This Selection of Artist Statements Is Taken from Gee's Bend
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Biography [PDF]
NICELLE BEAUCHENE GALLERY THE GEE’S BEND QUILTMAKERS Live and work in Boykin, AL EXHIBITION HISTORY 2020-21 In the Presence of Our Ancestors: Southern Perspectives in African American Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN (forthcoming) 2020 The Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers, Alison Jacques Gallery, London, UK (forthcoming) Power in My Hand: Celebrating Women’s Suffrage, Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State University, University Park, PA My Way: The Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers and Contemporary Abstraction, Parts & Labor Beacon, Beacon, NY Out of Place: A Feminist Look at the Collection, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY Trip to the Mountaintop: Recent Acquisitions from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH We Will Walk: Art and Resistance in the American South, Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK Souls Grown Deep: Artists of the African American South, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA The Power of She: A Permanent Collection Exhibition, Myrtle Beach Art Museum, Myrtle Beach, SC 2019-20 The Quilt’s of Gee’s Bend, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA A Different Mountain: Selected Works from The Arnett Collection, Marlborough Gallery, New York, NY 2019 Women of Gee’s Bend, Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH Cosmologies from the Tree of Life: Art from the African American South, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA 2018-19 Outliers and American Vanguard Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Jan-May 2018); High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA (Jun-Sept 2018); Los Angeles County Museum of -
Art from the African American South
REVELATIONS ART FROM THE AFRICAN AMERICAN SOUTH “Art is like a bright star up ahead This exhibition celebrates the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s in the darkness of the world. It acquisition of sixty-two artworks created by twenty-two African can lead peoples through the darkness and help them from Americans born in the South during the late-nineteenth and being afraid of the darkness. Art twentieth centuries. Collectively their lives and works were shaped is a guide for every person who is by four major historical events: the African Diaspora in which looking for something.” approximately four-hundred thousand Africans were forcibly —Artist Thornton Dial abducted from their homes and sold into bondage in the United States beginning in 1619; the American slavery system that brutalized and divided their families and descendants until the end “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. of the Civil War in 1865; the institutionalized segregation of the But I’m not concerned about that Jim Crow laws that followed the Reconstruction Era (1865–1877); now. I just want to do God’s will. and the rise of the modern Civil Rights movement in the 1950s. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked Out of this shared history, these artists forged compelling new over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. aesthetic languages that confronted their unique experiences as But I want you to know tonight, African Americans while also addressing universal aspects of the that we, as a people, will get to the human condition. -
ART HISTORY INSIGHTS OCTOBER 2020 the Monthly Newsletter That Brings You Selected Articles of Interest and Opinion from the World of Art History and Visual Culture
ART HISTORY INSIGHTS OCTOBER 2020 The monthly newsletter that brings you selected articles of interest and opinion from the world of art history and visual culture. This issue focuses on Art, Craft and Industry, which links with the theme of our forthcoming Global New Voices virtual postgraduate research conference. HOW THE PATTERN & DECORATION MOVEMENT THE GEE’S BEND QUILTERS CHALLENGED MACHISMO MODERNISM Quilts from the Alabama hamlet of Gee’s Bend have been Artists Valerie Jaudon and Joyce Kozloff were central sought after and prized by museums. For the past century, figures in the 1970s Pattern and Decoration movement. women such as Annie Mae Young, Loretta Pettway and They set out to challenge modernism’s white male- Mary Lee Bendolph have stitched together fabric in centric concept of what constituted ‘good art’, and the different shapes, sizes and colours to create quilts like no notion that decorative and applied arts were not of ‘a other. Whilst rooted in folk tradition the practice gathered lesser order’. Today, the movement resonates with our momentum during the Civil Rights movement with the current moment, looking ahead as it did to the plurality Freedom Quilting Bee, a co-operative set up in 1966 of traditions and cultures celebrated in today’s art world, across Alabama’s Black Belt to enable women to sell their to its rejection of sexist and ethnocentric biases and its work at auction and through department stores, including aspirations of inclusivity. As one writer puts it, “What was Bloomingdales and Sears. See more. on the table—the chopping block, as it turned out - were https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/ra-magazine- the very systems of valuation that had dominated Western gees-bend-quilters art history for centuries, and the primary focus was the hierarchy of fine arts above decorative arts”. -
With Every Fiber Feb 6 - April 3, 2021
With Every Fiber Feb 6 - April 3, 2021 Exhibition Checklist Counterclockwise from entrance: Mary Ann LOMONACO Mop with Checkerboard, 2010 Cotton kitchen mop, glass beads 25 x 12 in $4200 Mary Ann LOMONACO Mop with Fancy Plumage, 2020 Cotton kitchen mop, Delica glass beads, rayon yarn 28 x 9 x 6 in $4500 Liz Whitney QUISGARD Hundreds of Circles, 2012 - ongoing Yarn with bling 75 sq. ft. $75,000 Victoria UDDONDIAN Onile--Gogoro, 2015 Repurposed clothes, fabric, wire, metal, rod, Resin, bicycle tubes Variable dimension Not for Sale Main Gallery Ruby CHISHTI An Essence of Time I, II, III, 2020 Recycled fabric, thread, wire mesh, embellishment Variable dimensions $3,000 each Ruby CHISHTI Mother Wake Me Up At 7:00, 2020 Recycled fabric, thread, wire mesh 40 x 25 x 7 in $8,500 Joy CURTIS Plants and Animals, 2020 Indigo, Osage orange, cochineal, walnut, madder and procion dyes on cotton, metal, spandex, sea sponges and raffia 72 × 66 × 16 in $20,000 Joy CURTIS Ghost Dance, 2020 Indigo and procion dyes on cotton, burlap, and rope; steel, rust, and wax 11 x 12 x 15 in $10,000 Mary Ann LOMONACO Mop with Royal Flycatcher, 2019 Cotton kitchen mop, glass beads, feathers 29 x 10 x 5 in $4500 Mary Ann LOMONACO Mop with Elegant Feathers, 2020 Cotton kitchen mop, Delica glass beads, feathers 28 x 9 x 6 in $4500 Mary Ann LOMONACO Mop with Soda Can Tabs, 2009 Cotton kitchen mop, wooden rods, grommets, soda can tabs 24 x 12 x 8 in $4200 Mary Tooley PARKER Annie Mae Young, Gee’s Bend Quilter, in Klimt 2020 Hooked Tapestry 40 x 33 in $3000 Mary Tooley PARKER Nettie Young, Gee’s Bend Quilter, in Klimt 2017 Hooked Tapestry 40 x 33 in $3000 Mary Tooley PARKER Loretta Pettway, Children 2017 Hooked Tapestry 40 x 33 in $3000 Mary Tooley PARKER Jessie T. -
AIZURI QUARTET Winner, 2018 M-Prize Competition
AIZURI QUARTET Winner, 2018 M-Prize Competition 1) DRAWN FROM THE EARTH Following its 2019 GRAMMY-nominated debut album Blueprinting (New Amsterdam, 2018), the Aizuri Quartet will release and tour its highly anticipated second album during the 2021-22 season. The new album explores deep connections between humankind and nature through the distinct lenses of three composers: Armenian priest and composer Komitas Vartabed (1869-1935), contemporary Japanese composer Misato Mochizuki (b. 1969), and Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957). The Armenian Folk Songs of Komitas are a window into the powerful connection between Armenians and their land, both the soil that peasants till and the homeland of which the diaspora dreams. In her vivid and intense 2006 string quartet Terres Rouges (meaning “red earth,” i.e. iron-rich soil), Misato Mochizuki’s music suggests the vibrant energy of natural processes that have been ongoing for millennia. Mochizuki’s compositional process often draws from her deep curiosity for nature, but starts from scientific and philosophical investigations more than personal communion with the natural world. Paul Griffiths writes, “the creative starting point for her is more likely to be a book on genetics than a walk in the forest.” Sibelius’s Voces Intimae was written during a period of psychological crisis and self-imposed exile in his rural home “Ainola” (named after his wife Aino) as he tried to escape the alcoholism that plagued him in Helsinki. Working in isolation and absorbed in nature, his music during this period began to shift from the grand optimistic expression of Finnish nationalism that dominated his youth to something more dark and personal. -
Episode 4 What Is Art?
Every effort has been made to provide correct and accurate information. The institutions and artists have generously granted permission to use their images. They hold the copyrights to their images. For personal use only. For permission to reproduce multiple copies, please contact us at [email protected]. Episode 4 What is Art? Floral Still Life Jacob van Walscapelle 1682 Oil on canvas 40 ¼" x 35 ³⁄₁₆" Gift of Eleanor Bingham Miller and Barry Bingham, Sr. in honor of Mary Caperton Bingham Item number 1987.1 The Speed Art Museum Louisville, Kentucky www.speedmuseum.org Venus de' Medici Joel Tanner Hart 1873 Marble 61 ⅞" x 18 ⅜" x 20 ¼" Gift of the Louisville Free Public Library Conservation funded by The Alliance of The Speed Art Museum Item number 1996.9.1 The Speed Art Museum Louisville, Kentucky www.speedmuseum.org © 2011 The Kentucky Quilt Project, Inc. All rights reserved. www.whyquiltsmatter.org Page 1 of 19 July at Noon in Umbria Billy Hertz 2004 Oil on paper on panel 29" x 20" www.billyhertzgallery.com Dish Workshop of the Fontana family After designs by Battista Franco c. 1560 Maiolica 2 ⅜" x 17 ⁷⁄₁₆" Bequest from the Preston Pope Satterwhite Collection; conservation funded by Mr. & Mrs. William O. Alden, Jr., 2002 Item number 1949.30.244 The Speed Art Museum Louisville, Kentucky www.speedmuseum.org Blighted Kay Polson Grubola 2010 Hawthorn leaves, silk chiffon, thread 22 ¾" x 15 ¾" www.grubola.com Subduction Caldron Walter Hyleck 2007 Ceramic, black earthenware, deflocculated slip, ash glaze, slate, oak 14" x 14" x 12" Courtesy of the Kentucky Museum of Art & Craft Louisville, Kentucky www.kentuckyarts.org © 2011 The Kentucky Quilt Project, Inc. -
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NICELLE BEAUCHENE GALLERY NOW REPRESENTING GEE’S BEND QUILTMAKERS & MARY LEE BENDOLPH OCTOBER 25, 2020 Aolar Carson Mosely, Pump Handle Spin Top (Log Cabin Variation), 1954, Cotton, 89 x 75 inches; Mary Lee Bendolph, Ghost Pockets, 2003, Mixed fabrics including denim, cotton, polyester, and synthetic wool, 85 x 72 inches. Nicelle Beauchene Gallery is thrilled to announce New York representation of the Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers, as well as direct representation of Mary Lee Bendolph, one of the Bend’s foremost and nationally recognized quilters. The gallery will host Bendolph's first New York solo exhibition in Fall 2021, with a larger group exhibition featuring the Quiltmakers to follow in 2022. In Wilcox County, Alabama, descendants of enslaved laborers, sharecroppers, and tenant farmers have communed in Gee’s Bend—a geographically isolated, rural Black community on the Alabama River (formally known as Boykin)—since the mid-19th century. Generation after generation, the women of Gee’s Bend have made asymmetrical, provocative quilts noted for their stylistic ingenuity, bold materiality, and improvisational use of geometry; an endeavor passed down for both its utility and its rich visual culture. This textile tradition, taught by mothers to their daughters and families to their friends, is a well-practiced vernacular art form within Black communities across the American South. Quilting became a social pillar within towns and counties as woman gathered together to stitch, share stories, sing songs, and discuss politics. Repurposing remnants of old work clothes, discarded choir robes, feed sacks, faded denim and found materials, the Quiltmakers stitch storied compositions, flaws and all, into handmade quilts with lively, syncopated patterning employed by the women with improvisation and individuality. -
Curators' Choice on Art and Politics
Curators’ Choice on Art and Politics Experts from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, choose their favorite works with a political message. By Ted Loos March 9, 2020 “Vote Quilt” (1975) by Irene Williams Pamela Parmal, chair of textile and fashion arts Quilts such as this example by Irene Williams of Gee’s Bend, Ala., are a reminder of how women, primarily restricted to the domestic sphere, have often turned to needlework to express themselves. We can only speculate that in using the VOTE fabric, Irene Williams might be recalling her community’s struggle over voting rights during the tumultuous civil rights movement of the 1960s. But as Williams understood, it is only by making our voices heard that we can move toward greater understanding and create change. Hanging trees and hollering ghosts: the unsettling art of the American deep south The porch of artist Emmer Sewell. Photograph: © Hannah Collins From lynching and slavery to the civil rights movement, Alabama’s artists expressed the momentous events they lived through – as a landmark new exhibition reveals Lanre Bakare Wed 5 Feb 2020 The quilters of Gee’s Bend make art out of recycled cloth. Lonnie Holley crafts sculptures out of car tyres and other human detritus. Self-taught luthier Freeman Vines carves guitars out of wood that came from a “hanging tree” once used to lynch black men. The “yard shows” of Dinah Young and Joe Minter are permanent exhibitions of their art – a cacophony of “scrap-iron elegies”. Almost all of this art comes from Alabama, and it all features in We Will Walk, Turner Contemporary’s groundbreaking new exhibition of African-American art from the southern state and its surroundings. -
Exhibiting Blackness: African Americans and the American Art
C In 1927, the Chicago Art Institute presented the first major museum exhibition of OOKS art by African Americans. Designed to demonstrate the artists’ abilities and to promote racial equality, the exhibition also revealed the art world’s anxieties about the participa- EXHIBITING tion of African Americans in the exclusive venue of art museums—places where blacks had historically been barred from visiting let alone exhibiting. Since then, America’s major art museums have served as crucial locations for African Americans to protest against their exclusion and attest to their contributions in the visual arts. BLACKNESS In Exhibiting Blackness, art historian Bridget R. Cooks analyzes the curatorial strate- AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE AMERICAN ART MUSEUM gies, challenges, and critical receptions of the most significant museum exhibitions of African American art. Tracing two dominant methodologies used to exhibit art by African Americans—an ethnographic approach that focuses more on artists than their art, and a EXHIBITING recovery narrative aimed at correcting past omissions—Cooks exposes the issues involved in exhibiting cultural difference that continue to challenge art history, historiography, and American museum exhibition practices. By further examining the unequal and often con- tested relationship between African American artists, curators, and visitors, she provides insight into the complex role of art museums and their accountability to the cultures they represent. “An important and original contribution to the study of the history -
Quiltmaking Gee’S Bend
Jaimeo Brown SPOTLIGHT Quiltmaking Gee’s Bend. William Arnett. Underground Railroad. Spirituals. Words Andy Thomas Portrait Janette Beckman Photographs courtesy of Souls Grown Deep Foundation soulsgrowndeep.org In the spring of 2013 drummer Jaimeo so many other functions,” says Brown. about art – but in the mid-19th century, Brown took a journey from his home in “Going back to the roots down at Gee’s quilting became creative. A variety of New York to a small corner of the deep Bend and seeing how these spiritual techniques and styles were developed: south. There in Gee’s Bend, where the songs were interwoven into their daily the medallion quilt consists of a central Alabama River curls through Wilcox activities and the craft of quilting that motif with multiple borders; the log County, a rural collective of women have really inspired me.” In Mario Tahi cabin is made of arrangements of a been creating brilliantly improvisational Lathan’s documentary that follows repeated single block pattern. Quilting quilts for, perhaps, 200 years. They follow Jaimeo Brown to Gee’s Bend, we meet also became a communal activity: women in a tradition of African-American some of those women whose craft has came together in what became known quilting that reaches back to slavery. only recently gained recognition. as quilting bees. Artistically and socially The quilts of Gee’s Bend transcend The term quilt comes from the Latin important, it spread quickly. As early as folk art. Following an exhibition at the for a stuffed sack, an incongruous name the 1850s, in Amish society remarkable Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, New when you consider the beautiful art to quilts were created using modernist style York magazine art critic Mark Stevens emerge from Gee’s Bend. -
Black Stitches: African American Women's Quilting and Story Telling
Luisa Cazorla Torrado DOCTORAL DISSERTATION Black Stitches: African American Women‘s Quilting and Story Telling Supervised by Dr. Belén Martín Lucas 2020 International Doctoral School Belén Martín Lucas DECLARES that the present work, entitled ―Black Stitches: African American Women‘s Quilting and Story Telling‖, submitted by Luisa Cazorla Torrado to obtain the title of Doctor, was carried out under her supervision in the PhD programme ―Interuniversity Doctoral Programme in Advanced English Studies.‖ This is a joint PhD programme integrating the Universities of Santiago de Compostela (USC), A Coruña (UDC), and Vigo (UVigo). Vigo, September 1, 2020. The supervisor, Dr. Belén Martín Lucas Acknowledgements I would like to say thanks: To my mother, M. Carmen, for encouraging me to keep sewing every day, no matter what; to my sister, María, for always bringing new light whenever my eyes were getting weary; to my friend, Belén, for showing me how to adjust the quilt frame; to my supervisor, Belén, for helping me find a better thread and for teaching me how to improve my stitches; and to my sons, Alejandro and Daniel, for reminding me of the ―big pattern‖ whenever I would forget the reasons why I was sewing this quilt. I couldn‘t have done this without your sustained encouragement and support during all these years. Table of contents Acknowledgements ......................................................................... 4 Table of contents ............................................................................. 5 Resumo ........................................................................................... -
Apprenticeship Program
Celebrating Twenty Years of the Alabama Folk Arts Apprenticeship Program Alabama State Council on the Arts Photography by Mark Gooch 20 Alabama Center for Traditional Culture Carry On Celebrating Twenty Years of the Alabama Folk Arts Apprenticeship Program Alabama State Council on the Arts 20Alabama Center for Traditional Culture Photography by Mark Gooch S © 2008 Alabama State Council on the Arts The Mission of the Alabama State Council on the Arts is to enhance quality of life in Alabama culturally, economically, and educationally by supporting the state’s diverse and rich artistic resources. The Alabama Center for Traditional Culture, a division of the Alabama State Council on the Arts, strives to document, preserve and present Alabama’s folk culture and traditional arts and to further the understanding of our cultural heritage. Alabama State Council on the Arts 201 Monroe Street, Suite 110 Montgomery, AL 36130 334-242-4076 www.arts.alabama.gov Front cover photo: Matt Downer and his grandfather, Wayne Heard of Ider. Back cover photo: Sylvia Stephens, Ashlee Harris, and Mozell Benson; three generations of quilters at Mrs. Benson’s studio in Waverly. Introduction Carry On: Celebrating Twenty Years of Alabama’s Folk Arts Apprenticeship Program By Joey Brackner and Anne Kimzey ince 1984, the Alabama State Council on the Arts (ASCA) has awarded Folk Arts S Apprenticeship grants to more than 100 master folk artists for teaching their art forms. The master-apprentice system is a time-honored method for teaching complex skills from one generation to the Prospective students who have entered into next. This process allows for the most advantageous an agreement with a master folk artist have teacher-student ratio and fosters serious instruction.