I had the chance to visit the gallery of Ibou Ibrahima Ndoye when I was by myself without time restraints or the distractions of multiple bodies in one room. A happy accident happened when I went to the gallery; it was seamless timing with the sun shining in at a picture-perfect angle, exasperating all the lovely bright pigments of Ibou’s colorful glass plates, as if they could not get more vibrant. I read about how glass artwork was normally religious based and I thought how this is one of the reasons this artwork is so powerful; because it was ahead of its time. It takes the form of a crisp glass canvas but adds an urban type vibe that gives off the feeling of something that is relate-able even though it is intangible. His work is so bright and colorful but somehow is able to maintain a feeling of being down to earth. You see this type of style everywhere, in fashion, on music albums, and various other art forms; so it was wild to find out that this man who lives so local had a huge hand in this type of revolutionary art style. You can tell through his art that he has used all of his past travels to transition his work and tell a story that is always evolving. I didn’t get a feeling of an obsolete style, out of touch with today’s realities. The artwork evokes a general feeling of happiness and lightheartedness. I thought that the background of his family being involved in different types of art was shown through his work by the material he uses and the way he constructs his pieces. You can see the influence from his mother who worked with textiles, and his grandmother whose job was to intertwine colors in the most aesthetically pleasing way. Ibou clearly has integrated his family’s roots in his work. I always find it interesting when an artist can add texture and demanding color into a painting without blinding the eye or creating too much craze. Although his work is visual, it had me make a mental musical correlation in my mind, in a sense captured a whole dialogue.
Ibou was born in Senegal and began painting in the late 1980’s during a period called the “Set Setal” which was referred to as the clean-up movement. When you look at these pieces you can see that this period influenced him greatly. He doesn’t discriminate on what the world would consider orthodox material to work with. He sees beauty in things that may have never crossed the minds of many other artists, he goes to the beat of his own drum. Ibou’s artwork has an obvious connection to his roots, but he does not stop there, his style transcends just one time period of his life. You can tell he has used experiences from all his travels and interactions; as if he plucked his life experiences forming them into a type of intangible “life experience souvenir” in which he personifies through his art. Ibo gives you a nostalgia of what his homeland was like, or what the 80’s were all about through his eyes, without ever being there, His ubiquitous influence is felt through-out the whole room, giving off a liveliness and sense of vitality. Works layered in colors and energy, peeling back the powerful polychromatic disposition down to the core of these profound sample sized pieces of cultural history. At first glance, a bystander may see his craftsmanship equivocal in nature, but you can see the dedication and a slight ode to aestheticism; by using/creating in such unconventional, eccentric ways. Learning about Ibo was especially helpful and after learning about his life I developed an even greater understanding of how his creations depict the soulfulness mixed with intellect and how he works these characteristics into each piece. Leading to a powerful and clearer understanding of the story he is activating through his art, you can tell he enjoys what he does and I felt like I was transported into his mindset of funkiness and freedom when I was looking bouncing around the room. This is what makes art so cool, we don’t exactly know all the reasons for why someone creates something, or all the influences and ideology that went into these works, but part of the experience; is trying to explore and put the pieces together (no pun) with the visual information they have provided. I think that you know an artist is well versed and talented when there are so many possible reasons and multiple aspects of their art that they demand from us, but also leave up to interpretation.
The second gallery that had the work of Adebunmi Gbadebo was extremely interesting and I would have never thought of using human hair to make art. I think the fact she chose to use this medium, made the message she was trying to send about racism and equality, so much bolder. I thought her use of hair could have also been used to display a huge community of people she is speaking out about, using so many people’s hair is incorporating so many different strains of DNA. Gbadebo seemed to be using the dreadlocks as a complex controversial symbol, trying to scream that there is nothing shameful or “dreadful” about having dreadlocks, and that the only thing that is dreadful is the way the terminology was brought about. It is coming off as if the very thing (hair) that has gotten its name (dreadlocks) is to be celebrated; the way she portrays it and styles her artwork shows a boldness and power. Gbadebo is showing activism in a way that is so different from your ordinary run of the mill art gallery exhibit. The whole set-up spoke to me as if it was saying “here I am, here we are, and we will not feel ashamed.” These locks of hair represents far more than the tangible strains accumulated for her art. She uses the hair and re-locks it using history to force us (the viewers) to see the racial and derogative origins of the terminology that was once used and still is. In effect, it spread like a wild fire that has been forgotten about; and that no one has managed or acted universally enough to be extinguished and stomped out.
Quotes
“Yet this economy and its products elude easy analysis: we often do not feel the effects of the culture industry because we also its sacred product. While we are free to critique the conditions of cultural capitalism, we must nonetheless sleep, work, play, and dream in the mystifying world it has built.”
I picked this quote because I felt like this is something I think about, and have written about quite a few times. It is so odd that we shape the cultural fads and for the most part supply “the supply and demand” aspect of our free market and cultural capitalistic economy. It is true that we are the industry’s’ sacred product, everything that sells is form fit to appeal to us. We determine what will be a hit by the amount of people who approve of it, subconsciously we are controlling the thing that controls us. We can’t quite put our finger on it, figuratively speaking, or analyze it close enough, we can think about it philosophically but still we are grasping at straws. Even though culture comes in patterns we can’t always predict if it will go forward or back, yet we decide it as a group. We fantasize for something that other people are trying to figure out what it is we will lust for, but we don’t even know it yet.
Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the 21st Century by Nato Thomson, Melville House Publishing, Brooklyn 2015
Quote #2
“Glamour is a modern invention. In the heyday of the oil painting it did not exist. Ideas of grace, elegance, and authority amounted to something apparently similar but fundamentally different.”
I used this quote because I remember when we had to read this assignment it intrigued me but I choose a different one to write about at the time. It is true that now a days we want glamour and this differs from the way people were perceived and pictured in the past. Glamour has a type of sexual connotation whereas with these paintings from the past seem to evoke the emotion of envy. These portraits seem to display the feel that they are all competing with their “neighbor” and that only the superior beings are worth being documented. They are positioned in a way that suggests manners and high moral standings. With men they are depicted powerful and strong, the almighty brute of a man. These older ideas in comparison to our modern publicity seem more pretentious and try to portray a type of monarch ideology. Drawing a parallel between class, power, importance; these people who are recorded are the ones who are superior in the world. They are worth the time to be recognized, documented, mimicked and copied. Upper class and prestige is everything, this rules all and that this is not a fad this is the way humans will behave and what they will deem worthy for all of time.
John Berger: Ways of Seeing (Chapter Seven; pg: 148)
Quote #3
“The bodies of women have literally become parts-supply and production laboratories for many aspects of the repro-tech, stem cell and cloning biotech industry.”
This is such a controversial issue and something that I think needs to be spoken about more often, and more openly. This science is becoming more and more advanced and we are evolving into cloning being a part of our society. One of my concerns with our world is climate control and I think a huge problem is the fact that we are continuously reproducing. I think that bringing life into this world is a magical thing but I am seeing that the people who are supposed to be raising these children are not understanding or taking responsibility of this remarkable gift. The current trend is to have these big gender reveals where I have seen mothers or fathers first reactions to the sex of their babies be one of disappointment or anger. I find that to be so absurd, when I have a child with my girlfriend we are going to have to work to become parents and here are people who are not happy because they aren’t getting their preferred anatomical DNA. We first need to make it a priority, science and funding wise, to help sustain and maintain the earth or we are not going to be able to have any life form at all. Not to mention, we are treating woman’s reproductive rights like a factory farm, yet some places and people are against the women’s rights to choose what she should do with her OWN body; but we can pick and choose what parts we want for what science experiments. I am not against anything I do not know enough about I just can put together the pieces of the past and how women have been treated by society when it comes to their reproductive health and this is what I believe could potentially pose a threat.
Citations
https://www.claireoliver.com/artists/adebunmi-gbadebo/
http://www.iboundoye.com/biography.html
The Interventionists: Users’ Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Lives edited by Nato Thomson and Gregory Sholette, MIT Press, Cambridge 2004
Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the 21st Century by Nato Thomson, Melville House Publishing, Brooklyn 2015
This is my portrait (below), I know it isn't a self image but I chose it because I really wanted to start painting and I have only dabbled. I have always been drawn to SO many things/activities/hobbies/sports in life that I would get the hang of something pretty quickly and then bounce to the next thing. I was nervous to do this type of painting for awhile; I think because I don't ever think I will be able to deal with failing, so I end up drawing it out and staying stagnant. So, for awhile I stopped trying anything -doing anything at all. Then that becomes cyclical because you feel worse about yourself, that you are a loser for not doing anything, and that is part of depression. So if I do something I want to do it right; or I had always feared I will lose confidence. It took me seven years of staying in the same spot (mentally and physically), not doing anything new; until I went to the doctor and got my crazy chemical imbalanced alright.ha. because of this assignment it gave me the motivation to do so, now I am starting my second one later today. The old me would have just got all the material together and done all the work and never actually.
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