Week 4: Repost

Max Sansing and Chicago Street Art (Part 1)

By Chicago Art Magazine on Feb 25, 2010 in Articles, Featured

[originally posted 2/26/10]

Ben Majoy

I’m staring out the window of the Wellington brown line L stop right now, specifically at a giant, desolate brick wall. Its emptiness is astonishing, such amazing real estate for a street artist.

For a city this size, with an above ground public train system and a rich history of sub cultural expressionism (The Blues, characters like Kanye West, and hmmm… the Squids), I can’t understand why these brick walls aren’t more interesting. After spending time in Berlin this past summer, I appreciate how inspiring a city becomes when street art is part of the urban landscape. The fact that Chicago is lacking this genuinely worries me.

I wanted to know why Chicago’s street art scene was so shockingly lackluster, so I sought out ex-graffiti writer turned fine artist, Max Sansing. Max has been responsible for some of the more interesting murals around south side Chicago and once upon a time, was probably responsible for some of the graffiti that you gawked at, staring out the window of the red line. According to Max, this “once upon a time”, revolved heavily around the Hyde Park hip-hop scene, once a beacon for street artists in the same way that Kreuzberg in Berlin is now. I went down to Max’s stomping grounds on 79th Street in Avalon Park to talk about Chicago graffiti and street art. It was the kind of conversation you might hear two calloused old men have over a game of chess and a few glasses of scotch. He was so damn interesting that I wanted to share some of the highlights.

Ben – Part of the reason that I wanted to talk to you about this stuff is because I don’t see a lot of graffiti around Chicago where I think other big cities around the world would have plastered their walls by now. What was the scene like in the nineties when you were growing up? Was there more of it?
Max – Man, I was fortunate to come up at the time I did. When I was in high school back around ‘95, the hip-hop scene in Hyde Park was huge! The real black hip-hop scene was like in its golden era man. You had tons of kids who were doing graffiti, break dancing, mc’ing, and dj’ing. All these different Hyde park graffiti crews and would go up to the point right off of the lake front and show their sketch books and stuff. It gave me a chance to get out the neighborhood I grew up in. I grew up in Avalon Park. It was pretty much the typical hood feel. It was a decent middle class neighborhood, but it was right off of 79th street. I’ve had a lot of friends who’ve gotten popped off over there. I got a chance to get out of there through the hip-hop scene. I guess that’s something that hits with the graffiti thing. Hip-hop culture in Chicago has always been competing with the gang culture for what the youth wanted to get into. When I was growing up in Chicago in the early 90’s the gang scene was huge. If I didn’t know people, and I didn’t get out of the neighborhood, I would have been into some bullshit. That’s why I thank god for the hip hop scene, for opening up my mind.

Do you think the scarcity of kids doing graffiti has anything to do with the fact that it’s so illegal? That may sound like a ridiculous question but…

I mean people are doing illegal shit all the fucking time, especially if they don’t have any cash dude. Here’s the thing. It’s not glamorous. If you go out and you see a dude sitting in a big ass truck with rims and or shit, he probably got it from rapping and selling drugs. When you’re a shorty who ain’t got shit, and you want to be accepted because you’re going through high school angst, the gang stuff is really appealing man. Then, on top of that, the only type of music you have on the radio is gangster stuff like Lil’ Wayne and Gucci man. It’s like the perfect storm. The ill thing with graffiti as a youth interest is that it’s an art form, so its going to lead them into something with different cultures as opposed to the whole dope boy (drug dealing) thing which is just going to lead you into bullshit.

That makes sense man. You get a lot more payout from being a gangster than you do from being an artist. I guess if you’re going to choose between one illegal act or another, you’re going to choose the one that takes less time and effort.

Exactly dog. They’re not going to be trying to get their styles better. They aren’t going to learn to get can control. I invested a lot of time into the shit I know now through graffiti. I’ve got tons of books like this (shows me his sketch book). Each one was like two or three years of dedication – years of getting my craft together. Going out there, painting walls, learning from other graffiti writers. Spray cans aren’t an easy thing to use.

See, I think that if graffiti is ever going to be a part of Chicago, like it is in places like New York, Paris, or Berlin, I think that these kids need to see it done. They need to know that the time and effort pays off in big ways. If kids see your or other artist’s graf work around the city, you might get some more young Hyde Park style graffiti enthusiasts. It might make this city a lot more visually exciting.

See that’s the thing that my buddy and me are on right now. We keep beating the drum and doing these murals. It’s going to do something. Just these two past years, we’ve had these protégés. I was texting this dude the other day, these high school kids who are just like coming up looking at our shit. They told me that there’s a lot of kids out there that want to know about the hip hop scene from back in the day because it’s become kind of like a myth now. They want to find out who came out of that scene and who’s doing what now.  I think that’s interesting. I think it’s a small glimmer of interest in the whole thing.

Read the rest of the article here…

Week 4: Progress

The first piece is an alternate edition of the piece "Born Under Another Name." I took it into Photoshop and played around with the filters. I like this one because it gives me the feel of pollution in the mother's womb. When a word is placed upon you like that of a nigga, it can only pollute the perception of who you are. Now in todays world it is a term of endearment, yet in my eyes it still produces the same effect of self-decay.  The umbilical chord seems to fill up with a dark fluid which would represent the streets the negative streets that I live in.

African American Origins is also another alternative piece I did in Illustrator. This book explains how African Americans were viewed in the past, which still effects some of us today. We were viewed as animals with no civility and no understanding of the world. Nothing more than a nuisance to the world of "high society." As of right now in most schools in American African history really has no meaning even though we come from an extraordinary people. Even though history books are not as blatant with such words today, they still leave the impression that African really were not all that innovative other than the Egyptian civilization; which is a travesty in light of Africa's rich history.



Week 4: Inspiration

This weeks inspiration is from Max Sansing. I actually was able to meet him last year and I have to say his oil paintings are very inspiring. I really love how he uses colors, which makes his pieces even more vibrant. His pieces have a depth to them that I really appreciate. His color usage to me brings out the beauty or the emotion of the object.

Week 3: Repost - The Trenchant Art of James Pate



http://www.daytoncitypaper.com/the-trenchant-art-of-james-pate/

The Trenchant Art of James Pate

Kin Killin’ Kin and Attack

 

 By Jud Yalkut

 

The masterful African American artist James Pate was born in Birmingham, Alabama, but raised in Cincinnati where he earned a scholarship to attend the Art Academy there through a Corbett Award. After attending Central State University and continuing to self-educate himself, he has since been a recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence grant and two Montgomery County Individual Artist Fellowships.

 

Widely know for his idiosyncratic Techno-Cubism style which fuses immaculate realism with spatial abstraction, Pate has, since 2000, worked on a powerful series of large charcoal drawings which decry the horrible problem of violence among black youth and the resultant terrorism. “In the middle of producing the first piece,” he writes, “I decided that as a personal, private protest I would continue to compose a rendering as long as these insidious acts continue.”

 

The Kin Killin’ Kin series has resulted in twelve outstanding pieces now on view at the EbonNia Gallery in Dayton through February 29, and the entire series has been given integral life by being acquired by the prestigious African American art collection of Arthur Primas. Curator Willis “Bing” Davis began discussing the exhibition of these works in 2008 in which “a master visual artist… had directed his artistic vision to one of the most critical social ills of our time … youth violence.” Mounted at the gallery in the fall of 2011, the suite of monumental charcoal works was visited by numerous church, school and governmental units ranging from youth groups to university art classes, with great demand encouraging its 2012 extension.

 

Writer Janyce Glasper has commented eloquently on Pate’s work: “Moving poetry, these realistic, fairly large charcoal drawings engage not just the viewer’s eyes, but the actively processing mind. One can almost taste the salty tears from visceral sadness … Touch the lifeless body that no longer has a heartbeat … In the aftermath of senseless bloodshed, there is nothing a viewer can do.”

 

Pate equates the senseless killers as Black equivalents of Ku Klux Klan terrorism with African American community realization that we “in a strange fruit kind of way, are doing the business of the KKK with our Black-on-Black violence.” The artist stresses this comparison with the depiction of “brothers in pointed hood in the ‘hood’.” In “Your History” the “king of the drug trade” aims a magnified drive-by gun at a traditional Yoruba head from West Africa, and “K, 2 Da K, 2 Da K, II” treats misguided leadership among black males in hooded robes, baring burning crosses and threatening guns. Bullets are masked in small rectangles as they are suspended threateningly in space.

 

 

The heroics of black union soldiers are symbolized in “Defenders of the Corner” but perverted by the current tendency to defend the corners of the drug trade. Pate questions: “What happened between the Civil War era and the present day that causes this degree of dysfunction?” Basing “Ku Klux Sphinx” on the legendary shooting off of the nose of Egypt’s Sphinx by Napoleon’s troops, Pate shows the debris falling onto a young girl jumping rope, an instance of “the innocent bystander as victim.” He relates this also to bombardment by debris of the victims of 9/11.

 

“3K” honors Pate’s favorite DJ, Jam Master J of the group Run DMC, gunned down in his studio and here pictured on the jersey of a masked current DJ, while giant gun hands protrude into the foreground from passing cars with hooded drivers. “Your History II” captures the mutual destruction of competing gunmen against a background drawn from scenes dating back to the civil rights era. “Your History III” plays on the double meaning of noble history and the water soaking of protestors against “the slang phrase that signifies the ending of one’s life.” Pate further equates the senseless killer with a fractured Sphinx-nosed “Adolf Jackson” with Hitler’s equal determination to terminate the black race as well as the Jews, and also decries the onslaught of music with violent lyrics which encourages the mobster psychology in “K 2 Da K, 2 Da K” with a hooded background character declaiming into a mike while holding a gun to the temple of another.

 

The large oil painting “Turn of Endearment” projects hope around a multi-faceted character that progresses in rainbow tones away from a life of despair to the embracing of a youth with the definition of Sankofa (“looking back at their rich ancestry in order to receive the guidance to move forward”).

 

A concurrent series by Pate, which decries violence towards women called Attack, with rich monumental black nudes threatened by military warplanes, is showing at the Works on Paper Gallery of Sinclair Community College through March 7. This series also allows the viewer to appreciate the prodigious feeling and technique of this master artist whose works enhance the lifestyle and consciousness of our community.

 

The EbonNia Gallery is located at 1135 W. Third Street in the Wright-Dunbar area of Dayton. Gallery hours are 11a.m.-5p.m. or by appointment at (937) 223-2290. The Sinclair Works on Paper Gallery is located on the fourth floor of Building 13 at the corner of Fifth and Perry Streets in Dayton. Gallery hours are 8a.m.-8p.m. Monday-Thursday, 8a.m.-5p.m. Friday and 8a.m.-3p.m. Saturday. For more information visit www.sinclair.edu/arts/galleries.

 

Reach DCP visual art critic Jud Yalkut at JudYalkut@DaytonCityPaper.com.

 

Week 3: Inspiration - James Pate

The artist that I chose for this weeks inspiration is James Pate. His series KKK "Kin Killin' Kin" relates so much to my own series. His work focuses on the aftermath of what slavery, economic depressions, and other factors have done to our youth. The end result is that we become just like the KKK (Ku Klux Klan) partaking in the violence and terrorizing of our own people. We end up doing the work for them. It is interesting to see that James also uses charcoal and pastels to create his work. I myself find great influence in this work, it is inspiring. My favorite has to be the last where the young man turns from the way of crime to who he is supposed to be. So since he is displaying the aftermath of now it further encourages me to explore how did this happen.

 

Week 3: Progress

Inner-City Madness is a study of the cause and effect of oppression on blacks in the inner-city. The purpose is to explain the behavior of our inner-city youth instead of speculating. the medium I will be using is charcoal and Illustrator.

For the time being I have these sketches that I will expand on. They will be much larger and presented with more of a full idea next week.

Week 2: Repost

http://blackartblog.blackartdepot.com/features/artist-talk/reflections-thomas-williams-speaks-about-sold.html#more-4657

Reflections: Thomas Williams Speaks About “Sold”

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We recently had the opportunity to speak with Thomas Williams about his latest painting “Sold”. Read below to learn more about this powerful work of art.

Q: When was “Sold” originally painted?

A: “Sold” was created with oil paints on canvas and it was completed in January of 2013. The exact date escapes me right now.

Q: What was the inspiration behind this piece?

A: I wanted to paint something that would represent how it felt to come off the slave ship after it arrived in the United States of America.

Q: Can you explain some of the powerful symbolism incorporated into this work of art?

A: You will see an Enslaved African and behind him you will find the stars and stripes of the United States of America painted in different shades of grey. This represents his arrival to the United States. The chains that keep him in bondage are in the United States of America’s trademark red, white and blue colors because those chains truly symbolize America’s relationship with Black America. You will also notice the words “Sold” and “250 Negroes Arrived”. These represent the Africans that arrived on the shores of Virginia in 1860 that were sold into slavery. The two images that you see in the middle and upper right corner were placed there to further illustrate how these enslaved Africans were treated when they arrived on America’s shores.

Q: I like this a lot. Do you envision creating anymore works with a similar theme?

A: This painting is actually the first of a three-piece series. This limited edition art print features the man, the second will feature his daughter and the third will feature his wife. The chains around their neck will connect them all and when complete, all three prints could be placed side by side to create one large work of art.

Please visit the link below to buy “Sold” by Thomas Williams.

Week 2: Inspiration



I found these two pieces of art that looked very interesting to me. I found these two pieces of art on http://blackcontemporaryart.tumblr.com/ . I think its was great to put the profile of this person on to a police vehicle stop form. I myself have been stopped numerous of times by police officers because they wanted to see if I was carrying drugs or something of that nature. They never found anything because I don't participate in that behavior. It also happens that a lot of my closest friends have experienced this as well. Depending on where you live and what color you are its almost natural to be pulled over by the cops for no apparent reason. So I thought is was genius to put the profile of a black man on this form because I could relate to the experience.

Week 2: Progress



This week, my focus was mainly in charcoal. What I was trying to accomplish in this weeks three pieces was the complex way that slaves were brought up which translates over to how our youth are effected today.

The first piece "Born Under Another Name" is the way that some black people look at themselves calling themselves nigga. Which is only a slight change from the original collective slave name of nigger. My goal putting the baby in the womb with a stamp on its head, signifies that it has been branded in a sort of way. By branding, I mean to say that society categorizes you in such a way that even though we are born with given names by our parents sometimes this racist general word for African Americans overshadows that personal identity. The goal in making a slave was to strip one of his or her identity. In stripping them of their identity, you strip them of any sense of self and make them accustomed to any form of oppression. In many African American communities we have become accustomed to the way in which we live; in may ways at the bottom of the totem pole.

The second piece is "A.A.'s Forged History". This piece contains a child's hands holding a book, and the description of African American history is taken from a white supremacist scientist. His quote defines blacks as having a beastly nature, devoid of all intelligence whatsoever. This was how blacks were being taught in schools and before they could even attend school. In order to explain the behavior of the inner-city youth, backtracking is a must so a full perspective can come into view.

The third piece is "What Do You See". How does society see those impoverished? How do they see black youth or any troubled youth for that matter? Are we all just monsters composed of other peoples preconceived notions or are we more than what they say? This is the struggle that the man caged within the hoodie of monster fights with. This also reflects on the Travon Martin case as well. He was a young boy who was a victim of a blatant murder and yet and still the murderer got off. Many people demonized Travon Martin as a gangster or some crazy thug. They did not look at him as a young ordinary teenager, they looked at him as an aggressive villain because of who they thought he was. Preconceived notions are much different from reality.

Week 1.2 : Blog and Art Inspirations

One particular blog that I have been reading is one called http://racismschool.tumblr.com. This blog is about a female who is bi-racial and gives her own account of how we define racism. She tells of her own encounters and her own experiences with being bi-racial in America. One of the the best parts about this blog is its section Racism 201: Art Appreciation. Here I found great art by black artists who through art demonstrate their own experience in America. A lot of the artwork is very colorful and thought provoking. I have to say that it is amazing to see how most African Americans experience the same things, but artistically the project these situations in totally different ways. Here are some of the artworks displayed on the Website:

Paul Goodnight

 "Ive learned that art is making me, rather than me creating it.” 

Charly "Carlos" Palmer

Charles Bibbs

Kevin O'Keith

Geral Ivey Gerald

Week 1: Inner-City Madness Progress

From Past Gains to Future's Loss
 

The Injections of Influence

The Distortion of Senses

Who is the African American and how do we define him? What is the Inner-City Madness and its purpose? Or should I say to combine the two simply, why does the African American suffer from Inner-City Madness? For instance, I give you Chicago, the city I love and live in; why have there been so many deaths among African American youth in the inner-cities? Is it because they are essentially 3/5ths of a real human, treading and walking in a beastly nature. Are their attitudes birthed from the roots of suicidal behavior? I mean my black brothers seem to kill each other everyday and my black sisters seem to bare children out of wedlock to continue the cycle. Are they just crazy?

Well, this series is designed to answer these questions of why? So many times as a African American, myself, I have been asked by people of other races why can't those people be like you and strive for betterment. (Let me first say that I am not a ruler by which men should measure themselves. I am a mere human being searching for the meaning of life; hoping also to live a life as righteous as possible.)  This series is my answer to those who have questioned me and to all those abroad who have the same question. To understand people you have to understand the past origins of a human being before you can judge who they presently are for yourself. It seems to me that American society would choose to deem people like me and other impoverished people animals, instead of stepping into a person's shoes. The youth that I speak of cannot be summed up by a mere news clipping, but their conditioning to strive for only lowly survival can be traced back hundreds of years in American History.

I seek to unveil this truth through the eyes of the child in the first picture. Children naturally question the world around them, without prejudice or presumptions. It is through this child that I seek to unveil the African American both presently and also his African accomplishments. A people with a lack of history is ultimately destined to enslavement and failure. Most young African Americans cannot tell you about their history pre-slavery and that is where the child in my first illustration originates. To find out what his descendants have become he must be reduced to a child-like state to better understand them. The next two illustrations are the process by which African American children become desensitized to the world they live in. I hope through this series we all get a better understanding of who we are, which are diverse members of one equal human family.