Tag: African-American

Juliana Huxtable (1987-

Juliana Huxtable (1987-

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Untitled (In the Rage) Nibiru Cataclysm

Artist: Juliana Huxtable

Date & Location: 2015, New York City, NY (USA)

Media: Photography

Where can I see this artwork?: Guggenheim Museum, NYC

Significance to Queer Art History:

Juliana Huxtable is an intersex and transgender visual artist, performer,writer, and DJ. In her multidisciplinary career she often conveys her ideas through a afrofuturist lens blended with modern science fiction.

This piece brings together parts of her identity that she wants to draw attention to via a sexualized position to celebrate her body and identity in her surroundings which recall Nubian and Egyptian settings.

Resources & Further Reading:

“Juliana Huxtable | Untitled in the Rage (Nibiru Cataclysm) (2015).” Artsy. https://www.artsy.net/artwork/juliana-huxtable-untitled-in-the-rage-nibiru-cataclysm.

Sargent, Antwaun. “Artist Juliana Huxtable’s Bold, Defiant Vision.” Vice. March 25, 2015. Accessed July 19, 2018. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/exmjkp/artist-juliana-huxtables-journey-from-scene-queen-to-trans-art-star-456.

“Untitled in the Rage (Nibiru Cataclysm).” Guggenheim. July 17, 2018. Accessed July 19, 2018. https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/34476.

 

Mickalene Thomas

Mickalene Thomas

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Mickalene Thomas is a black queer artist who uses mixed media to create large pieces of her muses, mostly black women from different races, sexualities, gender identities, and expressions.

Featured Artwork: Sleep: Deux Femmes Noires (Translates to: Two Black Women)

Date & Location: (2013) by Mickalene Thomas (Born 1971)

Media: Photography, collage, and woodblock print processes

Where can I view this artwork?: Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University in Ithica, NY (USA)

Significance to Queer Art History: This selected work from Mickalene Thomas is part of her series “Origin of the Universe” that draws from “traditional” (Read: white-centered art history) paintings. Thomas combines the pose and intention from Gustave Courbet’s Le Sommeil (Translates to: “The Sleepers”) from 1866 with her own photography and processes as a claim of black women’s place in media and art as erotic and soft, just as the women in Courbet’s painting are portrayed.

Courbet’s Le Sommeil:

Resources & Further Reading: 

Gonzalez, Desi. “MICKALENE THOMAS- Origin of the Universe.” The Brooklyn Rail. Accessed June 2017. http://brooklynrail.org/2012/11/artseen/mickalene-thomas-origin-of-the-universe.

“Sleep: Deux Femmes Noires.” Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. Accessed June 2017. http://museum.cornell.edu/collections/modern-contemporary/mixed-media/sleep-deux-femmes-noires.

Herbert Singleton- Love that not Love

Herbert Singleton- Love that not Love

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Featured Artwork:  Love That Not Love

Date and Location: 1990 in New Orleans, Louisiana (USA)

Media: Acrylic paint on carved wood

Where can I see this artwork?: Displayed in the past at the New Orleans Old Mint Museum as part of the exhibition, titled: Soul of the South: Selections from the Gitter-Yellen Collection. On display: November 20, 2015 – May 28, 2017

Herbert Singleton (1945-2007) , a self-taught artist from New Orleans, LA (USA) painted this to show the messages considered taboo (yet clear in the carved figures loving embrace) in the 1990s. Love between white men was just on the brink of hitting major popular culture and television at this time, while love between black men and men of color was scant, hence the title: ‘Love That Not Love”.

Sources & Further Reading:
“Herbert Singleton” Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery. Accessed August 07, 2017. http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artist/?id=7431.
MacCash, Doug. “Herbert Singleton, Noted Folk Artist Dies.” NOLA.com. August 02, 2007. Accessed August 07, 2017. http://blog.nola.com/dougmaccash/2007/08/herbert_singleton_noted_folk_a.html.