Colored Criticism

A fresh take on art.

Tiffany Bradley

Coronavirus Cancels Everything

Hi friends,

I’m writing from my home, surrounded by the fallout of coronavirus. Our county is referred to as the “Westchester cluster,” which sounds vaguely like an old-timey candy instead of an outbreak. The National Guard is helping out the good people of New Rochelle, schools are closed next to my writing spot in Scarsdale, and our streets get quieter as the diagnosed cases tick up. We’re already community distancing as our schools, cultural institutions, and houses of worship try to contain the damage.

Museums are a great place to spend ideas, culture, and germs. I’ve been watching closely as #CancelEverything becomes real – every hour brings a cancellation or postponement. I’m not saying you have to stay home, but you can’t go to a museum or theater in NYC. Of course, we can still love up on art in the time of coronavirus. I’m clearly not a doctor, so I can’t help you with testing or public policy. But I can suggest how to make the best of a (mandatory? requested?) Covid-19 staycation:

  • Read a book: This is the time for independent study – your public library is full of arts expertise. Librarians are like a search engine or the internet, without conspiracy theories and #sponcon. I’m selecting my books online so that I can hit the circulation desk, wash my hands, and be back home.
  • Take a hike: Lace up your boots and see some outdoor art. We can definitely maintain a healthy distance from each other in a sculpture park like Socrates or Storm King. And let’s be honest, you’re going to be spending even more time sitting if you’re working from home. Get some fresh air!
  • Give generously: If you can’t buy a ticket at the door, make a donation. Smaller organizations are going to be hard hit by any reduction in visitors. The mandatory closures mean a significant drop in attendance for cultural institutions. That money isn’t coming back when the situation improves.

It’s no secret that there are plenty of low-wage and contingent workers in the arts. Teaching artists, security guards, cleaning staff, and art handlers tend to be under or uninsured. They also deal the most with the public. Boards and executives, this is the time to be creative in your duty of care. The Rauschenberg Emergency Grants program is a great start, but it won’t be enough. Supporting our most vulnerable colleagues will have a huge impact on our communities. Remember, Typhoid Mary was a service worker. She infected others because she couldn’t afford to stay at home.

 

Black Art History (and Future)

Black art has been part of America for over 400 years. Last year, our country remembered the first enslaved Africans brought to the U.S. in 1619. Although much of their first-hand history can never be recovered, the culture that they embodied flourishes in our communities. As we celebrate Black History Month, museums across the country are exhibiting artists of African descent in an attempt to honor our contributions.

If art is the place where our cultural and social discussions are unfolding, we need to center Black artists now more than ever. For far too long, Black artists have been left out of crucial conversations about their own work and its place in contemporary culture. At the same time, communities of color have not been engaged as arts audiences because they take place in elite and exclusionary spaces.

So many arts institutions implicitly continue the legacy of segregation, unable to engage communities of color. Compounding this problem is the lack of Black staff in the arts, and the lack of Black voices in arts media. Our goal is to connect viewers with art that represents and expands their understanding of the diasporic experience.

There are Black cultural institutions that you can support across the nation. Some of our NYC favorites include Weeksville, MoCADA, Sugar Hill Museum, CCADI and The Studio Museum (their collection is on the move at Smith College Art Museum!) Our friends at Museum Hue have put together a map of museums presenting artists of color. Find your new favorite now!

Image credit: I love me a quilt, but a painting will do in a pinch! Faith Ringgold, Early Works #25: Self-Portrait (1965), courtesy of Brooklyn Museum. We know and love Faith Ringgold as a quilting superstar, but this self-portrait shows her hand is just as strong in other media. I dare you to find a better use of aqua!

Exploration of Black Art & History

February 9, 2020

Celebrate Black History Month with Grace! Grace Church White Plains celebrates Black History through a series of enriching events. Parishioners are invited to wear African garb or any combination of African colors—red, green or black—on all four Sundays in February.

During a special Coffee Hour, Tiffany Bradley will share her insights on contemporary Black art and dance. She founded Colored Criticism to expand the narrative around art and cultural heritage. During this hour, Tiffany will screen short art films and discuss upcoming exhibitions in the NYC area. Free and open to the public.

Watch the video: https://www.facebook.com/gracewhiteplains/videos/575806549678298/UzpfSTE1ODI3OTcxNDUzMDExNDg6MjU2MDI4NTkwNDIxODkyOQ/

Art Criticism, The Next Generation

A new generation of commentators are remaking art criticism in their image. This program will screen three short films and one work-in-progress, showcasing arts experiences from Native American, Afro-Brazilian, African-American, and Caribbean-American communities. A panel discussion will follow with Millennial curators and journalists responding to the changing understanding of cultural heritage. Shorts include Digital Natives: Plains Indians at The Met, Free Blacks: DanceAfrica at BAM, Millennial Realness: 2019 Whitney Biennial and documentary work-in-progress Carnival Queens.

Panelists include:
• Filmmaker and art critic Tiffany Bradley expands the discussion of art, heritage, and identity.
• Multi-hyphenate Belinda Becker tells stories through in dance, acting, journalism, and music.
• Historian Dr. Tyesha Maddox of Fordham University explores kinship networks and social organizations in her research on Caribbean American identity.

Learn more: https://www.guildhall.org/events/art-criticism-the-next-generation/

Tiffany Bradley

Tiffany Bradley is the founder of Colored Criticism, a company for cultural heritage stories. Her focus is on intersectional, interpersonal, and interdisciplinary arts. Tiffany has created programs and media for Amherst College, Art Matters Foundation, Brooklyn Community Foundation and Rush Arts Foundation. Her writing has appeared in The Nation, Colorlines, Racialicious, and the Americans for the Arts blog. Tiffany has worked in audience development at the U.S. Department of Arts & Culture, Race Forward, Americans for the Arts, and Fractured Atlas. She holds a B.A. in Africana Studies from Brown University, and was a Fulbright scholar in Museum Studies at the University of Haifa.

Belinda Becker

Belinda Becker is a triple threat as DJ, dancer, and actor. Originally from Kingston, Jamaica, Belinda is well-known in the arts scene. She is a regular contributor to the lifestyle magazine Ubikwist, and was recently featured in the NY Times Metropolitan section. She has been studying and performing Haitian Folklore, and Afro-Cuban dance for over 20 years under the direction of Pat Hall and Baba Richard Gonzalez. She currently spins at such venues including the Top of the Standard and Dumbo House, and formerly at Area, Nells, and Radio Lily. Dance companies include: The Pat Hall Dancers, Bonga and Voudou Drums of Haiti, La Troupe Makandal, and Urban Tap. Film and television credits include: Jean Galmot, Aventurier, Law & Order, Left Unsaid, Love Rome and Sticky Fingers of Time. Belinda lives in Brooklyn with her beautiful daughter Willow. 

Dr. Tyesha Maddox 

Dr. Tyesha Maddox is an Assistant Professor at Fordham University in the Department of African and African American Studies. She received her PhD in History from New York University in 2016. She received a BA in History and Africana Studies and a MPS in Africana Studies both from Cornell University. She is currently the 2019-2020 Race and Gender Post-Doctoral Associate at Rutgers University. Her current manuscript, “From Invisible to Immigrants: Political Activism and the Construction of Caribbean American Identity, 1890-1940,” examines the significance of Anglophone Caribbean immigrant mutual aid societies and benevolent associations in New York. It explores how these organizations played a vital role in the formation of transnational identities and facilitated community building, creating kinship networks that both empowered immigrants to form a collective “Caribbean” identity and unleashed a political activism among immigrants fighting alongside African Americans to insure their equality in the tumultuous era of American Jim Crow.

Curating the Contemporary at Amherst College

On September 10, the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College opened its latest exhibition, Starting Something New: Recent Contemporary Acquisitions. To kick-off the night, we hosted a conversation on what it means to curate contemporary art. Tiffany Bradley, founder of Colored Criticism, a company for cultural heritage stories, moderated a panel of contemporary art curators, featuring David E. Little, John Wieland 1958 Director and Chief Curator of the Mead; Horace D. Ballard, curator of American art at the Williams College Museum of Art; and Emma Chubb, Charlotte Feng Ford ’83 Curator of Contemporary Art at the Smith College Museum of Art.

Image by Jiayi Liu.

Mead Art Museum receives gift of more than 170 contemporary artworks

“Starting Something New” exhibition and symposium featured in the Boston Globe.

The Mead Art Museum at Amherst College has received an anonymous donation of more than 170 works of contemporary art, including pieces by such well-known artists as David Hockney, Mona Hatoum, Cindy Sherman, Mark Bradford, and Christian Marclay.

Visitors will be able to view many of the recently donated works in a celebratory exhibition, “Starting Something New: Recent Contemporary Art Acquisitions and Gifts,” which opens Sept. 10 and runs through May 31.

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