State of the arts nyc holiday newsletter

State of the Arts NYC Holiday Newsletter

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. Wishing you happiness."

- Helen Keller

Listeners to State of the Arts NYC will enjoy the holiday season with music, readings and lively chats from a great roster of artists, curators and performers. We also promise that in 2018, we will keep our boots on the ground covering art throughout all five boroughs. Our featured December lineup includes ---

RASHAAD NEWSOME

Mashing together American hip-hop culture and the European heraldic tradition, Rashaad Newsome produces collages, installations, performances, videos, and songs that send-up and celebrate African-American culture. Drawing from sources high and low, he masterfully appropriates the gestures, sounds, and symbols of black culture and European heraldry (coats of arms), demonstrating the surprising similarities between them. As he explains: “A coat of arms is really a collage of objects that represent social status and economic status and status as a warrior. […] Everybody wants to be the king of hip-hop.” For his exuberant, meticulously composed collages, for example, Newsome culls images from hip-hop and luxury magazines. Like coats of arms, they represent success and opulence, hip-hop style. In his “Shade Compositions” (begun 2005), he builds musical rhythms from what he calls “ghetto gestures,” revealing the grace and humor in head-cocking, tongue-clicking, and other expressions of displeasure.

American, b. 1979, New Orleans, Louisiana, based in New York, New York

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LAURA OWENS For more than twenty years, Los Angeles– based artist Laura Owens has pioneered an innovative approach to painting that has made her one of the most influential artists of her generation. Her bold and experimental work challenges traditional assumptions about figuration and abstraction, as well as the relationships among avant-garde art, craft, pop culture, and technology.

The Whitney Museum is presenting a midcareer survey of the artist’s career. It’s the most comprehensive of Owens’ work to-date, will feature approximately 60 paintings from the mid-1990s until today. The exhibition will highlight her significant strides over the past few years, showing how the early work sets the stage for gripping new paintings and installations.

Owens emerged on the Los Angeles art scene during the mid-nineties, at a time when many in the critical establishment viewed painting with suspicion. Her early canvases upended the traditions of painterly abstraction by incorporating goofy personal allusions, doodling, and common craft materials. These works often demonstrated her keen interest in how paintings function in a given room and used illusionistic techniques to extend the plane of a wall or floor directly into the space of her pictures. More recently, she has charted a dramatic transformation in her work, marshaling all of her previous interests and talents within large-scale paintings that make virtuosic use of silkscreen, computer manipulation, digital printing, and material exploration. The Whitney has a longstanding commitment to Owens, who has been featured in two Biennials, and is significantly represented in the Museum’s collection.

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SHERRILL ROLAND The Jumpsuit Project challenges ideas around mass incarceration and works to generate a safe space to process, question and share. Prior to my own incarceration, I maintained a very general understanding about prisons and the justice system in our country – founded heavily in the media’s own depiction of imprisonment. I was unaware of the growing numbers of individuals incarcerated in the United States (both those proven guilty and wrongfully accused). I too, was naïve about the deep-seated social and political issues surrounding the culture of the prison system. My experience opened my eyes to the great impact incarceration has on those individuals behind bars, as well as their family members and friends. The Jumpsuit Project provides a window into the lives that have been impacted by incarceration. Through sharing my own story, and creating a space for others to share, light is being shed on the enormous darkness incarceration brings.

I create art that challenges ideas around controversial social and political constructs, and generate a safe space to process, question, and share. The Jumpsuit Project is a socially engaged art project being conducted at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro during the 2016 – 2017 academic year. The primary purpose of the project is to raise awareness around issues related to incarceration. This work grows out of my personal history.

In August 2012, I was issued a warrant in Washington DC explaining that I had four felony counts against me pending indictment. After nine months an indictment was never found and the felony charges were dropped to misdemeanors. In October 2013, I went to trial and lost, and 10 months later I was released from state prison. Almost a year and a half after being released, I was exonerated of all charges and granted my bill of innocence. For more than three years, I was forced to relinquish control of my life – which is why The Jumpsuit Project is particularly personal to me. Returning to life outside of the prison walls, with my innocence restored was challenging. I encountered difficulties reentering society, like many incarcerated citizens. Attempts to repress and ignore the imprisonment experience, while common, were altogether unsuccessful and unproductive. I found liberation in sharing my story with family and friends, and discovered that others found a similar release when sharing their experiences in return.

And thus, The Jumpsuit Project was born. In an effort to ignite the conversation around 4

issues related to incarceration, I will wore an orange jumpsuit everyday up to and during my graduation ceremony this past May of 2017. Introducing an orange jumpsuit, an outlier in an otherwise familiar setting, challenges those who encounter it by encouraging them to address their own prejudices towards those incarcerated. This visual representation of incarceration shed light on these issues and how those closely connected are affected.

HOLIDAY EVENT

2nd Annual Reading of The Snowy Day with WBAI Producer Malika Lee Whitney --On December 8th, State of the Arts NYC will have a special segment where the classic tale of Peter will be read to listeners and their family.

The Snowy Day, winner of the Caldecott Medal in 1963, is a children's book that tells the story of a little boy named Peter who has a day full of adventure in the snow. Peter wakes up one morning and looks ou his window to see everything covered in snow.

Peter put on his snowsuit and went outside to play. Peter made tracks with his feet and found a stick to smack the snow on the trees. He wanted to play with the big boys who were having a snowball fight but he knew that he could not because he was not old enough. So instead, Peter decides to go make a snowman, snow angels, pretended to be a mountain climber, and slid down a mountain of snow. Peter wanted to save some 5 Â

snow for tomorrow so he makes a snowball and put it in his pocket, but when he goes to look at the snowball before bed, it isn't there. The snowball had melted. During the night, Peter had a dream that it was sunny out and there wasn't anymore snow on the ground. When Peter wakes up and looks out his window he sees that the snow is still there and new snow falling. In the end, Peter goes outside to play in the snow again, but this time with a friend.

Analysis of a Literary Element: The Snowy Day is a book that has become a big favorite and an unforgettable book. It has a wonderful story that can be told to children that they can easily relate to and love. But aside from a wonderful story, it has amazing illustrations to help tell it. The simple use of pastel and watercolors create a great and enjoyable image of all the fun activities children can do in snow. All the little things that make winter fun are witnessed through an easy, innocent story told through text and illustrations. For example, in the story Keats tells the reader about the way Peter walks in the snow and the way his feet leave footprints; and along with this text is an illustration of what Peter's footprints look like. Other examples that show how well the text and illustrations go together in this story are when Peter is makes a snowman, a snow angel, climbs up a mountain of snow and then slides down it; each activity is shown and easily distinguished in the illustrations Although the colors are very light and simple, they still work very well in the illustrations and are used in a creative way. The joy of winter, snow, and all the fun that comes with it were portrayed very well in Keats book through the illustrations easily earning it the Caldecott Medal.

Author: Ezra Jack Keats was an author and illustrator and began writing children's books in the 1960s. Keats was born on March 11, 1916 in Brooklyn. Ezra Jack Keats is best known for introducing multiculturalism and being one of a first authors to have an AfricanAmerican as the main character in many of his books, such as, The Snowy Day, Whistle for Willie, Peter's Chair, A Letter to Amy, Goggle!, and many more. The Snowy Day was Keats' first picture book and was awarded the Caldecott Medal and is considered to be one of the most important American books of the 20th century.

UPCOMING FAIRS & FESTIVALS 2018

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NEW LOGO & BRANDING FOR STATE OF THE ARTS NYC

State of the Arts NYC will engage in more outreach in friendly, art-filled campaigns to help make the arts more accessible.

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