read/make/watch/listen – Paul Robeson Galleries

A SHORTLIST OF ONLINE CULTURAL CONTENT FOR THE WEEK OF AUGUST 17, 2020

Read

“In 1968 David Hammons began a series of “body prints” in response to the artist’s frustrations with the 1965 Los Angeles uprisings. Following his series of abstract enamel paintings, which explored the palettes of the Black Liberation flag and those of independent African nations, Hammons’s “body prints” (produced in the 1960s and 70s) brought forth notions of self-definition while documenting the social, racial and political circumstances of his environment. Today, a new generation of artists are using their bodily presence as a form of art making and resistance, highlighting the marginalization and persecution that the black body has been subject to throughout history.”

In Tracing Existence, Zalika Azim explores how artists from David Hammons to Joiri Minaya continue to use their body as a form of resistance to highlight the marginalization and persecution that the black body has been subject to throughout history.

Make

“Workshop on the Street is a participatory banner-making workshop created in collaboration with my sibling-led arts collective House of Trees, where the public is invited to create their own wearable protest gear with phrases made from colorful felt in the form of banners, sashes, capes, or badges. WOTS is empowerment through engaging in a creative act- we encourage visitors to respond honestly to their political and personal landscape through making with their hands. We use felt because it’s a ubiquitous material, found cheaply at any craft store in America.”

Get inspired by Amy Khoshbin’s project Workshop on the Street and create your own wearable protest gear.

Watch: Any Time

“Nia Evans, Director of Boston Ujima Project, and Steve Lambert, artist and Director + Co-founder of The Center for Artistic Activism, examined issues around how art and artists intersect with grassroots activism, considered the significance of both individual advocacy and collective action, and imagined ways to employ art as a change-making tool during times of physical distance and after.”

Watch the full conversation.

Listen

“Today’s episode is with painter, sculptor, and multi-hyphenated artist, Torkwase Dyson. Born in Chicago Illinois, into a family embedded with scholars and artists of many forms, Torkwase found her artistic path while studying Sociology at Tougaloo College, later receiving her Bachelors of Fine Arts at Virginia Commonweath University and her Masters at the Yale School of Art. Her work is about the reimagining of black compositional thought, while exploring shape and form as it relates to black bodies in space. In Torwkase’s words, “The works are deconstructions of natural and built environments that consider how individuals negotiate and negate various types of systems and spatial order.”

Listen to the full podcast episode on Anchor.