PDF - Lorraine O`Grady

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J'S THEATER: Now Dig This! From LA to NY Symposium
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Sunday, February 10, 2013
Now Dig This! From LA to NY Symposium
Sanford Biggers' "Cheshire"
As part of the Museum of Modern Art PS1's current--and
excellent--exhibition, Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles
1960-1980, a day-long symposium took place on Friday, February 8,
2013, at MoMa's Manhattan headquarters, in the Roy and Niuta Titus
Theater 2. The symposium's aims included exploring the connections
and parallels between the African American artistic communities in
these two cities through an examination of the social and cultural
atmospheres in both during the 1970s and early 1980s, in part
by giving voice, literally, to some of the artists, gallerists, and critics
featured in the show. Now Dig This! originally ran in Los Angeles as
part of a series of exhibitions gathered under the theme and title of
Pacific Standard Time, and will continue at MoMA PS1 until March
11, 2013. See it before it's gone!
About Me
John K
Blogistania, United States
A writer who professes, and welcomes all into
this virtual theater, in the oldest sense of the
term! Also: http://jstheater.tumblr.com
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The first panel, which I was unable to attend, took up this thread
directly, with organizer and scholar Kellie Jones, Cheryl Finley,
Komozi Woodard, each delivering talks, moderated by curator
Franklin Sirmans. The first afternoon panel focused on the legendary
Just Above Midtown Gallery, a black-owned space on Franklin
Street that served as a laboratory, launching pad, training ground, and
"club house," as its founder, filmmaker Linda Goode Bryant put it, for
a number of figures who have since gone on to great fame, including
David Hammons, Fred Wilson, Lorraine O'Grady, Senga Nengudi,
and Ulysses Jenkins, the latter three of whom were present and all
gave presentations or performances related to their experiences with
and at JAM. Naima Keith moderated the Q&A session that followed.
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Now Dig This! From LA to NY
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Ulysses Jenkins
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Lorraine O'Grady, showing a clip from her diaporama
me and Nina by Monica Hand
Get your copy today!
A still from Ulysses Jenkins's film of Conwill's "Cake Walk" © 1983.
I'd heard of the gallery but knew little about it except that it had been a
cynosure during its existence, but seeing Bryant's film clips, and
hearing her talk about how and why she started it, who passed
through, and what the gallery meant and still means was illuminating.
5 of 14
The Book of Emotions by João Almino,
translated by Elizabeth Jackson
2/10/13 10:50 PM
One of the video clips showed Hammons urging artists to stay out
of/away from the gallery world, an admonition it's clear most of the
younger generation, who can more easily and freely participate in a
system that excluded their elders, have ignored. As she spoke, she
invited everyone in the room to tear pieces of newspaper into strips
which she would later use as part of her vermiculture efforts at
community gardens all over New York.
Jenkins showed an excerpt from and talked about making his video
Cake Walk (© 1983), which captured a performance by Houston
Conwill and other dancers at Just Above Midtown. Jenkins talked
about the challenges then of video-filmmaking and the shifts occurring
since that moment. He also talked about how important the
experience was for him personally and for his artmaking. Lorraine
O'Grady, who is also well known as a critic and theorist, showed
stills--together forming a diaporama--of her 1982 Central Park
performance, RIVERS, FIRST DRAFT, an allegory of her journey into
the art world, and which featured a very young Fred Wilson, among
others. With and against the captioned images she read first an
introduction, which discussed her and others experiences at JAM,
followed by a more poetic text. Finishing the sesions, Senga Nengudi
strolled the perimeter of the theater, calling out "The people all said sit
down, / sit down if you're rocking the boat," as she kicked a box
around the room, stopping only when she reached the stage,
whereupon she broke it down, transformed it into a small sculpture,
and then proceeded back to her seat.
The Novel After Theory by Judith Ryan
Nod House by Nathaniel Mackey
The Ravickians by Renee Gladman
Lorraine O'Grady, showing a clip from her
diaporama of RIVERS, FIRST DRAFT
(Fred Wilson is the young man in the green shirt)
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2/10/13 10:50 PM
The panel discussion that followed contained a lot of quotable lines,
but one of Goode Bryant's first comments struck me most. She noted
that the words "They won't let us..." annoyed her tremendously, and
that her response had been to defy such expectations or lack thereof,
and say "Fuck them. Start our own." This was part of a larger ethos,
certainly, of the moment in which she and the other artists worked,
and it continued well into the 1990s, though institutional creep,
conceptually and materially, has changed the terms by which many
younger artists think and operate. Senga Nengudi eventually echoed
Goode Bryant's comments, penning "AGAIN / FUCK / 'EM" on a
clipboard. Goode Bryant underlined that her guiding idea was "being
in integrity with" oneself, an approach she and many of the artists in
her milieu had striven to adhere to, and, as is clear with her current
projects, that "art can directly affect the condition of the environment
where it is made." Both she and Nengudi invoked the late musician
Lawrence "Butch" Morris, who had been one of many talented
music makers in the constellation of artists around the gallery and in
the New York black and broader arts scene.
Annotations by John Keene
Get your copy today.
Seismosis by John Keene and
Christopher Stackhouse
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Senga Nengudi's performance
Encyclopedia, Bryant, Tisa & Mellis,
Miranda F. & Schatz, Kate, Eds.
Expand your library today!
7 of 14
2/10/13 10:50 PM
Encyclopedia, Vol 2. F-K Tisa Bryant;
Miranda F. Mellis; and Kate Schatz, Eds.
Expand your library today!
Keith, Goode Bryant, Jenkins, O'Grady, and Nengudi
Nengudi writing on the flipboard
A final panel comprised five younger, contemporary artists--Xaviera
Simmons, Hank Willis Thomas, Kira Lynn Harris, Steffani
Jameson, and Sanford Biggers (of "Cheshire" fame)--who spoke
about the influence of the earlier generation as well as their individual
experiences with the contemporary art world. Every single one of
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2/10/13 10:50 PM
them showed formally polished artworks. Kalia Brooks moderated
the discussion following their presentations, and nearly all these
artists appeared to take a different approach from their predecessors.
Hank Willis Thomas put it as bluntly as a hammer blow when he
stated that he doesn't "believe in the engaged artist," or the
statements "art is..." or "the artist should...." Although she concurred,
Xaviera Simmons ended the panel discussion by stressing a point
she'd made earlier, which was how "fortunate" all of these younger
artists were, in part because of the sacrifices and gains of their
predecessors.
A detail from one of Sanford Biggers' installations
9 of 14
2/10/13 10:50 PM
A detail from one of Sanford Biggers' films
Brooks, Harris, Biggers, Willis Thomas, Jameson, Simmons
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2/10/13 10:50 PM
Hassinger's piece
Concluding the day's events, Now Dig This! artist Maren
Hassinger involved the entire audience in the auditorium in a
participatory art project, which entailed extracting a length of rope, all
of differing lengths, placed beneath everyone's seat, and then
extending them and tying them together to whomever they reached.
When completed, the entire room had been transformed, we had
individually and collectively created a network and new environment,
and the resonances of using the rope were no less powerful. Both
simple and effective, it was a demonstration of the ideas and practices
she and her peers have been conveying for years in their work, made
visible and material for everyone present.
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2/10/13 10:50 PM
Forming the links
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2/10/13 10:50 PM
People right next to me (Simmons at left)
A view from above
Maren Hassinger herself
Posted by John K at 4:59 PM
Recommend this on Google
Labels: 1970s, 1980s, art, black art, creativity, galleries, Los
13 of 14
2/10/13 10:50 PM
Angeles, MoMa, new york city, PS1, symposium
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PDF - Lorraine O`Grady

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