Tag Archives: Lorraine O’Grady

LOOPHOLE OF RETREAT

Okwui Okpokwasili, Françoise Vergès, Lorraine O’Grady, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, and Dionne Brand are among the many artists, authors, and educators who will be at the Guggenheim this weekend for the LOOPHOLE OF RETREAT conference.

This “daylong gathering dedicated to the intellectual life of black women” was organized by Simone Leigh, Tina Campt, and Saidiya Hartman, author of Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments.

LOOPHOLE OF RETREAT—A CONFERENCE

Saturday, April 27, from 1 pm.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

1071 Fifth Avenue (at 88th Street), New York City.

The name of the conference—and Leigh’s concurrent show at the museum—refers to a chapter title in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, who referred to the opening line of the poem “The Task” (1784) by William Cowper.

From top: Okwui Okpokwasili (left), Poor People’s TV Room, 2017, courtesy of the artist; Lorraine O’Grady, Art Is. . . (Girl Pointing), 1983/2009, chromogenic color print, courtesy of the artist and Alexander Gray Associates, New York, © 2015 Lorraine O’Grady, Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York); Simone Leigh with a wax mold of a braid for the High Line Plinth piece Brick House, at Stratton Sculpture Studios in Philadelphia, photograph by Constance Mensh. Brick House will be on view in Manhattan from June 2019.

WE WANTED A REVOLUTION

WE WANTED A REVOLUTION—BLACK RADICAL WOMEN, 1965–1985 “examines the political, social, cultural, and aesthetic priorities of women of color during the emergence of second-wave feminism.”

The exhibition includes work by Emma Amos, Camille Billops, Kay Brown, Vivian E. Browne, Linda Goode Bryant, Beverly Buchanan, Carole Byard, Elizabeth Catlett, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Ayoka Chenzira, Christine Choy and Susan Robeson, Blondell Cummings, Julie Dash, Pat Davis, Jeff Donaldson, Maren Hassinger, Janet Henry, Virginia Jaramillo, Jae Jarrell, Wadsworth Jarrell, Lisa Jones, Loïs Mailou Jones, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Carolyn Lawrence, Samella Lewis, Dindga McCannon, Barbara McCullough, Ana Mendieta, Senga Nengudi, Lorraine O’Grady, Howardena Pindell, Faith Ringgold, Alva Rogers, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Coreen Simpson, Lorna Simpson, Ming Smith, and Carrie Mae Weems.

 

WE WANTED A REVOLUTION—BLACK RADICAL WOMEN, 1965–1985, through January 14.

CALIFORNIA AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM, 600 State Drive, Exposition Park, Los Angeles.

https://caamuseum.org/exhibitions/2017/we-wanted-a-revolution

Closing symposium, Saturday, January 14, from 1 pm to 7 pm.

caamuseum.org/we-wanted-a-revolution-closing-symposium

Faith Ringgold, The People’s Flag Show.

ringgold_peoplesflagshow_810x455

POWER AT SPRÜTH MAGERS

“The cultural contributions of women and women of color are still underrepresented in the art world, and we are still asked to contextualize our practice in ways that other privileged artists simply are not.” — Shinique Smith*

“I have recently been exploring the idea of doing my work in secret. I was inspired by discovering the work of The United Order of Tents. They are a secret society of black nurses. They have supported each other and done good works since the Civil War. The Mother Emmanuel Church met in secret for 35 years, while black churches were banned in South Carolina after the Nat Turner rebellion.

“I don’t really have time to explain my work to people who feel that I have an identity and they don’t. I don’t have time to unpack all that. I’m focused on using black feminist theory or any other tools that can help me sharpen my knife, and make better work.” — Simone Leigh*

POWER: WORK BY AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN FROM THE NINETEENTH CENTURY TO NOW, a survey of over 60 works by 37 artists—including Ellen Gallagher, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Betye Saar, Ntozake ShangeMickalene Thomas, Kara Walker, and Carrie Mae Weems—is now on view at Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles.

The exhibition, curated by Todd Levin, also includes a selection of images from the Ralph DeLuca Collection of African American Vernacular Photography.

 

POWER: WORK BY AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN FROM THE NINETEENTH CENTURY TO NOW, through June 10.

SPRÜTH MAGERS, 5900 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles.

 

*Artists’ quotes from Power, the booklet published on the occasion of the exhibition:

spruethmagers.com/exhibitions/445

ALSO SEE: theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/apr/05/kara-walker-karon-davis-power-black-female-artists

The participating artists: Beverly Buchanan, Elizabeth Catlett, Sonya Clark, Renee Cox, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Karon Davis, Minnie Evans, Nona Faustine, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Ellen Gallagher, Leslie Hewitt, Clementine Hunter, Steffani Jemison, Jennie C. Jones, Simone Leigh, Julie Mehretu, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Senga Nengudi, Lorraine O’Grady, Sondra Perry, Howardena Pindell, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, Joyce J. Scott, Emmer Sewell, Ntozake Shange, Xaviera Simmons, Lorna Simpson, Shinique Smith, Renee Stout, Mickalene Thomas, Alma Woodsey Thomas, Rosie Lee Tompkins, Kara Walker, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Carrie Mae Weems, and Brenna Youngblood.

Shinique Smith, Bale Variant No. 0023 (Totem), 2014 Clothing, fabric, accesories, ribbon, rope, and wood 243.8 x 50.8 x 50.8 cm 96 x 20 x 20 inches Image credit: Shinique Smith and Sprüth Magers

Shinique Smith, Bale Variant No. 0023 (Totem), 2014
Clothing, fabric, accesories, ribbon, rope, and wood
243.8 x 50.8 x 50.8 cm
96 x 20 x 20 inches
Image credit: Shinique Smith and Sprüth Magers