What happens when you ask ordinary people around the world what they think of America? Do we want to know? It’s not so bad actually, at least if you’re not George Bush. Photographer Lauri Lyons latest project, Flag International (2008), documents precisely this question through photography, HD video, audio and hand written text from a host of characters across the continent of Europe. As a follow-up to her first book project, Flag: An American Story (2001), which documented American’s ideas about themselves, Lyons decided to trek across 8 countries in 8 weeks to investigate a 21st century international perspective on America. With a backpack, camera gear, a few American flags, assistants found in local communities and trained on the spot and, a list of friends of friends, Lyons layed the groundwork for, Flag International.

(Images left to right: Lauri Lyons, The Flag International book cover photographed in Italy and a portrait from the book, photographed in England.)

Spontaneity was a huge element in Lyon’s creative process on the project. Subjects were approached on the street, asked if they would like to participate, handed a sketchbook in which to write their comments on America and then asked to pose with the American flag, however they wanted to, for a photograph. Sometimes it took a bit of convincing, debate or negotiation to get subjects on board, but collaboration as part of the artistic process is one of Lyon’s staples, “The intention of the Flag International series is to inspire a dialogue about cultural understanding within a global framework. Cultural understanding is not only how a people or a nation views itself, but also how the world views you.”

(Images left to right: Lauri Lyons, Portraits from Flag International, photographed in Italy and Germany.)

In Lyon’s travels she came across, children of Algerian revolutionaries, wealthy Muslim shopaholics, beer drinking Germans, Holocaust Survivors, European B-Boys and B-Girls, Indian, Mexican and African immigrants, and a host of others. The experience revealed a changing Europe. One no longer ruled by homogeneity and ancient history. Lyons notes in the Flag International book essay, “The new Europe is a dynamic, cosmopolitan, and ethnically diverse continent with a youthful push towards a unification of cultures and resources. The new Europe reminded me of the idea of America, which constitutes a vast array of people striving to create a new way of being. As I traveled throughout Ireland, England, Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, I could not help but to wonder how the new Europe will deal with the same old challenges facing America such as nationalism, immigration, racism, fundamentalism, and apathy.” Check out Flag International to find out what our peeps overseas had to say about the good ‘ol USA!

(Image: Photographer Lauri Lyons, photographed in Harlem, USA.)

Buy Flag International! Listen/Watch the Flag International podcast/video! Images from Flag International are on view as part of the POSITIVITY show Curated by Jamel Shabazz at the Corridor Gallery in Brooklyn until July 26th.

Worldwide street artist Blu’s latest short film, MUTO, silences words.  Other than faint echoes of Scorpionic astrological symbolism - the cycle of death and re-birth - and perhaps remote references to the lurking presence of culture vultures amongst us, Blu’s creativity stretches habitual cognition and leaves viewers amazed, and perhaps with a “?”. Watch the video…

(Image: MARK (iced out), from 2008 Kendell Carter exhibition, Common Ground, at moniquemeloche, Chicago.)

The first thing I think of when looking at Kendell Carter’s work is: FUN, with a refined touch. Something that maybe a lyrically dapper rapper like Slick Rick, from back in the day, might conjure up as a visual art aesthetic. Clean simple and straight to the point, yet clearly sophisticated in its delivery. Carter’s work is both a respectable nod to fun, one of the quintessential original elements of hip-hop culture, and a graceful rendition of a high art vibration choreographed with around the way materials. Most interesting is Carter’s sublime positioning of himself, through his artwork, as an intellectual heir to the hip-hop canon.

(Images left to right: Kendell Carter, Tradizzle Chairs (black Gucci), 2006,  re-upholstered Louis XIV armchairs: ripstop nylon and wood . Kendell Carter,  Kangol Lamps, 2006, Kangol hats, half-chrome light bulbs, light fixtures and metal bowls. Images courtesy the artist and moniquemeloche, Chicago.)

His work is probably accessible to most people through sound bites that include words like, “bling”, “ghetto” and “hip-hop”. Or even through an internal struggle over whether to love or hate a movement that has permeated global pop culture. But, for anyone to be so creative in their expression of an art form in a context outside of that art forms spiritual home, suggests a much deeper motivation and message. To this end, the works somewhat abstract and object oriented nature is less of a comment on hip-hop culture and more of an ode to it.

(Image: Kendell Carter, Cultural Construct Experiment (Black), installation view at Mark Moore Gallery, 2007.)

Carter’s play on notions of high art and low art, decorative arts and ghetto aesthetics, is read most easily as a postmodern dance, but for those tuned to the spaces between the notes his work gives honor to a classic American art form, hip-hop, that has now become kitsch rap. (Similar to smooth jazz – easy on the intellect, comforting in its familiarity - in comparison to a classic Coltrane cut - soulful, innovative, transcendental.) Through sculpture, installation, painting and mixed media, Carter’s art speaks to a discourse on form, substance and language that can happen within and across multiple layers of culture. Elegantly tiered Kangol and wave cap hanging lamps re-purpose aesthetic and process oriented artifacts of hip hop style. Head gear that once perched atop the sacred mind of many an MC, and bubble jackets and hoodies that styled and protected the body, now lay back and chill in both contemporary and historical space. Letting all who enter know the art form known as hip-hop is far more than meets the eye.

(Image: Kendell Carter, #1 (I love you) from the Series Sweet Things, 2007, graphite on paper doily. Courtesy the artist and moniquemeloche, Chicago.)

Kendell Carter lives and works in Long Beach, CA and is represented by moniquemeloche, Chicago, IL.

Many ladies who came of age during the birth of hip-hop are B-Girlz at heart and that trend hasn’t stopped for the generations that followed. In celebration of the creativity of gutsy girlz with dynamic style and non-stop energy who mastered skillz in all aspects of hip-hop from the early days up until this moment, We B*Girlz is presenting the 1-month We B*Girlz Festival 2008 in Berlin, Germany this August. The organization, founded by Martha Cooper and Nika Kramer, aims to present strong, smart, independent B-Girlz and other hip-hop females as role models for upcoming generations, and to highlight the significant place for and history of women in the worldwide culture of hip-hop.

(Image: The Queens of Graffiti series, a collection of screenprinted portraits of outstanding female graffiti artists from around the world, on view at the Hip Hop Ladies With Attitude – Jammin’ Fresh & Def exhibition.)

Overall the multimedia festival’s intent is to provide a platform for girls and young women from different nations and cultural backgrounds to make contacts, exchange ideas and support each other. A highlight of the festival will be the visual art exhibition, Hip Hop Ladies With Attitude – Jammin’ Fresh & Def, organized by AnAttitude Magazine (Belgium) and Catfight Magazine (Holland) from 8/22-8/31/08. The 10-day exhibit will showcase live art in the form of Style Battles (8/28) and Graffiti Jams (8/29) featuring artists like Faith47 (South Africa), Shiro (Japan) and Mad C (Germany). Other artists such as, Roxanne Shante, Bahamadia, Toofly and Asia One, will all be in effect throughout the month representing MC, graf and breakin’ skills. In a packed schedule of events and activities, girls will gain knowledge, skills and tools to develop their creative prowess in all elements of hip-hop culture. The We B*Girlz Festival will also teach participants how to document their artistic output through workshops in video editing, photography and web design. Music, club nights and a film festival will round out the month long celebration and will close with a final flurry of battles, shows and a concert on the last weekend in August. The entire event will be documented in a compilation CD, magazine and DVD.

Event sponsors include Hauptstadtkulturfonds, Montana Cans and many more. For more info click here!

What is faith? Reality based inspiration, hope in things not seen? Or perhaps active participation in it’s unfolding. Any way you slice it, the latest work of South African based artist Faith47 paints Mother Nature’s man-made landscape with an unmistakably passionate reminder of the beautiful power of the human heart. With breathtaking potency the elixir of faith in action via the heart, mind and hand, is captured in the artist’s series of panoramic photographs of word, art and life in the South African landscape. The series, The Restless Debt of Third World Beauty, documents Faith47’s large scale graffiti/mural (a.k.a. public art) work on shanty walls and reaches a volume of intensity, when viewed in a global south landscape, that immediately invokes memories of the old school rumble of full train burners in New York City - taking the beautiful struggle to the next level.

(Faith47, a silent nation, location: gugulethu, cape town, south africa, 23×135cm)

A one woman army wicked in style and execution, Faith47 describes her project as, “my personal exploration into parts of the South African landscape that juxtapose beauty and strength with hardship and neglect.”  She goes on to describe the genesis of the work in these terms:

both the female and the third world have been oppressed and raped. 
despite this they are powerfully resilient and form the backbone of strength in society.
their voices silenced in the media with its strong western male gaze.
there is frustration and resistance that result from this situation.
and this restless debt is what i am looking at.
the resilience and strength
the angry calm
silent shouts
something humble and bulletproof in a violent world.

(Faith47, it’s a beautiful world will someone repair its broken heart, location: khayalitsha, cape town, south africa, 23×140cm)

The Restless Debt of Third World Beauty will be on view in June, 2008, at the Womb Gallery, as part of The Bass Festival in Birmingham, England, and in August, 2008, at the ATM Gallery in Berlin, Germany….View the series (PDF format). Watch The Restless Debt of Third World Beauty VIDEO.

Faith47 website

“Welcome to the Terrordome”, Media Commentator Chuck D brought it to consciousness in the hip hop zeitgeist of 1990, and artist Amir H. Fallah looped it again in his public art piece Terradome (bottom left image) at Art Dubai 2008.  The piece calls into question the manufacturing of middle-east-phobia by western mass media and, perhaps, functions as a metaphor for the construction and de-construction of perception — the Terradome was built at Art Dubai and was only up for about 5 days. 

(Left to Right: Amir H. Fallah, Terradome, 2008, found materials, 8′x8′x14′. Amir H. Fallah, Ben Jackel (Fort Series) 2007, found materials, 20″x20″, archival c-print.)

The interior design of Terradome, laced with local plants, pottery, wood veneer walls with middle eastern patterns and a domed mosque-like ceiling, reflects a sense of home and spirit that suggests the individual’s complicity in shaping what is cultivated on one’s interior. This work and Amir’s other photographed fort installations (above right image) also call into question the relationship between the construction of terror (or not) in private homes, the media and the public mind. 

WATCH Amir at work in Dubai building the Terradome…

Amir is also Founder/Creative Director of Beautiful/Decay Magazine.

(Delphine Fawundu-Buford, 9th Ward Remains, New Orleans, 2006)

View more images of New Orleans on photographer Delphine Fawundu-Buford’s website…

What is the value of an “art biennial”? For Dan Cameron, Founding Director and Chief Curator of US Biennial, Inc. and Prospect.1 New Orleans, it’s a twofold opportunity. Firstly, to bring the world together through the largest international exhibition of contemporary art ever presented in the United States, and secondly, through that action, to foster an idealized view of the world via an imposed harmony.  Although the goal sounds like a beautiful bouquet of flowers, the process reveals the blood, sweat and tears required to pull it off as of October 2008.  At the most basic level the artistic inspiration imbued in the land and people of New Orleans, Louisiana (both the ancestors and the living), represent the projects foundation.  Next up comes Dan Cameron’s 20+ year romance with the city, the devastation of hurricane Katrina and his longing to give something back to a place where his soul found its peace. And finally, this trajectory has culminated in the birth of the idea, concept and manifestation of Prospect.1.  Known for Jazz, Creole life, Blues and Mardi Gras to most of the world, New Orleans has a deeper layer of rich and intricate popular local culture that is being re-built one brick and heart at a time post-Katrina.  According to Cameron, ”New Orleans is our Venice,” and is to this day under-recognized as one of the United State’s most valuable artistic treasures.  Prospect.1 New Orleans is Cameron’s way of making a contribution not only to the re-building of one of America’s sacred cities, but to a new chapter in the identity of the country as a whole and the establishment of New Orleans as a major center of contemporary visual art exhibitions.

(Left to right: Dan Cameron, Founding Director and Chief Curator of US Biennial, Inc. and Prospect.1 New Orleans. Mark Bradford, photographed by Juan Carlos Avendano.)

Mark Bradford, one of seventy-five artists invited to participate in Prospect.1 New Orleans, speaks of a very thoughtful and challenging process when it comes to the development of his work for the project.  His initial open-ended exploration of the Lower 9th Ward led to a working relationship with a couple, Keith and Chandra, and their organization L-9, the only non-profit in the area, as well as an organic unfolding of experience and artistic inquiry.  Recognizing that all biennials have a different context, Bradford immediately felt the “heavy” context of the Lower 9th Ward, while simultaneously watching a truth unfold - life exists after devastation.  This experience not only tested his resolve, but made Bradford realize, “I had to believe that what I do has value.”  One way Bradford’s cultural capital revealed its value was through a fundraiser for L-9 that raised enough money for the organization to really get up and running. Now several other artists are also creating projects in the Lower 9th Ward for Prospect.1 with L-9 acting as a cultural hub in the neighborhood.  Both Bradford’s and Cameron’s non-object oriented collaboration with L-9 and the city of New Orleans respectively, reflect the possibilities of art and artists as tools in the economic and cultural recovery of communities. 

(L-9 Center for the Arts, Lower 9th Ward, New Orleans, Louisiana.)

In a city that deals with disaster through celebration and resilience, Prospect.1’s use of art and creativity as a tool of empowerment suggests a new direction for a red hot art market.  And, as Bradford is careful to note, the possibility (not the responsibility) for artists to pick up the conversation that pulsates beneath the surface of Prospect.1 as a biennial, is ripe for consideration. 

(Mark Bradford, 1 Cat Seen, Ark Project, 9th Ward, New Orleans, 2008, poster)

Other artists who will exhibit work at Prospect.1 New Orleans,  in addition to Mark Bradford, include: Wangechi Mutu, Julie Mehretu, Gajin Fujita, Sanford Biggers, Fred Tomaselli, William Kentridge, Cai Guo Qiang and many more…Prospect.1 New Orleans will open to the public on November 1, 2008 and run until January 18, 2009.

Get off the corner, the couch and the passenger seat of your best friend’s car, there’s a new sheriff in town, Barnabus Shakur, founder of Project Re-Generation (PR-G) in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn.  On a mission to eliminate teenage after-school idleness through educational programs, PR-G has been empowering youth through physical fitness, financial literacy, job skills and mental calisthenics for the last 7 years.  Through community partnerships with local homeowners, volunteer educators and corporate entities like the New York Knicks, PR-G’s commitment to creating a college bound culture within the urban community has reached over 500 teens and 3,000 Bed Stuy residents.

Fundamental to the program’s philosophy is a commitment to the development of personal integrity and knowledge of self.  To this end PR-G engages young people in the study of Urban Contemporary Jujitsu under Grand Master Bill McCloud and the mantra, “The art of 360 -Perfecting every aspect of your being!”  The regimen includes Urban Contemporary Jujitsu, Aikido, Yoga, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Cardio Kickboxing.

Other PR-G programs consist of the NY Knicks Poetry Jam Sessions (an 8 week poetry program with performance opportunities), Foot Soldiers (a money management, job readiness and community service initiative) and Rites of Passage (a program designed to support personal development, community care and hard work).  Commitment like Shakur’s, to structure, guidance and community, lead to the optimal functioning of young people and represents the possibilities of what can happen when private citizens take public action!  Join PR-G for their 6th Annual Community Pride Day at Von King Park in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn on July 12th, 2008.

The one question at the forefront of America’s public mind right now seems to be: Does race still matter? We see it in the debate over Barack Obama’s presidential run, the media’s claim that there is one “Black Church” (a.k.a. Jeremiah Wright), and art exhibitions like Black Is Black Ain’t curated by Hamza Walker (The Renaissance Society, Univ of Chicago on view 4/20/08 – 6/8/08). Meanwhile, artists like Chanel Kennebrew are creeping on a come up, taking Booker T.’s bootstrap mentality, Dubois’ words on propaganda and Warhol’s use of reproduction to foster a new socio-economic art model: self-reliance, healthy interdependence and conscious capitalism. 

(Chanel Kennebrew, Narcissism from the Good Housekeeping series, mixed media, collage.)

Chanel Kennebrew’s movement from the art marketplace, the gallery and the corporate design firm, to independent artist/entrepreneur status has been a process. One laced with stints on the west coast, in the Midwest, abroad in Toronto and finally in Brooklyn, USA for the last 2 ½ years. Her journey has also included study at the Ontario College of Art & Design and the usual artist hustle – a million and one side jobs. After a historical look at stereotypes and binary oppositions through her series of 12 prints called Good Housekeeping for the New Negro Woman, completed at university, Chanel found herself revisiting the surface exploration of race and gender in media through her work at a NYC design firm. Soon, it became clear: 1) Chanel needed to make art for the people…not the scene; 2) the mainstream media doesn’t represent the actual populous, it represents the ‘ideal’ populous; and, 3) she was getting stifled trying to create for curators and buyers. Hence, her leap into entrepreneurship and strictly freelance work with the launch of her own on-line store, Junkprints.com.

(Chanel Kennebrew, Ladies of Soul, 13″x19″, archival matte print, edition of 50, also available as a tee.)

Chanel’s artwork and art-inspired products are in part designed to approach social matters from multiple perspectives. She told Cultureserve, “One thing I try to stress in the work is that discrimination based strictly on being unfamiliar is harmful to communities as a whole and the results can be absurd to just sad. The specific topics are just the tip. The core of the problem is lack of understanding. As simple as that sounds, that lack of understanding affects the victim and the oppressor and causes strange spin offs such as over compensation by power holders and self segregated communities built strictly on visual appearance. I rarely come to conclusions in my work. I’m just presenting my audience with some healthy options.” Along with her own line of junk (clothing, zines, prints, etc.), Chanel donates a percentage of profits from specialty tee’s (Jena 6 & Immigrant Beater) to support social causes and keeps it democratic by offering her art direction services to both large and small companies.

(Left to right: Monitor Mania Jacket, In Support of the Jena 6 Tee, by Junkprints. Below: Chanel Kennebrew.)

Chanel designs all Junkprints’ graphics and prints all garments on sweatshop free tees, hoodies and up-cycled materials in Brooklyn. All of the bags are hand made and the core of the line is made in editions of 50. Contact/Shop Chanel!

What constitutes a classic? Who gets to decide? Why not me? So, as a lover of the b-boy uprock danced to a classic b-boy cut, I declare Sanford Biggers’, Mandala of the B-Bodhisattva II video work, made in 2000, a classic.  What are the parameters for this particular classic, the supreme weaving of the spiritual nature of breakdancing (exquisitely explored in the current film Planet B-Boy), with the Mandala, a diagram that serves as a collection point for universal forces.  (Watch the video!)

(Sanford Biggers, Mandala of the B-Bodhisattva II (2000), video still, 16ftx 16ft hand-carved colored rubber tiles, Formica backing. Battle of the Boroughs breakdance competition.)

The sacred circle where the community gets down and individuals merge with divine oneness and the eternal moment, once again found itself in the dance ciphers of early hip-hop culture, and subsequently became a global phenomenon known as breakdancing. What Biggers so eloquently puts down here, in video form, is a contemporary cultural manifestation of a centuries old global tradition. Not only is this video work a sublimely layered riff on perspective and transculturalism, it highlights the symbiotic relationship between the individual, the group and the cosmos. While the volume is loud the message is clear, one love, one aim, one destiny - union with the ultimate - whether you’re a b-boy, b-girl, Buddhist or otherwise.

(Sanford Biggers, Creation/Dissipation (2002), colored sand poured unfixed to floor and realtime projection of the performance shot from an overhead camera and projected on an adjacent wall.)

As a group, there are a handful of Biggers’ video works that suggest a fascination with the dance between the cosmic or metaphysical and the day to day movements of human beings. Creation/Dissipation (2002), Hip Hop Ni Sasagu (In Fond Memory of Hip Hop) (2004) and Cosmic Conundrum (2006) all show an appreciation for what could be described as movement between the polarities of energy and matter. Spatial relationships between music and dance, silence and sound, the individual and the group, light and dark, the intimate and the infinite, converge into moments of contemplation filled with the residue of the familiar and the possibility of the unknown.

(Sanford Biggers, Lotus (2007), 7ft diameter, hand etched glass, steel and LEDs. The image etched onto the glass is based on drawings of the cargo hold of an 18th century slave vessel.)

Many of Biggers’ video pieces are accompanied by installations, objects and performances that also speak to his transcultural/transcosmic inquiries.  Keep an eye out for Biggers’ participation in the following shows in 2008:  US Biennial: Prospect 1. (curated by Dan Cameron) New Orleans, LA; Neo HooDoo: Art For A Forgotten Faith. (curated by Franklin Sirmans and traveling to PS1, New York) The Menil Collection, Houston, TX; and, (Yet Untitled). Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York.  Also on tap in 2009, The Cartographer’s Conundrum (funded by Creative Capital), an installation, film and website inspired by artist, scholar and Afro-futurist John Biggers. A cousin of his subject, Sanford Biggers’s goal is to both study and expand the emerging genre of Afro-futurism, which engages science-fiction, cosmology and technology to create a new folklore of the African Diaspora.

(Sofia Maldonado, Skate Bowl, 2008. Photo: Alfred Ruiz. Location: Somewhere in Puerto Rico…)

Read Cultureserve’s Issue #4 feature on Sofia Maldonado, the artist behind Skate Bowl, here!

Sofia’s next show, The Tropical Storm, is a three-part project blending elements of street culture (skateboarding, punk rock and graffiti) with a feminine Latina aesthetic and the chaotic natural energy of the Caribbean.  The different elements of the project -The Bowl, Broken Boards and The Skate Bags - originate from the artist’s objective to open up dialogue on the renovation of neglected public spaces and how fashion and consumerism influence counterculture youth movements (particularly how these movements are integrated into products and industries).  A skate mini-ramp will be installed in the center of the gallery, designed and painted by the artist and will be available for local urban daredevils to attempt during the opening. On view at Magnan Emrich, NYC, 5/15/08 - 6/23/08. Contact Sofia!