On View presents images from noteworthy exhibitions
CANDID, HARSH, AND IMAGINATIVE, Vanessa German‘s mixed-media sculptures, assemblages, and wall-mounted altars are rich with narrative. Created to gird against the daily violence and indignities endured by black and brown people, her Power Figures possess joy, love, and soul protection. Pittsburgh-based German is a performance artist and activist who paints, sculpts and writes. Mid-stride atop a phalanx of white hands, she’s titled one of her figures, “The Runner/Run and Fight./Don’t let your white friend’s father touch your panties./Circle Running/Rape Proof, or Un-rapeable?” Another work is called “For Black Boys Who’ve Considered Suicide/Body/Soul/Space Between.” Sights to behold, the eclectic tableaux are part of a new body of work presented in “Trampoline: Resilience & Black Body & Soul” at Fort Gansevoort in the Meatpacking District. German also pays tribute to tennis champions Venus and Serena Williams with collages inspired by their Vogue and New York Times magazine covers. Envisioning the sisters as Madonnas, she examines “how society deconstructs and dehumanizes Black women in sports.” In addition to doll figures, German used an old trumpet, chairs, shoes, cement blocks, birds, butterflies, flowers, tennis rackets, fake hair, hand mirrors, beading, yarn, all manner of fabrics, neon, and much more in the new works. Her latest creations were made in response to the entreaty Toni Morrison (1931-2019) issued to writers and artists during her 1993 Nobel Prize lecture: Make up a story… For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don’t tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief’s wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear’s caul.” CT
Presented in association with Pavel Zoubok Fine Art, “Vanessa German, TRAMPOLINE: Resilience & Black Body & Soul” is on view at Fort Gansevoort in New York City, Nov. 7-Dec. 21, 2019
FIND MORE about the exhibition here and here
VANESSA GERMAN, “For Black Boys Who’ve Considered Suicide Body Soul Space Between,” 2019 (mixed-media assemblage, 72 x 73 x 24 inches). | Courtesy the artist and Fort Gansevoort and Pavel Zoubok Fine Art, New York
Installation view of “Vanessa German, TRAMPOLINE: Resilience & Black Body & Soul,” Fort Gansevoort, New York, N.Y., Nov. 7-Dec. 21, 2019. | Courtesy the artist and Fort Gansevoort and Pavel Zoubok Fine Art, New York
VANESSA GERMAN, “Venus Madonna Healer of Even The Future Blues (That the Healing come complete; That we no longer have to drag the trauma from body to body),” 2019 (mixed-media collage on New York Times magazine, 29 x 16 x 5 inches). | Courtesy the artist and Fort Gansevoort and Pavel Zoubok Fine Art, New York
Installation view of “Vanessa German, TRAMPOLINE: Resilience & Black Body & Soul,” Fort Gansevoort, New York, N.Y., Nov. 7-Dec. 21, 2019. | Courtesy the artist and Fort Gansevoort and Pavel Zoubok Fine Art, New York
Installation view of “Vanessa German, TRAMPOLINE: Resilience & Black Body & Soul,” Fort Gansevoort, New York, N.Y., Nov. 7-Dec. 21, 2019. | Courtesy the artist and Fort Gansevoort and Pavel Zoubok Fine Art, New York
VANESSA GERMAN, “Serena as Black Madonna #1,” 2015 (mixed-media collage on Vogue magazine, 21 x 16 x 1 1/2 inches). | Courtesy the artist and Fort Gansevoort and Pavel Zoubok Fine Art, New York
Installation view of “Vanessa German, TRAMPOLINE: Resilience & Black Body & Soul,” Fort Gansevoort, New York, N.Y., Nov. 7-Dec. 21, 2019. | Courtesy the artist and Fort Gansevoort and Pavel Zoubok Fine Art, New York
Installation view of “Vanessa German, TRAMPOLINE: Resilience & Black Body & Soul,” Fort Gansevoort, New York, N.Y., Nov. 7-Dec. 21, 2019. Shown, At center, “The Runner, Run and Fight., Don’t let your white friend’s father touch your panties., Circle Running, Rape Proof, or Un-Rape-able?,” 2019 (mixed-media assemblage, 84 x 48 x 17.75 inches). | Courtesy the artist and Fort Gansevoort and Pavel Zoubok Fine Art, New York
Installation view of “Vanessa German, TRAMPOLINE: Resilience & Black Body & Soul,” Fort Gansevoort, New York, N.Y., Nov. 7-Dec. 21, 2019. | Courtesy the artist and Fort Gansevoort and Pavel Zoubok Fine Art, New York
VANESSA GERMAN, “You Will Have to do Your Best to Fly Away From Them Hands That Come to Take You Outta Your Own Soul,” 2019 (mixed media assemblage, 96 x 48 x 14.5 inches). | Courtesy the artist and Fort Gansevoort and Pavel Zoubok Fine Art, New York
Installation view of “Vanessa German, TRAMPOLINE: Resilience & Black Body & Soul,” Fort Gansevoort, New York, N.Y., Nov. 7-Dec. 21, 2019. | Courtesy the artist and Fort Gansevoort and Pavel Zoubok Fine Art, New York
Installation view of “Vanessa German, TRAMPOLINE: Resilience & Black Body & Soul,” Fort Gansevoort, New York, N.Y., Nov. 7-Dec. 21, 2019. | Courtesy the artist and Fort Gansevoort and Pavel Zoubok Fine Art, New York
VANESSA GERMAN, “Hyper Sensitive Feeling Machine Body.Soul.Emotion. Volume Control,” 2019 (mixed-media assemblage, 55 x 30 x 17 inches). | Courtesy the artist and Fort Gansevoort and Pavel Zoubok Fine Art, New York
VANESSA GERMAN, “Can I Love You Without Capitalism? How?” 2019 (mixed-media assemblage, 59 x 67 1/2 x 26 inches). | Courtesy the artist and Fort Gansevoort and Pavel Zoubok Fine Art, New York
TOP IMAGE: VANESSA GERMAN, “Joy Machine #3 Kick Push Ring the Alarm Fly,” 2019 (mixed-media assemblage, 54 x 94 x 22 inches). | Courtesy the artist and Fort Gansevoort and Pavel Zoubok Fine Art, New York
