Race and the Visual Arts: LAHS-P236

Posted in Arts, Communications/Media Studies, Course Offerings, Media Archive, United States on 2013-08-02 02:31Z by Steven

Race and the Visual Arts: LAHS-P236

Berklee College of Music
Boston, Massachusetts
Fall 2013

In this course, students explore the representation of race in visual culture and the ways in which culture marks subjects, objects, and bodies with racial identity. Wherever we look we are confronted by images that are explicitly or implicitly racialized—in artistic production, marketing and advertising, film and television, magazines and newspapers, and science and technology. In American society our history confronts us with the painful reminders of the oppression and marginalization of bodies whose color deviates from whiteness. Students explore the ways that visual artists have problematized the representation of racial identity. Students also explore how one “talks back” to images about racialized bodies. How do marketing and advertising exploit and/or privilege certain types of racialized bodies in the visual field? How have representations of racial identity evolved over the course of the history of film and television? When is racial identity foregrounded? When it is veiled and why? How do medicine and technology reconfigure how we see racialized bodies? How do other categories of difference such as gender, sexuality, and class complicate the representation of racialized bodies? In this course, students read texts from history, literature, sociology, Africana studies, visual studies, art history, and cultural studies; they view images of painting, photography, sculpture, performance art, film, television, advertising, and medical research. If you want to think critically about racialized images-from Uncle Tom to Aunt Jemima and beyond-then this is the class for you!

For more information, click here.

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War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art [Wing Luke Museum Opening]

Posted in Arts, Asian Diaspora, Media Archive, United States on 2013-08-01 00:51Z by Steven

War Baby / Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art

curated by:

Laura Kina, Associate Professor Art, Media and Design and Director Asian American Studies
DePaul University

Wei Ming Dariotis, Associate Professor Asian American Studies
San Francisco State University

Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience
2013-08-09 through 2014-01-19
719 S. King Street Seattle, WA 98104
206-623-5124

Opening Reception: Thursday, August 8, 2013 @ 6-8pm

Join us for the opening reception of War Baby/Love Child on Thursday, August 8. Curators Laura Kina and Wei Ming Dariotis will be in attendance, as will exhibiting artists Louie Gong, Richard Lou, Stuart Gaffney, Jenifer Wofford, and Lori Kay.

You are invited to the 6-7pm preview and reception program. Light refreshments will be served. Please send in an RSVP to Maria Martinez or call 206.623.5124, ext 107.

7-8pm Open to the public (no RSVP needed). Free admission.

This exhibition brings together works by 19 artists, highlighting different approaches to the identities and experiences of mixed Asian Americans, mixed Pacific Islander Americans and Asian transracial adoptees. While their biographies are varied and often diverge from the dominant stereotypes of mixed Asian identities, their lives are shaped by the specific histories of Asian Pacific-U.S. collisions: narratives of war, economic and political migration and colonization. As an ethnically ambiguous Asian American generation comes of age in a world fixated on post-racial politics and moving beyond issues of identity, War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art examines how artists engage various facets of hybridity in their artwork.

Artists: Mequitta Ahuja, Albert Chong, Serene Ford, Kip Fulbeck, Stuart Gaffney, Louie Gong, Jane Jin Kaisen, Lori Kay, Li-lan, Richard Lou, Samia Mirza, Chris Naka, Laurel Nakadate, Gina Osterloh, Adrienne Pao, Cristina Lei Rodriguez, Amanda Ross-Ho, Jenifer Wofford, Debra Yepa-Pappan.

Read more about the exhibition here.

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Akala: Dynamite by any other name…

Posted in Articles, Arts, Media Archive, United Kingdom on 2013-07-30 21:21Z by Steven

Akala: Dynamite by any other name…

The Guardian
The Observer
2013-06-01

Kate Mossman

Rapper, adapter of Shakespeare and brother of Ms Dynamite, Akala is on a mission to correct a few misconceptions

A few weeks ago in these pages, Birmingham rapper Lady Leshurr asked why there had been no high-profile female rappers in the UK since Ms Dynamite. Akala seems a good person to consult – one, because he’s her brother, and two, because you can ask Akala just about anything and you’ll get a pretty comprehensive answer. In the course of 68 minutes in a London community centre under the Westway, he talks about 16th-century explorers, Biggie Smalls, the universities of 13th-century Timbuktu, tai chi, the Black Wall Street of Oklahoma, the African city portraits of Olfert Dapper, Eminem, peanuts, Napoleon’s generals, traffic lights and golf. But back to Ms Dynamite.

“I remember the Daily Mail wrote an article about my sister at the time,” he says, “and essentially their argument was, ‘Well, she’s not really black, is she – she’s quite clever and she’s got a white mum!’ It was so funny the way they tried to co-opt us. Remember that big story about Bob Marley and his ‘white dad’ last year? He was unequivocally black power, but he’s rewritten as this fun-loving Rasta. Mark Duggan [the Tottenham man shot by police in August 2011] was also mixed race, but no one’s ever going to co-opt Mark Duggan!”…

Read the entire article here.

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Interracial Families in 18th-Century Mexico

Posted in Articles, Arts, Caribbean/Latin America, History, Media Archive, Mexico on 2013-07-25 21:03Z by Steven

Interracial Families in 18th-Century Mexico

The Root
2013-07-23


Unknown artist working in New Spain (Mexico), De español y negra mulata, oil on canvas, 36 by 48 cm (Museo de America, Madrid)

Image of the Week: A painting captures the multiethnic population in New Spain, now Mexico.

One of the most typical, revealing products of colonial Spanish culture was the casta painting. This Iberian term means “lineage,” or “race,” and in art refers to the comprehensive representation of mixed-race couples and their offspring. Produced in a series usually consisting of 16 family groups, casta paintings categorize the uniquely complex degree of racial variation that arose within the multiethnic population of the viceroyalty of New Spain, now Mexico. These works were produced almost exclusively in the major artistic and governmental centers of Mexico City and Puebla during the 18th century. About 100 sets of casta paintings survive today from what must once have been a considerably larger number.

Casta sets were commissioned primarily by members of the ruling elite of New Spain. Their audience consisted of a fairly limited but discerning group of officials, clergy and scholars on both sides of the Atlantic. In some cases the sets were directly presented to the king in Madrid as a visual record of the diversity of his overseas realm. The miscegenation recorded in these series is also reflected in the origins of the artists themselves. With only one known exception, all identified casta painters were born in Mexico, not Spain, and many were themselves of mixed race.

In all casta series, the couples consist of men and women from the three main ethnicities living in New Spain: white, Indian and black. Those represented are types, not specific individuals. All known series begin with the union between a white man, described as a Spaniard (español), and an Indian, producing a mestizo. The sequence then continues with a new category produced by the pairing of a mestizo with another Spaniard, producing a castizo. In the next case a white man is the father as well, and so the complexion becomes lighter, and therefore of greater advantage in the racially ordered hierarchy of colonial life. The child is, in fact, described as español, the same as his or her father…

Read the entire article here.

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Exploring African-American Fatherhood

Posted in Articles, Arts, Asian Diaspora, Family/Parenting, Media Archive, United States on 2013-07-24 18:04Z by Steven

Exploring African-American Fatherhood

The New York Times
Lens: Photography, Video and Visual Journalism
2012-06-15

David Gonzalez, Co-editor of Lens

What compels you to shoot? That was the question David Alan Harvey asked his students during a workshop last year in Brooklyn. We all have our reasons — if not our obsessions — flashes of realization that come through the viewfinder and into our hearts. For Zun Lee, one of the students, the answer was uneasily evident.

As a street photographer, he had always been attracted to fleeting scenes of fathers and children. He was drawn to those moments, even if he wasn’t quite sure why.

Well, maybe he was.

In 2004, I discovered my biological dad was African-American,” said Mr. Lee, who had been raised in a Korean family in Germany. “It had basically been a one-night stand. He ran away when he learned she was pregnant. She doesn’t even remember his name anymore.”

That revelation would inform his latest work — “Father Figure,” an exploration into the lives of black fathers.  Working over the last year in New York, Chicago and Toronto, where he now lives and works as a health consultant, he has delved into the lives of men who have made the choice to stay near their children as best they can…

…“Learning about my biological father wasn’t just a traumatic experience,” Mr. Lee said. “Learning the news was in a weird sense a homecoming.”…

Read the entire article here.

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‘Belle’ breaks through the aristocratic color barrier

Posted in Articles, Arts, History, Media Archive, United Kingdom, Women on 2013-07-22 05:23Z by Steven

‘Belle’ breaks through the aristocratic color barrier

USA Today
2013-07-21

Bryan Alexander

British actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw used to envy her classmates from the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London as they moved on to perform in lavish English period dramas. But as an actress of color, she found it difficult to land such historic roles.

“I was somewhat frustrated, I have always loved period dramas and my friends were in these gorgeous-looking Jane Austen adaptations,” says Mbatha-Raw, 30. “I would be like, ‘I have all of this training, when will I get a chance to explore that side?’ ”

Mbatha-Raw, who has held roles in several TV series and was a supporting player in the 2011 Tom Hanks vehicle Larry Crowne, finally has found her opportunity in Belle (opening May 2, 2014). It’s the exceedingly rare story of a mixed-race woman who transcended the lily-white aristocracy of 18th-century England.

Belle is inspired by the life of Dido Elizabeth Belle, who was born as the result of an affair between British naval officer Capt. Sir John Lindsay and an African slave woman who died when Belle was young. Lindsay (Matthew Goode) beseeched his uncle, the Earl of Mansfield and England’s Lord Chief Justice (Tom Wilkinson), to raise his mixed-race daughter in the manner befitting his aristocratic bloodline — unheard of in England at the time…

Read the entire article here.

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War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art Opening Reception

Posted in Arts, Asian Diaspora, Live Events, Media Archive, United States on 2013-07-17 03:52Z by Steven

War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art Opening Reception

Wing Luke Museum
719 South King Street
Seattle, Washington
Thursday, 2013-08-08, 18:00-20:00 PDT (Local Time)

Join us for the opening reception of War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art.

As an increasingly ethnically ambiguous Asian American generation is coming of age, this multi-platform project looks at how mixed-heritage Asian American artists address hybrid identities in their artwork. The exhibit features work by an ethnically diverse set of artists, including Kip Fulbeck, Louie Gong, and Amanda Ross-Ho.

Curators Laura Kina and Wei Ming Dariotis will be in attendance at the opening, as will several artists featured in the exhibit.

For more on the exhibit, visit http://www.warbabylovechild.com/

6-7pm: Preview for museum members and invited guests. RSVP to mmartinez@wingluke.org or 206.623.5124 ext 107.

7-8pm: Open to the public. Free admission, no RSVP required.

For more information, click here.

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Lola Flash: [sur]passing

Posted in Arts, Media Archive, United States on 2013-07-13 12:25Z by Steven

Lola Flash: [sur]passing

Jefferson School African American Heritage Center
420 Commerce Street
Charlottesville, Virginia
Contemporary Gallery
Exhibition Dates: 2013-06-07 through 2013-08-30

For more than 20 years Lola Flash has been committed to deconstructing racism, sexism and homophobia through challenging photographic imagery. [sur]passing is a work in progress that confronts the phenomenon known as pigmentocracy. The term, coined by cultural critic Kobena Mercer in 1994, describes a hierarchy wherein a slave’s socio-economic position could be determined by their skin color. In [sur]passing, Flash analyzes the impact of this condition on contemporary society.

Posed in front of the varied yet undefined skylines of London, New York, and South Africa, Flash’s models, both male and female, represent an array of skin-color. Their youthful energy suggests they have transcended the pecking order that has historically been the source of contention throughout the African Diaspora.

According to Flash, these portraits represent a “new generation”—one that is above and beyond “passing.” They represent a fresh pride and strength; where ambiguity and blurred borders create individuality that elevates consciousness, and advances a plethora of complex and positive imagery of [black] people all over the world…

For more information, click here. View the [sur]passing gallery here.

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Q&A with artist and author Laura Kina

Posted in Articles, Arts, Asian Diaspora, Interviews, Media Archive, United States on 2013-07-13 01:52Z by Steven

Q&A with artist and author Laura Kina

Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb
2013-07-11

Deborah Kalb

Laura Kina, the Vincent de Paul associate professor of Art, Media, and Design at DePaul University, is the co-editor of the new book War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art and the co-curator of an accompanying art exhibit. She lives in Chicago.

Q: How did you select these particular authors and artists to include in the book?

A: I’m a visual artist, a painter, and much of my work has been about Asian American and mixed race identity and history. As a result, I’m tapped into a network of artists, scholars, and activists working on similar topics. My co-editor Wei Ming Dariotis and I also teach classes on mixed race and Asian American studies so we were also both seeking out work by relevant artists and authors to share with our students.

This is actually how we met. She was using my art in her classes at San Francisco State University and I was using her articles on “hapa” mixed Asian American identity in my classes at DePaul University.

The kernel for our book and the related traveling exhibition happened organically over several years of research and teaching and involvement with community multiracial organizations such as MAVIN in Seattle and iPride and Hapa Issues Forum in San Francisco and then later working together with my colleague Camilla Fojas to found the Critical Mixed Race Studies biennial conference at DePaul University in Chicago…

Read the entire interview here.

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Photographer Interview: Albert Chong

Posted in Articles, Arts, Interviews, Media Archive, United States on 2013-07-04 19:00Z by Steven

Photographer Interview: Albert Chong

Dodge & Burn: diversity in photography history
2011-02-08

Qiana Mestrich, Visual Artist + Writer

Dodge & Burn: Where are you from?

Albert Chong: I am originally from Kingston, Jamaica by way of Brooklyn, NY, San Diego, CA and presently Boulder, CO.

D&B: What kind of photography do you shoot and how did you get started – any “formal” training?

AC: My photography has been primarily focused on the use of the medium as a means of artistic and personal expression. My work has been a contributor to the discourses surrounding the contemporary visual arts of people of African and Asian descent. Inherent in these discourses are issues of race, identity, ethnicity, multiculturalism and postcolonial visual expression of methods of cultural retrieval.

My work has also investigated the role of family and ancestry in the constructed identity that is the artist. One of my better known body of work are the still life photographs that I construct sometimes using old family photographs, that in the context of the arrangement creates a shrine like tableaux that renders these Ancestors into Icons…

D&B: Have you experienced any setbacks or different treatment along your photography career that you would attribute to being a woman and/or photographer of color? (this question is optional)

AC: Yes, I have had my share of racist discrimination, and I am fully aware that there are subtle methods and layers of exclusion that are designed to strain and filter out people whose difference was being from some demographic other than white, mainstream America. There were many instances in which I did not fit the prevailing notion among whites of what an artist looks like and that was generally white and male.

There was one incident that sticks out for me even after almost 30 years. I dropped off a portfolio of my photographs at a then very prestigious photography gallery called Light Gallery when I returned to retrieve it a few days later the gallerist was super enthusiastic about the work and mentioned that they were interested in giving the artist a show, she then asked me if I was the messenger and if I was would I relay this message to the artist. I then revealed that I was the artist and with her mouth agape in shock and surprise, the offer instantly evaporated.

There were many others including Aperture magazine in a meeting in 1992 the white man I met with I won’t mention his name told me they could not publish a book of my work because I was black and I was not famous and that their audience was primarily white. Well the irony there was that he was to become complicit in my fame when a traveling exhibition of photography my work was in hit New York and he was asked by the New York Times to review it and my photograph was used to advertise the show. At around the same time I was in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art and my photograph was being used in the New York Times as well to advertise that one.

Read the entire interview here.

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