The Grapevine

What the post-racials are looking for

Neelika Jayawardane's avatarAfrica is a Country (Old Site)


April marks the springtime festival of fertility and harvest, Holi, which is celebrated throughout northern India. Because Holi is a yearly event that includes a large amount of revelry, without the obvious presence of the sacred, it’s become adapted by some odd pockets of people. I even saw a “Festival of Colours Run” race recently: you run a 5 km race and get bombed by coloured powder (immediately after that, I found a blogpost titled, “The color run is the most cultural appropriative shit I’ve ever seen” on the Blog “India is Not a Prop Bag”). What a pity that the organisers and participants of various “Holi Fests” in South Africa didn’t get that memo. Even calling it “Holi Fest” irritates a little—as if it is now commodified nicely into yet another Neohippy Wellingtons meets muddyshit-and-rapedrugs-in-drinks music festival.

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Strategies for Remembering Trauma

artstuffmatters's avatarArtstuffmatters

When I was in Los Angeles a few of weeks ago, I explored Ken Gonzales-Day’s Lynching Walking Tour from his Erased Lynching series, 2002-2011. While journeying on this path through the El Pueblo and Civic Center areas with a print-out of the tour instructions, I was often struck by the lack of physical markers on the landscape.  This brutal yet significant history involves multiple bodies. But the tour sites mask those bodies.

This experience made me return to my ruminations on how people memorialize trauma. Art about devastating historical events and other violent ordeals engages difficult issues of representation. How does one express the effects of suffering on the body? Is figurative art too literal? Is it too revealing? Does depicting a person’s body in pain remove her/his subjectivity? Is abstraction a more responsible choice? Or is abstraction insensitive? Does it use form to mask human feelings? What is the…

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Takeifa: Rocking Dakar

Zachary Rosen's avatarAfrica is a Country (Old Site)


Some music videos take you by surprise. One such video is the brand new offering by the Senegalese band Takeifa, called “Supporter”. Takeifa is band of siblings from the Keita family headed by brother Jac. According to soundcloud fable, Jac Keita experienced his musical calling at the tender age of 11, begging his father for an old guitar. Finally acquiring a guitar without strings, he cleverly fashioned makeshift strings from bicycle break cables. Before long Jac was recognized for his prodigious talent and recruited three of his brothers and one sister to join him in making music. The Keitas moved to Dakar in 2006 and established themselves as reliably strong performers in Dakar’s music scene.

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CONF: Black Collectivities @ Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

May 3–4, 2013

How do collaboratives created by cultural practitioners of African descent provide new perceptions, understandings, and forms of practice? This conference brings together key individuals from around the globe, including Otolith Group cofounder Kodwo Eshun, artists Theaster Gates and Rick Lowe, musician George Lewis, and Tate Gallery curator Elvira Dyangani Ose, among others, to broach this timely question. Organized by Huey Copeland, Associate Professor at Northwestern, and Naomi Beckwith at the MCA.

On Friday at the Block Museum, Kodwo Eshun and Rick Lowe provide the keynote conversation, moderated by Naomi Beckwith. All other speakers listed below are featured in conversations on Saturday at the MCA, along with a conference wrap up panel moderated by Huey Copeland.

Conference participants include:

http://www2.mcachicago.org/event/event-past-10/

JOB: Assistant/Associate Professor of African/African American Art @ Elizabeth City State University

Assistant/Associate Professor-Art Historian.  Responsibilities:  The purpose of this position is to teach existing Art History and survey courses along with Art Appreciation. Strengthen the department’s offerings in African and African American Art History. Provide student academic advisement, participate in committee assignments and perform research and scholarly activities and grantsmanships.   Requirements:  Doctorate in Art History with a background in Western and Non-Western Art with strong emphasis in African and African American Art. Experience with museum and/or gallery desired.

Position is Exempt from the Personnel Act. (EPA Faculty)

Degrees must be received from appropriately accredited institutions.

Under Federal requirements (Fair Credit Reporting Act), ECSU will conduct a criminal background report for all final candidates for all positions and appointments.  Credit and/or driving record reports will be completed on final candidates for positions and appointments that have financial or driving responsibilities as part of the job duties.

Application Process:  Submit letter of application, curriculum vitae, official college transcripts and the names, addresses and telephone numbers of three (3) professional reference letters via Elizabeth City State University online employment site at https://jobs.ecsu.edu. EOE

Neelika Jayawardane's avatarAfrica is a Country (Old Site)


Jezebel has already gone overboard commenting on and identifying the obvious misogyny and racial stereotyping in Sports Illustrated’s Seven Continents spread. They went through each photo, tagging them with gems such as:

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SYMP: Women in American Art @ PAFA

Saturday, February 23rd, 2013

In conjunction with The Female Gaze: Women Artists Making Their World │ November 17, 2012 – April 7, 2013

PAFA Graduate Student  Symposium: Women in American Art


10:00 am – 4:00 pm, Auditorium in the Historic Landmark Building
This graduate symposium offers an opportunity for area graduate students to present new research on a particular artist or group of artists in American Art. Featuring original papers presented by graduate-level students at the University of Delaware, University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Princeton University, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Temple University, the program will conclude with a panel discussion by illustrious scholars of American Art. (Act 48 credit available for educators.)

Registration: $15 (includes admission). Free for members.

Register online

http://www.pafa.org/museum/Education/General-Adult-Audiences/Symposia/1286/

 

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

10:00 a.m.       Welcome and Opening Remarks, Dr. Robert Cozzolino

10:30 a.m.       Interior Exposures:Women and the Practice of Home Portraiture, 1885-1920 (Marina Isgro, University of Pennsylvania)

10:55 a.m.       Super Housekeeping? Dorothy C. Miller’s Curatorial Career at MoMA (Karli Wurzelbacher, University of Delaware)

11:20 a.m.       Circulating Abstraction: The Portability and Commercial Success of Women Artists’ Abstract Expressionist Prints (Christina Weyl, Rutgers University)

11:45 a.m.       Q & A, Moderated by Curator of Historical American Art at PAFA, Dr. Anna O. Marley

12:15 p.m.       Lunch Break

1:00 p.m.         Curators and Educators available for conversation in PAFA’s Historic Cast Hall, the Permanent Collection, and The Female Gaze exhibition

 

2:00 p.m.         The ‘Dumb’ Objects of Vija Celmins (Frances Jacobus-Parker, Princeton University)

2:25 p.m.         Where It Was, I Shall Come To Be: Shadows and Absences in The Female Gaze Show (Abby King, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts)

2:50 p.m.         She Works Hard for the Money: Flashy Patterns and Glittering Surfaces by Mickalene Thomas (Sophie Sanders, Tyler School of Art, Temple University)

3:15 p.m.         Q & A, moderated by Senior Curator and Curator of Modern Art at PAFA, Dr. Robert Cozzolino

 

3:45 p.m.         Faculty Roundtable Response  including Michael Leja (University of Pennsylvania), Camara Holloway (University of Delaware), Joan Marter (Rutgers University), Rachael DeLue (Princeton University), Jennifer Zwilling (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts) and Susanna Gold (Tyler School of Art, Temple University).