ART
REMIXED!
REMIXED
I love museums but I really have to be in the mood to go. It’s so hard to go into these institutions that basically have erased your whole existence, or minimize it ie: minimal inclusion for tokenism. That’s why I tend to go on the pay what you wish for the free days. I figure they have enough rich people upholding the racist ideas of the institution. I’ll just mosey on in and go for free because I feel like my people have paid enough, be it inspiration or sheer labor or continuing to be ‘the help’.
It’s interesting, as I walk through this whole exhibition all I see is the designer’s access, access to money, access to materials, access to audience, and access to media. I wish I didn’t recognize one third to half of the designers, but access seems to buy you a piece of the audience whether they like it or not. This access is so cloudy that it’s hard to tell if this work is amazing, or if it just had so much access that it is revered. The recognition of the designers, itself just gives the whole exhibition more gravity than I’d like to.
I’ll always be inspired by color texture pattern so it goes without saying that this exhibition is inspiring but I can’t help but feel that something is missing…oh yeah, designers of color.
Ironically the exhibitions is guarded by docile looking black people dressed up like butlers.
Side note funny story. I once went out one night in Philadelphia wearing these exact shoes only to be turned away by the doorman saying that women had to wear heels and I was out of dress code. Ironic to see these exact same shoes in an exhibition in the Philadelphia Museum of art. I guess it all depends on who’s wearing them.
The gatekeepers of history and culture seem to have those little blinders on like a horses that you see carrying people around in New York on little wagons. With blinders, one has such a limited view and the casualties of the limitations include all the people that helped inspire influence and push these fashions and art. Sometimes it feels as if they are purposely placing invisibility to all these other people that exist.
Don’t worry I won’t leave you hanging. Here’s a few notable fashion related pieces that highlight the participation and role of Black culture in fashion. The Nod did an amazing episode on the Battle of Versaille, called ‘Chitlins at Bergdorfs.’ In 2015 Sacha Jenkins directed a pretty cool doc called ‘Fresh Dressed’ that focuses on urban fashion and its role in main stream. The Mz. Icar team and I decided to remix this exhibition because we will pull up a seat at any table we want to.
Collage/ Illustration by Mz .Icar
photos courtesy of @jendayiasha, c.kennebrew and Junkprints archive// Select shoot Production by: @ediomi @efikokostudios // makeup: @_brittanyrogers // hair: @tierras_hair_artistry // accessories: @statement92
models: @mariosimonee, @annett_ka26, @sheshe_themodel
DEAR MAMA
Studio thots:
We have been sitting on this one for a minute! I am so excited to announce our recent work with Essence magazine. One of our Mz’, had the opportunity to paint a three-story mural for the background set celebrating Tonya Louis Lee and Satchel Lee for the may issue. This is currently on the shelves right now it is so fun when you’re commercial and you’re fine art have a chance to mix and match and make babies together.
Roll call, cuz it takes a village to create this type of magic…and the Essence fam has been killing it when it comes to bringing together dope ass black talented women.
Fashion Director @mariellebobo 👗 interview by @missjulee 📝 Shoutout to the creative team: Photographer @ericagenece 📸 Art Director @mochamommy_nyc 🎬 Photo Editor @traceysees 🎞 CCCO @moanaluu 🔌 Set Designer @mz.icar🔮 Makeup Artist @jessicasmalls 💄 Hairstylist @monaeartistry 👸🏽 Manicurist @ginaedwards_ 💅🏾 Video Producer @seanandnotheard
This was painted on a continuous 3 story long 12ft canvas. This was done so that we could rotate the canvas on set resulting in various background settings and layered volume….it is very heavy!
Since we are in a sharing (aka bragging mood) and This essence issue has given us our whole lives and then some in the form of super fun work, great teams and visual candy, let me cleanse your timeline palette with dots. For this one our Mz’ made a series of custom dot backgrounds and a gazillion large dots. A period could never really be enough, a dot is much better suited.
Roll call
Photographer: @itayshaphoto
Wardrobe: @mariellebobo
MUA: @jaleesajaikaran
Haír: @naeemahlafond
Manicurist: @pipbuzzz
Set Design : @mz.icar
Model : @alyseeeuh
ART? MONIES? WORTH?
One of our Mz’ was a participant in the early stages of the Contemporary DIY movement including being the first person that Etsy did a video portrait on. Her process is extremely tactile as a move through materials including yarn up-cycled found objects as well as painting and collage techniques. She shared her thoughts on that experience and thoughts on consumption, exchange and art:
The combination of running an online store and having a creative process led me to explore various contracts of exchange economics and resource acquisition these themes are prevalent in the work as I often deconstruct context and value in various manifestations.
My conclusion is that it is harder to be an artist than to make money. Money is simple and binary buy low sell high. It’s a metrics of time and productivity. The hard part about money is we are not metric and binary in human composition. That’s the skill of robots.
Creation part of being an artist is a conversation with the gods, it’s a show up the party butt as naked thing. Its being all up in your feelings. My practice is skill based but themes are intuitive. Unless it’s used as a material or for logistics such as buying supplies, money isn’t useful in the creation stage. In the form of excess or scarcity money is generally more of a hindrance in the creation process.
Here comes the business part of being an artist. That part is a true shit show. Between buyers, curators, gallerist, commissions, day jobs, side hustles, patrons and institutions it has the potential to be the most complicated financial structure that exists.
I never subscribed to the doctrine of being a starving artist. But that’s just me. It’s not fun to be starving, it’s not fun to be able to have to decide whether or not you’re going to put gas in your car feed yourself, I have no false illusions about that. Artist contributes so much to society that it seems ridiculous to have a grumbling belly while you create vision for folks and challenge people to widen perspective. That means that I don’t find any nobility in being a starving artist. I feel like if you can have a conversation with the gods you can also have a conversation with a financial person. Money ain’t everything but options are good and struggle life is struggly. that being said,I’ve been known to be extremely frugal. I go through these periods of time where I decide that I’m not buying anything new or I’m only supporting handmade or locally made goods. Because too much stuff just feels like too much stuff and I can’t quantify the value of my purchases.
CAREBEAR RUG NOTES
Thots on The care bear skin rug: The way that we love things is interesting. You'll meet an avid recreational hunter who will tell you how they love nature so much as they gaze upon taxidermy head on a wall. They love animals so much that they kill them and put them on the walls. It's a strange brand of love. This ownership destroy and conquer type of 'love'. I always find it fascinating the way that we revere things, sometimes to the point of annihilation. The care bear skin rug represents that fascination it's almost as if we can take our childhood simplicities, fantasies of share bear and brave heart bear and put them all together on a rug and put it in our living rooms and that'll be enough and proof of our dedication to peace and love.
READ A BOOK!
I just finished reading Trevor Noah's book, Casey Gerald's book, and Michelle Obama's book. Well actually the authors read the books to me. Which for these particular three books I feel was the best way to experience them.
They are all autobiographical and they all touch on societal discourse in a very genuine way. I'm grateful for all three of the authors for being so candid and sharing their experiences growing up and their viewpoints. Their perspectives are so important. My favorite out of the three was Casey Gerald book and the reason why is because I feel like he's touching on a truth he's unabatedly speaking about all of the contradictions that exist and how he has navigated them and some of the mental anguish that exists when trying to move through those spaces.
Trevor Noah's book those super entertaining and very funny seem that it was very important that every single issue story in episode end on a high note as if to give some white readers a glimpse of hope and the inclusive ,'I don't hate you but I think you can do better in the way that you do things' kind of vibe. That's cool and all but I'm just kind of not in the mood for creating roadmaps for people that I feel like I need to create road maps of solutions for themselves.
Michelle Obama's book seemed a bit guarded which I totally understand. She's a huge public figure and there's a lot to lose doing a book like this as far as just your sanity and your privacy so I appreciate that she did tell what she could tell and told it in her wonderfully eloquent way. I particularly enjoyed her description of moving into the White House and occupying that space as a family of color and as an underrepresented American family. I also appreciated her warnings of danger of classifying areas as ghettos.
Casey Gerald book I may have to get an actual tangible version of this book. He has so many quotables. I just absolutely love the way that he describes the feeling of his existence and all of these spaces from Yale, to home, to his relationships it's just a beautiful way of writing. I think he might hate this comparison, his writing makes me feel the way that James Baldwin's writing make me feel it's like a contemporary voice for these collection of experiences and emotion of contradictory ideas and expectations. If you can only pick one, read this book.
THE LYING PHOTOGRAPH
A photo was never enough. A photo couldn't tell the whole picture. It was as if a photo was just lie that everyone mistook as intrinsically 'the truth' because it looked so real. Perhaps that's why I love a collage and photo montage I love the idea of forcing the viewer to contend with, what you were showing them is not real it's altered. it's all a prospective. it always was a perspective.
My University had an amazing archival photo collection and one of my favorite things to do was to look at the contact sheets. one photographer in particular was Henri bressant's. he was always running around talking about his decisive moment. but that was a myth or a straight up lie because that decisive moment was only made possible by The moments before the moments after it and that one singling out that perfect frame. Making the decisive moment more like a decisive curation. I love a contact sheet, it speaks way more to the journey of what's happening than any single picture could ever do.
there's something about the dIstorted proportions of college that Force the viewer to contend with the curation of the image maker. It renders the image so impaired that it's impossible to take it as absolute truth.
though a photo should never be taken as absolute truth because there was always something that happened right before or right after to the left and to the right of what was captured in the frame. Often the sun and the mood itself is part of the conspiracy.