Colored Criticism

A fresh take on art.

Tiffany Bradley

The Art and Shade of Empire

Corridor Gallery, Brooklyn
September 21, 7-8 pm

Join us to talk art & throw shade for the season premiere of Empire! At its heart, the series showcases the struggles of a creative family, with plot twists from marriage to murder. Our conversation will peel back the layers of music, dance, and painting that makes the show so special!

Join us on Twitter with the hashtags #artandshade and #Empire

Panelists:

Hailing from Houston, TX, artist, cultural worker, public scholar, and strategist Ebony Noelle Golden is the visionary leader of Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative, LLC and Body Ecology Womanist Performance Project. Guided by an unflinching pursuit and practice of radical creativity, wellness, and justice, Golden has served as BDAC’s CEO + principal engagement strategist for the last eight years and Body Ecology’s founding artistic director for six.  BDAC is a New York City-based cultural arts direct action + public(s) engagement strategy group that works to inspire, instigate, and incite transformation, radical expressiveness, and progressive social change through community-designed, culturally-relevant, creative projects as well as a finely-crafted suit of consulting services.

Jamilah King is a writer based in New York City. Currently a senior staff writer at Mic.com, she was previously senior editor at Colorlines, where her work focused on race, arts and culture. Her work has appeared on Salon, MSNBC, the American Prospect, Al Jazeera, The Advocate, and in the California Sunday Magazine. She’s also a music junkie and an unabashed Bay Area sports fan.

Mathew Rodriguez is a staff writer at Mic, where he writes for the Identities vertical. He specializes in LGBTQ issues, HIV and the Latino community. He is the former editor of HIV news website TheBody.com and is also a graduate student at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Institute for Journalism. You can follow him Twitter at @mathewrodriguez. 


The Art of Politics

How do we talk politics? Many months away from the presidential election, I’m already tired of our current discussion. The news is full of conversations that don’t work: recaps of overcrowded debates, endless fact checking, and GIFs of candidates’ faces. Also not helpful for political inspiration: long policy papers that no one but reporters and political junkies will read. And certainly the least useful: the screaming and shouting led by reality-show candidate Donald Trump.

Read more at The Nation

DanceAfrica at BAM‬

Belinda Becker reviews DanceAfrica 2015 at Brooklyn Academy of Music. This episode discusses dance across the African diaspora, including Haiti, Brazil and Cuba. She also talks about warrior dances, Black Lives Matter, and resistance. Performance by Afro-Brazilian dance troupe Balé Folclórico da Bahia.

Plains Indians at The Met

Lauren Chief Elk reviews “The Plains Indians: Artists of Earth and Sky” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She discusses beadwork, headdresses, and representations of Natives. Chief Elk is a Nakoda/Lakota writer, data artist, and co-founder of the Save Wiyabi Project.

How to Talk About Race Without Getting Stuck in ‘Clybourne Park’

clybournepark

Bruce Norris’ play “Clybourne Park” picks up the conversation about race where Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” left off. Nominated for four Tony Awards, this drama is set in fictional Clybourne Park–the Chicago neighborhood that represents the American dream to the Younger family of “Raisin.” The first act of the play simmers as the all-white community comes to terms with the idea of blacks moving into their midst during the 1950s. The second act explodes as the same neighborhood, now all-black and neglected, is “rediscovered” in the 1990s. Two affluent couples, one black and one white, face off over zoning laws. What begins as a negotiation over building codes develops into a screaming match about race, gentrification, and identity.

Read more at Colorlines

Universal Design for Cultural Institutions

MoMA Education

Earlier this week, I was able to attend the fall Cool Culture fair. Cool Culture is an organization that works with Head Start families to increase access to the arts. Founded by two dynamic educators, the organization has welcomed 50,000 underserved families in the New York City area to various cultural institutions. The organization uses a network of community liaisons to break down visitation barriers and provide free visits to New York’s cultural gems. This week’s fair was a chance for the Cool Culture stakeholders—child educators, community liaisons, and cultural organizations—to share best practices and highlights.

Read more at Americans for the Arts