What's Newark Got To Do With It?

My first question, at the beginning of any phone call to my good friend and colleague, Gardy St. Fleur, is “What are you up to?”. And he usually answers “I’m here doing my part.” His “part”, in his own words, is “pushing the culture”. That pretty much sums up the passion and commitment Gardy has for discovering, rediscovering and elevating BIPOC artists. 

I’ve always believed that art has the power to address and answer issues around social justice, equity and access. And you’ll hear, at the beginning of our conversation, how Gardy puts this belief front and center of his multi disciplined art practice.

Gardy is a Haitian-American art advisor based in New York City. He was born in Haiti and moved to Brooklyn with his family when he was a child. His father collected work by Haitian artists and Gardy began buying art at the age of 14.

Gardy is known for curating unique pieces of art from around the world for prestigious clients, as well as his own personal collection. He has advised athletes including basketball players Kyrie Irving, Courtney Lee, and Caris LeVert, as well as ballet star Misty Copeland. 

We first met at a New Year’s party that I gave almost 13 years ago. I’ve been fortunate to witness and benefit from Gardy’s professional journey in the art world ever since. 

So listen in on our conversation at the WhatsNewarkGotToDoWithIt.com Podcast, by clicking on the black bar at the beginning of this text, and get to know how Gardy continues, through his art advisory, art management and art collection practice, to navigate the art world on his own terms.

One of the earliest artists that Gardy St. Fleur championed and whose work he collected, was that of Ionel Talpazan (born Ionel Pârvu). Talpazan was a Romanian self-taught outsider artist. He arrived in New York City where he became known in the late 1980s for his paintings of UFOs. He died in New York at the age of 60 on September 21, 2015.

Phillips Auction House tapped Gardy St. Fleur to organize a sale-within-a-sale of the “The New Now” auction in 2021 titled “The Crossover” (gallery exhibition installation, middle photograph). Gardy (red hat) leading tour at the exhibition (photo below) It was comprised of 13 new works by emerging Black artists. “The Crossover” brought in just over $311,000, all of which was put toward initiatives in Haiti and New York run by Project Backboard, a Memphis-based nonprofit that rehabilitates public basketball courts and commissions artists (photograph above) to make work for these sites.

St. Fleur is shown here (right) with artist William Villalongo (left) discussing one of his works of art with Caris LeVert, a former Nets guard, at the Susan Inglett Gallery in New York City. Early in his career St. Fleur immersed himself in all areas of the art world, such as taking on the studio manager responsibilities for Villalongo. Photo: Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times

“The Front Lines'“ by artist Deborah Roberts. Gardy St. Fleur collaborated with Galerie Mitterrand in May 2023 to mount an exhibit of her work in Paris.

Photographer Lola Flash grew up in the Newark suburb of Montclair, a wealthy and diverse commuter town 12 miles west of New York City. We ran into each other in Woodstock, NY in 2021 during my visit there to see an exhibition at the town’s Center of Photography. My friend and colleague, Charles Guice, who curated the exhibition, Woodstock Vision: The Spirit of a Generation Photographs by Elliott Landy, was giving my wife and I a tour of the exhibition when we bumped into Lola, who was currently an artist-in-residence at the Center. I’m an admirer of Lola’s photography practice and we frequently saw each other at events and exhibitions in NYC. Fortunately, during our conversation, I discovered that Lola grew up in Montclair and that led to reminisces of our youth in that area of Essex County, and subsequently, to this interview. 

Working at the forefront of genderqueer visual politics for more than four decades, photographer Lola’s work challenges stereotypes and gender, sexual, and racial preconceptions. An active member of ACT UP during the time of the AIDS epidemic in New York City, Lola was notably featured in the 1989 “Kissing Doesn’t Kill” poster. Their art and activism are profoundly connected, fueling a life-long commitment to visibility and preserving the legacy of LGBTQIA+ and communities of color worldwide. Flash has work included in important collections such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, MoMA, the Whitney, The National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Brooklyn Museum. They are currently a proud member of the Kamoinge Collective, and on the Board of Queer Art.

Lola received their bachelor's degree from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and Masters’ from London College of Printing, in the UK. Lola works primarily in portraiture, engaging those who are often deemed invisible. Flash’s practice is firmly rooted in social justice advocacy around sexual, racial, and cultural difference.

The images that accompany this podcast can be seen by visiting the website: whatsnewarkgottodowithit.com

This interview took place on May 16, 2022.

lolaflash.com

Established in 1988, The Autograph Gallery’s mission is to champion the work of artists who use photography and film to highlight questions of race, representation, human rights and social justice. In April of 2019 the gallery, located in London, England, mounted an exhibition of Lola’s series ,titled [sur]passing. Emphasizing varying shades of skin tone, these larger-than-life portraits feature a spectrum of global diasporic figures posed against urban skylines - probing the impact of pigmentation on black identity and consciousness. 

"Flash’s photography pays tribute to those who courageously navigate contested zones of existence, transforming dissident sexualities and complex cultural identities into productive sites of exploration, reclamation and occupation" - Renée Mussai, Curator, [sur]passing Exhibition

Three images from that exhibition:

The Autograph Gallery’s main exhibition space for Lola’s [sur]passing exhibition.

Lola Flash, DJ Kinky, London, 2002

Lola Flash, Thato, Cape Town, South Africa, 2002

In 2021 The Museum of Modern Art acquired and exhibited seven works from Flash’s Cross Color Series, originally created in the late 80’s. These are two pieces from that series:

Lola Flash, U is for Upside Down, New York City, New York, 1993

Lola Flash, AIDS is Killing Artists, Self-Portrait, Provincetown, Massachusetts c. 1990

To see the entire Lola Flash Cross Color photographs acquired by MoMA: https://www.moma.org/artists/133450

Flash, in collaboration with LiteBrite Neon Studio created 10 (ten) editions of this piece, Silence Will Not Protect You, for Queer|Art.

Lola Flash, Queer|Art Mentor and Trustee, created this second annual Queer|Art Artist Neon Edition, Silence Will Not Protect You, in collaboration with LiteBrite Neon Studio.

December 2021. Inspired by their history with ACT UP and AIDS awareness activism with Gran Fury, Flash highlights the text, “Your Silence Will Not Protect You,” originated by writer, educator, and feminist Audre Lorde at the Modern Language Association’s “Lesbian and Literature Panel,” in 1977. The powerful quote later served as the title of her posthumous collection of essays, speeches, and poems in 2017. This neon edition radiates connection between Lorde’s work and ACT UP’s seminal statement, “Silence=Death” and creates a clear throughline of queer liberation and activism from then to now—and onward into the future. Flash, in collaboration with LiteBrite Neon Studio, has created only 10 (ten) editions of this work, all of which are available for purchase from Queer|Art’s online shop.

Looking Forward: Lola Flash and Sadie Barnette in Conversation. Getty Center, Sunday Oct 09 2022

The Kamoinge Workshop is a collective of Black photographers formed in New York in 1963. Its legacy continues today with members upholding the group’s mission to honor, document, preserve, and represent the history, culture, and lived experiences of the African diaspora with integrity and respect. During this conversation, Kamoinge member and photographer Lola Flash talks with multimedia artist Sadie Barnette about their unique approaches to history, our current moment, and Afrofuturism:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHAhsbLuk8A

To embrace the spirit of Afrofuturism and create paradigms liberated from Western cultural hegemony, Lola created Syzygy, the Vision, an ongoing self-portrait series where the artist transforms herself into a representation of every Black person subjected to the horrors of racism, sexism, and homophobia. The series takes its name from an astronomical term for where the sun, earth, moon, and/or planets align to create an eclipse. Flash adopts this straight-line configuration to contemplate the pasts, presents, and futures of Black people across time and space. There will be a total of 100 images when Lola completes the series. http://www.lolaflash.com/syzygy

Lola Flash, Milky Way, 2021. From the Syzygy, the Vision series. In the collection of The National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture recently purchased seven of Lola’s photographs through the American Women's History Initiative Acquisitions Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative.: https://nmaahc.si.edu/lgbtq/lola-flash

Lola Flash, Lola Flash, 2008. Included in the collection of The National Museum of African American History and Culture.

PICTURING BLACK GIRLHOOD: MOMENTS OF POSSIBILITY. EXPRESS NEWARK | PAUL ROBESON GALLERIES, Newark, NJ 

Feb 2022 - July 2022 “This international exhibition featured over eighty-five Black women, girls, and genderqueer artists - ranging in age from 8 to 94 - who work in the mediums of photography and film and have a sustained practice exploring the theme of Black girlhood. Black girls are our most innovative cultural producers, community connectors, and trendsetters, but their contributions are rarely recognized and their lives are largely invisible in our dominant culture. In contrast, this exhibition considers Black girlhood as an essential stage of development, an integral moment of political awakening, an embattled site of representation, and a critical source of artistic inspiration throughout the globe”.: https://www.expressnewark.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Picturing-Black-Girlhood-Wall-Text.pdf

Lola Flash, Tenzin, 2008

https://www.expressnewark.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Picturing-Black-Girl-Press-Images-Captions-sampling-1.pdf

Peter “Souleo” Wright curates entertaining and informative events, exhibitions, and cultural programs. Souleo has collaborated with noteworthy institutions and brands, including the New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Museum of Arts and Design, Columbia University, Barnard College, Newark Museum of Art, Stax Museum of American Soul Music, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, and AARP. 

Souleo's work has been widely covered in outlets including the Associated Press, NY Times, The New Yorker, NBC, and more. Souleo is a graduate of Brown University.

His focus on education and amplifying underrepresented stories are paramount to his curatorial mission and practice.

For more information:SouleoUniverse.com or IG: @souleouniverse

I first met Peter “SOULEO” Wright in Harlem in 2012 through a mutual friend and colleague, Leanne Stella, founder of Art In Flux Harlem. He curated an exhibition at her gallery titled “Art Enology” that featured the works of artists who repurposed wine bottles into elaborate works of original art. Both Souleo and Leanne introduced me to a newly vibrant art scene that continues to grow and has reestablished Harlem’s prominence as a global art center.

The Pandemic hasn’t slowed Souleo down. His most recent exhibitions in Harlem, NYC and Newark, NJ, dynamically illustrate his amazing ability to bring the intersection of art, fashion, and celebrity to a widely diverse audience.

Check out the images in this episode on the website: What’s Newark To Do With It?

“Styling: Black Expression, Rebellion and Joy Through Fashion”, in September 2021 was an exhibition curated by Souleo at Nordstrom’s NYC Flagship store. Souleo poses in front of a photograph by Kwame Braithwaite in a digital installation by artist Dianne Smith. The exhibition, in association with Long Gallery in Harlem, featured the work of 15 contemporary Black artists and is a celebratory exploration of style within Black culture as a historical form of creative expression, rebellion against oppression and a source of joy as inspired by movements such as the Harlem Renaissance. Paintings, photography and wearable art were represented on each level of the store as customers traveled up the store's main escalator. as well as a pop-up shop where customers can purchase wearable art and prints featured in the show. Photograph by Ruben Natal-San Miguel

“Styling: Black Expression, Rebellion and Joy Through Fashion” exhibition featuring three “African Diva Project” paintings by Margaret Rose Vendryes.

Newark Arts celebrated its 20th Newark Arts Festival in October with a headline exhibit honoring legendary entertainer and New Jersey native Dionne Warwick. Dionne Warwick: Queen of Twitter was curated by Souleo and sponsored by Audible, in partnership with the GRAMMY Museum Experience™ Prudential Center. The exhibit featured original artwork inspired by the humorous, sassy, profound, and inspirational tweets of Ms. Warwick, plus rarely seen archival material including items from Ms. Warwick’s personal collection. Featured Artists: Lavett Ballard, Pamela Council, Jo-El Lopez, Beau McCall, Dianne Smith, and Felandus Thames. Image: Detail of one of Beau McCal’s artworks.

When the Dandy meets Afrofuturism. Left: Portrait of Souleo for the Dandy Style Tutorial Zoom session on October 28, 2021 as part of the “God Is A Dandy” virtual event at the Paul Robeson Galleries, Rutgers, Newark, NJ. Curated and moderated by Souleo, it was a virtual mini-symposium on Black dandyism, generally defined as a style of dress that combines African Diasporan elements with European influences. Right: Jerry Gant, the late, legendary multidisciplinary artist’s unique dandy style is included in a film that is part of the exhibition.

“Showing Out: Fashion in Harlem”, a multimedia exhibition presented by the Schomburg Center, and curated by Souleo, in honor of the 55th anniversary of the Harlem Institute of Fashion opened in September, 2021. HIF was founded by trailblazer Lois K. Alexander-Lane. Souleo said that his aim was to help bring greater attention to an "underrepresented piece of fashion history" that was important in helping to preserve, document, and support Black creatives in fashion. Images above: Souleo giving a tour of the exhibition the Spectrum News broadcast. One of the models wearing contemporary fashion and the interior photograph of one of the exhibition installations.

Harlem Institute of Fashion (HIF) founder, trailblazer Lois K. Alexander-Lane.

Souleo, left, and partner Beau McCall, recently shared their story on “National Coming Out Day”, via a virtual event “LGBTQ+ Lessons on Creativity and Connecting Generations”.

Declared as, "one of the very greatest bass voices of the century", Kevin Maynor has sung throughout the world in both opera houses and concert halls, from Carnegie Hall to The Beijing Concert Hall in China. As a recitalist Maynor has received praise throughout North America, South America. Europe, Australasia and Africa as well as Asia including India and China. Maynor has scored success in over 65 operatic roles in five different languages.

Kevin is the founder and Artistic Director of Trilogy: An Opera Company, which began in 2004. The inception of Trilogy: AOC followed a conversation between Sharpe James, former Newark mayor and Kevin Maynor. It was to be a cultural gift to the people of Newark, New Jersey. Initially developed as a one-off festival, Trilogy: AOC's success led to the formation of a committee and its continuing productions. Trilogy: An Opera Company is a 501c3 company. Trilogy: An Opera Company made its debut at The New Jersey Performing Arts Center on November 23, 2014. 

The World Premier of FIVE was presented by Trilogy at NJPAC on November 12, 2016.  Five, the three-act opera by internationally acclaimed composer Anthony Davis, with libretto by Richard Wesley, premiered at The New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, NJ. It is based on the story of the infamous 1989 Central Park Five case in which five teenagers were wrongly accused of molesting a woman jogger in New York City’s Central Park. It was later renamed The Central Park Five and premiered on June 15, 2019, at the Long Beach Opera and went on to win The Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2020. Again, by composer Anthony Davis, with Libretto by Richard Wesley. 

Trilogy productions include, among many others, Nat Turner, Frederick Douglas, Harriet: A Woman Called Moses, Robeson: The Opera, Emmett Till, Othello, Nat Turner and Blake.

Maynor has a diploma from the Manhattan School of Music, a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Bradley University, a Masters degree from Northwestern University and an Honorary Degree from the Moscow Conservatory. While in Bologna, Italy he studied with Paula Molinari at the Teatro Communale di Bologna. He is currently a Doctoral Candidate at Indiana University in Bloomington.

https://www.trilogyaoc.com

Guest Co-Host: Dr. Ashley Jackson enjoys a multifaceted career as a highly sought-after musician and collaborator in New York and beyond. She’s the daughter of a Newarker. As an orchestral harpist, Ashley performs with the New York Philharmonic, Metropolis Ensemble, the Qatar Philharmonic, and is the principal harpist of NOVUS NY, the contemporary music orchestra of Trinity Wall Street. She appears regularly with the Harlem Chamber Players. 

She is currently an Assistant Professor of Music at Hunter College. Dr. Jackson holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Juilliard School, a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University.

http://ashleyjacksonharp.com

Check out the images in this episode on: What’s Newark To Do With It?

The Trilogy’s Opera FIVE opens as the story’s mysterious narrator, The Masque (Kevin Maynor) — in his trench coat, hat, and red and white-painted face — surveys the neighborhood of Harlem, NY.

Left: Kevin Maynor. Right: Maynor as Hunding in Trilogy Opera Company’s presentation of Richard Wagnar’s "The Valkyrie”.

Kevin Maynor as OTHELLO in Trilogy Opera Company’s production.

Trilogy Opera Company’s production of Richard Thompson’s SASSY based on the life of Newark music icon, Sarah Vaughan.

Album cover, featuring Kevin Maynor, singing the repertoire of famous American bass baritone, film actor and civil rights activist Paul Robeson.

In 2017 in Central Theater, at Central High School, Trilogy Opera presented NAT TURNER by composer, librettist, and pianist Michael D. Raphael.

Trilogy Opera Company presented this production of BLAKE, by H. Leslie Adams, on April 30, 2021.

The many operatic roles performed by Kevin Maynor.

In this episode Emma Wilcox shares her unique view of art spaces and the overarching power of eminent domain and how it shapes the places where we live and work. She is a photographer concerned with environmental justice, land usage, eminent domain, and the role of individual memory in the creation of local history.

Emma was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, lived in Florida before arriving in New Jersey. She is co-founder, with Evonne M. Davis, of Gallery Aferro, an artist-owned alternative arts space in the heart of Newark, New Jersey’s downtown district. Founded in 2003, it is home to two major public exhibition spaces in a 20,000 sq. ft. building at 73 Market Street, offering exhibitions, events, and a studio residency program available all year-round. 

Emma’s solo exhibitions include: Where it Falls, The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA and William Patterson University Galleries, Wayne, NJ, 2012, Emma Wilcox, 2010 at Gitterman Gallery, New York, NY, Salvage Rights, Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT, 2009 and Forensic Landscapes, Jersey City Museum, 2007. 

She is the recipient of a Harpo Foundation Grant for Where It Falls, a NoMAA Creative Grant, a NJ State Arts Council Fellowship for photography, the Camera Club Of NY residency, the Newark Museum Residency and was a core participant in Night School at the New Museum in 2008.  She was featured on Women in Photography, and was reviewed in Art In America. She participated in Emerge 7, Aljira, Newark, NJ and AIM 29, Bronx Museum, Bronx, NY.

http://www.emmawilcox.org/ https://aferro.org/

Check out the images in this episode on: What’s Newark To Do With It?

Emma Wilcox presenting “Art & Audience” on TEDxNJIT in 2016.

Emma Wilcox, b.1994, 2011, silver gelatin print.

Emma Wilcox, Where It Falls, 2012, digital screengrab of google earth imagery

Juno Zago, At times I feel like a Sasquatch, 2020

People’s Open Mic Online at Gallery Aferro, Newark, NJ

Jesse Wright, Hattie & Edgar In Mandeville (Abraham & Sarah)

Victor Davson, Misogyny Papers/Apology II, 2020

Gallery Aferro Co-Director Emma Wilcox, Gallery Manager Candace Nicholson, and Registrar Juno Zago 

Gallery Aferro Exhibition, Images, left to right: Phone receiver by Alexander Andrews, Phone box by Daniels Joffe, I, John de Conqueror: A New Spelling Of My Name by John Gavin White

Evonne Davis, left, and Emma Wilcox owners of Gallery Aferro in Newark, NJ

My first introduction to Navindren Hodges came by way of an email from him promoting the sale of a unique print by the iconic Black abstract sculptor, Richard Hunt. I later met Navindren, in person, when I picked up the print at one of the oldest Black owned galleries in the country, the Bill Hodges Gallery, that was then located on 57th street in New York City.

Navindren Hodges is the Gallery Director for Bill Hodges Gallery, now located in the Chelsea arts district in Manhattan. The gallery was established in 1979 by his father, Bill Hodges. The gallery’s collection ranges from 19th-century Black artists Henry Ossawa Tanner to Harlem Renaissance legends James Van der Zee to modernist, abstraction icons Norman Lewis, Jacob Lawrence, and Romare Bearden and contemporaries Willie Cole, Carrie Mae Weems and Kehinde Wiley. The gallery’s practice is broad and there are many Latin American, Asian and European artists within the roster as well. 

Hodges notes that the market for African American artists and women artists is strong particularly due to the deaccessioning (divesting of art) occurring at many museums that are now looking, in many instances, to replace them with these two categories of artists who have long been under-represented. The gallery has been experiencing strong demand for Edward Clark, Norman Lewis, Frank Bowling and the photographs of Roy DeCarava amongst many others.

Navindren attended the Sotheby’s Institute of Art where he received a Master’s Degree in Art Business and the University of Iowa where he received a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology. 

Bill Hodges Gallery: http://billhodgesgallery.com/

Check out the images in this episode on: What’s Newark To Do With It?

Navindren Hodges presenting Demetrius Oliver’s, Totem, 2004, from the Bill Hodges Gallery collection.. 

Wilie Cole, Mother and Child #2, 2020. Bronze with Red Patina. Featured in the current exhibition, Selections From The Collection, until June 11, 2021.

Bill Hodges Kavie Barnes and Navindren Hodges attend the Visual Aids 13th Annual “Postcards From The Edge” preview cocktail party, 2010.

Navindren Hodges presenting Robert Colescott’s, Lock and Key I, 1989 from the Bill Hodges Gallery collection.

Navindren Hodges presenting Norman Lewis’, Exodus, 1972. Oil on Canvas, from the Bill Hodges Gallery collection.

Navindren Hodges presenting Sam Gilliam’s, Renaissance I, 1986 from the Bill Hodges Gallery. 

Bill Hodges Gallery postcard for an exhibition, 2010.

Takashi Murakami, 727, 1996. A favorite work of Navindren’s.

I first met Anonda in 2017 at the newly opened and incredibly designed Express Newark spaces in the former Hahne’s department store building in downtown Newark. I was very curious about this “Third Space” created to incubate talent, cultivate engaged scholarship and promote social practice in a unique variety of exhibition and maker spaces. Anonda volunteered to give me a tour and I was amazed at the resources offered by this creative incubator campus.

Anonda Bell is an Australian born, USA based, artist and curator. She is the Director and Chief Curator of the Paul Robeson Galleries. The PRG operates a network of exhibition venues in dedicated and interstitial spaces across the campus, including the Robeson Campus Center and Express Newark.

Paul Robeson, the esteemed Black American singer, actor, political activist and alumnus of Rutgers University, said “Artists Are The Gatekeepers of Truth. We Are Civilization’s Radical Voice.” Anonda has directed and curated exhibitions over the past 14 years that uniquely support and illustrate Paul Robeson’s mandate.

Prior to working at Rutgers, Bell has worked in various not for profit arts organizations including the Everhart Museum in Pennsylvania and Snug Harbor Cultural Center in New York. In Australia she worked at the National Gallery of Victoria and Bendigo Art Gallery.

Anonda’s personal art practice addresses issues of psychology, feminism and the environment through installation based work. Her artwork has been shown at various venues in the USA and Australia. In 2016 she was the recipient of a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship as a practicing artist.

Anonda received a Masters of Fine Arts from Monash University, a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting & Printmaking at RMIT University and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology & English from the University of Melbourne.

Visit hers and the Newark Galleries websites: http://paulrobesongalleries.expressnewark.org/ https://www.expressnewark.org/partnerships/paul-robeson-galleries/ http://www.anondabell.com/

Check out the images in this episode on: What’s Newark To Do With It?

Anonda Bell, Neither Shall You Touch It (detail), 2013-2014 from the series Reinstated. The scene is located in a liminal world, a version of the Garden of Eden, but one that might exist in a dream.  It is a place that only exists after twilight and before dawn. 

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, America Is Black, 2018. Exhibition titled, Mirror Mirror, Paul Robeson Galleries, Newark, NJ.https://www.expressnewark.org/exhibits/mirror-mirror-2/

Images by Manuel Perez from the current the exhibition, Picking Up the Pieces, the 2021 Bachelor of Visual Arts Graduate Exhibition, May 13, 2021 - Dec 31, 2021, featuring the work of seven student artists whose lives were upended by the global COVID-19 pandemic.http://paulrobesongalleries.expressnewark.org/exhibition/picking-up-the-pieces-bachelor-of-visual-arts-graduate-exhibition/?back=ago

Layqa Nuna Yawar, The Robeson Paean: Performer, 2019. Wall mural. Dec 19, 2019 - Nov 25, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Paul Robeson Galleries, Newark, NJ Campus. Photography by Luisa Pinzon. Layqa Nuna Yawar was born in Cuenca, Ecuador, and lives in Newark, New Jersey. http://paulrobesongalleries.expressnewark.org/exhibition/layqa-nuna-yawar-the-robeson-paean/?back=ago

Paul Robeson Galleries Director & Chief Curator Anonda Bell at the Opening Reception for Mirror Mirror exhibition at Express Newark in 2018. Works, in a variety of media from thirty-two international emerging and established artists and one artist collective, plumb the relationship between identity, cultural norms, and representation. https://paulrobesongalleries.expressnewark.org/exhibition/mirror-mirror/

Anonda Bell, Resist: A Coloring Book for Resistant Individuals. Edition 400. Images in this book were inspired by protest posters created for marches held around the world in 2017. This book parodies the current obsession with meditative coloring books as a way to relax and disengage with the world at large. This coloring book intends to focus individual’s attention to the important matters at hand.  The coloring process is intended to stimulate thought rather than empty the mind.  This book is available for sale at Printed Matter (https://www.printedmatter.org/).

Anonda Bell, Biophobia: Apiphobia (Bees), Installation at Wave Hill, NY. 2011. “Biophobia” is defined as a sense of dis-ease in nature, and a derisive regard for climates and environments which are not man made or at least modified significantly by people.

The Window Gallery at Express Newark is a homage to the department store windows that were part of the former Hahne’s department store building where Express Newark is now housed. The famous French-American painter and sculptor, Marcel Duchamp, whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art, also designed a shop window at the famously expansive, Bamberger’s Department Store, located a few blocks away, in 1960. Notice that the mannequins are mimicking his famous painting, Nude Descending a Staircase, No.2 (1912). A picture of that installation is pictured above.

Even after 35 years of knowing him, I continue to be inspired by Victor’s public and personal art practice in Newark, NJ. Victor is the co-founder of Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art in Newark. He and Carl E. Hazelwood founded Aljira together in 1983 as a non-profit center for contemporary visual art to promote the work of emerging and under-represented artists.

Aljira was a vital hub for creative excellence in Newark’s downtown arts district for over three decades. Victor served as its director for 33 years. Victor’s professional and charismatic leadership has, and continues to have, a profound impact on the artistic landscape of Newark and the Tri-State region. Artists of the African Diaspora, women and other underrepresented artists are exhibited, engaged and given global platforms that had never been realized, before he landed in the city of Newark.

Victor’s visual art practice is heavily influenced by the anti-colonial politics of the Caribbean, and by the intellectual powerhouses of that period. These include extraordinary writers and activists like Martin Carter, Frantz Fanon and Walter Rodney. Since 1996, Victor’s series of paintings and drawings are his attempt as an artist to negotiate the roots of identity in a terrain of loss and desire. He believes people of the African Diaspora have survived because of their extraordinary resiliency.

Victor recently retired as Co-Director of Express Newark, an initiative of Rutgers University in Newark and community partners focusing on arts, entrepreneurship and social justice.

Victor received a BFA degree from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York. He has exhibited widely throughout the northeast United States and has been included in exhibitions in England, France, the Dominican Republic and Cuba. His work is in the permanent collections of The National Museum of Fine Arts: Havana, Cuba, the National Collection of Fine Arts, Guyana, the Newark Museum of Art, The Montclair Art Museum and the New Jersey State Museum.

www.victordavson.com

Check out the images in this episode on: What’s Newark To Do With It?

In 2015 for Black History Month, Gallery 1978 presented “Dub Factor Redux” by Victor Davson. The individual works combine to create a large installation that represent a facet of the American music cultural phenomenon, depicting popular and iconic figures which were an influence on him growing up in Georgetown, Guyana.

Artist and Aljira Center for Contemporary Art co-founder, Carl E. Hazlewood.

HERESIES magazine cover, 18 & 19, 1985, Vol. 5, No. 2. The Heresies Collective was founded in 1976 by a group of feminist artists, including Black artist Emma Amos (right), with the goal of increasing discourse around the ideas of feminism, politics, and their relationship to art. Artists from this collective exhibited at Aljira at an earlier location in North Newark on 5th street and Orange.

A film still from Esther Podemski and Chuck Schultz's 5 DAYS IN JULY. Originally shown in 2007, it was a dual-screen short film, originally conceived as an installation. This work uses film footage from television, government, and private archives, to convey the essential facts of Newark's 1967 Rebellion and explore the roots and legacy of racial tension in America. The film was originally exhibited on the 40th anniversary of the Newark Rebellion at Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art and was commissioned by the gallery's founding director Victor Davson. Davson recently retired as the co-director of Express Newark. https://5daysinjulyinstallation.com/index.php

Amiri Baraka, 2013, iconic Native Newarker, New Jersey Poet Laureate Family Reading at Aljira.

Friday, May 22, 2015: Okwui Enwezor and Dawoud Bey receive Aljira Timehri Leadership in the Arts Award. Left: Dawoud Bey (lapel flower). Aljira guests during the reception.

Victor Davson, Dub Factor: Heroes (Marvin), 2016. Acrylic and sequins on treated vinyl LP record album cover.

Victor Davson and Ann Schaper Englot, Co-Directors of Express Newark in 2017.

Victor Davson, Misogyny Papers/Apology (impossible), 2020, acrylic, and magazine clipping on hardboard panel.

The Book of Hours/Ours book project, 2021, featuring the work of Cicely Cottingham and Victor Davson, emerged as a result of curator Cynthia Hawkins’ invitation to have concurrent exhibitions at the Bertha V.B. Lederer Gallery at SUNY Geneso.

Tune in to hear award-winning playwright, Richard Wesley, share how the 1970s Black Arts Movement in Newark inspired his contributions to theater, film and books over the past five decades. 

Richard wrote the libretto for Anthony Davis' opera The Central Park Five, which was awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Music. The opera (originally titled Five) was conceived and produced by Kevin Maynor, whose Newark-based Trilogy, An Opera Company, performed it at the New Jersey Performance Arts Center (NJPAC). Richard talks about his approach to this very tragic story: “I had information and memory of that period in the early 1990’s when so much of this unfolded, and I decided, let’s go with these feelings.  What does all of this mean to America?”

Richard discusses the influence of Newark's cultural-disrupter-in-chief, Amiri Baraka, and the iconic author and social justice advocate, James Baldwin, who in 1961 declared: “Artists are here to disturb the peace.” Baldwin was, and continues to be, a huge influence on Richard’s career.

An associate Professor in Playwriting and Screenwriting at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Richard earned his BFA from Howard University in Washington, DC. Since 1971, his work has explored the full spectrum of the Black experience in America, provoking audiences to think deeply and reflect on their own worldviews. Whether moved to tears or laughter, anyone fortunate to be in the audience will never forget Richard's Drama Desk winning play, The Black Terror, the controversial Mighty Gents (about former gang members in Newark) or his hilarious Uptown Saturday Night film , starring legendary Sidney Portier, Bill Cosby and Harry Belefonte. 

When Richard's book It’s Always Loud in the Balcony: A Life in Black Theater, from Harlem to Hollywood and Back was published in 2019, here's how he was described: Richard Wesley was witness to a revolution. As both a celebrated participant and eager student of the Black Theater Movement in the late 1960s, he became part of a seismic force in American culture, breaking down barriers and helping to disrupt the cultural landscape.  

Check out the images in this episode on: What’s Newark To Do With It?

Five, an opera from the Newark-based, Trilogy: An Opera Company, about the 1989 Central Park Five jogger case in New York City, composed by Anthony Davis with a libretto by Richard Wesley, premiered at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on November 12, 2016. An expanded version, The Central Park Five, premiered on June 15, 2019 at the Long Beach Opera Company in California. In May 2020 composer Davis was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Music for the expanded opera.

A production of Richard Wesley’s Black Terror featuring Dominique Toney.

Uptown Saturday Night is a 1974 American action comedy crime film written by Richard Wesley and directed by and starring Sidney Poitier, with Bill Cosby and Harry Belafonte co-starring.

The cast of the Afro-American Studio Theatre's 1988 production of Richard Wesley’s The Mighty Gents are pictured left to right: Robert Merriweather, Jeffrey Chastang, James Reed Faulkner (also the Director), Armond Jackson, Pashion Duncan, and Alonzo Carlos Greer.

Left: Poster for the 1986 film, Native Son, with a screenplay by Richard Wesley. Right, a scene from the movie starring Oprah Winfrey and Victor Love.

It’s Always Loud in the Balcony: A Life in Black Theater From Harlem to Hollywood and Back is a memoir of Richard’s roots from Newark, New Jersey published in 2019.

When I think of Nell’s visual and literary practices, a favorite quote of the iconic American author and social justice advocate, James Baldwin, comes to mind: “Artists are here to disturb the peace.” So, join me in a lively conversation with Nell Painter to discover how this brilliant Newark transplant uses her artistic talents to “disturb the peace”.

Nell Painter, the painter formerly known as the historian Nell Irvin Painter, is author of many books, including The History of White People, Sojourner Truth, A Life, A Symbol, Creating Black Americans and Old In Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over.

She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. at Harvard University,  a B.A. in anthropology from the University of California, an M.A. at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design .

Nell is the Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita at Princeton University and lives and works in Newark, New Jersey.

Nell’s recent artist books include From Slavery To Freedom,  was commissioned by Emma Wilcox for Aferro Gallery in Newark, 2020. This book, along with American Whiteness Since Trump, 2020 is part of her In the year of the Great Upheaval 2020 series.

“My work carries discursive as well as visual meaning, and I make it in my characteristic manual + digital process. Using found images and digital manipulation, I reconfigure the past and revision myself through self-portraits. After a life of historical truth and political engagement with American society, my artwork represents freedom. Including the freedom to be totally self-centered.” — Nell Painter

Learn and see more about Nell Painter and her artistic practice at her website: www.nellpainter.com

Check out the images in this episode on: What’s Newark To Do With It?

Nell Painter with her Odalisque Atlas – White History as Told Through Art: Solo show at Harvard University October-November 2019