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    See Highlights From the Smithsonian’s Epic ‘Afrofuturism’ Show—From Octavia Butler’s Typewriter to Parliament-Funkadelic Costumes

    Now that the highly-anticipated “Afrofuturism” show is open at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., we caught up with curator Kevin Strait to talk about the years-long planning, the final result, and some of his favorite objects in the show.
    For starters, Strait described Afrofuturism as an evolving concept. The term itself was coined by cultural critic Mark Dery in 1993, and was initially conceived though his discussions with authors Samuel Delany and Greg Tate, and sociologist Tricia Rose, said Strait. A few years later, researcher Alondra Nelson and others created a listserv (functionally, an email list) to gather voices and ideas about this relatively new scholarly term. 
    “In the early days of the internet, this listserv functioned as the virtual community for scholars, musicians, artists, and other like-minded individuals to discuss and develop the language of this conceptual model that looked at the ways that race, technology, and fantasy blend together in the creative works and radical expression of African Americans and Black people across the diaspora,” said Strait.
    The Smithsonian exhibition traces this history by beginning with the cultural roots of Afrofuturism and its African legacies, before moving to the narrative works of the enslaved and into the 20th century with the words and visual data produced by African American sociologist and theorist W.E.B. Du Bois.
    “After historically grounding the concept, the exhibit explores Afrofuturism’s reach into the 20th and 21st centuries, exposing the evolving worlds of science fiction writing, fashion, visual culture, film, and activism,” Strait explained. “We also explore music’s central role as a primary mouthpiece of Afrofuturist expression in art and take a close look at its evolution beginning with Sun Ra, and carrying forward with artists as diverse as Lee Scratch Perry, Outkast, Janelle Monae, Herbie Hancock, and so many more.”
    Installation view of “Afrofuturism” at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
    Asked how and when he first conceived of the show, Strait told Artnet News he began writing the script for the exhibition in 2018 and working with the museum on the project in 2019.
    “But I started thinking about Afrofuturism in relation to material culture after our museum collected the Parliament-Funkadelic Mothership in 2011,” he added. “That object carries so much history, and alongside its legacy as an iconic stage prop, it also embodies deep symbolic meaning as a figurative vessel, designed to liberate the minds of audiences. From these objects, we can see how themes of freedom and agency are inherently woven into their history. After our doors opened in 2016, we’ve been developing multiple exhibitions that take a deeper dive into various subjects that examine the cultural history of the African American experience.”
    Asked about the challenges of organizing the show and why the concept is particularly resonant at the moment, Strait pointed to “the inherent complexity that comes with any exhibition that focuses on identity, representation, and contextualizing the African American experience through a cultural lens.”
    While there is a wide-ranging scope to Afrofuturism that covers generations and of course, looks to the future, he said that that challenge also presented an opportunity for the museum to examine a large variety of objects in its collection, connecting stories across multiple genres and disciplines from the past and present.
    “As the term and concept become more noticeable and part of our daily lives, we see more examples of its impact and influence in our culture. That’s the power of social media and our connected lives, where previously siloed academic terms like Afrofuturism have now entered our national discourse,” Strait said. “I think the success of films like Black Panther have helped to cement the ideas of Afrofuturism in our culture. That film’s success is due, in part, to more audiences knowing about Afrofuturism and a more public demand for stories with Black characters, Black settings, and Black worlds that are developed by Black creators.”
    Asked what he considers among the crowning achievements of the show, Strait told Artnet News: “I’m happy that we’ve developed a narrative that explores Afrofuturism’s broad history of expression and one that connects its story to real people.” For instance, the exhibition explores how Nichelle Nichols’s portrayal of Uhura on Star Trek impacted Black recruitment in NASA, as well as how Trayvon Martin’s dreams of working in aviation connect the themes of Afrofuturism to real people.
    “We also want the exhibition to connect with and add another layer of understanding to our museum’s central narrative of ‘making a way out of no way,’ by exploring these new concepts and spaces of identity for African Americans that emerge over time.”
    Here are some of the highlights of the show, some picked by Strait.
    Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil by W.E.B. Du Bois (1920). Strait called Du Bois’s The Comet “a wonderful example of speculative fiction that provides an allegory about race in America.” Photo courtesy Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
    Octavia Butler typewriter, once owned and used by the writer in the mid to late 1970s. On loan from Anacostia Community Museum.
    Costume worn by Bernie Worell of Parliament-Funkadelic, “who crafted their space-age sound with his innovative use of synthesizers in popular music” (c. 1966). Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Gift of Judie Worrell and Bassl Worrell.
    ESP custom electric guitar owned by Vernon Reid, “used in the recording and video for [Living Color’s] breakthrough song, ‘Cult of Personality’” (1985-86). Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Donated by Vernon Reid.
    Costume worn by Nona Hendryx of Labelle (1975). Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Gift of Nona Hendryx of Labelle.
    Cape and jumpsuit worn by André De Shields as the Wizard in The Wiz—the “super soul musical”—on Broadway (1975). Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Cape: gift of the Black Museum founded by Lois K. Alexander-Lane. Jumpsuit and accessories: Gift of André De Shields.
    [The Georgia Negro] Occupations of Negroes and whites in Georgia ca. 1890. Photo courtesy Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division.“Afrofuturism” is on view at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, 1400 Constitution Ave NW, Washington, D.C. through March 24, 2024.
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    See Inside a New Exhibition That Ties Bollywood Musicals to the Long Tradition of Depicting Dance in Southeast Asian Art

    Bollywood cinema is known for its elaborately choreographed song-and-dance numbers—a phenomenon that reflects the importance of dance in the art of Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Himalayas for millennia.
    That’s the thesis of a new exhibition at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum celebrating 2,000 years of the visual language of dance—and its historical, spiritual, and political impact across a broad geographic region that includes India, Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia, and Indonesia.
    “What we’re trying to pull out is how really important dance is in the religion and mythology and court culture and everyday life of all of those places,” exhibition co-curator Forrest McGill, the museum’s senior curator of South and Southeast Asian art, told Artnet News.
    Five years in the making, “Beyond Bollywood: 2,000 Years of Dance in Art” brings together 120 artworks from 25 museums and private collections. Originally conceived of by Laura Weinstein, the curator of South Asian and Islamic Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, it became a collaboration between the Asian Art Museum and the Cincinnati Art Museum when the Boston museum had to pull out for scheduling reasons.
    Classical Khmer dancer Prumsodun Ok. Photo by Nobuyuki Arai.
    Bollywood movies, of course, draw inspiration from Hollywood musicals. But some of the early Bollywood films recounted traditional stories from Indian mythology, and the exhibition pairs a number of objects with short movie clips related to the subjects of the artworks.
    “The big idea for this exhibition is dance is power,” McGill said. “I think people are going to be surprised to see how often deities are dancing, and in different contexts they’re dancing… dancing seems to symbolize the energy and the power of the deities.”
    The show opens with a bold expression of that power: a statue of a dancing Shiva from 800 or 900 years ago.
    Installation view of “Beyond Bollywood: 2000 Years of Dance in Art” at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, with a statue of Shiva displayed against a backdrop of NASA footage of solar flares. Photo courtesy of the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco.
    “It’s surrounded by projected video of NASA footage of solar flares,” McGill said. “This is meant to suggest how Shiva’s dance is really happening out in the cosmos. It has implications of cosmic destruction and cosmic recreation.”
    “In the Indian and Hindu and Buddhist worldview, time is cyclical,” he added. “The cycle of destruction and recreation is happening endlessly, over and over and over for billions of years. There’s no first beginning or final end.”
    Other memorable depictions of deities in the show include a mischievous statue of the Hindu god Krishna as a child dancing for joy—”full of the sense of an impish little boy,” McGill said—and an adult Krishna dancing in victory on the head of a vanquished serpent.
    Krishna overcoming the serpent Kaliya (ca. 975–1025). India; Tamil Nadu state. Copper alloy. Collection of the Asia Society, New York: Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection.
    Dance also appears as a form of seduction—a distraction tactic that usually failed when employed against the gods.
    The earliest work in the show, on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, is a 2,000-year-old plaque from northern India, of a woman dancing to an accompanying harpist.
    “The harp didn’t survive as a musical instrument in India, interestingly,” McGill said. “But the position of the dancer, the way she holds her arms and legs, could absolutely come out of a dance performance today!”
    The final work in the show is a three-channel 2016 video by Sarah Choo Jing titled Art of the Rehearsal.
    Installation view of “Beyond Bollywood: 2000 Years of Dance in Art” at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, with Sarah Choo Jing, Art of the Rehearsal (2016). Photo courtesy of the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco.
    “The piece fills a whole room, projected on three walls. It’s the back streets of Singapore with people practicing their dance,” McGill said. “It’s very striking.”
    “The exhibition makes the point that these traditions—the importance of dance, the significance of dance, the variety of powerful things that dance can do,” he added, “That continues right up to today.”
    See more works from the show below.
    Comb with depiction of dancing woman (ca. 1600–1700). Sri Lanka; former kingdom of Kandy. Ivory with traces of pigment. Collection of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the Avery Brundage Collection. Photo ©Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.
    The Buddhist deity Vajravarahi (ca. 1300–1400). Tibet. Bronze with gilding and inlaid turquoise. Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund.
    Attributed to Pandit Seu, Dancing villagers (ca. 1730). Indian. Opaque watercolors on paper. Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, from the Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection, Museum Associates Purchase.
    Dancing Ganesha (ca. 1500–1700), India, Karnataka state. Copper alloy. Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Harry and Yvonne Lenart.
    Maharaja Sher Singh and companions watching a dance performance (ca. 1850). Pakistan; Lahore. Opaque watercolors and gold on paper. Collection of the San Diego Museum of Art, Edwin Binney 3rd Collection.
    Dancing Hevajra surrounded by dancing yoginis (ca. 1050–1100). Northeastern Thailand; former kingdom of Angkor. Bronze. Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, gift of Maxeen and John Flower in honor of Stanislaw Czuma.
    Mythical bird-man and bird-woman dancing (ca. 1857–1885), Myanmar (Burma). Wood with lacquer, gold leaf, and inlaid glass. Burma Art Collection at Northern Illinois University, gift of Konrad and Sarah Bekker.
    Mythical bird-man and bird-woman dancing (ca. 1857–1885), Myanmar (Burma). Wood with lacquer, gold leaf, and inlaid glass. Burma Art Collection at Northern Illinois University, gift of Konrad and Sarah Bekker.
    Armlet with Krishna overcoming the serpent Kaliya (ca. 1850–1900). India; Chennai, Tamil Nadu state. Gold, opalescent glass, and topaz. Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by the Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection, Museum Associates Purchase.
    Pushpamala N., Still image from Indrajaala/Seduction (2012) (Indian, b. 1956). Courtesy of the artist.
    The Lords of the Cremation Ground dancing (ca. 1400–1500), Tibet. Gift of Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation.
    “Beyond Bollywood: 2000 Years of Dance in Art” is on view at the Asian Art Museum, Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture, 200 Larkin Street, San Francisco, California, March 31–July 10, 2023. 
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    The Next Big Names? Here Are 5 Rising Artists to Watch From the Gwangju Biennale in South Korea

    The opening of the 14th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea on April 6 might have met with a rainstorm and communication breakdown that led to chaotic arrangements, but it was nonetheless a success.
    It wasn’t due to the K-pop glamor brought by Super Junior’s Siwon Choi, who was appointed the ambassador of this edition’s biennale onstage; nor did it have much to do with the strong presence of the opposing Democratic Party, including the mayor of Gwangju, Kang Gi-jung. The real star was the stunning main exhibition curated under the theme of “Soft and Weak like Water” by the Tate Modern’s senior curator Sook-Kyung Lee, the first South Korean-born curator to helm the event since 2006.
    Spanning five galleries in the Gwangju Biennale Exhibition Hall as well as four other off-site locations, the beautifully installed exhibition proved more than just a show to impress, but a platform for important dialogues that aim to inspire.
    Featuring 79 artists from around the world, the show is divided into four main sections: Luminous Halo, Ancestral Voices, Transient Sovereignty, and Planetary Times. The biennale set in the South Korean city known for its struggle for freedom and democracy might not be overtly political at first glance, but there’s no lack of politically charged yet poetic works that question and respond to urgent issues related to resistance, decolonization, and the environment. The art here is like water—its softness and tenderness can be a powerful mediator that penetrates the hard surfaces to bring about transformation.
    Ahead of a full review of this expansive biennial event, we highlight five artists featured in the show deserving of global attention.

    Oum Jeongsoon
    Oum Jeongsoon, Elephant without trunk (2023). Courtesy the artist and Gwangju Biennale Foundation. Photo: glimworkers.
    Who: Born in 1961 in Chung-ju, South Korea, Oum graduated from Ewha Woman’s University’s College of Fine Arts in Korea before furthering her studies at Akademie der Bildenden Kunst in Munich, Germany, from which she graduated in 1988. She was previously a fine art professor at KonKuk University in the 1990s and has exhibited in Korea, Japan, and Germany. She is the founder and director of art exhibition and education centre Our Eyes. She is based in Seoul.
    Work on show: Installation work Elephant without Trunk (2023), featured in the section Luminous Halo at the Gwangju Biennale Exhibition Hall. The work earned the artist the inaugural Gwangju Biennale Park Seo-Bo Art Prize, with a cash prize of $100,000 sponsored by the famed 91-year-old Korean artist.
    Why you should pay attention: In her ongoing project “Another Way of Seeing,” Oum traces the journey of the arrival of the first elephant in Korea from Indonesia 600 years ago. Elephant without Trunk is an extension of this project, in which Oum reinterprets elephants through the experiences of the visually impaired individuals and plays them up in enlarged forms. These obscurely shaped “elephants”—some without trunks, others without a proper body—serve as reminders of how “no one can see properly, no one can see the whole. We can only see part of the world,” noted Frances Morris, director of Tate Modern and one of the five judges of the Park Seo-Bo Art Prize. Morris praised the artist for sending a strong message to the world in the post-pandemic era: “It defines life through strong connections transcending genres, and traditions which have been passed down to this day.”

    Emilija Škarnulytė
    Emilija Škarnulytė, Æqualia (2023), on view at Gwangju Biennale. Photo: Vivienne Chow.
    Who: Born in 1987 in Vilnius, Lithuania, Škarnulytė is an artist and filmmaker working between documentary and the imaginary. The award-winning artist is a graduate of Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art in Norway and her works have been collected by in institutions the Kadist Foundation and Centre Pompidou. She is a founder and co-director of Polar Film Lab and is a member of artist duo New Mineral Collective. She is based between Vilnius and Oslo.
    Work on show: Æqualia (2023), an immersive video installation featured in Planetary Times at the Gwangju Biennale Exhibition Hall.
    Why you should pay attention: Škarnulytė made the news by turning down of the GASAG Art Prize last year in protest of Germany’s reliance on Russian energy amid its war with Ukraine. This year at the Gwangju Biennale, the artist might be back in the news for the art she’s made. Æqualia is an enigmatic and mesmerizing work that features a creature that looks like a mermaid navigating different bodies of water. The mythical creature swims across different rivers around the Amazon, and at one point cuts through the convergence point between the blackwater river of Rio Negro and whitewater of Rio Negro. At times, the mermaid is seen playing with the pink river dolphins, who are residents of the region. Echoing the theme of this subsection, the lyrical nine-minute film captures the beauty and mystery of nature. The mermaid’s navigation through different waters also inspires the way we should act around conflicts and unpredictable circumstances.

    Yuko Mohri
    Yuko Mohri, I/O (2011-23), on view at Gwangju Biennale. Photo: Vivienne Chow.
    Who: Born in Kanagawa in 1980, Mohri is a graduate of the Tokyo University of the Arts and has held solo shows around the world. Her residencies with Asian Cultural Council in New York, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the Camden Arts Centre in London have enlarged her global exposure. Her works are in the collections of Centre Pompidou in Paris, M+ in Hong Kong, and Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. She is based in Tokyo.
    Work on show: Installation work I/O (2011-23), on view at the glass pavilion of Horanggasy Artpolygon, one of the off-site venues.
    Why you should pay attention: The installation artist has been a regular at biennales around the world since 2017, according to our survey last year, and it is not hard to understand why after seeing her work at Gwangju. I/O, which features a set of kinetic sculptures, is an ongoing series. But the artist has given it a new spin, adapting the site-specific work to a local context. By collecting the almost invisible dust and debris from the floor, and sampling environmental elements such as air flow and humidity, Mohri’s work transforms these odd components into a “music score” that is uniquely Gwangju. The artist also links the work to Han Kang’s novel The White Book (2016) and the multi-layered history of the city, symbolizing the creation of a “tone of history that was never written.” She’s expecting to show at the upcoming Art Basel in Switzerland with Mother’s Tankstation, with a solo show at gallery’s London space slated to open in September.

    Anne Duk Hee Jordan
    Anne Duk Hee Jordan, So long, and thank you for all the fish (2023). Courtesy of the artist and Gwangju Biennale.
    Who: Jordan was born in Korea in 1978 and grew up in Germany. A free diver since a young age, Jordan’s installation work explores the intertwined relationships between the humans and non-humans, as well as marine life, technology, food, and sexuality. Humor also often has a role to play in the artist’s inspiring and delightful work. Jordan is based in Berlin.
    Work on show: So long, and thank you for all the fish (2023), on view at the basement of Horanggasy Artpolygon, one of the off-site venues.
    Why you should pay attention: Jordan has created a mysterious yet whimsical world with her elaborate installation spanning three rooms in the basement of this community art center located on Yangmin mountain. The mirrored rooms, doused in black light and fluorescent colors, are filled with obscure objects and creatures that are inhabitants of a unique ecosystem that exists solely in these rooms. There are also robotic, non-human inhabitants that can sense the presence of humans, as they start making joyous moves to greet the visitors. As it turns out, these robotic critters are part of Jordan’s ongoing series “Artificial Stupidity” (2016–), and the work’s title is taken from Novacene, a 2019 book by James Lovelock, the late scientist, environmentalist, and futurist who has long inspired the artist’s contemplation of our futures through an environmental lens.

    Oh Suk Kuhn
    Oh Suk Kuhn, “Enemy Property” series (behind, on the wall) and “Prosperity” series (front). Photo: Vivienne Chow.
    Who: Born in 1979, Incheon in South Korea, Oh studied photography at Nottingham Trent University in the U.K. before embarking on an artist career. He works with photography, a medium he picked to document and investigate the confluence between his personal and collective memories, and the ongoing trauma of the country’s war-torn and colonial history. Oh is based in Incheon.
    Work on show: Photography series “Enemy Property” and “Prosperity,” on view at the Gwangju Exhibition Hall.
    Why you should pay attention: At first glance, Oh’s subtle photography series may not be the most eye-catching compared to the elaborate installations surrounding his work. But these seemingly uneventful pictures are telling important stories about the history of Korea that has long been forgotten or even unknown to outsiders. The series “Enemy Property” captures the “enemy houses” in Gwangju built by the Japanese during the colonial period that have been transformed over the years from their original state. His images depict enemy houses seen in Incheon and Busan (where the artist created a series and showed at last year’s Busan Biennale). The “Prosperity” series captures longevity symbols found in Korean culture that were in fact created by appropriating patterns and motifs from other cultures, such as Greek, Chinese, Japanese, and even art nouveau. These very still pictures are like time capsules, which Oh has created to process and question the history and narratives that are still affecting Korea today.
    The Gwangju Biennale runs until July 9.
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    An Exhibition of Doodles by Renaissance Masters and Modern Artists Brings Idle Scribblings From the Margins to the Center

    From childhood fridge masterpieces to those jottings one makes while on interminable hold with the utility company—there’s something instinctive and revealing about the doodles made by absentminded humans. And according to “Gribouillage / Scarabocchio,” an ongoing exhibition at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, it’s an art.
    Borne out of a research project between Columbia University’s Diane Bodart and the Villa Medici’s Francesca Alberti, the exhibition debuted in a sprawling 300 work show in Rome in Spring 2022. Its Parisian companion stages half that number, but still succeeds in tracing six centuries’ worth of jottings, scribbles, doodles, and idle-minded sketches—and their constancy in art.
    Drawing from the collection of the Beaux-Arts de Paris as well as a host of other European institutions, “Gribouillage / Scarabocchio”—French and Italian for doodling—is thematic rather than chronological in approach. It arranges work in sections such as “Drawing at Play,” “The Childhood of Art,” and “In the Shadow of the Workshop.”
    This curatorial decision brings the often-preparatory work on the backs of canvases by Renaissance masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Bernini into conversation with modern and contemporary artists including Cy Twombly, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Luigi Pericle. In doing so, the exhibition offers doodling as something inherent to and indivisible from artistic endeavors.
    “By proposing new comparisons between the works of the masters of early modernity,” reads the show’s notes, “the exhibition blurs chronological classifications and traditional categories, and places the practice of doodling at the heart of art-making.”
    See more images from the exhibition below.
    Brassaï, Matisse in front of a drawing he executed with his eyes closed (1939). Photo: © Estate Brassaï Succession – Philippe Ribeyrolles.
    Giovanni Francesco Caroto, Portrait of a Child Holding a Drawing (1515–20). Photo: © Archivio Fotografico dei Musei Civici, Verona (Gardaphoto, Salò).
    Eugène Delacroix, Class Notebook (1815). Photo: © INHA.
    Léonard de Vinci, Profile of an Old Man (1481–86). Photo: © Beaux-Arts de Paris.
    Jean Dubuffet, Henri Calet (1947). Photo: © Fondation Dubuffet / ADAGP, Paris.
    “Gribouillage / Scarabocchio” is on view at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, 14 Rue Bonaparte, Paris, France, through April 30.
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    In Pictures: A Major Faith Ringgold Show at the Picasso Museum Reflects Efforts to Renegotiate the Spanish Painter’s Fraught Legacy

    Faith Ringgold’s black feminist art has been an oversight in the mainstream art world for decades until last year when the New Museum in New York staged a major retrospective surveying her practice. Spanning nearly six decades of her work, it was the largest solo show of the Harlem-born artist since 1998.
    This year, in France, the 92-year-old artist is finally getting recognition from the other side of the Atlantic. “Black is beautiful” at the Picasso Museum in Paris is the first presentation of the artist’s rich body of work in France. The exhibition is part of a major overhaul of the museum that marks the 50th anniversary of the Spanish artist’s death; the rehang also hopes to refresh the collection and appeal to younger audiences, many of whom are critical of Picasso’s treatment of women and appropriation of African art in his work.
    The presentation of Ringgold’s significant body of work, including a range of story quilts and tapestry, considers her reinterpretation of modern art history, as well as her struggles for civil rights while witnessing the racial conflicts in the United States. The exhibition presents major highlights from Ringgold’s career, including the important series “The French Collection,” which includes 12 quilts the artist made after a 1961 trip to France.  Through this work Ringgold “wanted to show there were Black people when Picasso, Monet, and Matisse were making art,” the artist was quoted saying in the exhibition text. “I wanted to show that African art and Black people had a place in that history.”
    Cécile Debray, curator of the exhibition and president of the museum, credited Ringgold for reviving the figurative lineage from the Harlem Renaissance and contributing a great deal to the Black feminist art scene.
    “Faith’s work, by its plurality, its inventiveness, and its power, is emblematic of a form of utopia, of a certain challenge, that of an art that is both committed, avant-garde and popular, which undoubtedly gives it a wide and very current resonance,” the curator wrote in the exhibition catalog.
    Below are the highlights from the exhibition, which is on view until July 2.
    Faith Ringgold, American People Series #18: The Flag Is Bleeding (1967). National Gallery of Art, Washington, Patrons’ Permanent Fund and Gift of Glenstone Foundation (2021.28.1). © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022
    Faith Ringgold, Black Light Series #1: Big Black (1967). Pérez Art Museum Miami, Museum purchase with funds provided by Jorge M. Pérez and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022
    Faith Ringgold, Picasso’s Studio: The French Collection Part I, #7 (1991). Worcester Art Museum; Charlotte E. W. Buffington Fund. © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022
    Faith Ringgold, Slave Rape #2: Run You Might Get Away (1972). Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland. © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging; courtesy Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London.
    Faith Ringgold, Slave Rape #3: Fight to Save Your Life (1972). Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland. © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging; courtesy Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London.
    Faith Ringgold, The Wake and Resurrection of the Bicentennial Negro (1975-89). Courtesy the artist and ACA Galleries, New York. © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022. Photo: Ron Amstutz; courtesy Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland.
    Faith Ringgold, United States of Attica (1972). Courtesy de l’artiste et ACA Galleries, New York. © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022.
    Faith Ringgold, Woman on a Bridge #1 of 5: Tar Beach (1988). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Gift Mr. and Mrs. Gus and Judith Leiber, 88.3620. © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022.

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    With a New Prize and National Pavilions, the Gwangju Biennale Doubles Down on Its Bid to Become Asia’s Answer to the Venice Biennale

    This year’s Gwangju Biennale has yet to open to the public, but its organizers are already set on scaling up the event by doubling its national pavilion section in its next edition, hoping to seal its position as Asia’s answer to the Venice Biennale.
    Already this year, nine countries are featured with national pavilions at the South Korean exhibition—these include Ukraine, China, France, Canada, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Switzerland.
    Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, April 5, ahead of Friday’s public opening of the 14th edition of Gwangju Biennale, Yang-Woo Park, president of the Gwangju Biennale Foundation, revealed that the show’s organizers are seeking to host 20 national pavilions for its 15th edition, set to take place in September 2024.
    The renowned South Korean art show will have the next exhibition coincide with the 30th anniversary of the inception of the biennale, which was launched in 1994.
    Charwei Tsai, A Temple, A Shrine, A Mosque, A Church series (2022). Gwangju Biennale 2023. Photo: Vivienne Chow.
    Gwangju Biennale introduced the national pavilion section in 2018; back then, it had only three countries participating, and was down to just two in 2021 (the original 2020 edition was postponed a year due to lockdowns). The show opening on Friday sees its biggest national pavilion section yet, but this is, apparently, only the beginning of a new era.
    “It will be the biggest next year,” Park said, speaking to international press via an interpreter. The foundation has already begun the primary outreach for the upcoming show, as not every country is familiar with the Gwangju event.
    “We will come up with a pool,” added Park. “We will then send requests and try to reach out to embassies and consulates.”
    Gwangju Biennale 2023 exhibition hall. Photo: Vivienne Chow.
    Gwangju has a ways to go if the aim is to catch up with Venice, which hosted 80 national pavilions last year. The main reason to host more national pavilions in Korea in addition to the main exhibition, Park noted, was to have greater diversity. “We hope to see more artists and their works from different countries represented in their respective pavilions,” he said. “Art lovers visiting the show can appreciate different voices seen through the medium of art, which can be interpreted differently from the main show.”
    The 14th edition has been curated by Sook-Kyung Lee, senior curator of international art at London’s Tate Modern, with the theme “soft and weak like water.” The phrase, borrowed from the ancient Chinese text Dao De Jing, dates to around 400 B.C.; the description of the unique qualities of water is a metaphor for the power of softness, which can be even more forceful in face of hard surfaces as it penetrates and seeps through cracks in order to bring about transformation. Resistance, solidarity, coexistence, and care are key words throughout the 79-artist exhibition that spans across five venues. Park noted that the national pavilion exhibitions staged across the city have also responded to the theme.
    Sopheap Pich, La Danse (2022), on view at Gwangju Biennale 2023. Photo: Vivienne Chow.
    Meanwhile, the Gwangju event will also be handing out the first Park Seo Bo Art Prize this year to an artist participating in the biennale. The 91-year-old Dansaekhwa master who recently revealed that he has been diagnosed with lung cancer, donated $1 million to the biennale. The sum is being divided into 10 awards of $100,000 for the next 10 editions.
    The award, which aims to support younger artists, is dubbed the Golden Dove prize as the winner will be presented a golden dove emblem in addition to the cash prize.
    When asked if the name of the award was inspired by Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion, Park noted that dove is the bird that symbolizes the city of Gwangju, and that the biennale was created to honor the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, a traumatic yet instrumental historical event that laid the foundation for South Korea’s transformation into a democracy. “Gwangju is a city of human rights, peace, and democracy,” Park said.
    The Gwangju Biennale opens on Friday, April 7 and runs until July 9.

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    The National Gallery of Victoria Has Announced Its 2023 Triennial Lineup, Featuring Three Robot Dogs Programmed to Paint

    A dog may be a man’s best friend, but the robotic canines set to take up residence at National Gallery of Victoria’s Triennial are potentially an artist’s worst nightmare.
    Among the more than 100 artists and designers that will be on display when the third NGV Triennial opens in December is Agnieszka Pilat, a Polish-American technology-centric artist who is training a trio of robotic dogs to paint autonomously for the Australian art event.
    Is Pilat worried about machines threatening human creativity? No. She’s a tech optimist, one who finds Bonnie, Archie, and Basia, the dogs’ names, cute.
    One of Agnieszka Pilat’s paintings alongside Boston Dynamics’ SPOT robot. Photo courtesy of the artist.
    Throughout the four-month show, visitors will be able to watch as artistically finessed versions of the Boston Dynamics robots paint inside a large white cube. The robot dogs will be armed with sticks of oil paint that they will cast onto an acrylic canvas affixed to the wall. Their decision-making will be based on a series of commands programmed by Pilat, such as the movements of their painting arm, the pressure they exert on the canvas, and whether to paint dots or lines.
    Early versions of the robo-art appear like a marker-wielding child dashing off something in between an architectural plan and a family tree—fitting, Pilat believes, since the robots are young in human years and blessed with great knowledge but little understanding.
    Pilat has been developing this project ever since she was commissioned to paint a portrait of Boston Dynamics’ Spot in 2020. She has since lived with a 60-pound yellow-and-black beast in her New York and San Francisco homes. Together, they have produced a series of brightly colored works, one of which sold for $31,500 at Sotheby’s in 2021.
    Pilat’s presence at the NGV Triennial may represent something of an art world breakout for the trained illustrator who moved to San Francisco in 2004. While Pilat has received considerable attention for the novelty and provocation of her robot paintings, patronage has largely stemmed from the minted Silicon Valley set rather than the art world collectors.

    The NGV Triennial will feature more than 75 projects, of which 25 are world premieres, under three main themes—magic, matter, and memory—meant to highlight the concerns of artists featured in the exhibition.
    Tracey Emin, David Shrigley, Yoko Ono, Tao Hui, and Schiaparelli are among the artists set to present work, alongside 14 Australian artists, and digital practitioners such as Smac McCreanor and SMACK. It opens on December 3, 2023 and runs through April 7, 2024.
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    ‘Hip-Hop Is a Canon’: How the Baltimore Museum of Art’s Major Hip-Hop Show Is Bridging the Divide Between Rap and Art

    “Hip-hop is a canon. It’s only 50 years old and it belongs in museums,” Asma Naeem, director at the Baltimore Museum of Art told Artnet News. “It doesn’t just belong in temporary exhibitions; it belongs in the permanent collections of museums.”
    To coincide with the 50th anniversary of a genre born in the Bronx at a birthday party hosted by DJ Kool Herc, the institution is presenting its first hip-hop-themed exhibition, titled “The Culture: Hip-Hop & Contemporary Art in the 21st Century,” to consider how the form has shaped all manner of cultural production. The show, which opens today, is not alone in commemorating the movement’s 50th year—Fotografiska and the Museum at FIT are also doing so—but it’s one that’s weaving the overarching culture with works of art in a collage of consequential objects and imagery.
    Installation view of “The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century” at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Photo: Mitro Hood/BMA.
    One of the exhibition’s goals, set by Naeem and her team of curators including Gamynne Guillotte, is to dismantle the divide between hip-hop and high art. As Guillotte said in her opening statement before a preview tour of the gallery: “The separation between street and gallery is a fallacy,” with perhaps an unintentional rhyme recalling the wordplay of Biggie Smalls, the rapper who inspired a piece by Mark Bradford draped behind her.
    Titled Biggie Biggie Biggie (2002), Bradford’s piece, which is made of gauze “endpapers” used to curl hair, form an abstract rendering of the Brooklyn M.C. in the first section of the exhibition. Within this same room, described by Guillotte as a “tasting menu” of the sections to come, there is also Baltimore transplant Zéh Palito’s hot pink double portrait, It was all a dream (2022), a 1983 Basquiat canvas dedicated to jazz musician Charlie Parker, and a Dapper Dan down jacket from 2018.
    Zéh Palito, It was all a dream (2022). Photo courtesy of the artist, Simoes de Assis, and Luce Gallery.
    This collage of styles offers a positive response to a text-based work by New York artist Shirt, installed in the following section of the exhibition centered on Language, which reads in bold black letters, “CAN A RAP SONG HAVE THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ART.” It’s a statement, less a question, that bears out the exhibition’s thesis, but also emphasizes the timeless messaging that runs throughout hip-hop.
    Across its elements, hip-hop has always been a way for Black artists in particular to express the grind of systemic oppression, with rap and fashion offering aspirational counterpoints to reclaim painful narratives and history. The Adornment section of the exhibition offers such a juxtaposition of trauma and beauty.
    Hank Willis Thomas, Black Power (2006). Photo courtesy of Barrett Barrera Projects.
    We see Robert Pruitt’s arrangement of gold chains mirroring the passageways of the transatlantic slave trade, Hank Willis Thomas’s Black Power (2006) gold grills, and Deanna Lawson’s portrait of two men with bold African facial jewelry next to a snapshot of George Washington’s rotting dentures. Naeem described such fashions as a “graspable language” to translate hip-hop’s cultural messaging to a far-reaching audience.
    Baltimore sculptor Murjoni Merriweather and her hair braid-crafted sculpture Z E L L A (2022) are also included to center a more personal perspective. “The section is a lot about adornment and I feel like it caters to the purposes of my piece, but also to myself, as a person,” the artist explained. “With hair, we use it in a way to adorn ourselves, to make ourselves feel proud.”
    Murjoni Merriweather, Z E L L A (2022). Photo courtesy of the artist, © Murjoni Merriweather.
    Hip-hop fashion has also had a terrific commercial appeal, as explored in the Brand section of the exhibition. The gallery opens on a graffiti panel, directly contrasting it with an encased Travis Scott Air Jordan 1 and a Cross Colours denim bucket hat—spotlighting how a criminal act of vandalism has, over the decades, helped birth a commodified culture.
    There is even a display of Pharrell Williams’s now-legendary Buffalo Hat (debuted at the Grammys in 2014), which was originally designed by Vivienne Westwood and inspired by Malcolm McLaren’s 1983 Duck Rock album. The curators had to borrow the hat from the fast food brand Arby’s, which recently purchased the hat at auction.
    Installation view of “The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century” at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Photo: Mitro Hood/BMA.
    “It’s always been multidisciplinary and it’s always been about the hustle,” said Guillotte about hip-hop. “So it finds a very natural allegiance with the idea of commerce.”
    Naeem’s favorite section, Tribute, adds to this conversation between generations with an homage to Tupac Shakur, who elevated gangsta rap into a veritable art form. The most stirring of three pieces dedicated to the late rapper here is Alvaro Barrington’s aluminum and cardboard hessian spelling Shakur’s potent lyric, “They got money for war but can’t feed the poor,” in yarn.
    Joyce J. Scott, Hip Hop Saint, Tupac (2014). Photo: © Joyce J. Scott and Goya Contemporary Gallery.
    “Hip-hop is about youth. But how that gap between youth and respect for the previous generations constantly jumps and collides all happens in this section,” said Naeem, who added that Tribute remains her favorite gallery of the exhibition. “I just love Tupac.”
    “The Culture” wraps with two rooms, themed Ascension and Pose, that each hold pieces exploring hip hop’s complex relationship with grief and the afterlife (the genre, unfortunately, continues to see many early deaths). Here, John Edmonds’s white-on-white silk print and Baltimore’s own Ernest Shaw Jr.’s dazzling portrait, I Had A Dream I Could Buy My Way To Heaven (2022), encapsulate both the gains and the losses across hip-hop culture.
    Installation view of “The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century” at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Photo: Mitro Hood/BMA.
    The exhibit itself extends, intentionally, into the BMA’s contemporary art wing. In the midst of this crossover hangs Devan Shimoyama’s sculpture, made of Timberland boots, rhinestones, silk flowers, epoxy resin, and coated wire. A showstopper. This blend of street accoutrements and gallery-tier fabrics evokes a beauty that encompasses the street. “Hip-hop conveys different kinds of beauty—other forms of beauty that belong side by side with the Western canon,” said Naeem.
    “These worlds have always been in dialogue,” Guillotte added about the coexistence of hip-hop, fashion, and art. “That’s enormously important because there’s power in that. It serves somebody to assume that there is this thing that we call ‘the street’ and there is this thing that we call ‘the gallery.’ How scary would it be if there wasn’t?”
    “The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century” is on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Drive, Baltimore, through July 16.
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