Nearly 90 artists are included in the exhibition, but it’s acclaimed Black women artists including Carrie Mae Weems, Tschabalala Self, Lauren Halsey, Jordan Casteel, and Nina Chanel Abney, who exalt Black femininity, beauty rituals, style, sexuality, and of course, queendom, in their works, and provide the exhibition’s most Black feminist moments.īoth Self and Weems depict Black girlhood and womanhood within a hip-hop context. Self’s captivating, collaged painting Setta’s Room 1996 (2022) features a Black teen girl (inspired by the artist’s sister Princetta) in a hyper-feminine polka dot outfit, holding a landline phone receiver with fancy yellow nails. “For many visual artists, hip-hop has enabled a radical interrogation of such previously stable and homogeneously white aspects of art history and culture as strategies of representation, genius, and who is the beholder,” Naeem, the BMA’s recently appointed director, told ARTnews. “The Culture” venerates the hip-hop zeitgeist of the past 50 years, and how the genre shattered white establishment cultural norms. A hypnotizing soundscape created by Baltimore-based musicians Abdu Ali and Wendel Patrick sonically welcomes visitors, featuring rap royalty like Public Enemy and Ms. Divided into six sections (Language, Brand, Adornment, Tribute, Ascension, and Pose), the resulting show is an expansive and multi-sensory experience. An institutional collaboration between the BMA and the Saint Louis Art Museum, organized by four women co-curators-Asma Naeem, Gamynne Guillotte, Hannah Klemm, and Andréa Purnell-“The Culture” immerses viewers into the world of hip-hop with close to a hundred works spanning painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, video, and installations.
0 kommentar(er)
