Finally!

I figured out why my blog archives had been missing since September. Now they're fixed.

And I've been updating the main website after a looooooooooooooooong hiatus. It's going to take a while, but check it out--I've done the library (moving the list of books by & about black photographers from this post there) and am working on the links.

Wow, the links page was bad. Pretty busted. I'm on "H"...

maybe a little late, but I'm sure any support is good

Read more here: the%20People%20Could%20Fly%20PDF.pdf

Dear Friends,

Exciting news! The People Could Fly Project is headed to Africa. The Project has been sponsored by the Africa Travel Association and next week we are traveling to the East African country of Djibouti to take part in the 11th Annual Eco and Cultural Tourism Symposium, being hosted by the Ministry of Youth, Sports, Recreation, and Tourism of Djibouti.

We will be traveling with the ATA's Young Professional Forum. The Project will be visiting with students at the University of Djibouti and sharing with school-age children the story of The People Could Fly by master children's book author Virginia Hamilton. Hamilton passed away in 2002 leaving a great legacy of multi-cultural children's literature. The Djibouti Government has graciously offered to sponsor our hotel accommodations, meals, and on-ground transportation.

Since we began The PCF Project last spring my sisters and I have worked to make the dream of documenting the dreams and stories of young people across the African Diaspora a reality. With a belief that anything can be accomplished we've taken our cameras, our hearts, hopes, and minds across the US, from our home in Memphis, TN to Philly, Washington, Jena LA, New York, San Francisco, St. Louis, Inglewood, Detroit, Atlanta, Nashville, Connecticut, Detroit, North Carolina, and Mississippi. We've filmed, photographed, and interviewed young people of color and anyone and everyone in the making of a documentary about the power of our dreams.

You see, we know that the dreams of young folk and people of color are possible! We know that our stories are important, despite the dearth of in depth and positive images on the lives of young people of color. Our mission throughout has been to find and show these important images and stories within the faces, from the very voices and dreams of young people of color, to create images that speak of how powerful we are and can be.

...And now we are poised to take the grand flight to Africa.

And now we need your help! Our flight fees have largely been acquired. We know that we can raise the remaining funds for the journey. We are spending of ourselves,

our talents, and our gifts to meet the remaining funds. In exchange for your contributions, your gift will be acknowledged officially with a signed 5x7 photograph from Djibouti taken by Intisar Abioto and other memorabilia from the journey. Gifts of $50 and up will be acknowledged with a matted and signed 8x10 photograph from Djibouti.

We are hosting a Photography Showing and Fundraising event this coming Sunday, January the 13th at World Safaris Tapas Bar
on 414 S. Main, Memphis, TN.
We will be screening film footage and photography from our journey thus far.
There will also be a dance reading of the story of
The People Could Fly.

Attached you will find the official invitation from the Africa Travel Association to The People Could Fly Project and a broader description of the Project.

Please forward to your network, asking your friends and family to contribute online at thepeoplecouldfly.blogspot.com

Footage, photos, and updates from Djibouti will be updated periodically on our blog where you can see more from The Project (The story of how this trip came to be is amazing ! That's on the blog too. ) And read our recent interview with poet Nikki Giovanni in The Memphis Tri-State Defender!

We believe and pursue with veracity and belief... Anything and everything can happen.

In Flight and Faith

Intisar,
Kalimah,
Hanifah,
Amenta,
and Aisha Abioto
The People Fly Project



sO you want to know the deal?
I'll tell you the deal. We're almost there. We've received about $1700 dollars of contributions from friends and family.
To everyone who has sent in good wishes and contributions thanks so much! We are almost there.

Roundtrip costs from Memphis to Djibouti, East Africa:
$340 x 3 ( As opposed to the $5,806 per person it would be otherwise. Insane insane insane I know..!)

Travel Insurance:
$25 x 3
Visas to Djibouti
$50 x 3

Safety net money while traveling from Memphis to Amsterdam to Paris to Addis Ababa to Djibouti, and back.
$1500

Malaria pills
$40
Yellow fever shot for two;
$245

Hotel, meals, on-site transportation, direction, and guides while there are courtesy of the Africa Travel Association and the government of Djibouti.

Total: A whopping $2985 for a journey for 3 people halfway across the world! yeah!


If you will contribute anything!
If even just 200 people sent in $5 that'd be $1000. Or if you can just give $3 or $2 or 50 cents!
It's that serious. We are almost there!

I will bring something back for everyone who contributes! Even if you just wanna send me a good wish message (I'll appreciate it and bring you something back..) don't know what.. that's part of the journey!
We are wanting to document us! you! me! from our! your! our! perspectives and do something that has never been done!

Contributions can be made securely via Paypal at thepeoplecouldfly.blogspot.com
We fly! this evening for Amsterdam!
ANYTHING you can give will help us make it! !u

See you on the other side!

-iNTISAR!


The People Could Fly Project
ph: 901-826-1532

Intisar S. Abioto
thepeoplecouldfly.blogspot.com

	An open call for work. You were born in New Jersey. You’ve been there. You’ve never been there. You know it from movies. TV. Songs. Newspapers. You’ve Googled it. YouTubed it. Wikipediaed it. Flickred it. You’ve never even heard of it. So ask yourself: is it possible to make a photograph of New Jersey regardless of where you are in the world? The Pierro Gallery and iheartphotograph.com invite photographers, designers, and artists of all kinds to participate in this global open call for work. Are ideas about place dramatically different since the internet has allowed us to participate in culture on such a global scale? Despite the endless stream of information and images available through mass media, are there limits to how we perceive, imagine, and understand the world? Exactly how do you picture New Jersey? What would you say about it in a photograph? Your most striking responses—from the literal to the conceptual—will be included in the exhibition “Is it possible to make a photograph of New Jersey regardless of where you are in the world?” curated by I Heart Photograph for the Pierro Gallery in New Jersey, on view from April 6—May 25, 2008. Exploring the ways that digital technologies impact how we see, circulate, and understand art, works for the exhibition will be submitted, curated, and produced exclusively through the internet. February 22, 2008 is the deadline for submissions. No fees are required to enter. This exhibition is made possible by funds from New Jersey State Council of the Arts/Department of State, a partner agency of the National Endowment of the Arts. Full details here: www.aphotographofnewjersey.com

Updated--April Banks Opening this coming weekend

Are you ready for more chocolate art? It's gross humor!


Come see "Mass Nausea" April Banks' latest photography installation about the global trade of chocolate.

Show: "Close Calls" Group Exhibition
Opening Reception: Sun Feb 3, 2008 2-5pm

Location: Headlands Center for the Arts, 944 Fort Barry, Sausalito, CA 94965

Show runs: Jan 13 - Feb 25, 2008
Free!

more info:
http://www.headlands.org/event_detail.asp?key=20&eventkey=268

---

Hello All,
I'm excited to announce my latest collaboration with Cacao Anasa Chocolates. The "Dark Passion" bar from my show Free Chocolate was so popular that we developed a 4 bar collection called "AFRODISIAC."

The bars are organic, vegan and fairtrade!

French Rose and Persimmon
Kiwi Lime Pistachio and Sea Salt
Lemon Ginger and Cayenne
Mango Passion Fruit and Black Sesame Seed

These make great holiday gifts and are excellent for replenishing your secret stash! To order visit the Cacao Anasa website: http://cacaoanasa.com/news/Afrodisiac.htm

Enjoy!
April
art | www.aprilbanks.com + design | www.mezostudio.com

UNICEF ESSAY CONTEST OFFERS YOUNG PEOPLE PLACE
AT TABLE WITH WORLD LEADERS

Contest winners to attend Junior 8 Summit in Japan

New York, January 8, 2008—In an attempt to advance the understanding of
global issues among young people, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF today announced the
launch of a national essay contest for young people interested in participating
in the Junior 8 (J8) summit, a youth event convened this year in Japan and
linked to the annual Group of 8 (G8) Summit.

“The world is complex enough for grown-ups to make sense of, let alone our
children,” said Caryl Stern, president and CEO, U.S. Fund for UNICEF. “What
better way to engage the minds of young people than by providing them a forum
in which to discuss and advocate on issues with some of the most powerful
leaders in the world.”

Organized by UNICEF and now in its fourth year, the J8 program enables young
people the unique opportunity to become involved in the topics that concern
G8 countries and the broader global community.

Schools and youth groups across the nation are encouraged to recruit teams
of four young people, aged 13 to 17 years to draw from their knowledge,
understanding and perspectives on a range of global issues and compete through this
essay contest for the opportunity to represent the U.S. at the J8 summit
scheduled to take place in Hokkaido, Japan in July. Along with the 500 word
essay, teams must also submit a written declaration or a multi-media project.

Last year’s J8 and G8 summits were held in Wismar, Germany. The youth
delegates attending the J8 took their cues from the agenda of the leaders of the
G8 countries and addressed such issues as economic prospects for Africa,
HIV/AIDS, climate change and energy efficiency.

In addition to climate change and HIV/AIDS, all candidate teams competing to
attend this year’s J8 will address the following issues: 1) global warming
and climate change; 2) poverty and development; and 3) child survival,
infectious diseases, HIV/AIDS. All applications must be submitted by March 1, 2008,
with winners scheduled to be announced no later than March 31st.

The winning U.S. team will join youth delegations from the other G8 member
countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation and
the United Kingdom.

An additional seven J8 delegates from developing countries will be selected
by UNICEF. One delegate will be selected from each team to meet with the G8
leaders to discuss their ideas.

For more information on criteria and rules of competition and to download a
contest application please go to:
(http://www.unicefusa.org/youthaction) .

About UNICEF
For more than 60 years, UNICEF has been the world’s leading international
children’s organization, working in over 150 countries to address the ongoing
issues that affect why kids are dying. UNICEF provides lifesaving nutrition,
clean water, education, protection and emergency response saving more young
lives than any other humanitarian organization in the world. While millions of
children die every year of preventable causes like dehydration, upper
respiratory infections and measles, UNICEF, with the support of partnering
organizations and donors alike, has the global experience, resources and reach to
give children the best hope of survival. For more information about UNICEF,
please visit (http://www.unicefusa.org/) .
For additional information, please contact:
Richard Alleyne, U.S. Fund for UNICEF; (212) 880-9177, ralleyne@unicefusa.org

I stan for...

Have I gone on record about how much I love Tayari Jones, and her blog, http://tayarijones.com/blog/? I read both of her books this past summer, The Untelling and Leaving Atlanta, and loved them both. I highly recommend them. I'd never before read anyone who writes so poignantly in the voice of adolescent black girls. So much just rang so true. She needs to write more, more, more (and how lucky for aspiring writers that she also teaches)!!!

best.photo.ever.

Sigh. I love me some Zoe. But I think I might love this "soul patrol" from Biloxi even more.

You can see the complete piece at our collective's website. http://www.causecollective.com/ look under projects then select ALONG THE WAY.

While this article doesn't mention Along the Way it's related:

http://www.sundance.org/festival/insider/2008-01-25-FOF-race.asp

Beyond Black and White

Direct and Indirect Approaches to Race Speak Volumes

By Claiborne Smith | January 25, 2008

Teddy Harris’s Work

Teddy Harris’s work is the modernism of everyday perception and rationale. He makes works from vouchsafes and unrealized dreams, lies and advertisements for the nowheres. That is, he takes scraps of America North and threads them through his truthoscopic sensibility, for instance, pieces of newspapers, headlines, images from the diversity of our mostly grim experience, and he tells it to us again, and clearer.

Harris is a collagist, itself a modern form, and one that has been used to great advantage in pinning the political tale on the donkey, or elephant (or corrupt tiger, as the case may be, e.g. one of the greatest practitioners of the collage art for popular advantage, that is, to tell the truth, was the German collagist Heartfield, who actually pulled Hitler’s tail during the waning years of democracy in Germany. Right-wing politicians feared Heartfield (Herzfeld) because he used the collage to whack them sharply across the face, and lips, revealing their lies and evil to the people).

Harris, still a young man, has entered the collage with an astonishing clarity of form. The diverse pieces of reflected reality and unreality he thinks and pastes together create new images, replenishing our knowledge of the known, or making us aware of the unknown. There is a clarity and cleanness to his craftsmanship, which heightens the ideational projection the image sprays at us. At times, visual image actually seems to “say” out loud what maybe we know or need to know. Yet, he has put it together with an impressive display of knowledge about the medium he is using. There are no sloppy or half put together “slapdashes” which we must sympathetically take to the hoop with our political sympathies. Harris is a fine “auteur” (as the film magazines say, meaning, author, creator ) And with this, the content, which, for me, is always principal, emerges bright and striking.

He tells about the peoples’ struggles, world wide, against oppression and exploitation. Our lives under racism and the twisted rule of capital, At times, the images he thrusts at us are sharp enough to make us wince, with understanding and recognition. Harris’ work is fundamentally about consciousness raising, and this is what art does. Mao say, “All art is propaganda, but not all propaganda is Art!” Harris’ work speaks to us truthfully, forcefully, and with great skill. You need to check it out!

Amiri Baraka 5/98

NJCU Galleries presents:

Character Recognition

by Myra Greene

January 22 – February 27, 2008

Gallery Hours: Mon. - Fri., 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. and by appointment

Artist reception: February 4, 4:30 – 7 p.m. Artist Talk at 5:30 p.m.

Character Recognition is the photographer Myra Greene's latest project and consists of 40 plates of small black-glass-plated Ambrotype, installed in a darkened room. The questions which inspired her to create these photographs include: "What do people see when they look at me?"; "Am I nothing but black?"; "Is that skin tone enough to describe my nature and expectation in life?"; "Does my character resonate louder than my skin tone?" Using a photographic process linked to the times of ethnographic classification, she has repeatedly explored her ethnic features. The lessons learned are haunting and frightening in these modern times.

Many of Greene's projects include photography, printmaking, sound, as well as digital production work. She melds these processes into exploring issues about the body, memory, the absorption of culture and the ever shifting identity of African Americans. Her work was recently included in of Double Exposure: African Americans Before and Behind the Camera, at the Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art in Hartford Connecticut. Greene is currently an Assistant Professor in the Photography Department at Columbia College Chicago.

--
The Harold B. Lemmerman Gallery
New Jersey City University
2039 Kennedy Blvd.
Jersey City, NJ 07305
T: 201-200-3246
gallery@njcu.edu
http://www.njcu.edu/dept/art/galleries/

and another one (+2)

See, now looking for titles has become addicitive /obsessive but how great that two are by women:

NYT photographer Michelle V. Agins's Sisterfriends: Portraits of Sisterly Love, Pocket Books, 2001;

and Rookie: A First Year with WNBA, Dutton Juvenile, 2000.

&

Derek Blank's Daughters of Men: Portraits of African-American Women and Their Fathers, Amistad, 2007. (Derek who hands-down wins the best self-portrait-as-photographer award! You have to check his mySpace for the full flavor)


Alright--I'm going to try to update the list...

why you gotta love Essence (but not Blogger)

I just found another title reading about a shoe designer in the February Essence: Karen Pugh Lascaris' In Our Own Image: Treasured African-American Traditions, Journeys & Icons.

But everytime I try to alter that very long post below with any updates Blogger re-formats the actual list as big print. I'm going to have to think of a better way to publish the list.

Next week.

My new computer (yeah, this one is 10 years old) is coming!

black photographers and publishing

Last year I was invited early on to give two lectures (one in September, the other in November; throughout are excerpts from those lectures) and as I was preparing them it occurred to me to present on the one aspect of the contemporary art world that interests me--publishing. I've always been primarily interested in art in book format, and though I've wanted for years to start my own press to publish the work of black artists, mainly photographers, I had never really done the research to lay the foundation for just why this seemed so important.

Doing the research proved sobering—initially, I couldn't even find 100 titles by black photographers, which plunged me into a depression. How could that be, in the 168 (now 169) years of photography's existence, could there have only ever been fewer than 100 books by or on black photographers? I sent out a survey to about 100 black photographers about their own experiences with publishing, and their responses were also sobering. But it was becoming more clear to me just how important publishing is and just how missing we are from the genre. Consider that

The average duration of an exhibition is anywhere from a couple of weeks to, for original photographs, about 4 months, and most exhibitions only appear in a single venue, which may or may not be located where you are. Though photography books have relatively small print runs—usually between 1,000 and 5,000 copies—the potential for the circulation of images through the printed format is infinitely greater than that for any exhibition, even a touring one.

When I started researching, to be thorough I turned first to the sources that, as a journal editor, I routinely use in seeking new titles. According to its Editor, Darius Himes, the quarterly Photo-eye Booklist “surveys the photography book scene and culls the top 25-30 titles out of literally hundreds of books published each season. Never before has there been such widespread interest in the printed image.” So I combed carefully through the Booklist, looking for titles by black photographers. I looked, in fact, at every book reviewed or advertised from Spring 2005 through Fall 2007. During that time, only 4 titles by or about black photographers appeared in the Booklist:

· Dawoud Bey’s Class Pictures
· Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography
· Un Autre Monde. (the catalog from the Bamako Biennale) VIes Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie
· Malick Sidibe: Photographs

And only 2 had been actually reviewed. I checked Distributed Art Publishers next. From Spring/Summer 2006 through Fall 2007, DAP's catalogs included

· Dawoud Bey’s Class Pictures
· African American Vernacular Photography (images of black subjects, not by black photographers)
· Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography
· Black Brown, White: Photography from South Africa

Next I checked Aperture’s booklist; Aperture publishes 30 titles per year with a maximum of 3 on emerging photographers, which makes it one of the largest photography book publishers in the business. Combing its 2007 catalogs, including the backlist, I discovered that Aperture has published one title by a black photographer: Bey's Class Pictures.

That's when I sent out the survey, which included these questions:

• How many books have you published as an artist?
• Of those, how many monographs?
• What were the years of publication?
• Have you ever self-published a book?
• If so, what was your print run?
• What was the cost?
• Have you ever paid out-of-pocket for a publication you did not self-publish (including grant money)?
• Have you ever earned a royalty on a publication?
• What is (are) the most recent book title(s) that you have seen by (a) black photographer(s)?Where do you usually learn about new book titles by black photographers?
• What is (are) your favorite book title(s) by (a) black photographer(s)

When I was an undergraduate in the early 1980s, there were no African American art history courses where I studied, and black photographers weren’t fully integrated into the canon—their publications weren’t represented in our library, which also meant they weren’t in the slide library, which meant they weren’t shown in lectures or in any other way taught in the curriculum. In the era of websites, blogs, mySpace, Facebook, flickr, etc., it is in theory much easier to simply browse the Internet for images that can be quickly downloaded and, even at their low resolution, projected in the classroom. Yet a quick Google search of a list of twenty names of African American photographers who were prominent in the 1980s yield few results for finding images, let alone personal pages.

Though I have 3 advanced degrees in photography, the following knowledge is self-taught.

Perhaps the best-known book of African American photography—the photography book equivalent of seeing the first black faces on television—is Roy DeCarava and Langston Hughes’ The Sweet Flypaper of Life, the first book published exclusively with work by a black photographer. Sweet Flypaper was a photography/text collaboration originally published in 1955, reprinted in 1967, and reissued by Howard University Press in 1984. According to photographer and photo historian Deborah Willis, at age seven, “sitting on the floor of her Philadelphia home, dreading the weekly ritual of her mother hot-combing her hair,”she saw a library copy of The Sweet Flypaper of Life. After, she assembled the family photo album trying to emulate the organization of images in Flypaper. It was, she recalls, the first time she had seen a book with photographs of black people, and the impact was life-changing. “I could see how much the people looked like my family.”

It was more than a decade before one of the next photography books by a black photographer was published: Gordon Parks published his first book about (not with his own) photography, Flash Photography, in 1947. In all, only 6 photography books were published by or about black photographers prior to 1970.

Harlem photographer James VanDerZee’s work had been introduced to a broader audience through the controversial Metropolitan Museum exhibition Harlem on My Mind in 1968, which despite the controversy would be the first experience for many seeing a black photographer’s credited images in a major museum exhibition.

Beyond DeCarava, Parks, and James VanDerZee, the early 1970s marked the first wave of exhibitions and publications of the work of emerging black photographers. Happening in the midst of the civil rights and Black Arts Movements, photography was the perfect medium of self-representation, poised to capture that defining historical moment. In the 1970s as these early photographers and publications were breaking new ground there were a handful of survey titles to preserve a record of exhibitions and more importantly to introduce the work of more black photographers to a broader audience. For promoting a previously untapped talent base, surveys were essential for cultivating an audience for their work. They were mostly slim publications, about 20–30 pages with maybe a single reproduction by each photographer.

Chief among these was Photographer Joe Crawford published The Black Photographers’ Annual, the first of ultimately four volumes published between 1973 and 1980 devoted to publishing the work of contemporary African American photographers. 28 titles by or about black photographers were published in the 1970s.



Things began to change more rapidly in the mid-1980s; the decades of the 1980s and 1990s saw the greatest period of publication for books by black photographers, as historians had begun to research and construct a history which had not previously been documented, starting with Valencia Hollins Coar’s A Century of Black Photographers 1840-1960 from 1983,

followed soon thereafter by Deborah Willis’ Black Photographers, 1840 - 1940: An Illustrated Bio-Bibliography and

An Illustrated Bio-Bibliography of Black Photographers, 1940 - 1988, two exhaustive encyclopedias of black photographers that expanded and updated Coar’s earlier research.

In 1986 Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe’s Viewfinders: Black Women Photographers was published, the first book devoted to the history of the careers of black women photographers.

Increasingly the work of black photographers was being curated into conceptual exhibitions, many with catalogs, which moved beyond the introductory nature of earlier surveys to explore the conceptual underpinnings of the increasingly identity-based work of the period. These were perhaps more influential to young photographers like me, as the subject matter and formats were both moving beyond the traditional black and white two-dimensional “straight” documentary image. Two of the best are from 1989:


Black Photographers Bear Witness: 100 Years of Social Protest

and

Constructed Images: New Photography

with cover images by Christian Walker and Pat Ward Williams, respectively.


Though there were a handful of monographs in the 1980s and 32 books by or about black photographers published in that decade, the 1990s became the golden era of publishing for artists of color, whose early works in survey compilations helped make a name for them. The publishers and thus the intended audiences varied widely, ranging from self-published efforts—mostly artists’ books—to small non-profit gallery catalogs to museums to commercial presses. The overwhelming majority of titles are monographs, both theme books and fine-art publications. 74 books by or about black photographers were published in the 1990s.

As the 2000s debuted, it seemed the publishing would keep apace, with new anthologies, new titles by familiar names, long past due titles from others, and the introduction of new names. Surveys re-emerged, thicker and more comprehensive than ever.

The breadth of work being published is ever-expanding, and the numbers continue to increase—to date, 104 books by or about black photographers have been published (or are slated to be published) in the 00s. Initially, after consulting Photo-eye and DAP, I thought the number was dwindling, coinciding with the death within the art world and the academy, of multiculturalism and in this radical shift away from the art of identity politics—which largely though not exclusively means the work of artists of color. But actually counting the numbers is somewhat more encouraging. However, I definitely don't think the art world is the best and only venue, and of late I have noticed browsing at hip style/design stores here in San Francisco that the only books they are selling by black artists are Kehinde Wiley's Columbus and Jamel Shabazz's Seconds of My Life. (at two separate stores; neither sold both) I would call it a crisis.

Recently, two young women who'd heard my lecture, Intisar & ABG, wrote to me about publishing the list of titles I'd compiled, which prompted me to go back, carefully looking so that I could add any additional titles that I'd missed. I'm now at 242 titles—when I last gave the lecture in November I was at 181. It's better, and although not nearly as dire as I initially thought, at the same time it's not nearly good enough.

As Intisar wrote, she wanted to check them all out and also see what kind of books have been published and why? For what reasons? How many are photojournalism, how many are theme books, how many "fine art?" That prompted me to do a little quick assessment, too, to understand what that number means when it's further broken down. Of the 242, for example, what does it mean that just 6 photographers (DeCarava, Magubane, Parks, L. Simpson, VanDerZee, and Weems) account for 1/3 (78) of the titles, or that just 52—around 20%—are books by or about women photographers (and of those, 20 are by only 2 photographers)? Or that in the history of the medium there have only been 52 books by black women photographers? Hopefully the compilation of this list will be the initiation of some serious inquiries.

So here it is. I have left in the list, for consistency's sake, titles by Gordon Parks that are not on photography, but they are there for reference and are not part of the count. Needless to say, if you know of any titles that are not on the list, please E-mail me the bibliographic information (and ideally a scan of the cover if you have it). Especially if it's your own title—artist's book, self-published, one-of-a-kind—it's all here. The first is a list by category of monographs/ compilations; the second is an entirely chronological list.

congrats Lauren and Kianga!

41 IDEAS WHOSE TIME HAS COME Creative Capital Congratulates Our 2008 Film/Video and Visual Artists Get The Full Story Here

FILM/VIDEO Kenseth Armstead Anita Chang Erin Cosgrove Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman Rodney Evans Lynn Hershman Leeson Tia Lessin and Carl Deal Brad Lichtenstein and Vernon Reid Billy Luther Tara Mateik Cat Mazza Leighton Pierce Laura Poitras Anayansi Prado Jay Rosenblatt David Russo Luke Savisky Cauleen Smith Daniel Sousa Banker White & Zach Niles Julie Wyman VISUAL ARTS Sanford Biggers Susan Brandt and Kristine Woods SuttonBeresCuller Kianga Ford Joseph Grigely Wayne Hodge Jennie C. Jones Kalup Linzy Naeem Mohaiemen Matthew Moore Otabenga Jones & Associates Angela Reginato Kaneem Smith Eve Sussman Mark Tribe Trimpin Lauren Woods Mario Ybarra, Jr. Bruce Yonemoto and Juli Carson Emna Zghal and Michael Rakowitz

CALL FOR ARTISTS! Emerging Fields | Innovative Literature | Performing Arts Details and Application at www.creative-capital.org Online Applications open February 4 through March 4, 2008

i knew he was an art collector...

Comedian David Alan Grier Welcomes a Girl

FRIDAY JANUARY 11, 2008 07:50 PM EST

By Amy Elisa Keith

David Alan Grier and Christine Kim
Photo by: Rodrigo Varela / WireImage

Actor-comedian David Alan Grier and wife Christine Y. Kim had a baby girl, the couple tell PEOPLE.

Luisa Danbi Grier-Kim – Danbi means "sweet rain" in Korean – was 7 lbs., 6 oz and 20 inches long. She was born at 1:04 p.m. Thursday by planned C-section.

"She's amazing. Her looks evolve every moment, and she looks like me and David," Kim told PEOPLE after delivering the couple's first child, surrounded by family members in the delivery room. "I'm feeling euphoric, and David is ecstatic. He's the perfect proud father."

Grier, 51, and Kim, associate curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, were married in July and had been splitting their time between New York and Los Angeles.

Kim said last October she was having a smooth pregnancy.

"We're really excited. I have no morning sickness, no bizarre cravings" she said. "As far as David is telling me, unless he's lying, I haven't had any crazy, hormonal mood swings. It's been a pleasant pregnancy so far."

THE BEAUTY SHOP
Michael McMillan

‘Black folks spend more on hair and skin care products than they do on food.”
Launch Event / Wig Party: Bring your own or try our selection!
Thursday 24 January 2008, 6.30 – 9pm





Exhibition
25 January – 28 March 2008
Mon-Fri, 10 am – 5 pm

Following the critically acclaimed West Indian Front Room, which attracted 35,000 visitors to the Geffrye Museum in 2005-06, The Beauty Shop, Michael McMillan’s forthcoming exhibition at 198, explores practices and ideas related to the maintenance, transformation and representation of the black body in a post-colonial context.

The body is a contested space in contemporary consumer culture, where the desire and ability to transform hair, face, skin and body parts reveals complex dynamics around ideals of beauty.
For people of African descent, in a globalised world, hair texture, skin complexion, full nose, lips
and body shape, flesh out culturally and politically charged issues, that resonate in everyday life.

The cosmetics industry in general and the High Street beauty shop in particular, cater for the desire to transform hair and lighten skin. The Beauty Shop exhibition will bring the performative qualities of High Street cosmetic consumer culture to the gallery space, as a means to interact
with visitors.

The Beauty Shop will also explore the influences, which shape our understanding of “beauty” and the representation of the “self” by opening the lid on the personal and collective experience of hair, colour and the body. It will encourage visitors to engage with the multi-layered desires, practices, representations and ideologies mediated by the matrix of family, gender, sexuality, social status, education and cultural politics.



TALKS, EVENTS AND WORKSHOPS

‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’
Saturday 9 February 2008, 12 – 2 pm @ 198
An intergenerational retail therapy workshop using iconic brands to explore hair, skin and the body.
Please bring a product with personal meaning.
Free workshop, limited spaces available, booking required. Please contact 198.



‘The more it burns, the better it looks’
A writers’ saloon in the beauty salon
Thursday 21 February 2008, 7 - 9 pm @ 198
Performance poets Khadijah Ibrahiim & Malika Booker join Michael McMillan to reflect on “Bad Hair Days”,
“Geri-Curl Nightmares” and “Colour Affected Moments”
Free event, booking required. Please contact 198.




‘On Beauty’
Thursday 6 March 2008, 7 – 9 pm @ 198
A panel discussion interrogating ideas of beauty, body consumer culture and skin care science
in the African Diaspora.
With visual artist Barby Asante, Dr. Clara Kalu, Carol Tulloch and Michael McMillan.
Free event, booking required. Please contact 198


For more information about The Beauty Shop, please visit our new website: www.198.org.uk
We hope to see you soon!


198 Contemporary Arts and Learning 198 Railton Road, SE24 0JT.
T: +44(0) 207 978 8309
E: info@198org.uk,
W:www.198.org.uk

tonight!

From Taboo to Icon: Africanist Turnabout Curated by Sophie Sanders and Shervone Neckles

WHEN: Thursday, January 10, 2008 6 - 8 pm

COST: FREE!

WHERE: Ice Box Project Space
Crane Arts
1400 N. American Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122

Participating Artists: Sophia Ainslie, Ruby Amanze, Terry Boddie, Kimberly Camp, Syd Carpenter, Colin Chase, Sonya Clark, Sahar Coston, Jamal Cyrus, John Dowell, Maya Freelon Asante, Earl Fyffe, Lonnie Graham, Theodore A. Harris, Melvina Lathan, Lucy Lau, Franky Laude, Betty Leacraft, Simone Leigh , Ghariokwu Lemi, Heather Marie Davis, Tyrone Mitchell, Ayanah Moor, Keith Morrison, Karyn Olivier, José Ortiz, Pepón Osorio, Nadine Patterson, Agnes Poitevin-Navarre, Debra Priestly, Roy Reid, Juana Valdes, Deborah Willis, Hank Willis Thomas, Emna Zghal

Download a postcard for the show here: taboo.pdf

grants due soon

(thanks, Orville)

January 16
The Alexia Foundation offers $15,000 grants to allow professional photographers to produce images that further the foundation’s goal of promoting world peace and cultural understanding. Applicants must submit a proposal for a photo project of no more than 750 words. For complete guidelines and application information, visit www.alexiafoundation.org.

January 22
The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Manhattan Community Arts Fund provides grants of up to $2,000 for projects that serve the Manhattan community. Applicants must live in Manhattan and proposed projects must take place in the borough. For complete information on how to apply, visit www.lmcc.net.

leica european publishers award for photography 2008

(As I am currently preparing to post some of my information/research about black photographers and publishing [I'm not ignoring you, Intisar & ABG, I'm just still working on it], this one seems particularly significant)

The Leica European Publishers Award for Photography is a major
initiative to encourage the publication of contemporary photography.

Open to photographers world-wide, the competition is a unique
collaboration between seven European Publishers – Actes Sud (France),
Apeiron (Greece), Dewi Lewis Publishing (Great Britain), Edition Braus
(Germany), Lunwerg Editores (Spain), Mets & Schilt (The Netherlands)
and Peliti Associati (Italy).

The competition requires the submission of a substantial, completed
and unpublished photographic book project. The winning project is then
published in book form simultaneously by each of the publishers in
their own country resulting in perhaps the most extensive cultural
collaboration currently existing in Europe.

Visit http://www.dewilewispublishing.com/EUROAWARD/EUROAWARD  for full
details 

Social Movement Cultures: call for writing

(thanks, Theodore)

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

You are receiving this invitation to submit writing (details below) because either we know you or have met you in our travels, read your writing, or you were referred to us.

We (Dara Greenwald and Josh MacPhee) are organizing a show for Fall 2008 at Exit Art in New York City, Incendiary Veins: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to Present and will be publishing an accompanying exhibition catalog. Because we can’t pretend to comprehensively cover the vast field of the art, culture and media of social movements, we are hoping multiple contributions from personal perspectives can add to a more complex understanding of this history and present.

We are looking for short anecdotes of experiences with the intersection of art/culture/media and social movements. Perhaps it was a poster, a street performance, or even a dance party at a protest that transformed the way you experienced politics and your engagement with collective social transformation. (There are many other ways people experience the cultural aspects of social movements, so please don’t be contained by these examples…)

This is not an open call but if you know someone who might be a great contributor to this text please send them our way. We are especially hoping to get more contacts for people outside of the USA.

Very best,

Dara and Josh

Invitation to Submit

DEADLINE: March 1, 2008

Notification of Acceptance: End of March 2008

We are currently accepting submissions of 500-800 words in length about a memorable experience you had with the intersections of art/culture/media and social movements. We are looking for first hand experiences, short personal narratives to include in our upcoming exhibition catalog about the cultural production of social movements since the 1960’s. The exhibition opens in September 2008 at Exit Art in New York City.

The catalog will consist of two or three in-depth framing essays, images of cultural artifacts from social movements (posters, photos, film stills, etc.), and these short personal accounts from a diverse range of experiences dispersed throughout. The catalog is being published by AK Press and Exit Art and will be available by September 2008.

Unfortunately we cannot publish all submissions nor can we pay people whose texts are selected, but we hope you will submit in an effort to understand and communicate more deeply about the important cultural work of social movements.

We hope you will consider submitting to this collection.

Submit texts by email to: dara@daragreenwald.com

Call For Submissions

New Jersey City University
Visiting Artist Residency

The Department of Art at NJCU is now accepting applications for our visiting artist residency.
There is one position available for a four-week period.
Deadline for application: January 31, 2008
Notification to selected artist: February 15, 2008
Residency period: April 1 – April 29

Art Department
The Department is located in the Visual Arts Building, a brand new 55,000 sq. foot, 12 million
dollar, state of the art facility. It is located just four miles from New York City. There are fully
furnished studios for Printmaking, Painting and Drawing, Sculpture, Ceramics, Photography, and
Jewelry and Metals. The VAB houses one gallery and there is an additional gallery on campus,
the Lemmerman gallery. Facilities at the VAB are available for the Visiting Artist’s use.

Eligibility
Applicants from any media or discipline are welcome to apply. You are required to have
received a terminal degree in your field or supply evidence of comparable experience.

Responsibilities of the Visiting Artist
The Visiting Artist position has been established in order to enhance the studies of undergraduate
and graduate students in all disciplines as well as allow NJCU to reach out to both local
communities and artists nationwide.
• Visiting artists in residence are expected to interact with students about their work and to
offer dialogue, ideas, and information on how to sustain a studio practice after
graduating.
• The Visiting Artist is asked to lead a workshop for at least one studio class (6hrs) in their
discipline. This workshop will be coordinated with the Professor of the class.
• There will be at least one open critique session scheduled (3hrs) in which the Visiting
Artist will be available to talk to individual and groups of students about their work.
• In addition the resident is to give a public lecture on their work either at NJCU or the
Jersey City Museum (case by case basis). At the end of the residency the artist will be
afforded an opportunity to exhibit at either one of NJCU’s galleries or at Jersey City
Museum (case by case basis).

Fluency
The predominate language spoken in the Art Department is English. Visiting Artists must be
fluent in English in order to communicate and interact with faculty and students.

Workshop
Visiting Artists will be expected to conduct a Workshop for at least one class in their area of
expertise. This workshop will be conducted in coordination with the Instructor of the course.

Public Lecture
A public lecture will be scheduled within the four-week residency in which the Visiting Artist
will conduct a one-hour lecture with visual aids for the student body and public community. This
lecture will be held at the Visual Arts Building auditorium

Assistant
When available, the Visiting Artist is assigned an assistant whose responsibilities include:
gathering supplies, offering information about the local community and acting as a contact for
any issues that arise during the four-week stay.

Studio
There are no designated studio spaces for Visiting Artists, however with ample space in each
discipline’s facility, space will be allotted for the Visiting Artist to work and store materials. This
will be arranged with the faculty supervisor and/or technician in the facility.

Housing and travel
There is currently no housing available for artists. Artists are responsible for their own travel
expenses. Those who do not drive can easily take advantage of the public transportation system,
which can get you from the NJCU campus to most of the local metro area.

Stipend
The Visiting Artist is paid a gross stipend of $1500.00. Housing and workspace are not provided.
Travel and other expenses, including all materials, are the responsibility of the artist.

Selection Standards
New Jersey City University is an equal opportunity employer. The Visiting Artist Selection
Committee considers ethnic and gender, while trying to select artists of diverse backgrounds from a variety of geographic locales. Artists of all disciplines are encouraged to apply. Two alternate artists are selected in addition to those chosen for the position. In the event that arrangements cannot be made with one of the primary candidates, an alternate candidate will be contacted.

Application Materials
1. 15-20 images of recent work. They should be formatted at 72 dpi in .jpeg files. Images should
be no larger than 8” x 8” (or 600 x 600).
Artists whose work is better represented by video or other media may include these items in one of the following formats:
For Video – QuickTime (.mov) or Windows Movie Video (.wmv)
In the case of any additional media not covered here please contact the Visiting Artist Program
for guidance.
Please include a list of image details with your name, title of work, date, medium, and dimensions.
2. A professional resume. No more than 2 pages.
3. Detailed proposal of a four-week residency. We encourage development of a theme that
relates to your own work, skill sets and background. Please be sure to include possible subjects
of workshops to be conducted with students.
4. Artist Statement. No more than 150 words.
5. Include: Name, mailing address, email, and phone.
Please send to: artresidency@njcu.edu
If you require any additional information or have questions please contact us at:
bgustafson@njcu.edu

OPEN CALL

OPEN CALL FOR SHORT FILMS, VIDEOS, AND NEW MEDIA SCREEN-BASED WORKS
Under 10 minutes in length.
Deadline: February 28, 2008 (postmark)
No fee, no pay
Curators: Bill Basquin & Nomi Talisman

Thematic considerations:
We are looking for submissions under 10 minutes in length that relate to the theme
of INTERVENTION. This film program will be screened as a part of the Interrupt,
Intervene! Art as Social Change Festival hosted by UC Santa Cruz. There will be
a conference at UCSC and exhibitions and screenings in the cities of San Francisco,
Santa Cruz and San Jose and on campus at UC Santa Cruz throughout May 2008. (See
conference description and links below.)

Art as intervention is an emerging field of contemporary art practice, and artists
frequently use humour, surprise, or unusual associations to overturn assumptions
about the world, invite political engagement, create collaborations and relationships,
examine the everyday or map hidden systems, allowing the audience to think in new
ways.

We are seeking work that A) either documents public intervention or B) is an intervention
in itself.
Screenings will take place in outdoor locations in public places in all three cities.
We are seeking work that considers relational aesthetics, interventions, Situationist
practices, Fluxus style events and which explores the followings concepts:

Intervention: An action undertaken in order to change what is happening or might
happen in another’s affairs, especially in order to prevent something undesirable
In·ter·rupt (v) 1.To halt the flow of a speaker or of a speaker’s utterance with
a question or remark. 2. To disturb somebody who is busy doing something, causing
him or her to stop. 3. To cause a break in the flow of something or put a temporary
stop to something. 4. To discontinue doing something temporarily. 5. To obstruct
or block a view In·ter·fer·ence (n) 1. Involvement in something without any invitation
or justification. 2. Hindrance or obstruction that prevents a natural or desired
outcome. 3. An unwanted signal that disrupts radio, telephone, or television reception.
In·tru·sion (n)1. A disturbing of somebody’s peace or privacy by an unwelcome arrival
or presence. 2. An unwelcome presence or effect that disturbs or upsets something.
In·volv·ing (adj) Holding the attention. Alternatively, you can Bring Your Own Definition!

Technical details:
Preview format: DVD. One DVD for each entry, no complicated menus
Exhibition format: DVD. The DVD must play from a DVD player.
Please attach a short description, contact information, and a one paragraph short
bio, and SASE if you want your DVD back.
Please mark as Intervention/Sidewalk program

Send to:
Nomi Talisman/ Sidewalk screening
C/O CRI
1499 Potrero Ave. Soap Building Unit #2
San Francisco, CA 94110

Deadline: February 28, 2008 (postmark)

About the conference
UC Santa Cruz art department presents a festival and conference entitled: Interrupt!
Intervene! Art as Social Change

In May 2008 UC Santa Cruz will host “Interrupt, Intervene: Art as Social Change”.
This event includes a three day conference at UC Santa Cruz, May 15, 16th 17th 2008
alongside a month long series of artists interventions linked to gallery exhibitions
at the LAB (San Francisco), the ICA (San Jose) and the Sesnon gallery at UC Santa
Cruz. Funded by Porter College Festival grant, ARI grants and COR grants.

The conference and exhibitions will serve as a venue for artists, theorists and
the public to explore art that re-examines set ideas, engenders discussion and forges
relationships. The conference will allow theorists and artists to locate contemporary
practice within this art historical framework in order to understand and discuss
innovative contemporary art interventions and art as social practice.

These artworks can be performances, sculptures, web sites, documentations, publications,
or public installations. The work is often subtle in manifestation, frequently a
gesture, a gift, or an act of detournement.

For more information about the conference and events visit the website:

http://may2008.artintervention.org

Schomburg-Mellon Fellowship for Undergraduates

Schomburg-Mellon Humanities Summer Institute
June 16-July 25, 2008

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation have created the Mellon-Schomburg Humanities Summer Institute to
encourage minority students and others with an interest in African-American
and African Diaspora Studies to pursue graduate degrees in the humanities.
The program, open to U.S. citizens and Permanent Residents, offers a
six-week session for ten rising seniors (juniors in 2008, graduating in
2009). Five will be selected from