helping students historically underrepresented in the visual and cultural arts, this position is open to outstanding African American and African Diaspora graduate students, or recent graduates looking to gain experience and knowledge within the field of Media and Performance Art.
Department of Media and Performance Art Internship
Begins September 12, 2016; concludes September 8, 2017.
This internship is supported by MoMA’s Friends of Education, a Museum affiliate group dedicated to supporting African American and African diaspora artists and audience development at the Museum.
Description: The intern will primarily work with the department’s chief curator and curatorial assistant on two projects: artist Adam Pendleton’s residency at the Museum, culminating in a new, large-scale, multimedia performance; and an exhibition that will include a publication on the occasion of a new acquisition of work by the artist William Pope.L. The intern’s tasks will include support with exhibition planning, bibliographic research, image sourcing and permission requests, editing and design assistance, liaising with the artists’ studios, event support, working fluidly across the Museum’s departments, and other tasks as assigned.
Requirements: The ideal candidate has an art history and/or media and performance art background (MA candidates preferred), strong research skills, reading knowledge of one foreign language, the ability to multitask and prioritize, and the ability to communicate effectively especially under pressure. Previous experience working with artists in a museum setting, or specifically with media and performance art, preferred.
How To Apply: The application deadline is June 24, 2016.
Complete applications include an application form, a resume or curricula vitae, and two essays (no more than 500 words each).
Please see the following links for the application form and instructions. Internship listing and instructions:http://www.moma.org/learn/courses/internships#12month.
Application: http://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/about/application_12_month_2016-2017.pdf
For more information, contact:
Cerrie Woodner Bamford
Sr. Program Coordinator, Affiliate Programs
The Friends of Education
The Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53 Street
New York, NY 10019
T: 212-408-8517 E: cerrie_bamford@moma.org
ACRAH 