Y tu abuela a donde esta?
My last post reminded me of my Mom’s favorite poem:
The poem asks, And your Grandmother, where is she?…meaning a person might be light-skinned, but comes from ”blackness”. It’s written in a Puerto Rican dialect. For an idea of what it might be in English check this out.
Fernando Fortunato Vizcarrondo – Y tu aguela, aonde ejtaa?
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Ayé me dijite negro Yo tengo el pelo’e caíyo: Tu coló te salió blanco ¿Disej que mi bemba ej grande Como tu nena ej blanquita A ti te gujta el fojtrote,
Erej blanquito enchapao Aquí el que no tiene dinga Ayé me dijite negro La pobre se ejtá muriendo ¡Y bien que yo la conojco! |
Negritude
If I wasn’t so lazy I’d def try to make it to the opening tonight!
Négritude, an experimental multi-disciplinary exhibition at Exit Art, explores the visionary 20th century political and artistic movement of the same name — coined by the Martinican poet, playwright, and politician Aimé Césaire in the 1930s — which flourished among Black intellectuals in post-World War I Paris and later spread to Africa, the United States and the Caribbean. . .Showcasing several generations of African-American, Caribbean, South American and African artists, performers and writers, Négritude features work that examines the history, impact, and transmutations of this cultural movement. It looks beyond the historical Négritude movement to investigate also the emergence of the Harlem Renaissance and Modernism in the 1920s and 30s and contemporary responses to the concept of “blackness, highlighting the post-Civil Rights generation of black artists who have new perspectives on racial identity and politics.
-Exit Art
This definitely looks like something I’ll be into. From reading the Press Release alone I’m seeing that there’s some stuff I have to read/research. The exhibit brings into discussion the different perspectives that can be used to define Negritude. Five curators came together to produce an “island” of thought through visual art.
May 20th – July 25th 2009
Update
Wow…I’ve been pretty sucky at updating the blog lately but hopefully I will be writing a little more now that school’s out…my “web presence” usually slows down around finals. Speaking of school I got accepted into the B.F.A. program at Hunter so come visit me this fall at Open Studios 
. Here’s some shots from the work I used for my interview:
They Called me Mayer July
I fell in love with this exhibit at the Jewish Museum. I believe in the act of rewriting History ourselves, and Mayer succeeds in giving us a look into how Jews lived than how they died. He was an adventurous young boy and in 1990 at the age of 73 started to paint from memory scenes and stories from his childhood. Of all the stories present in the exhibit The White Pajamas was the one that touched me the most.
This Weekend
Personal Abstraction
May 1st – 3rd 2009 @ HKJB, Brooklyn
Personal Abstraction featuring work from: Judith Braun, Chong Chu, Michael Dopp, Jay Henderson, Elizabeth Hirsch, Shawn Kuruneru, Benjamin King, Osamu Kobayashi, Denise Kupfershmidt, Jim Lee, Chris Martin, Craig Olson, Stephen Westfall, Wendy White
An exciting month for Graff history in NYC
From May 1st – May 27th, The Maysles Cinema in Harlem hosts, “Kings of the City” This Graff film festival brings forth classic and hard to find documentaries to the public, for a suggested price I might add. The selection of work was curated by Andreas Vingaar. Check out the full schedule and look out for Q&A’s. (more…)
A new book from Raquel Z. Rivera
This anthology introduces a chapter in hip hop history that brings it all back home, back to our transnational Afro-Spanish-speaking countries and diasporas and ‘hoods where young people are going through their hip-hop ecstasies and traumas, but in their own language and in their own unique and hitherto unknown style.
-Juan Flores
A book with one of my favorite writers and one of my favorite artists doing the cover = perfection. This anthology is the first critical look into the world of Reggaeton and its transnational roots. Rivera’s new book is already available to buy, but Hunter is having a book party on Thursday May 7th, 2009 @ 6:30pm to celebrate. (Hunter College, West Building, 8th Floor Faculty Dining Room)
Featured Speaker: Juan Flores, New York University
Presenters: Miguel Luciano, visual artist; Alexandra T. Vazquez, Princeton University; and Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Columbia University
Music by DJ Mellow G
Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow
“Our constitution keeps the South from passing many of the laws Hitler has invoked against the Jews, but by indirection, by force and terrorism, the south and Nazi Germany are mental brothers.”
–From an editorial in the Afro-American, February 22, 1936
This exhibit which just opened at the Museum of Jewish Heritage touches on a past many don’t know about. It brings together different objects that speak about the experience shared by Jewish scholars who fled from Germany in the 1930’s and black college students in the segregated south. Read more about it here.
