“The time of thoughtless design for thoughtless consumption is over.”
npr:
Walk into the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. right now and you will find a painting that has been ripped to shreds.
Another one, nearby, hangs half-loose from its stretcher, rumpled. It’s a portrait of Thomas Jefferson; behind it, you glimpse a seated black woman.
They are works by the artist Titus Kaphar. He takes familiar images and remakes them. Maybe he pulls a hidden figure to the front.
His work often confronts the history of slavery and racism in the United States.
“If we are not honest about our past, then we cannot have a clear direction towards our future,” Kaphar says in an interview.
As of today, Kaphar’s work has been recognized with a MacArthur Fellowship — the “genius” grants which come with a $625,000 unrestricted award (paid over five years). The phone call informing him of the fellowship came at his total surprise.
“The truth of the matter is: I did not believe the person on the other end,” Kaphar says. “And in fact, I said, ‘Stop it, who is this?’ But no, they reassured me that in fact it was real.”
Meet The MacArthur Fellow Disrupting Racism In Art
Photo: John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Just awesome! Congrats!
reblogged from npr
I just love handmade things…
We’re the Last Humans Left
npr:
In 2016, photographer Joy Sharon Yi began taking the Metro to Barry Farm, a large public housing complex in Southeast Washington, D.C., built in 1943 on the first city settlement where African-Americans could buy property and build homes after the Civil War.
Yi was drawn to Barry Farm’s history and the looming shadow of change. She spent time getting to know residents at the famed Goodman League basketball games and eventually began documenting the community.
At that time, “Barry Farm residents … feared being displaced, but the community was not yet on its last legs,” Yi says. “Residents [and] former residents really, genuinely loved their community. I wanted to document that joy before the buildings came down.”
Yi used black-and-white images to connect Barry Farm residents to the city’s history. “The more I researched Barry Farms, urban renewal and the historical use of black-and-white imagery in America, particularly in low-income communities,” she says, “at a certain point, I started to recognize history repeating itself — enduring trauma and the repeated, forced displacement of black communities.”
As A D.C. Public Housing Complex Faces Redevelopment, One Teenager Reflects
Photos by Joy Sharon Yi
reblogged from npr
stay woke.