Philadelphia was full of contemporary artists I did not know about prior to the travel. Philadelphia has also became one of my favorite spots for art viewing with the wide variety of artwork and artists I got to see. In comparison to the amount of historical information and work I saw, it felt rather refreshing to see contemporary Black artists' work.
My first stop was the African American museum of Philadelphia. Above is Sonya Clark's works that were present. Seeing objects and materials that are relevant to Black identity used in various ways was interesting to see, and reminded me of the piece by Kenya Robinson at the NMAAHC in DC. This was also the first time I was introduced to Sonya Clark.
The paintings and installations above are by Fahamu Pecou. Another artists I was introduced to at the African American museum. His work combines AA Hip-Hop culture, Black masculinity and Nigerian traditions. The work serves as both a cultural and political tool which I thought was nice because one could easily not be aware of the political message displayed within the work like the names of the Black folk murdered by the hands of cops.
What I enjoy about both artists' work is their use of relevant material with Sonya using combs and Fahamu using cowrie shells.
As I was walking around the neighboring community, I found a gallery that was exhibiting Roberto Lugo's work. I never got to see his work in person so I was excited to have the chance to examine his work up close.
As I was walking around, I also found a Wood museum that was showcasing the work of Damien Davis, who is a Black queer artist. I almost missed out on this exhibit because I told myself I do not have an interest in wood, but then quickly convinced myself to go into the museum, and to my surprise I learned about an amazing artist who is both Black and queer like me. His use of symbols to create different narratives based on Black culture and experiences in the United States were quite interesting tagged along with color compositions.
I went to go see their storage display. Though I dont know the context of this piece, it reminds me of the nkisi nkondi figures that I mentioned in the African Art museum.
For my last day in Philadelphia, I spent time with a good friend of mine Gerald Brown (one half of the creators of TheClaySiblings check them out here: https://www.claysiblingsproject.org/about). We went to a textile museum that had a solo show from Sonya Clark who I had just learned about two days prior to the textile museum visit. The work and experience there was simplistic but very impactful. Probably one of the more impactful moments I have had during this entire travel experience. The work was about the surrender flag of the Confederate, and how it's relevance should be more prevelant in our history rather than the Confederate flag because the Confederate flag symbolizes the racist ideology while the surrender flag would naturally represent the opposite. There was also a station where you could participate in the making of a surrender flag with one of the looms (I had a video of myself working on the loom, but lost it). Gerald is in the last picture looking at the remains of what was washed from the floor during the performance piece pictured in the image next to it.
In terms of impact on me as an artist, I would say this experience in Philadelphia has a lot of impact on what I trialed towards my most recent body of work. Though this is not to say that my other travel stops do not have any impact on where I ended up with my work as well. However being exposed to various contemporary sculptural/installation Black artists that speak on Black culture and experiences in various ways did a lot of resonating and internalized critical thinking for me.
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