Author: Fred

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Renée Stout: The House of Chance and Mischief, Sept. 11 – Oct. 30, 2010

Renée Stout, Party at the House of Chance and Mischief, 2010, acrylic on panel, 30” x 24”
Renée Stout: The House of Chance and Mischief
September 11 – October 30, 2010

Washington DC – Hemphill opens Renée Stout: The House of Chance and Mischief on Saturday, September 11, 2010, with a public reception from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. The exhibition will remain on view through October 30, 2010.

In recent years, the contemporary art audience has often appeared more interested in opening receptions and art parties than in looking at art. But, of course, some parties are more meaningful than others. Renée Stout’s exhibition, The House of Chance and Mischief, is that party.

The House of Chance and Mischief is based on a recurring dream of Renée Stout’s, in which she is walking through a familiar house and suddenly encounters a door that leads to new and mysterious rooms. Stout understands the house of her dream to be a metaphor for the self, and the newly revealed rooms to represent an expanding awareness of a world inside and outside of that self.

Her dream, the challenges of friendship and family, and current events comprise the content of Stout’s fourth exhibition at Hemphill. The show is a cacophonous party where guests peer into the lives of the characters developed throughout Stout’s oeuvre. She presents a body of expertly rendered images and carefully manipulated objects, creating various tableaux that also speak as a personal narrative. Her work blends cultural heritage, personal mythology, and social responsibility from the perspective of an African-American woman. Utilizing imagery from African traditions, popular culture, and personal politics, she delineates pathways among cultures, communities, and individuals. Stout’s open creative process continually introduces new possibilities for her role as observer, trickster, healer, and artist.

In April 2010, the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA, awarded Renée Stout the David C. Driskell Prize, which recognizes Stout’s original and important contribution to the field of African-American art. Please join us to congratulate Renée and to party in The House of Chance and Mischief.

Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. and by appointment

On September 16, 2010, at 2:00 p.m., Renée Stout will participate in the panel discussion Performance in/of Contemporary African American Art, with Jefferson Pinder and Kevin Cole, moderated by Dr. Laurie Frederick Meer. This event is part of the Performing Race in African American Visual Culture Symposium, September 15 – 16, organized by Yale University and the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora (www.driskellcenter.umd.edu).
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Graywolf Press and CAS51 invite you to join us as we celebrate the publication of Skin, Inc.

Celebrate Thomas Sayers Ellis’s second collection of poetry,”a complex, searing look at the state of black identity in America.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

Graywolf Press and CAS51 invite you to join us as we celebrate the publication of

SKIN, INC.
Identity Repair Poems
by
Thomas Sayers Ellis


Sunday, September 5

6:00 PM

CAS51

510 Randolph Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20011
(By subway: Georgia Ave-Petworth Metro Station)
Following a welcome from CAS51 co-founder Darryl Atwell, Ellis will give a brief reading and singer Carolyn Malachi will perform Ellis’s
“The Pronoun-Vowel…”.
Wine and hors d’oeuvres will be served.

Books will be available for purchase.

Thomas Sayers EllisThomas Sayers Ellis was born and raised in Washington, D.C. His previous poetry collection, The Maverick Room, was awarded the John C. Zacharis First Book Award. Ellis teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and in the Lesley University low-residency MFA program, and he is a faculty member of Cave Canem. A photographer and poet, he currently divides his time between Brooklyn, New York, and Washington, D.C.
Author photo (c) Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Skin, Inc
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Everywhere With Roy Lewis events…


Please join us for the final two public programs for Everywhere With Roy Lewis
On Exhibit through Saturday, September 11, 2010 at PGAAMCC’s Gallery 110
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 10am-6pm &
Thursdays 10am-7pm

As We See It: A Conversation with Black Photographers
Thursday, August 26, 7-9pm
and
Preserving Your Family’s Photographic Legacy
Thursday, September 2, 6-8pm

Please RSVP!
Parking is limited. Street Parking Available. Additional Parking available at the Bunker Hill Fire Station, 3716 Rhode Island Avenue, Brentwood, MD 20722— cross the street and walk 1 ½ blocks north to the Gateway Arts Center.

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Montreal Musings


So I just came back from my first visit to Montreal and I must say that I loved it…if it wasn’t so damn cold up there most of the year, I think I definitely could live there…anyway…
I was fortunate enough to be there during the International Jazz Festival, it was an amazing experience to say the least. Although I loved the city and a few of the many cultural and culinary delights that i was able to experience while I was there, I must admit that the We Want Miles exhibit at theMusée des beaux-arts de Montréal was the highlight of my trip. A testament to the quality of this exhibit I think is in its ability to engaging and hold the interest of even a non “jazz head”, my girlfriend. I don’t want to spoil it for those of you who are already planning on going up there to check it out, so I am not going to say too much about it, because that is not really the point of this post. i will simply say that it is definitely one the best museum experiences that I have ever had and I did not know anything about Miles Davis before the exhibit I would definitely feel like I got not only an education on Miles Davis, but an Introduction to American Music and Culture…”bringing me closer to the point (rock dis funky joint)”..a few days ago i was reading Jazz Times at B&N and on the last page, Nat Hentoff had a piece about the We Want Miles exhibit.

Hentoff asks the question as to why jazz is not treated as “a fine art in any of the other museums around the country (the U.S.).” Hentoff also begs the question why events and programming beyond musical concerts have yet to take place in our great museums, such as MoMA and the like.

This is a serious question… Although Hentoff does not directly raise the question, I think he suggests enough such that this reader would further question why the American Fine Art establishment have not allowed the jazz and its practitioners to move out frame of entertainer and into being aesthetes or experts. Even here in DC, we see how jazz is used to set the mood, to be background or maybe even to give the appearance of intellectual depth, inclusive or progressive thinking, yet no serious engagement of the artform or the life of its practitioners beyond the realm of entertainer.

It is my hope that Nathalie Bondil will take up Hentoff on his challenge to invite museum directors from the United States up to Montreal to show them how it’s done.

check out Hentoff’s article here

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Dr. Sybil Williams’ (Roberts) “Searching for Gabriela” @ Source Theate April 16th – 23rd

one of the giants of DC-theater Dr. Sybil Williams (Roberts) has a new play coming up at The Source, let’s support this!

Here is the excerpted info:

For full press release click here

Contact information
(202) 204-7760 / inseries@inseries.org
Contact: Emily Morrison or Mattias Kraemer

The In Series presents
Searching for Gabriela
Searching for Gabriela, a theatrical evening about poet Gabriela Mistral – produced by the In Series, at Source, 1835 14th St. NW, Washington, DC 20009.

Performances:
Friday April 16 at 8pm,
Saturday 4/17 at 8pm,
Sunday 4/18 at 3pm,
Thursday 4/22 at 7:30pm,
Friday 4/23 at 8pm
and Saturday 4/24 at 3pm.
Tickets: $31 (General Admission) $28 (Senior) $16 (Student) Box Office: 202-204-7763 or www.inseries.org.

Thursday 4/22 performance followed by Audience Discussion as part of OUT at InSeries.
Saturday 4/24 performance includes announcement of winners of the Finding Gabriela DC Youth Poetry Contest, followed by an informal gathering. Half of the proceeds for the Sunday April 18 and Friday April 23 shows will be donated to the Chilean American Foundation (CAF) to support
children affected by the February earthquake in Chile.
____________________
Washington DC (March 24, 2010) – The In Series announces Searching for Gabriela, directed by Abel Lopez with an original storyline in English by DC playwright Sybil R. Williams. The work brings to life the passionate poetry of Gabriela Mistral, Latin America’s first Nobel Prize winner (1945 for Literature) in a bilingual tapestry of words, music and movement, performed alternating English and Spanish.

“Mistral was a fierce feminist warrior of the mid 1900’s, whose poetry celebrates the spirit of women in the beauty of the land, the laughter of children, and the redemption of loss,” says writer Sybil Williams,who draws inspiration from Ursula K. Le Guin’s powerful translations of Mistral’s poetry. This 21st century look at her magnificent work is revealed in performance by Jenifer Deal, Monalisa Arias, Karen Morales, Lorena Sabogal, vocalist Cecilia Esquivel and pianists/music directors Carla Hübner and Jose Caceres.

Both legend and myth in her home country of Chile, Mistral, born in1889, began writing poetry as a child. Her celebrated poetry about children and motherhood has long been a standard part of the school curriculum throughout Latin America and her memory is honored in Chile with streets, squares and schools in her name. Although her formal education ended at age 12, she began teaching at 15 in remote rural schools, was eventually nominated to direct several liceos (including the most prestigious girls’
school in Chile) and attained international fame and recognition as an educator. Five collections of her poetry and prose were published in her lifetime, and she wrote all her life in a consistently intense and passionate voice on themes of nature, betrayal, love, sorrow and recovery, travel, and Latin American identity. She left Chile in 1926, and like many Latin American artists and intellectuals, served as a consul working in Naples, Madrid, Lisbon, Nice, Petrópolis, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Veracruz and New
York. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1945, and returned to her beloved Chile a few times, only as a much acclaimed visitor, living out her life in essence as an exile. Gabriela Mistral died in New York in 1957.

Sybil R. Williams (Writer) – is a DC based playwright and dramaturg. Her work has been professionally produced by ETA Creative Arts Theatre (Chicago), National Black Theatre (New York) and Kuntu Theatre (Pittsburgh). For the In Series, Ms Williams most recently wrote the script for the highly successful historical/musical play From U Street to the Cotton Club. Her play Dream of Ophelia was nominated for a prestigious JEFF award in 2000, and Liberating Prayer: A Lovesong For Mumia has been published in August Wilson And The Black Aesthetic.

The In Series (www.inseries.org), in its 10th Season as an independent organization, is Washington, DC’s home for distinctive performing arts programming, encompassing original, innovative approaches to
classical music, with generous helpings of theatre, poetry and dance.