From our family to yours!

Having Fun This Holiday Season!

I would like to thank everyone who attended the reception, workshop and sweetgrass basket exhibit this weekend. I can't believe how much fun I had making my basket! Thank you, everyone, for making this event a success. 

Jery B. Talylor   Coil Basket Making Workshop at CMI

Don't miss our next our next workshop...we guarantee you'll learn something new and have lots of fun doing it. Subscribe to this CMI site to automatically receive postings and event updates.  

PRICE CHECK: ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH

t art fairs, the ARTnews team checks in from time to time with dealers at certain booths to hear about any sales they’ve made. These disclosures are collected in a completely non-scientific fashion and based mainly on which booths have a director or owner who is free, at that moment, to discuss numbers, or whatever they want to discuss. They are in vaguely geographical order, though sometimes they come via email (which accounts for some of the formatting quirks). Sometimes the price comes without any other details on the piece. Sometimes the dealer may not want to discuss price at all. These numbers can’t really be verified, but that isn’t to say you shouldn’t believe them.

Van de Weghe
Reak (1985-86), Jean-Michel Basquiat, $5.6 million

Mitchell-Innes & Nash
Works by:

Keltie Ferris — four pieces ranging from $7,500 to $50,000
Gonzalo Fonseca — one piece, $150,000
Karl Haendel — one piece, $21,000
Leigh Ledare — one piece, $15,000
William Pope. L — one piece, $18,000
Jessica Stackholder — two pieces, one for $18,000 another for $10,000
Brent Wadden — one piece, $40,000

Lehmann Maupin
Breaking Waves (2014), Robin Rhode, $60,000 – $90,000
I fell in Love here (2014), Tracey Emin, (two versions of neon, different colors), $60,000 – $75,000

Works by:

Teresita Fernández — $40,000 – $300,000
Hernan Bas — $100,000 – $150,000
Klara Kristalova — $25,000 – $45,000

Paula Cooper
Red, Yellow, Blue Mirrors: 1-3, Suite VII (2014), Sherrie Levine, $400,000
Actions: Flopppp Sllurp Spaloosh Whoomph (No 5) (2013), Christian Marcclay, $400,000 (screenprint and acrylic on canvas)
Slice/Wave Fulgurite II.II (2014), Tauba Auerbach, $75,000 (sand sculpture)
Prism Scan I (2012), Tauba Auerbach, $30,000 (set of 13 c-prints)
Screen to Screen 40 x 54_01 (2014), Kelley Walker, $150,000
Pizza Box Tower (2014), Matias Faldbakken, $40,000

Regen Projects
Works by:

Abraham Cruzvillegas — one piece, $45,000
Gary Simmons — two pieces, $60,000 each
Elliot Hundley — one piece, $100,00
Liz Larner — one piece, $80,000

White Cube
Works by:

Damien Hirst — several new works for £800,000 each, museum interst in a case of pills priced at £4 million
Tracey Emin — a number of works ranging from £100,000 to £650,000
Theaster Gates — a new work, $200,000

Lisson Gallery
Works by:

Anish Kapoor — multiple works, £600,000 to £800,000
Pedro Reyes — multiple works, $30,000 to $50,000
Tony Oursler — single work for $70,000 to $90,000

Mnuchin Gallery
Page (1998), Robert Ryman, $1.5 million
Untitled (1969), David Hammons, “in the range of $300,000″

DAVID TEIGER, COLLECTOR AND ARTS PATRON, DIES AT 85

BY Zoë Lescaze POSTED 12/03/14

Alanna Heiss and David Teiger at a 2007 Deitch Projects opening.

KRISTY LEIBOWITZ

David Teiger, a New Jersey management consultant who amassed a broad collection of modern, folk, and contemporary artwork, died on Sunday of natural causes following an illness at the age of 85. His personal assistant Cabrina Potence confirmed the news by phone, noting that working with Teiger was “an education every day.”

“I learned something from him every day about life, art, story telling, laughing,” she said. “All the things he was known for.”

Teiger served on the Committee on Drawings at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and became an honorary trustee there in 2004. He supported exhibitions like “The Talent Show” at MoMA PS1, and established the Teiger Mentor in the Arts Program at Cornell University. He was a “benefactor” at the New Museum and on the board of overseers at the Hammer in Los Angeles. In addition to shows at PS1, he also supported at least one exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem. He makes a memorable appearance in Sarah Thornton’s 2007 book Seven Days in the Art World. “I’m just an ordinary rich person,” he told Thornton at the time. “These young billionaires with their private jets—they’re in a different league. My ‘new money’ is now ‘old money,’ which nowadays means ‘less money.'”

She was a colleague, friend and mentor. Well done Annie…You will be missed….R.I.P

  

Jery Taylor.....Hear the rest of her story at her workshop!

A Fun Gift Making Activity for the Holidays!

the emperor's new ART.....

Million Dollar Shady

Claim:   Artist Lana Newstrom is creating invisible art and selling it for millions of dollars.

FALSE

Example:   [Collected via e-mail, September 2014] 

An artist, Lana Newstrom, is making headlines and actually selling "work" for $35,000 and over with invisible art. She supposedly could not sell her art, so she opened a New York "gallery" which consists of an empty room with bare walls, and tells everyone that the walls contain her "invisible art." Supposedly, people (idiots) go there and pay (but for what?), and she's already a millionaire. This sounds impossible to me.

Origins:   On 23 September 2014, Canadian broadcasting network CBC's "This is That" told a fantastical tale of New York artist Lana Newstrom and her minimalist art. Newstrom's work is so minimalist, in fact, that it's invisible.

The coverage of Newstrom's invisible art was mostly audio-based, accompanied by a short text description on the CBC web site:

27-year-old artist Lana Newstrom says she is the first artist in the world to create invisible "art." In this documentary we traveled to her empty studio to learn more about Lana and her unusual artistic process.

"Just because you can't see anything, doesn't mean I didn't put hours of work into creating a particular piece" mdash; Lana Newstrom, Artist

"Art is about imagination and that is what my work demands of the people interacting with it. You have to imagine a painting or sculpture is in front of you," says Newstrom.

Paul Rooney, Lana's agent, believes she might be the greatest artist alive working today: "When she describes what you can't see, you begin to realize why one of her invisible works can fetch upwards of a million dollars." said Rooney.

The tale took off on the social web, racking up tens of thousands of shares after it was published and broadcast, with most commentators missing the key point that the CBC's "This Is That" program is hosted by two comedians, Pat Kelly and Peter Oldring, who fabricate stories satirizing current affairs as a spoof of public radio:

This Is That is a current affairs program that doesn't just talk about the issues, it fabricates them. Nothing is off limits — politics, business, culture, justice, science, religion — if it is relevant to Canadians, we'll find out the "This" and the "That" of the story.

Each week, hosts Pat Kelly and Peter Oldring introduce you to the voices and stories that give this country character in this 100% improvised, satirical send-up of public radio.

This bit of satire was lost on many readers and listeners, which Kelly explained (in an article translated from French) may have been partly due to the fluid definition of what constitutes art:

In the arts, there is much room for interpretation and we thought it would be interesting to push the idea to the extreme ... the invisible art.

Kelly believes that the number of people who read the post alone without listening to the accompanying audio likely helped push the joke a bit further than was intended:

People read on the Internet so quickly that many did not taken the time to check if it was true or not. We encourage people to listen to the audio, because that is where lies the joke. After listening, people will have a hard time believing it's true.

Veterans Day

"Where The Buffalo Roam" 17 x 23 by Arthur Dawson

A Page From Our American Story

In 1866, an Act of Congress created six all-black peacetime regiments, later consolidated into four –– the 9th and 10th Cavalry, and the 24th and 25th Infantry –– who became known as "The Buffalo Soldiers." There are differing theories regarding the origin of this nickname. One is that the Plains Indians who fought the Buffalo Soldiers thought that their dark, curly hair resembled the fur of the buffalo. Another is that their bravery and ferocity in battle reminded the Indians of the way buffalo fought. Whatever the reason, the soldiers considered the name high praise, as buffalo were deeply respected by the Native peoples of the Great Plains. And eventually, the image of a buffalo became part of the 10th Cavalry's regimental crest.

Initially, the Buffalo Soldier regiments were commanded by whites, and African-American troops often faced extreme racial prejudice from the Army establishment. Many officers, including George Armstrong Custer, refused to command black regiments, even though it cost them promotions in rank. In addition, African Americans could only serve west of the Mississippi River, because many whites didn't want to see armed black soldiers in or near their communities. And in areas where Buffalo Soldiers were stationed, they sometimes suffered deadly violence at the hands of civilians.

The Buffalo Soldiers' main duty was to support the nation's westward expansion by protecting settlers, building roads and other infrastructure, and guarding the U.S. mail. They served at a variety of posts in the Southwest and Great Plains, taking part in most of the military campaigns during the decades-long Indian Wars –– during which they compiled a distinguished record, with 19 Buffalo Soldiers awarded the Medal of Honor. This exceptional performance helped to overcome resistance to the idea of black Army officers, paving the way for the first African-American graduate from West Point Military Academy, Henry O. Flipper.

Henry Ossian Flipper was born into slavery in Georgia on March 21, 1856. During Reconstruction, he attended Atlanta University, and was then appointed to West Point by U.S. Representative James C. Freeman. Four other African-American cadets were already attending the academy, but faced enormous difficulties due to hostility from the other cadets. Flipper overcame these obstacles, and in 1877 he became the first of the group to graduate. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant, and assigned to the 10th Cavalry Regiment, becoming the first black officer to command soldiers in the regular U.S. Army. But while Flipper served with distinction, he faced intense resentment from some white officers and was targeted by a smear campaign that culminated in a court martial and his dismissal from the Army in 1882. In 1999, President Bill Clinton posthumously pardoned Flipper.

Much attention is given to the irony of African-American soldiers fighting native people on behalf of a government that accepted neither group as equals. But at the time, the availability of information was limited about the extent of the U.S. government's often-genocidal polices toward Native Americans. In addition, African-American soldiers had recently found themselves facing Native Americans during the Civil War, when some tribes fought for the Confederacy.

Buffalo Soldiers played significant roles in many other military actions. They took part in defusing the little-known 1892 Johnson County War in Wyoming, which pitted small farmers against wealthy ranchers and a band of hired gunmen. They also fought in the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars, and played a key role in maintaining border security during the high-intensity military conflict along the U.S.-Mexico border during the Mexican Revolution. In 1918, the 10th Cavalry fought at the Battle of Ambos Nogales, where they assisted in forcing the surrender of the Mexican federal and militia forces.

Discrimination played a role in diminishing the Buffalo Soldiers' involvement in upcoming major U.S. conflicts. During World War I, the racist policies of President Woodrow Wilson (who had already segregated federal offices) led to black regiments being excluded from the American Expeditionary Force and placed under French command for the duration of the war –– the first time ever that American troops had been put under the command of a foreign power. Then, prior to World War II, the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments were essentially disbanded, and most of their troops moved into service roles. However, the 92nd Infantry Division –– known as the "Buffalo Division" –– saw combat during the invasion of Italy, while another division that included the original Buffalo Soldier 25th Infantry Regiment fought in the Pacific theater. The last segregated U.S. Army regiments were disbanded in 1951 during the Korean War, and their soldiers were integrated into other units.

While renowned for their fighting abilities, the Buffalo Soldiers were also recognized for their exceptional horsemanship. Black non-commissioned officers of the 9th Cavalry began training West Point Cadets in riding skills and tactics from 1907 until 1947. The Buffalo Soldiers served as some of the first national park rangers when the U.S. Army served as the official administrator of Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks between 1891 and 1913. They protected the parks from illegal grazing, poachers, timber thieves and wildfires. They also oversaw the construction of park infrastructure, including the first trail to the top of Mount Whitney –– the highest mountain in the contiguous U.S. –– and the first wagon road into Sequoia National Park's renowned Giant Forest. While most of their officers were white, Charles Young, the third African-American graduate of West Point, served as Acting Military Superintendent of Sequoia and General Grant National Parks –– the first African-American national park superintendent. During his tenure, he named a Giant Sequoia for Booker T. Washington, and another Giant Sequoia was named in Young's honor in 2004.

On September 6, 2005, Mark Matthews, the oldest living Buffalo Soldier, died at the age of 111. Today there are monuments honoring the Buffalo Soldiers in Kansas at Fort Leavenworth and Junction City. They have also been immortalized in popular culture through songs like reggae giant Bob Marley's "Buffalo Soldier," television productions like 1997's Buffalo Soldiers starring Danny Glover, and in films like Spike Lee's Miracle at St. Anna, which chronicles the Buffalo Soldiers who served in the invasion of Italy in World War II.

The remarkable courage demonstrated by these proud African-American soldiers in the face of fierce combat, extreme discrimination in the Army, deadly violence from civilians and repressive Jim Crow laws continues to inspire us today.

All the best, Lonnie Bunch Director

YAP classes are starting soon!

Analysis

Jori Finkel: Confronting art world sexism

Micol Hebron started a poster campaign to address gender inequality in the art world. This one by Cara Despain represents the total percentage of female artists from galleries tallied in LA and NY

These numbers, as you might have guessed, reflect the percentages of male versus female artists represented by each gallery. They’re also the impetus for a new internet-driven, open-source feminist art project, Gallery Tally, organised by the Los Angeles artist and educator Micol Hebron.

Last autumn Hebron put out a call online to other artists, inviting them to calculate a gallery’s gender ratio and represent it in a graphic form. Hundreds of artists responded. In April she showed the resulting posters at the small Los Angeles project space ForYourArt.

This summer she is taking the model on the road, asking volunteers to create gender-imbalance posters for galleries in Berlin, London, Tel Aviv and Tokyo as well as other US cities including Miami, Seattle and San Francisco. She anticipates Berlin will be the first city abroad completed, thanks to nearly a dozen volunteers currently in place.

Already, the project has the potential to be the most powerful—and also replicable—feminist art campaign since the Guerrilla Girls first roared onto the scene.

The Los Angeles chapter alone felt explosive. Based on a decade covering art here, I would have guessed that the average male/female ratio in commercial galleries in the city was around 60/40. I was wrong. Try 70/30.

This is surprising considering that Los Angeles generally does not have the high-rent, blue-chip bias of leading Manhattan and London galleries. It’s especially galling in light of another ratio Hebrol is documenting: women easily outnumber men as students enrolled in MFA courses in southern California.

Then there was the graphic punch of the posters. It is one thing to use statistics to raise consciousness about pernicious, or persisting, social or economic disparities: whether the gender gap in wages or the relative lack of minorities in science and engineering fields. It is another to make them colourful and memorable in graphic form, as the best of these posters do.

Some were deliberately cheeky: bananas abound. Others, more subtle and forceful, recalling Sheila de Bretteville’s incisive work as a graphic designer at the Woman’s Building in the 1970s. A poster documenting Cherry and Martin’s disappointing 4:1 male-female ratio shows a large pale-blue sky over a small pink ground. The name Martin (for co-owner Philip Martin) is printed large and rightside up; Cherry (for co-owner Mary Leigh Cherry), miniscule and upside down.

The modified eye chart for Regen Projects shows a string of letters repeating the word “woman” on the bottom row, in a font so tiny that it is nearly invisible, illustrating the fact that women artists make up only 27% of Regen’s roster.

But soon after seeing the Los Angeles posters this spring, I began to wonder if the intensity of my response to the project really mattered. To what extent is the project designed to reach commercial galleries, or is it just preaching to the feminist choir? And does documenting a problem that is so endemic take the pressure off individual galleries to change their sexist ways?

One of the greatest strengths of the Guerilla Girls’ most effective actions is that they were targeted. When they took on the lack of women in the 1985-86 Carnegie International contemporary art show, they plastered posters in the women’s bathrooms at the museum. In 2008, they attacked collector Eli Broad with a letter to him detailing that 97% of the artists shown at his space at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art campus were white, and 87% male.

And in 2001, when members of the group revisited the lack of diversity in New York galleries such as Leo Castelli, Knoedler and Marian Goodman, they did so with a list titled: “These are the most bigoted galleries in New York.” A footnote read: “After years of our harping on the issue, many important galleries still didn't get it. We had to use the most repugnant word we could think of to condemn them.”

If the gorilla mask was an important (if humorous) form of branding, shaming the art world’s worst offenders was another dramatic attention-getting strategy. Their in-your-face protests and interventions were designed to more or less force a reaction, which often did occur.

Hebron’s project, typical of post-Guerrilla Girls feminist art, is less confrontational and more informational. In this way it resembles recent installations by New York artist Jennifer Dalton, such as “What Does an Artist Look Like?” (a rogue’s gallery of artist portraits published in The New Yorker) and “Cool Guys Like You” (mapping the gender imbalance in talkshow guests of Jon Stewart, Rachel Maddow and more). She isn’t staging protests or interventions as much as creating data-rich art objects that live within gallery walls.

Hebron says her long-term objective is “to effect a shift so that the art we see in galleries is more proportionate to the population at large—I think we all lose out if 70% of art is coming from a similar perspective.” Short-term, she noted: “My goal was to put out irrefutable data so that the art world had to respond, one way or another.”

But it’s not clear that this project will force a response on the part of the galleries themselves, who have not made any public statements on the matter. Galleries surveyed for the project were invited to the opening but have not been confronted with the results of her research since then. You will not find these posters plastered near their booths at Art Basel or tacked outside their doors in Chelsea. The polemics are safely contained in a nonprofit space that they can easily avoid.

A final strike: if implicated dealers did go to see the Gallery Tally exhibition, most could leave feeling they’re on the sunny side of diversity because they aren’t off the charts at 90/10 or 80/20 like others.

In this way, one of the great strengths of the project—that it creates a city-wide (or one day, international) portrait of sexism—just might be its Achilles’ heel: its target is too large. By demonstrating the problem’s ubiquity, the project could unwittingly be letting many of its subjects off the hook.

This is the biggest flaw that I see in an otherwise compelling project that addresses sexism where it can actually be changed. Auction houses can’t entirely control the prices achieved by their lots. A museum’s exhibition programme is very rarely under the thumb of just one person. But a gallery’s shows often are. To truly change the mind of a gallery owner is to alter an entire exhibition programme.

Hebron says her next step, along with coordinating the campaigns in new cities, involves publishing the completed posters in book form. She has also expressed interest in tracking numbers for artists of colour on gallery rosters.

I hope she will also think about ways of capturing the attention of gallery owners themselves. I’m not suggesting gorilla masks but maybe some way of designing exhibitions to single out the worst offenders, or positioning the posters in a context that hits closer to home. Or maybe the internet, so important to the project’s origins, will play a larger role in disseminating the project in the future.

And if Hebron’s project itself doesn’t force a response from galleries, the press that follows her from city to city, or country to country, should.

Jori Finkel is the Los Angeles correspondent for The Art Newspaper and a contributor to the New York Times

Raffle Winners!!!!!!

Contemporary artists recreate “dazzle” ships in London and Liverpool

Liverpool Biennial co-commissions vibrant works marking First World War centenary

By Gareth Harris and Anny Shaw. Web only
Published online: 07 July 2014

Tobias Rehberger's "dazzle" design for HMS President in London

The German sculptor Tobias Rehberger is due to unveil his “dazzled” warship in London on 14 July as part of the commemorations marking 100 years since the start of the First World War. Rehberger's black-and-white geometric design will be applied to the hull of HMS President in homage to the "dazzle" camouflage invented by the artist Norman Wilkinson and used by the Royal Navy to confuse the captains of German U-boats. The transformed ship, docked at the Victoria Embankment, will be on view until late 2015.

The London commission follows one in Liverpool by the Venezuelan optical artist Carlos Cruz-Diez, who has decorated the pilot ship, the Edmund Gardner, in brightly coloured stripes. Both ships are part of the 14-18 Now programme and were co-commissioned by the Liverpool Biennial, which opened last weekend ("A Needle Walks into a Haystack", until 26 October). The Edmund Gardner, which is owned and conserved by the Merseyside Maritime Museum, will remain daubed in “dazzled” colours until the end of next year when it will return to its original livery. 

Cruz-Diez's vivid “dazzle” ship, Induction Chromatique à Double Fréquence pour l'Edmund Gardner Ship, is located in Canning Graving Dock on the Liverpool Waterfront near Tate Liverpool, another commissioning partner in the project. 

The Wolfson Gallery at Tate Liverpool has, meanwhile, undergone a striking transformation during the biennial courtesy of the French architect Claude Parent, who has installed slanted floors and ramps in the space. Works drawn from the Tate’s collection by artists such as Francis Picabia and Mark Leckey are dotted around the subversive installation, called La Colline de l'Art.

"The artists in this [biennial] exhibition disrupt many of the conventions and assumptions that usually prescribe the way we live our lives," the organisers say. A group show at the Old Blind School, an ornate 18th-century building in the centre of the city, includes recent and new works by 17 artists including Bonnie Camplin of the UK, Switzerland's Marc Bauer, the late US artist Christina Ramberg and the Jerusalem-born Uri Aran. The last is showing a series of new mixed-media works that incorporate everyday detritus (Aran's pieces are "presented with the support of the Embassy of Israel", according to the wall captions). 

The UK artist Chris Evans, meanwhile, has entered into an unusual partnership, teaming up with the Liverpool-based fine jewellery company Boodles. Evans asked the local designers to create a piece of jewellery "based on their reading and interpretation of the exhibition's core ideas as expressed in the press release". The quirky result, on show at the Old Blind School, is a platinum and yellow gold ring encrusted with diamonds and sapphires. 

However, the most radical exhibition in the biennial looks to the past, with more than 40 works on show by the late US artist James McNeill Whistler at the Bluecoat. “In the same way that the other artists in the exhibition are working closely with their immediate environment—drawing from, subverting and transforming those things that make up our everyday lives—Whistler also looked to affect contemporary taste, and carve out a role for the artist in society,” says Sally Tallant, the biennial’s artistic director. 

Principal funders of the biennial include Arts Council England, which last week proposed a 15% rise in funding for the event (£2,365,065 from 2015 to 2018); the media company Bloomberg and Kadist, a Paris-based art foundation, are among the other sponsors and supporters.

 

Carlos Cruz-Diez decorated the Edmund Gardner in Liverpool as part of the biennial

At MOCA North Miami, a Battle Not Over Race -- But Control.

MOCA is currently in the middle of a tug of war between the museum board and the city. At the center of the controversy are two directors, Babacar M'Bow and Alex Gartenfeld appointed to do the same job. The current situation at MOCA, is of profound interest because it will impact the Contemporary Art World in one way or the other -- why?  Because a man of color is standing his ground for control of the Directorship of the Museum of Contemporary Art.  This stance is forcing MOCA's Board of Trustees to answer for their actions.  What was once reserved for the Board's discretion will now have to be publicly debated. 

From the different articles we've read and the people we've talked with, this is what we can make out. The MOCA Board of Trustees claims that  . . .

1. The Board wants to move from the current location in North Miami and merge with the Bass Museum, which is located on South Beach in Miami bringing the museum's 600 piece permanent collection with them because they claim sole jurisdiction over the collection. 
2. They want to use the vacated space in North Miami as an outpost to do 'minority' programming of which they would have control over what programming is done there.
3. The Board also dismissed the city of North Miami's appointment of Babacar M'Bow as Director for failure to participate in a standard background check that was requested by the board.  They only recognize the Directorship of Alex Gartenfeld, the Chief Curator who has been acting as an interim Director in place of Bonnie Clearwater who left to take the helm at the Ft. Lauderdale Museum of Art.  
4. The MOCA BOARD of TRUSTEES assert they have the full right and authority to determine what is in the best interests of the Museum and not the City of North Miami.

To see the MOCA LAWSUIT IN FULL

BEFORE WE COULD PUBLISH THIS ARTICLE THERE WAS A breaking story from the Miami New Times

MOCA Allegedly Reaches Agreement With North Miami: M'Bow Stays, Trustees to Leave With Artworks.

According to the Miami New Times article -- the heated legal dispute between the Board of Trustees of North Miami"s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) and the City of North Miami over who controls the museum's collection and whether it will be relocated from its current home to Miami Beach's Bass Museum may have finally come to an end.

BABACAR M'BOW has been confirmed as the new Director of the MOCA

Speaking on condition of confidentiality, the source described the points allegedly agreed upon by MOCA board members and city officials. Among them is the confirmation of Babacar M'Bow as the museum director and the departure of 150 top works of art from MOCA's holdings along with its outgoing Board of Trustees.

THE DECISION WAS SWIFT AND ALL POINTS OF THE SETTLEMENT WERE IN THE FAVOR OF THE CITY OF NORTH MIAMI. 

But this is not reflected in the headline of the Miami New Times article: MOCA Allegedly Reaches Agreement With North Miami: M'Bow Stays, Trustees to Leave With Artworks.

According to the source these are the settlement points in the agreement,

1. The artwork leaving the North Miami institution will be appraised by Sotheby's, and after a monetary value has been placed on the collection, both parties will pay half of that value to MOCA.
2. MOCA will officially remain the name of the North Miami contemporary art museum.
3. A new board will be constituted to carry on the duty of the departing trustees.
4. Alex Gartenfeld, curator and interim director, will leave MOCA; Babacar M'Bow will fulfill the duties of Museum Director.

THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES FAILED TO DEFEND ANY OF THEIR ASSERTED CLAIMS.   It has been interesting witnessing how the mainstream news sources reported this conflict. In the light of fairness, they, for the most part, reported the story from a cautious, neutral position. But built into that cautious, neutral position, is the underlining assumption that the Board of Trustee's case was the more meritorious of the two.  The City of North Miami and Mr. Babacar M' Bow were assumed to be disenfranchised and somewhat radical. 

BLACK ART IN AMERICA attended the symposium, sponsored by the Florida Africana Studies Consortium, “What Happens When Politics of Class and Culture Collide,” at the embattled Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). We were able to talk with BABACAR M' BOW before the decision was handed down.  The interview is very telling of the timber of the man, Mr. M'BOW.

MEET BABCAR M'BOW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF MOCA

The Weekly Challenger

Artistry of cooking: The world of Arthur Dawson

Posted on June 12, 2014 by TWC in Arts & Entertainment, Featured with 0 Comments

BY JOYCE NANETTE JOHNSON, Staff Writer

ST. PETERSBURG — Arthur Dawson is an artist that takes the seemingly mundane moments of life and brings a new vision into them. His diversity of materials can range from bold acrylic color to soothing watercolors, and then his hand can shape clay, wood and metals into glorious sculptures.

Arthur Dawson

“I work in all mediums, it just depends on the subject matter,” he explained. “Life inspires me. I’m always looking out for anything I find cute, funny or serious.”

Dawson feels that each person personally interprets art. He was insistent that no one should tell you how to view art and that art “speaks a different language to each person. My approach to art is something that can’t be termed,” he said. “I use unorthodox methods to achieve my goals.”

Dawson compares most of his artwork to emotions. He described his piece “Royal Motion” as a circle of life or direction.  In “Praise and Peas” it is the feeling of joy and in the drawing “Blue Line,” Dawson explores the emotions of joy and pride within the genealogy and history of the black race.

He began drawing at the age of six when he and his two older brothers sketched and wrote their own comic books. Young Arthur’s comic was called “Super Arthur.”  Through the years his work has been exhibited nationally including Daytona Center for the Arts and the Jenkins House in West Palm Beach.

In 2006 he founded Youth Arts Program (Y.A.P.) in Orlando.  The word “yap” is slang for talk and that’s what the program is designed to do: “get kids talking or yapping about arts.”  It is a 40-week program for grades 6-12 that gives children in underserved areas an opportunity to be exposed to the creativity of art. The curriculum includes courses in painting, sculpting, graphic and textile design and cartooning.

His latest project, “Artist Creations Cookbook,” features culinary recipes and artwork from nationally and internationally known master artists. His interest in cooking was ignited at an early age. After his father and mother divorced, he and his brothers were basically raised by their father and were instructed in cooking, washing, and cleaning. “He wanted to make sure we could take care of ourselves,” Dawson explained. Soon Arthur saw the connection between artwork and the preparation of family meals. “I saw creation in the kitchen.”

The book came about when Dawson painted a piece he called “Just Right” in 2000. It shows a chef savoring his latest, tempting creation, confirming the deliciousness that seems promised.

Then in 2013 he began to produce the book that partnered both his love of cooking and his artwork.  Dawson discussed the development of the book with his friend and fellow artist Larry “Poncho” Brown who was excited by the concept.  He immediately stated that he wanted to be part of the book and to have his own artwork and personal recipe included.

Brown was also instrumental in reaching out to other artists about the book.  The culmination was the collaboration of 27 artists’ paintings and recipes from around the world including Ghana, Nigeria, Segal, Haiti, and Jamaica. Some of the renowned artists include Jonathan Green, Paul Goodnight, Gilbert Young, and Annie Lee among others.

“My desire is for people to understand their position in humanity,” Dawson stated. “Art binds us together through life and passion. I see the world through artistic value.”

Come out Sat., June 14 from 5-11 p.m. to meet Arthur Dawson, sample some great food and listen to live music all at Gallerie 909, 909 22nd St. S., St. Petersburg.

Senegal Exhibition...Closed!

Show on African homosexuality shut down after fundamentalist attack

Senegal exhibition, part of the Dak’Art Biennale, closed due to pressure from extremist Islamic groups

By Anny Shaw. Web only
Published online: 05 June 2014

The Nigerian photographer Andrew Esiebo’s ongoing series “Who We Are” portrays gay men from Lagos

The Senegalese government has shut down one of the first exhibitions in Africa to focus on homosexuality on the continent. The move comes several weeks after an attack on the Dakar gallery by Muslim fundamentalists, says the French-Algerian artist Kader Attia. “Precarious Imaging: Visibility and Media Surrounding African Queerness” opened at Raw Material Company on 11 May, but a day later, the non-profit art centre was vandalised and the building damaged, according to Attia, whose video about the lives of transsexuals in Algiers and Mumbai was included in the show. No one was hurt in the attack.

See also:

• Gay art show to go on in Senegal

Following pressure from extremist Islamic organisations, the exhibition, which was part of the informal programme for Dak’Art 2014, the 11th Biennale of Contemporary African Art (9 May-8 June), was cancelled on 31 May. According to the news service Times24.info, the Senegalese government also ordered the suspension of all exhibitions in the biennial that refer to homosexuality. Raw Material Space remains closed, according to a spokeswoman for the biennial, who could not confirm if any further exhibitions had been shut down. 

“Senegal is well-known for its peaceful and moderated Islam. Such an aggressive attack is absolutely unexpected, as is the government’s decision to shut down all the exhibitions in the biennial that deal with homosexuality,” Attia says. “It is highly concerning that a country that has always been protected from fundamentalism is now opening the door through an official path.”

The aim of the “Precarious Imaging” exhibition, which was co-organsied by Koyo Kouoh, the artistic director at Raw Material Company, and the independent curator Ato Malinda, was to shed light on a persecuted African minority. Homosexuality is illegal in Senegal, as it is in 37 other African countries, according to Amnesty International. Malinda told The Art Newspaper in April that a leading academic had advised the gallery against holding the exhibition. “The show will cause controversy, but we will not censor ourselves,” Malinda said at the time.

Alongside Attia’s video, the exhibition featured photographs of gay men from Lagos by the Nigerian artist Andrew Esiebo; a photographic series of black lesbian and transgender women by the South African activist and photographer Zanele Muholi; a video of Egyptian women smoking by the Egyptian-American artist Amanda Kerdahi M.; and works from Jim Chuchu’s “Pagan” series. Raw Material Company could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.