What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1462098
MARCH 20-26, 2022 WHAT'S UP! 9 small items that coordinate with the works of art, but these are designed to be touched and set low enough to the ground for children to reach. A patch of blue denim with a zipper is the tactile component for Jamal Cyrus' "A Witness," a piece made of torn and bleached denim. Historically, denim was used as durable workwear for enslaved persons, according to the exhibit. You can also reach out and run your fingers over a sample-sized patch of materials much like Nick Cave's "Soundsuit," a large construction of twigs, synthetic berries and metal over a mannequin. Cave began making soundsuits as a sort of protective armor to obscure the wearer's race, class and gender. A third connects to "Untitled Slab (cotton island)" by Kevin Beasley, whose "work centers on materials and their ability to evoke history." This one points to the associations of cotton with enslavement and disenfranchised labor of African Americans. Another piece centered on that theme is Kaneem Smith's "The Past Is Perpetual/Weighted Feet," which features a large cotton bale framed by iron weights with rows of iron hanging scales on either side, meant to evoke themes of trade, resistance and justice. Sanford Biggers' "Khemestry" is a piece that jumps right out at you. The unique antique quilt is mounted on a wall in a three-dimensional, origami-like way with the help of birch plywood. Quilt patterns prominent in Black quilting techniques, such as "Flying Geese," are featured in the exhibition for visitors to appreciate them as textiles and influences for other media. This is the third iteration of the exhibit, but it's in a more expanded capacity here, Oliver says. While "The Dirty South" was first shown in Virginia, the idea was planted in Houston. "It became apparent to me that the younger generation who were really embracing their southernness, they found a lot of pride and felt very anchored in those histories," Oliver said. "I asked them, 'What's giving you that sense to embrace being Southern?' A lot of people pointed to southern hip hop, that it gave them a license to create narratives about what it's like to be anchored in the South." That contrasted with her own experience of moving away from the South out of fear it wasn't a place of sophistication. Oliver said she later realized that being from the South was her pair of ruby slippers, the power and authenticity that was with her all along. Visitors shouldn't miss the SLAB (slow, loud and bangin') car in Crystal Bridges' south lobby. The Cadillac was commissioned and customized by Richard FIEND Jones, a hip hop artist from New Orleans. Oliver said these cars are a method of self expression that often goes unrecognized. "It's hard to appreciate these as works of art because we're too busy racializing the performativity, the loud music and the elbows sticking out," she said. "But when you take it out of that context, you do appreciate it as a work of art." FAQ The Dirty South WHEN — Through July 25 WHERE — Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, 600 Museum Way in Bentonville COST — $12; free to members, SNAP participants, veter- ans and youth ages 18 and younger INFO — 657-2335 or crystal- bridges.org FYI Visitors to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art can access "The Music of the South," six sampler playlists that highlight music from prominent cities across the southern United States, includ- ing Atlanta, Hampton Roads, Va., Houston, Memphis, Miami and New Orleans. This mysterious silhouette is RaMell Ross's "Caspera." The figure, whose Black feet are covered in red clay dust, illustrates a connection between body and land. Ross seeks to untangle the myth of Blackness at the root of much southern lore, and with this image he points to human lives made invisible while reasserting their agency front and center. (Courtesy Photo/RaMell Ross) This video at the beginning of the "Black Corporality" section is loud and lively enough to hear from the "Sinners and Saints" section and make you wonder what's in the next room. Framed by theatrical curtains, it has a gigantic golden statue that looks like a flatbill hat and adorned crown in one and reads "King of Arms." (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Spencer Tirey) Alejo Benedetti, in-house curator of "The Dirty South," and Valerie Cassel Oliver, the exhibit's originating curator, talk about the exhibit at the west entrance of Crystal Bridges in front of SLAB (slow, loud and bangin'), a Cadillac customized by Richard FIEND Jones, a hip hop artist from New Orleans. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Spencer Tirey) Fahamu Pecou's "Dobale to the Spirit," is an acrylic on canvas made in 2017. It is currently on exhibit at Crystal Bridges in "The Dirty South." (Courtesy Photo/ © Dr. Fahamu Pecou, Courtesy Studio KAWO/Fahamu Pecou Art)