Aljira is pleased to present Dandy Lion: Articulating a Re(de)fined Black Masculine Identity, a photography exhibition of works created by ten artists exploring the phenomenon of Black Dandyism throughout the African Diaspora. Artists include Hanif Abdur-Rahim, Kwesi Abbensetts, Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, Kia Chenelle, Bouba Dola, Russell K. Frederick, Delphine Fawundu-Buford, Cassi Amanda Gibson, Akintola Hanif, Jamala Johns, Dexter Jones, Phillis Kwentoh, Antony Kaminju, Caroline Kaminju, Lafotographeuse, Ray Llanos, Jati Lindsay, Devin Mays, Terence Nance, Brandi Pettijohn, and Nyugen Smith.

A refreshing exhibition, guest curated by Shantrelle P. Lewis, Dandy Lion: Articulating a Re(de)fined Black Masculine Identity takes a glance at urban Black Dandies who like their continental African counterparts, Le Sapeur of Brazzaville, Congo, embody style, sophistication and a commitment to culture via dramatized masculinity. This exhibition is an examination and approbation of the contemporary dandy in Diasporan settings. Dandy Lion is an homage to the fashionable urban gentleman – an African Diasporan man of style, an urban connoisseur of sophistication and a contemporary man of extraordinary swagger.

See a video preview of the exhibition here.

About Despojo the artists Fausto Sevila explains: “My parents found Christ. I found art, myth and science. The range of media I use is directly related to the mixing that occurs in the tropics. Syncretism is a fancy word for this cellular understanding and contextualizing that WE (people along the equator) have been doing before French Theory discovered post-modernism. Just look at a Voodoo, Catholic and my uncle’s (a Santero) altar.”

The Wee Ones, by Andrew Baron, is a series of abstract portraits of his grade school classmates, grades 1-8. They are meant to evoke the personalities of these children as the artist remembers them and thus are the products of his detailed but highly subjective memory.

EMPHASIS AND INTERSTICE is an exhibition exploring the collection of art accumulated over Aljira’s twenty-seven years of operation. While not officially a collecting institution, inevitably, over time, Aljira has acquired many works by artists, some of whom are very well known. Others are working artists of varying fame and experience. Guest curator, Carl E. Hazlewood, says, “INTERSTICE AND EMPHASIS considers what visual information may be revealed by emphasizing certain artists of interest and their work, taking them from the interstices of the collection for a focused look at what they are doing now.”

The artists emphasized include so far:

Kevin Darmanie, of Newark, uses tropes of the graphic novel to construct social and formal narratives presented as individual works or as installations. Janet Goldner, of New York, spends much time in Mali. She makes free-standing steel sculptures and wall-bound installations that reference her artistic lineage going back to the welded sculpture of Julio Gonzalez. But the work also displays her deep and continuing interest in African art. New Jersey artist, Grace Graupe Pillard, has long expanded her interests to include photography and video. Here she shows an over-sized new painting where the political content is underscored and contradicted by the beauty of its color and rendering. C. Duane Lee, a photographer from Montgomery, Alabama, is showing portraits of urban children. These are selections from a book project entitled, ‘CHANGELINGS: Boys of Montgomery Alabama, Family & Friends’; Freddy Rodriguez, a Dominican-born painter lives in Queens, New York. He is showing new color abstractions. Fausto Sevila, resident in Elizabeth, New Jersey, has new multi-media work that explores how visual images, realistic and abstract, can combine for an effect that is powerfully visceral.

Aside from the artists invited to add new work, on view are paintings, drawings, small sculpture, and many graphic productions. The work shown covers a wide scope of styles and techniques. A partial list of the artists would include photographer Alec Soth, painter, Will Barnett, who has a combination intaglio portrait print of his friend, the late, master printmaker, Bob Blackburn. Carl Ostendarp, Willie Cole, Don Hazlitt, Emma Wilcox, Eikoh Hosoe, are among other names in the exhibition.

Studio Montclair (SMI) announces its 14th annual juried show, Viewpoints: A Contemporary Survey, at Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art. This international show features the work of 68 artists who explore how the choice of subject shapes perception.

According to juror Dr. Rocío Aranda-Alvarado, the exhibit “encompasses a broad spectrum of works that touch on a number of themes relevant to contemporary life. The works in this show reflect the personal and the universal, the organic and the abstract, the mundane and the extraordinary.”

“Seen together, these works explore a broad scope of abundant conceptual, visual, and expressive themes.”

Aljira presents a special preview of the more than 70 works of contemporary art on the auction block this year.

For more information and to view the art, visit the Auction website!

In addition to internationally recognized artists, works donated to this year’s Auction include artists who are alumni of Aljira Emerge, a program that coaches artists in various areas of professional development. Works that have been donated to The Aljira Fine Art Auction 2011 include those by John Ahearn, Terry Adkins, Frank Bowling, Willie Cole, Cecile Chong, Sharon Core, Susanna Heller, Vera Iliatova, Julian Kreimer, Justine Kurland, Carrie Moyer, William Majors, Julie Peppito, Kenya (Robinson) + Sara Hart, Romy Scheroder, Joan Snyder, Alec Soth, and Mickalene Thomas.

YOUR NAME WILL BE ENTERED INTO A DRAWING

If you register before May 12 for the Aljira Fine Art Auction 2011, lucky you may be one of three people who receive an item pictured at left.

Click Here to Register Now
$75 in advance; $100 at the door

Photo Captions (at right):

(top) William Majors
Steps to Freedom, 1975
Lithograph, 15 x 22 in., ed. 100

(bottom left) David Driskell
The Young Herbalist, 2000
Lithograph, 22 x 30 in., ed. 60

(bottom right) Out of Anarchy: Five Decades of Ceramics and Hybrid Sculptures (1959–2009): The Work of Donald Locke, a 98-page hard-cover book published by Aljira.

Disconnecting, Reconnecting… Disconnected: Work by Lawrence Graham-Brown
Curated by Dean Daderko

Disconnecting, Reconnecting… Disconnected is a solo exhibition of work by Lawrence Graham-Brown. Guest curated by Dean Daderko, the show features a new series of found object sculptures made especially for this exhibition, installed alongside a selection of the artist’s recent paintings and sculptures. The artist will also premiere a new performance entitled HaHaHaHaHaa at the opening reception.

Lawrence Graham-Brown (born in Jamaica, lives and works in NJ) is a multi-media artist who works in sculpture, painting and performance, among other media. His work has been presented by the Queens Museum of Art, El Museo del Barrio and the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance in New York; Real Artways in Hartford, CT; the 2008 Shanghai Biennial in China; and at the National Gallery of Jamaica in Kingston, where he has participated in numerous exhibitions.

Public Program
March 25th, 2011, 6:30pm

Panel discussion “Belonging in My Own Skin: Understanding Depression in Black Gay Men,” moderated by Dr. Jeffrey Gardere, Ph.D, along with esteemed panelists Antoine Craigwell, Journalist and Writer; Darnell L. Moore, Visiting Scholar, Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, New York University; Taylor Siluwé, Writer and Photographer; Elder Rev. Kevin E. Taylor, Unity Fellowship Church, New Brunswick; and Gary Paul Wright, Executive Director, African American Office of Gay Concerns. This event is free and open to the public.

Download the free PDF catalog of Disconnecting, Reconnecting… Disconnected: Work by Lawrence Graham-Brown!

Faith is Equality:
Works on Paper by David Ambrose

David Ambrose has been exploring elements found in or on architectural facades, interiors, or floor plans in his richly colored, intensely worked, paintings on hand-stitched lace or pierced paper for more than 15 years. Ambrose’s painting approach references that of the Pattern and Decoration and Process Art schools and he cites Richard Pousette-Dart, Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana and Peter Young as kindred spirits. The artist’s current watercolor on paper work, featured in this exhibition, involves a synthesis of two seemingly divergent elements of control and chance.

The Sensitive White Intellectual
An Installation by Suzanne Broughel

Created during the Triangle Artist Workshop in September, 2010, Broughel’s piece draws its title from the 1960’s historical document, “Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Position Paper: The Basis of Black Power”—specifically from the segment of that document entitled “White Radicals.”