RASHAADNEWSOME

Assembly is a new, site-specific commission by interdisciplinary artist Rashaad Newsome that features the artist’s Artificial Intelligence-powered creation, Being, as both the centerpiece of an exhibition spanning the many facets of Newsome’s practice and the teacher of daily interactive workshops. In tandem, Newsome will premiere a new performance featuring live poetry, music, vocalists, and dancers from across the globe—presenting contemporary movements that synthesize vogue with the traditional dance from the performers’ territories. For more info and to buy tickets click HERE!

Rashaad Newsome is a world-renowned multidisciplinary artist whose work blends multiple practices—including collage, sculpture, film, music, technology, and performance and crafts compositions that speak of and to Black and Queer culture. His latest filmic work, Black Magic documents a 2019 live performance that explores trans women and their contributions to the vogue fem lexicon and expands and activates it with the use of motion tracking software and visual effects. Clare Schweitzer spoke with Rashaad about the multi-layered journey of the current version of the work, which will screen in the Dancing Queens Program at the San Francisco Dance Film Festival. To listen visit the link below.

Dancing Through the Lens.

DANCING QUEENS
A dancing celebration of the LGBTQ+ community.
Celebrate queerness in all of its forms through these six shorts. The films in this screening valiantly move from the intimacy of partners’ embraces to the emphatic maximalism of Vogue Fem performance and recognize the challenges of existing beyond the binary but ultimately embrace difference as a force for pride and positive change. For more info, click HERE!

In his new work, Build or Destroy (2021), a video and NFT commissioned by the San José Museum of Art, Newsome brings to life the female composition in 1st Place. Animating the bedazzled and blazing body, the artist explores ideas around identity construction—particularly Black trans femme identity—and how performance might offer space for its creation and detonation. Build or Destroy premieres at the San José Museum of Art’s 2021 Gala + Auction broadcast. For more info click HERE

Mothership is an original exhibition organized by OMCA Curator Rhonda Pagnozzi and Consulting Curator Essence Harden in partnership with over 50 Black artists, historians, musicians, and collaborators whose work examines Afrofuturism and Black culture. This exhibition is a continuation of OMCA’s commitment to elevating stories and ideas that inspire a more expansive future.

The multidisciplinary exhibition will bring together art, music, literature, film, and more to express a present and future where Black voices are centered. Friends and family will be able to observe central figures of this cultural phenomena, including works from author Octavia E. Butler, avant-garde jazz musician Sun Ra, filmmaker Kahlil Joseph’s fugitive newscast BLKNWS®, interdisciplinary artist Rashaad Newsome, Black Twitter, and more. Visitors will also have a chance to see an original Dora Milaje costume from the film Black Panther, a replica of the Mothership itself—musical ensemble Parliament Funkadelic’s Afrofuturistic vessel, and explore an immersive audio experience curated by DJ Spooky.

An important patron of the arts both locally and nationally, Tim Francis curates Black Beauty with a powerful vision and aesthetic sensibility focused on highlighting the brilliance of contemporary Black artists. Black Beauty is comprised of Black artists whose work shares “a relationship to the African American condition that celebrates humanity in all of its diversity, eccentricities, and social and moral quandaries.” Black Beauty features work by Romare Bearden, David Driskell, Rashaad Newsome, Brandan “B-Mike” Odums, Shoshanna Weinberger, Fahamu Pecou, Brent McKeever, Lezley Saar, and Frederick J. Brown. A catalog accompanies the exhibition and features a critical essay by noted art historian Richard J. Powell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship, administered by United States Artists, seeks to establish new channels of support for artists through unrestricted funding to support their work, while also building a network of practitioners and professionals in the field to new opportunities for collaboration in Knight cities and beyond. In addition to the Fellowship, the Knight Foundation has created a new web-based publication exploring new media landscapes and spotlighting the inaugural Knight Arts + Tech Fellows. To read click the link below.

Cyborgian Shade by Legacy Russell

 

From the Rupture: Ideas and Actions for the Future
February 17-20

Eyebeam is delighted to announce From the Rupture: Ideas and Actions for the Future, a four-day online/IRL festival of art and ideas.

Join Eyebeam for an expansive digital convening of radical practitioners spanning the fields of public policy, journalism, healthcare, and more with over 25 talks and conversations. On February 17 at 3:55 pm EST Rashaad Newsome and Legacy Russell will be in conversation about Black data, Black trauma, and the possibilities of machine learning as a tool for healing. In anticipation of the Being 1.5 app’s public launch in spring 2021, Rashaad Newsome will initiate a citywide wheatpaste campaign throughout historically Black NYC neighborhoods to build awareness of the work as a free mental health resource for the Black community. Featuring a new poster, especially designed by the artist, the campaign aims to “make mental health sexy” for Black folks, and offer alternative strategies for community building and cultivating awareness beyond digital outreach and social media.

Read the full article HERE!