AfroVeganChick: best of

Showing posts with label best of. Show all posts

Sunday, December 31, 2017

Best of 2017: Dreams Come True: Janet Jackson Concert At Wells Fargo

Attending a Janet Jackson concert is not just a huge milestone and highlight of 2017, but a dream come to three dimensional reality.

I attended two musical concerts this year-- John Legend and Janet Jackson. I had incredible times at both. Janet, however, was a long old wish fulfilled on a chilly November night just days before flying out to Paris.

I have been a fan of Janet and her musically gifted family since childhood. Yet it was the baby girl of the Jackson's whom I had loved so deeply, affectionately drawn to her strong lyricism, vocal range, dance moves, and iconic music videos. As Mom would play out "Control" and "Rhythm Nation" cassette tapes over and over, my siblings and I would sing along and dance the way children danced to edgy guitar popping, foot stomping R&B meets rock and roll. It brings apart memories of my uncle, who passed away this November. He always called me, "Janet" and I hadn't corrected him because I had such a strong connection to my favorite musician.

I ate Goldie Falafel as a pre-concert meal, so beyond hyped to see Janet.

Janet's "Unbreakable" tour started late 2015 to promote her newest album release and spread love to those who had admired her forever. For so many including me, this would be our first time seeing her live and the enthusiasm was wildly contagious. I bought the album, t-shirt, and concert ticket to Wells Fargo in Philly, super thrilled whilst reading excited fans' concert reviews via social media.

Sadly, the tour was postponed. I was refunded, but very heartbroken for a while.

At fifty-one, Janet gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. Then, she announced that the tour was resuming, that it would be renamed "The State of the World."

Originally, I wanted to see her at the Boardwalk in New Jersey, but settled in on Wells Fargo in Philadelphia the sequel.

There's my Golden Ticket!

Janet getting her fans ready to be blown away as she blew through an impressive discography of "Control," "Rhythm Nation," "janet," "The Velvet Rope," "Design of a Decade," "All For You," "Damita Jo," "Feedback," "Unbreakable," and countless movie soundtrack jams.

It was the most surreal Monday night, sitting in the 100 section, not too far away from the stage, waiting for an iconic queen. Lights went dark. On the screens were the names of victims killed by police, female voice reciting them. Janet came out in a long black duster with black attire underneath and flaming red ponytail, on the prolific beats of "Knowledge," the lyrics flashing the giant projectors. Through my own loud screams, my eyes watered and my chin quivered. I couldn't believe I was present and so was she.
"The Knowledge" turned into "State of the World" which then transitioned into a killer dance workout of "Burn It Up" featuring video cameo of another amazing artist, Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliot. "Nasty" came to play and everyone screamed and hollered, including me. It was such a vital statement considering the current political climate, a boost shot for all women.
Other jams such as "Miss You Much," "Alright," "Control," "What Have You Done For Me Lately," "The Pleasure Principle," "Escapade," "All Nite (Don't Stop)", "Love Will Never Do (Without You), and "Got Til It's Gone" were highlighted. I absolutely loved the choreography on the latter. Ageism is no factor to this incredible talent! She can still dance as if the 1980's and 1990's never left. Just jaw dropping!
Her background dancers were also top notch, ranging in ages, body shapes, genders, and ethnicities, taking their skills to the floor with Janet looking on with pride and joy.
Songs took on a deeper, autobiographical charge as Janet serenaded her Oscar nominated ballad "Together Again." At the end of this precious melody, she lifted her head and mic to the air, quietly speaking, "until we see each other again, Mike." In "What About," a powerful uptempo with alternative rock edge, her dancers enacted violent domestic abuse situations through improvisational movements as she struggled through singing the cords, even pausing at times to get through raw, poignant lyrics.
"That was me!" She cried out, sobbing and running off the stage.
The entire audience felt her pain, utterly touched by emotional display.

One of several special videos. It starts serene and peaceful until misery manifests in surreal allegory.

Janet came back, revitalized and fierce, dancing and singing with vigor to the phenomenal "If" and timeless military thumper "Rhythm Nation."
By the encore, a collection of five additional songs like "Black Eagle" (for Michael), "I Get Lonely," and "Well Traveled," the hungry crowd stood giving her thunderous applause and joyous whistles, changing her name, wanting her to return.
It was a great, spectacular concert, one of the best that I have ever been fortunate to see. I will never forget it.

Friday, December 29, 2017

Best of 2017: The Incredible Majesty of Kehinde Wiley's "Trickster"

This hauntingly gorgeous portrait of Wangechi Mutu as a provocative goddess in a royal blue toga style dress, holding a snake. The coiled reptile's stripes mimic the flying twisted locs in her free flowing hair.

One of the best art gallery exhibit highlights of 2017 starred Kehinde Wiley's impressive new paintings at Sean Kelly Gallery in New York City.
The art loving visitor is firstly seduced inside near darkness, wandering around spacious grounds like a lost, hungry traveler in a forest field, the paintings playing storied trees planted on every wall. Clad in alluring mystery, these tremendous, cloak and dagger narratives were spaced apart with single, focused lights casting luminous brilliance upon celebrated contemporary black artists, some of the most compelling painters, photographers, sculptors, and multi-disciplinarians of this moment-- Mickelene Thomas, Hank Willis Thomas, Derrick Addams, and more. Each easily identified artist has become a fictionalized character straight out of a spine tingling Grimm, stripped of modernity, transformed into period costume, regal defiance vividly illustrated in their body language and facial expressions.

Barefoot Rashid Johnson and Sanford Biggers.

Art history buffs love talking about the specifics of hand direction. In the past, in paintings especially, viewers read images left to right, carefully paying close attention to what acts hands perform. Wiley's articulated gestures took away oppressive authorship, allowing black bodies to become valiant protagonists more than lower class subjects. No longer slaves or props, Wiley's myriad of friends appear like Caravaggio or Gentileschi figures, caught in vicious acts (in his portrait of painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye for example), surrounded in single light sources, either staring out through the canvas or turning away. He has Rashid Johnson's hand on Sanford Biggers shoulder in a tender, bonding moment wearing matching flowing pink shirts, Wangechi Mutu wielding snakes like a sultry Medusa like goddess in a fetching blue toga dress and bounded braids, and Kerry James Marshall in an oval composition using his hands as an educator in three parts.

Glenn Ligon resembled a larger version of Da Vinci's shockingly small Mona Lisa, sitting in comfortable clothes and loafers along a fabric draped rocky place.

Those shoes (and no socks).....

Kerry James Marshall, himself a painting master, is shown in three distinctive acts.

This elegant portrait of Carrie Mae Weems standing amongst rocky mountains and a picturesque desert sky landscape is a stunning achievement. Elaborate patterns and folds of her gold dress are remarkable, her jeweled hand in a powerful clutch, and her curled updo has queenly justice.

The weighted fist holds the glittered rock like a weapon, an extension of power and grace, that there is no fear of harm when this object is nestled sin this fierce grasp.

Wiley is a painter known for putting musicians, rappers, and other pioneers in his Art Noveau meets black realism pedestals. In "Trickster," he includes his fellow black visual artist peers, this body of work a deeper close up of the black artist as the documentarian of the present. Each and every one of these people are creating the works the world needs to see and remember.

Saturday, January 21, 2017

Best of 2016: A Romantic Interlude Inside of Kerry James Marshall's Ebony Coated Oeuvre

"Vignette (Wishing Well)," acrylic and glitter on PVC panel, 2010.

Kerry James Marshall is one of my favorite painters in the world. No shadow of doubt exists when it comes to an ardor for someone whose mind and talents are greatly matched together.
In a methodical land of daring pitch black skinned figures adorned with fragrant bloom that one can almost smell in flared nostrils, a sentimental viewer finds profound seduction in subjects Marshall majestically paints. At Met Breuer, gracing walls with marvelous retrospective, arrests these compositions-- like glittering oyster pearls-- to the starry eyed visionary who dares to read between lines of pure, titillating insertion. For the stories told in every single piece shares and denotes a specific history, a stolen moment illustrating the African American experience. From romance stories to barber shops to renaissance artists, acrylic painted portrayals are sincere, poignant, and quite triumphant in their pursuits of revealing who we are, who we dare dream to be.

"Vignette IV," acrylic on PVC panel, 2005.

"Untitled (Vignette)," acrylic and glitter on PVC panel, 2012.

Close up.

Marshall works in a series way. Each section centers on different approaches to certain subject matter. For example, the Vignette groupings share intimate moments between black bodies in picturesque scenery, having a John Singleton's Boys In the Hood meets Poetic Justice vibe that enhances these pivotal moments between a man and woman. Black men are strong, chivalrous, and charming and black women are bold, tender, and sensual-- this makes a perfect, unquestionable balance. In sparkling, utterly endearing "Untitled (Vignette)," backs facing away, bodies melding together on grassy meadow, an afro pick in a flawless small afro, two glitter red hearts above heads, birds singing "la la la," a tire swing hanging on a love tree in the distance.

"Untitled (Beach Towel)," acrylic on PVC panel, 2014.

While known for being a gifted painter, Marshall spread his wings into the comic realm, depicting African Americans as superheroes in their natural habitats. In his "Rythm Mastir" lightbox series, his signature graphic style easily translates into the realm of comic book aesthetic, sharp contrasting values and heartfelt narrative are featured on earth and the space cosmos. It is the artist's purpose to evaluate and dismantle the wrongs of popular culture. By giving blackness inclusivity, leading protagonists and antagonists have an authoritative unchallenged voice.

"Silence is Golden," acrylic on panel, 1986.

"Portrait of the Artist & a Vacuum," acrylic on paper, 1981.

"De Style," acrylic and collage on canvas, 1993.

It's admirable that most of Marshall's gigantic works are unstretched and unframed, pinned to walls in a rather bold demonstration of the artist's strong rationale and reasoning-- a rebellious form of anti-school traditionalism. This brazen manner translates in the work, this authenticity to stay true to self, to acknowledge a passionate inhibition that is as remarkable as it's undeniable.

"School of Beauty, School of Culture," acrylic and glitter on canvas, 2012.

Closeup.

Marshall takes on psychological conditions placed forth on marginalized bodies. Without sugar coating hard evident truths or sweeping cold facts underneath a painterly metaphor, since the days of being a student at Otis College of Art and Design and a Studio Museum Harlem fellow, he has always explored humanizing blackness in all its forms and condoning negative constraints meant to stigmatize and pigeonhole, creating large scale compositions that deliver powerful messages.

"Untitled (Studio)," acrylic on PVC panel, 2014.

"Untitled," acrylic on PVC panel, 2009.

"Untitled" painting series opens up splendorous spectator dreams of a historical past where period styled artists take up prestigious court, holding palettes in a rightful, dignified ownership, black women and black men wearing coiffed natural hair updos, mid-century clothing, and regal expressions. Marshall is seemingly inventing a past indication of black painters carving out their own niche, their own destiny as an art maker.

"Untitled (Painter)," acrylic on PVC panel, 2009.

"Untitled (Painter)," acrylic on PVC panel, 2008.

"Black Painting," acrylic on fiberglass, 2003-2006.

Before seeing inside "Black Painting," inner intuition knew what would be found without reading informative gallery label. This indescribable inkling struck moment eyes discovered the bed appearing out of thin air. Other objects arise at closer inspection. Black scrapped on black. Varying line weights defining a single room, a peaceful room before chaos and blood, before it becomes a grisly murder scene. Marshall was around 14 years old when young intelligent Black Panther Fred Hampton was killed by police in 1969. Marshall, who grew up in Birmingham, Alabama before transporting to South Side Los Angeles now resides in Chicago-- a location not too far from where tragic homicide took place. Thus, it alludes to this great significant part of history that can never be forgotten.

"Still Life With Wedding Portrait," acrylic on PVC panel, 2015.

Mastry takes over two floors for good reason. Marshall's endless range is incredibly stunning to admire and behold, to awe and gawk, to take moments staring and breathing. He defines the true meaning of being a painter's painter, especially in terms of utilizing the color black and shifting interpretation of how black is perceived. Explorations entailing sienna, mahogany, chocolate, cocoa, and other brown skin tone hues are absent. Mars, ebony, tar, and the other black shades on demand as flesh. Undeniably beautiful, one cannot ever turn away from rare depiction-- gratifying art at its finest, most candid illustration.
This can't miss retrospective is up at Met Breuer until January 29, 2017 and will be traveling to Los Angeles next.

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Best of 2016: Mickalene, Her Muses, & The Dark Brown Girl

Trinity of alluring afros (ala Foxy Brown or Cleopatra style) resting on a sporadically patterned carpet, slick legs on fleek.

2016 was a great year for art.
A most memorable exhibit was at Chelsea's Aperture Foundation. Mickalene Thomas's Photographs -- now on current view at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore-- turned large space into a sensational glamour cosmos. Glossy, high resolution images of stylishly sophisticated women attached seamlessly to walls. These brazen, dolled up, dignified faces stared out at viewers, seeming to have escaped from Vogue or Cosmopolitan, gloss leggy figures embodied a sensuous grace among challenged patterns and hot pulp lights. The fiction couldn't be any more sweet and visceral, relying on interests in Blaxploitation films and Hudson River School artists.

Viewers are submerged into carefully maneuvered layout while framed works have that picture in picture context. This is the very set, with a 1970's - 1980's vibe, that many of her subjects are placed.

In particular, centralized installation in the middle of the gallery recreated what Thomas' photographs envisioned-- a homely environment appeased by trademark distinctive decoration. With its wall to wall wood paneling, warm, bright bulbs, and hardware floor, the breathe-in space feels rich and inviting, as though one could revel in browsing through the library shelf over a cup of tea and celebratory television whilst admiring bold, colored compositions discretely performing measured symmetry on the walls.

Thomas sews most of these fabrics together, bringing a full blown fulfillment to pleasurable three dimensional experience.

Method to a seemingly DIY artsy madness--Thomas stitches varied fabrics together and layers these collage efforts on this found couch-- also repurposed with funky integrity.

Aesthetically, mitch match design should clash and burn.

Library includes Alice Walker's "The Color Purple," Alex Haley's "Roots," and Richard Wright's "Native Son."

The lampshade is a vessel of the light that emits triangular shaped brilliance from both ends, dawning on the desk's objects and the couch's yellow and brown floral arm.

Beautiful negatives.

The many faces of Sandra Bush.

The triptych honoring Sandra Bush, Thomas's fashion model mother is one of several pieces indebted to a wondrous alluring, empowered kind of beauty. This tragic, bittersweet homage is a poignant testament of a daughter's loving attachment, a relationship that would never fade regardless of time.

Another woman, legs crossed, sharply dressed, residing in Thomas's signature set.

Negress with Green Nails, 2005.

Facial closeup.

Nail closeup.

Green Negress with Green Nails is especially infectious, bursting with charm and innocence. Giddiness sensory overwhelms picture plane, the bright red opened mouth, sensuous and inviting, shows candid set of bright, smiling teeth. Sparkled shimmer of green eye shadow coated on eyelids plays along with long, curved nails, necklace, and the ribbed short sleeve blouse. Is there something alien, a little bit foreign about the woman in white barrettes dangling from two strand twists with big gold hoop earrings and an attractive Cheshire grin? Perhaps her otherworldliness comes from within and not necessarily from this highly florescent green hue. Vital cues piece together an affectionate narrative of this vibrant, centralized dark brown figure-- the demure way her hands are gingerly clasped, the captivated awe in her eyes staring out at the viewer, the childish gleam yet womanly curve.

A still from Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman happens to be a rhinestone collage of a photograph. Nicely done intimate documentary laced with so much love and art. Looping on a vintage color television of the installation space, one couldn't help but be thrilled to see this piece inside of the piece itself-- utterly genius!