A REVIEW OF THE WEEK’S NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS IN THE ART WORLD
Featuring Johnetta B. Cole, Andres Serrano, Chris Ofili, Kara Walker, Jacolby Satterwhite, Hank Willis Thomas and more
ANDRES SERRANO is bringing the city’s homeless population to the attention of New Yorkers with a new photography project (video above). Using a large-format camera, Serrano captured more than 85 men and women who live on the streets of New York for the series, “Residents of New York,” Commissioned by More Art, the images are displayed on phone booths and in subway stations across the city through June 15. Serrano talks about the project in this artnet News interview.
JOHNETTA B. COLE director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, will address Bennington College graduates this evening. The former longtime president of Spelman College will speak to the class of 2014 at the Vermont college’s 79th commencement dinner May 30, at 7 p.m. on Commons Lawn. The event is free and open to the public.
YAM COLLECTIVE, the group of artists formally known as HOWDOYOUSAYYAMINAFRICAN, that withdrew from the 2014 Whitney Biennial earlier this month in objection to what it viewed as racial exploitation in another artist’s work, is presenting two performances at Freecandy in Brooklyn on May 29 and 30. Tonight’s show at 8 p.m. (doors open at 7:30) includes music, film screenings, and live performance.
CHRIS OFILI will stage his first solo museum exhibition in the United States at the New Museum in October 2014. The show (Oct. 29, 2014-Feb. 1, 2015) will span his two-decade career and feature sculpture, drawings and more than 30 paintings. Work by the English-born Ofili, who lives and works in Trinidad, will also be featured on the forthcoming June/July 2014 cover of Art in America magazine (shown at left).
KARA WALKER AND JACOLBY SATTERWHITE are featured in new videos released by Art 21. Walker talks at length about “The Subtlety” or the Marvelous Sugar Baby in a video that documents the creation of her first public art work in Brooklyn at the old Domino Sugar Factory. In his video, Satterwhite, who expresses himself via video, 3D animation, fibers, drawing, printmaking and performance art is captured as he finishes a new animation for the 2014 Whitney Biennial.
TITUS KAPHAR is now represented by Jack Shainman Gallery in New York, as noted on its homepage currently. Based in New York and Connecticut, the gallery describes Kaphar‘s work as interacting “with the history of art by appropriating its styles and mediums. Kaphar cuts, bends, sculpts and mixes the work of Classic and Renaissance painters, creating formal games and new tales between fiction and quotation.” Black Artist News has highlights about Kaphar.
HANK WILLIS THOMAS, a photographer and conceptual artists, says viewing Jacob Lawrence’s “The Migration Series” (1940-41) when he was a freshman in high school was a pivotal experience that would later directly influence one of his own bodies of work, “Unbranded: Reflections in Black by Corporate America 1968-2008.” In an ARTnews feature about artists who were inspired by early encounters with art, Thomas says: “The idea of having a narrative showing a people going through these experiences, the individual as well as the collective, really affected me because it wasn’t just about images, it was about the story.”
PHARRELL AND YUNG JAKE are the latest to crossover from the music world to visual art. At Galerie Perrotin in Paris, “Girl,” an exhibition curated by Pharrell is a celebration of women that promotes his latest album. Covered by the Wall Street Journal, among others, the show (May 27-June 25, 2014) has come under scrutiny for featuring too many images of Pharrell, more art by men than women and a photograph by Terry Richardson, who has been accused (but never charged) of sexual assault and harassment by several models. Jake, who graduated from CalArts in 2012 and was celebrated at Sundance last year, has a solo show of digital drawings at Steve Turner Contemporary in Los Angeles, on view through May 31. His “Drawings” exhibition was reviewed by artnet News. CT
