Our Music Continues: Michael Kelly Williams

May 10, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

  Liturgy for Lenox Lounge Gentrification is a sticky subject for many African-Americans. I once heard it summed up as such: “White people? You don’t come to join us. You come to displace us.” African-Americans became a part of the originally Dutch neighborhood of Harlem in 1905. A murder within a house on West 133rd Street turned it into a challenging property to rent. The solution decided upon by the owner was to turn to a Black realtor, who rented […]

Categories: Personalities, Sculpture, Uncategorized • Tags: art, brooklyn, Daughters of the Dust, Detroit, gentrification, Harlem, Harlem Renaissance, iconic, jazz, Lenox Lounge, Liturgy for Lenox Lounge, malcolm x blvd, Mariamma Kambon, Michael Kelly Williams, music, New York, nkisi, photography, resistance, sculptor, Sculpture, Serett Metal Works, surrealism, visual arts

“Everyone Breaks”: Tanda Francis

May 5, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

In this life, everyone breaks. As individuals, we are shattered by disappointments. We are knocked to our knees by the share force of life – that balance of negative and positive that ensures that one day, each of us will face the unthinkable. As a people, we have been scattered. A rich and eclectic Diaspora has been born of our perpetual, migratory state. Much of the journey has been marked by pain and loss. Yet, as individuals, we persevere. As […]

Categories: Personalities, Sculpture, Uncategorized • Tags: African Diaspora, art, artist, beauty, Benin, Benin Bronze, Benin head, brooklyn, concrete, Everyone Breaks, fabrication, gold, healing, Ife, Ife sculptures, Jamaica, kintsugi, kintsukoroi, luz de tu sonrisa, luzdetusonrisa, Mariamma Kambon, mending, New York, photography, public art, resiliance, Riverside Park, sculptor, Sculpture, steel, Tanda Francis, visual artist, visual arts

The Sacred Collaboration: Paintings by Sophia Dawson

May 2, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

“I gesso the material black, whether its canvas or wood, I gesso it all black to prepare the surface. It’s a conscious political act for me to work on a black surface … All black. All black everything.” Part I “My greatest inspiration is without a doubt the Almighty God. He is the one who gifted me my talent and I consider myself a co-creator with Him. All the ideas I have are the ones that come from Him. All […]

Categories: Exhibition, Personalities, Uncategorized • Tags: all black everything, black gesso, Black Panther Party, Black Power, Civil rights, Dequi Sadiki, Emory Douglas, Erykah Badu, faith, fine art, freedom, freedom fighter, human rights, I Am Free, Kanye West, Lauryn Hill, Leon Bridges, luz de tu sonrisa, luzdetusonrisa, Mariamma Kambon, mass incarceration, Mondo We Langa, motherhood, New York, Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, painter, PEMDAS, Pharaoh, photography, political prisoners, portraits, Portraiture, prison abolition, resistance, Sam Cooke, Snug Harbor, Sophia Dawson, Staten Island, vision, visual artist, visual arts

David Hammons/ Obeah Man

March 23, 2016 by Mariamma Kambon

The art of David Hammons usually beckons to me from wherever it is perched within a group show. How can someone who uses such a myriad of methods and media have a voice so distinct amid the ambitious cacophony of contemporary art? It is the obeah in the thing – the spirit of the miraculous and the rebellious. It is the profundity revealed in the quotidian that allows his voice to rise above the rest. Obeah is black magic some […]

Categories: Exhibition, Uncategorized • Tags: african amerian, African American, african art, artist, bird, black magic, boukman, champ, David Hammons, dreadlocks, Exhibition, fine art, five decades, fur coat, Harlem, human hair, installation, Kongo, mal yeux, malcolm x blvd, maljo, Mariamma Kambon, mass incarceration, mau mau, mnuchin gallery, New York, nkisi, Obeah, obeah man, okomfo anokye, orange is the new black, photography, power figure, rebellion, resistance, slavery, snowball, standing room only, tribal art, Trinidad and Tobago, visual arts