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COMM | ALT | SHIFT, curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah and Dexter Wimberly unpacks video as a ubiquitous technology for entertainment, education and escape, as well as a powerful tool for surveillance, manipulation and control. #COMMALTSHIFT opens this Saturday, July 22, 2-5pm.

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Art in Perspective: Social Commentary

Change is inevitable, but is it always good? That is one of the questions being explored in Kate Stone’s exhibition, Every Straight Line is the Arc of a Great Circle, currently on view at Aljira. Touching on the impact of gentrification, Stone’s melancholy work conveys visceral experiences and memories of a home that once was, and the question of what is yet to come. As a student and resident of Newark, Liem Ho is conscious of the new development taking place in the city and is worried that Newark’s charm is at risk of being lost and forgotten.

Luma: What is it that you like about Kate Stone’s exhibition?

Liem: Well initially when I walked in the back I thought the beam construction was you guys renovating the place, so I thought it was not a part of the exhibit. Then I saw the prints, they look like renderings. I use to be an architect major so they remind me of that. When I walked through it (wood installation) I thought it was an interesting experience to walk through the foundation of a building. Seeing parts of the peeled off carpet, parts where it’s complete, parts that weren't, I thought that made an interesting experience.

Luma: Do you go to school around here?

Liem: Yes, I go to NJIT

Luma: How do you feel when you see a lot of construction going on in the city of Newark and do you relate this installation's feeling of memories of people once there and people to come to what's happening in reality?

Liem: Definitely! I live on Halsey street and that's the hot spot for gentrification and I can say the concept of people moving in and leaving is what's going on on Halsey street and many different parts of Newark, which I guess is what makes this exhibit really relevant to what's going on in the community. Recently the Art Kitchen closed and I would go there for coffee a lot so I kind of knew the barista in there and her story. I knew she was getting pregnant. I was told that the corporate chain food and beverage businesses that moved in the area increased the cost of sustaining a small business. I know Freetown cafe also on my block closed down too. It's interesting to see what businesses will replace those and like you implicated, the stories of past entrepreneurs who established a history in Newark only to be replaced by more commercial businesses. That just escalated from 1 to 100 real fast! Haha!

Luma: That's relevant. You being in the city and seeing it and Kate's from Brooklyn so she seen it day to day.

Liem: I know it happened in Brooklyn and a lot of people are saying Newark is following its steps. I guess in a way it's good because maybe more people will come here and it'll build a community, but in a way it's kind of sad because we are going to lose a lot of the culture that Newark has had previously. It's really different as a college student coming here and I do go into New York City a lot and Newark is just different and it'll be sad when it's gone.

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Dominik Halmer: Kontrolle and Kate Stone: Every Straight Line is the Arc of a Great Circle both on view at Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art until Saturday April 22, 2017. Also be sure to join us on April 22 at 3pm for an Artist Talk with both Dominik Halmer and Kate Stone! 

Connect with us and join in on the interactive dialogue!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljira/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aljiraart/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/aljiratweets

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Art in Perspective: Social Commentary

Triggering the memories of a home that once was, and the curiosity of new development that has yet to come, Kate Stone: Every Straight Line is the Arc of a Great Circle has been igniting a strikingly emotional reaction from visitors at Aljira. For all of the commentary the exhibition has inspired, no one’s story was as heartfelt as Francisco Pena. In viewing Stone’s works, specifically the site-specific installation, Francisco details how it triggered a devastating memory of when his family was displaced from their home by a terrible event.

Luma: What is it that drew you to Kate Stone’s exhibition? 

Francisco: The installation kind of brings back the situation when me and my family had actually moved into a house in North Newark, 239 Lincoln Avenue. It was a single family, we moved from place to place before we rented this home. We built it from the bottom up. That little corner over there has the scent of mildew which reminds me of the wet wood that my family had to remove out of the basement. The exposed wood makes me think of how much we had put our heart and soul into the house to get it fixed. Everyone contributed like a hundred dollars, five hundred dollars, a thousand dollars, and it was five of us living in one house on the first and second floor. There were days when the house leaked. There were days when the boiler didn’t function at all but we still called it home. I’m getting a little teary.

Luma: I can completely relate. My family moved from East Orange and we got a house in Union and the house was not much but we gradually fixed it up to make it a home.

Francisco:  I understand that the artist made the environment finished/unfinished to sympathize progression but sometimes there’s points when progression halts and that’s where I actually relate to the piece. A year and a half ago, my family, we were well established in how long it took us to get the house in a habitual condition. There was one day that we got an eviction notice from the state. The owner of the house hadn’t paid the mortgage for two years. It was sudden. It forced my family to move out and due to limited space someone was going to end up homeless. That’s where I’m at right now in my current situation. As a Rutgers student, I’m living on campus due to the help of people like, Dre, Alonso, they actually put a roof over my head.

Luma: This is a totally different narrative of displacement that we don’t often hear about. We had a visitor from NJIT who mentioned a property owner who allowed his tenants to live in inhumane conditions. He’s living on a student budget, so he is limited to other affordable options.

Francisco: That’s the issue. It’s pretty much unspoken about. I have met other people who have been in situations in Newark where either the owner moved out because they don’t want to pay the mortgage or they don’t want to renovate. The owner we had, he’s not even in the state anymore. He moved to Florida and the house was transferred to three owners previously. When I walked through the installation it just reminds of how my family built everything from the bottom up. The only thing that was missing was the roof in the attic which I was living in. I had no heat or air conditioner so when it was hot or when it was cold I would freeze, I would get hot. But it was my space. It was my room where I had sanctity. When you find out that you’re going to lose everything that you worked hard on... my family spent about $15,000 to renovate that house and to lose it all. It just reminds me that there’s situations that people don’t even realize so I’m glad that this art piece is here because it at least it evokes the question of why it is unfinished. It’s unfinished because there are points when people who actually got hindered who wasn’t at fault. They were paying rent on time. My mom, a single mother, my brother, me, and my sister, we were all living in that place just to meet defeat.

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Dominik Halmer: Kontrolle and Kate Stone: Every Straight Line is the Arc of a Great Circle both on view at Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art until Saturday April 22, 2017. Also be sure to join us on April 22 at 3pm for an Artist Talk with both Dominik Halmer and Kate Stone! 

Connect with us and join in on the interactive dialogue!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljira/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aljiraart/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/aljiratweets

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Check out "Wertschöpfung" a catalogue of Dominik Halmer's earlier work and "How We End" a new book by Kate Stone and Hannah Schneider. Visit Aljira to see their exhibitions and to purchase your copy of these two beautiful publications! "Dominik Halmer: Kontrolle" and "Kate Stone: Every Straight Line is the Arc of a Great Circle" both exhibitions on view through April 22, 2017. Join us for an artist talk with both Dominik Halmer and Kate Stone on April 22 at 3pm. 

For more information on "How We End," visit: howweendbook.com

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Art in Perspective: Social Commentary

"What I'm trying to do is to find how paintings can reconnect to reality without representing reality and I'm trying to do this through creating connections through visual analogies between the elements that you could see in the paintings and the elements you see attached to the paintings as an object" - Dominik Halmer speaking in regards to his exhibition, “Kontrolle” currently on view at Aljira. 

Dominik Halmer's exhibition, Kontrolle is a testament of how far we allow our minds to expand when looking at art, as well as reality for that matter. By attaching everyday objects to optical paintings, the works provides little information but instead request the audience to explore the omnipotent question of "What is the meaning of what is in front of us?" With such a question leading the viewer's engagement with the works, the response are likely to be vast in their imagination as was the perspective of gallery visitor, Red. An artist himself, Red expressed a detailed narrative to specific works within the exhibition which exemplified the impact of Halmer's quest to reconnect to reality through visual analogies.

Red: It (Achievement) has cherries at the bottom whichsymbolizes the start, like you've popped your cherry as you gotten initiated into a new adventure. Then at the top of the piece you can see this 7 kg ball which is the weight for the burden of all the obstacles you been through while carrying your struggle from the start to the finish. Once you get to the other side there's a mirror to look back at what you did like, "I really carried that ball up that hill," just like Sisyphus or just another person who had a similar fight we all go through. Waking up each day, going back to sleep, picking yourself up, going through the struggles, the hurdles, the experiences, over and over, and over again, it's infinite.

Aljira: Do you think that's the achievement of life?

Red: It could get easier because after carrying that weight up the hill everyday you're going to get stronger. That weight isn't going to be heavy anymore so then you'll have to get a new challenge, pop a new cherry or you can do the same thing if that's in your lane and keep doing that same ritual. The win is on the other side of it, when you look in the mirror and see your reflection, that's the win because you're self-conscious about what happened. The distance between the cherries and the weight from the first person experience, you probably won't understanding what you're going through. You might take it step by step. The lines are like stages. Then the use of purple which is a dope color, it's a combination of red and blue so you'll understand this and that together (painting and the medicine ball.)

Aljira: You know purple is characterized as a royal color and so to continue on your interpretation of the work, it can symbolize the obstacles of a king, a king of oneself.

Red: Heavy is the head who wears the crown, there's 7 kg. It can be 8, 20, 50, infinite kilograms.

As we continued on viewing the works we stopped at Halmer's piece titled, Company.

Red: When I look at it I can recognize the checker board pattern. It's like chaos and order together. I think it's relating the face to the speed bag. They are the same color so I guess it's relating that action to the image. But it's yellow which is a happy color.

Aljira: Even the expression of the face is not intimidating, it's very soft in a way and innocent. You're tempted to be aggressive because of the implication of the speed bag but the face is not antagonizing.

Red: Are you going to hit it or not? That's what it comes down to.

Aljira: It reminds me of the performance artist, Marina Abramović where she laid out 72 items for the audience to choose to physically use on her at their own will. At first people were reluctant to participate then people really got into it and it goes to show how people can be enticed into doing anything. So maybe this piece is a play on that social experiment.

Red: Some people would hit it, some people might not.

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“Dominik Halmer: Kontrolle” and “Kate Stone: Every Straight Line is the Arc of a Great Circle” both on view at Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art until Saturday April 22, 2017. Also be sure to join us on April 22 at 3pm for an Artist Talk with both Dominik Halmer and Kate Stone!

Connect with us and join in on the interactive dialogue!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljira/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aljiraart/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/aljiratweets

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Art in Perspective: Social Commentary

(On the left, unnamed guest, On the right, Nicole)

 On the day of the opening of Aljira’s two exhibitions, “Dominik Halmer: Kontrolle,” and “Kate Stone: Every Straight Line is the Arc of a Great Circle,” visitors were anxious in their inquiries about the concept behind the works. As the guests indulged in the art, we took notice of two women who occupied Halmer in what appeared to be a conversation regarding Halmer’s practice. We asked if they would like to share their commentary on exhibition. It was then that we made the acquaintance of Nicole Kloevekorn. She shared a cultural observation of the exhibition that added additional depth of thought of how Halmer’s works fits within the context of different cultures, and how people may respond to the art differently depending on where they reside in the world. 

Aljira: What do you think about Dominik Halmer’s works?

Nicole: I love them! I think it’s a very interesting mix of showing space with these paintings, kind of in a mathematical, analytical way, and the use of beautiful colors really makes me feel.. something.

Aljira: What do you think is the purpose of using these athletic gears and practical materials in the paintings?

Nicole: Well it all kind of ties to the contrast from the object used in the real world and then the abstract paintings speaking to it. I also think it’s interesting being here, in the U.S, seeing the sports theme rings true here (Aljira) in a different way, in a artistic way.

Aljira: You’re not from America?

Nicole: No, I’m also from Germany

Aljira: Seeing a German artist here in the U.S., do you think there’s a different context to these works now that it’s in America?

Nicole: I was talking to my friend here, saying that coming here (Aljira) and thinking about how much sports play so much of a different role in the U.S. than to Germany.

Aljira: What do you think the difference is between Germany and America in regards to the culture of sports?

Nicole: We’re very soccer focused in Germany, it’s really one sport while here (U.S.) it’s not as popular and the people here grow up with sports way more. They are much more loyal to their team depending where they went to school. It’s a much more competitive spirit. I see it at work in the office everyday and in Germany it’s not the same.

Aljira: Having said your observation of how heavily indulged Americans are in sports, do you think the works suggest Americans obsession with competitiveness?    

Nicole: I don’t know if I see the competitiveness but I feel it’s a little playful, to come here as a German artist and have different sports reflective in the art but showing it in a different way. I would have to ask him. I think sports automatically have a competitive initial so I think he probably meant to tell us this.

Description: Social Commentary is phase two to, Art in Perspective, the interactive exchange of dialogue surrounding the currently exhibited works on view at Aljira, A Center for Contemporary Art, in which the artist, curator, and the audiences expresses how they conceptualize the art and its reflective impact in contemporary art and society.

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“Dominik Halmer: Kontrolle” and “Kate Stone: Every Straight Line is the Arc of a Great Circle” are on view at Aljira, A center for Contemporary Art until April 22, 2017, be sure to join us on that Saturday for our artist talk.

Connect with us and join in on the interactive dialogue!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljira/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aljiraart/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/aljiratweets

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Organized by Aljira’ Executive Director, Dexter Wimberly, KONTROLLE is the first U.S. Solo Exhibition of German Artist, Dominik Halmer. On view February 4–April 15, 2017

Dominik Halmer’s practice centers on the question of how our individual image of “reality” is constructed. Coming from an analytical but sensual approach to painting, Halmer works with the collision of different realities. In his so called “semi-functional image-objects,” we find canvases combined with everyday objects. Based on formal analogies, Halmer creates a subtle coherence between painting and objects and transforms their specific function into a poetic state of being. The title of the exhibition, KONTROLLE, refers to human desire to actively design and control the conditions of an increasingly unstable world.

Click here to view more installation photos.

For more information visit: www.aljira.org

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Organized by Aljira’s Executive Director, Dexter Wimberly, Kate Stone: Every Straight Line is the Arc of a Great Circle on view February 4–April 15, 2017

Alluding to the changes brought about by gentrification, renovation and development, Every Straight Line is the Arc of a Great Circle is a mixed media work that resembles a house under construction. The fresh wood of the unfinished maze alludes to a future yet to be built, while a small room at the end end of the maze and fragments of drywall are artifacts of another time that have been ripped from their origins and misplaced here in the present, as ruins. The single photograph hanging in the room serves as a record of the past and provides clues to an ambiguous narrative about time, place and the traces people leave behind.

Click here to view more installation photos.

For more information visit: www.aljira.org

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Un I Fixed Homeland organized by Guest Curator Grace Aneiza Ali on view now at Aljira has been extended through September 23!  This exhibition brings together an inter-generational roster of thirteen emerging and established Guyanese artists who, via photography and photography-based art, examine the complex relationship to “homeland.” The artists explore how a “homeland” can be both fixed and unfixed, a constantly shifting idea and memory, and a physical place and a psychic space. The exhibition’s title reflects the emergence of the Caribbean diaspora in metropolitan cities around the world and speaks to what has become the defining global movement of the 21st century – migration.  

Artists (working in): Canada: Erika DeFreitas, Sandra Brewster Guyana: Khadija Benn, Michael Lam, Karran Sahadeo United Kingdom: Frank Bowling, Roshini Kempadoo, Hew Locke United States: Kwesi Abbensetts, Marlon Forrester, Donald Locke (1930 – 2010), Maya Mackrandilal, Keisha Scarville. 

Click here to view more opening reception photos by Akintola Hanif

For more information visit: www.aljira.org 

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Creating Tomorrow: The Aljira 2016 Benefit 

Photo Credit: Akintola Hanif

Creating Tomorrow: The Aljira 2016 Benefit was held at The New Jersey Performing Arts Center on June 23. The special fundraiser was presented to ensure that Aljira’s acclaimed legacy of empowering artists, creating ground-breaking exhibitions and valuable community programs will continue to flourish. The event also honored founding director and artist Victor L. Davson after thirty-three years at the helm of this artist-founded, artist-centered organization and welcomed a new director, Dexter Wimberly. The evening was a great success! 

Click here to view more photos from the event. 

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Spotlight on Leonardo Benzant: Afrosupernatural

Considering the possibilities of genetic imprints, cultural identification, innate and intuitive beliefs, and a conscious seeking of links that reveal continuities that are hidden or largely unsuspected by the mainstream, Benzant imagines himself as an Urban Shaman. His sculptures from the series "Paraphernalia of the Urban Shaman M:5", are inspired by African power-objects, such as the minkisi and makutos of the Bakongo tribe, while also visually referencing the banding patterns of chromosomes, thus fusing the spiritual with the scientific. Here Benzant discusses the ideas that inspired the work featured in his first solo exhibition at Aljira organized by Visiting Curator Dexter Wimberly.

Photo Credit:  Tyrus Ortega Gaines  ALJIRA: What inspired you to create the series, “Paraphernalia of the Urban Shaman” and what was your process?  

BENZANT: I started that beadwork series in 2012.  I think something was calling me beyond the canvas. My inspiration is about pulling more from an African paradigm rather than a Western paradigm. It seemed more organic to leave out the canvas. I was thinking, what is the paraphernalia of the urban shaman? I started making notes, trying to see the connections behind different concepts.  I was thinking about ritual and what would be the more popular reference. A lot of people don’t know what a tata nkisi or nganga is.  An nganga is a ritual expert or specialist. A tata nkisi is a father of nksisi, referring to medicine, nature or spirits. I was thinking, I can transcend traditions even though I’m referencing tradition. I’m an Urban Shaman. 

I string much of the beads by myself. Sometimes my mother helps, my wife, nephew, niece and my daughter. I select the colors and give them a direction but I leave it open for them to improvise. I use about twelve strands per piece. It takes anywhere between four and seven days per strand, just stringing the beads. For me it’s parallel to a lot of processes you find in the African diaspora as a communal way of working. It’s a sacred thing. There are numerous examples, for example think of the women of Gee’s Bend who work on quilts together. They pray together while they work and they sing. There was something ritualistic about the process for me that echoes through the diaspora. There’s also a repetitive and improvisational aspect connected to something labor intensive, like making an El Anatsui piece. That’s a modality that you find a lot in the African diaspora.  It’s hard to gauge exactly how long it takes to create them because I work on multiple pieces at the same time. The more complex ones take at least five or six months.

I buy the beads from a store in Manhattan. They’re imported from Czech Republic. That’s part of the meaning of what I’m saying, too. We use a whole bunch of shit that doesn’t come from Africa. We transform it, and Africanize it by what we do to it. Connected to that, part of what I’m saying is: okay, we speak European vocabularies but we’re not European. We come up with all sorts of variations. There’s a syntax that’s there. Even the bead work that’s done now on the continent is imported. It’s an extension that we’re using Western culture…beads that come from Czech Republic.  

Paraphernalia Of The Urban Shaman M:5, 2012-2016, Clothes/textiles, cardboard tubes, leather, caucasian baby doll, chicken bone, brown barbie doll, horse hair, glitter, coins, powered charcoal, earth, cigar-ash, coffee grinds, vija/ashiote, powered egg shell, string, wire, monofilament, various plant bundles, matte medium, acrylic ink, rabbit skin glue, rice glue, glass seed beads, rum and miscellaneous sculptures. (Installation Photos Courtesy: Chuka Chukuma)   

The sculpture itself, is a process of creating the form from scratch which, is a process in itself. A lot of people assume that the sculptures or forms are sticks. Using sticks implies something you just found. People think the beads took a long time but making the shapes took a long time, too.  Some of the them look like tubes. Some are made from fabric. I roll them up in the same way you make a cigar. I put different things inside of them. It’s rolled up fabric bound up in a certain way to alter the form of the fabric. It’s a different way of playing with shape, making the shape more nuanced. I also use different painting and collage techniques. Sometimes I use powdered charcoal or a little bit of glitter.  There are also raised surfaces on some of them which I made by putting paint in a cake decorator bag. One of the paintings has one of the beaded forms sewn onto the canvas. 

The sculptures or forms are so distinct and unique in my opinion, it’s more to them than just being beautiful. The surface reflects the interior. The surface is like a mirror. It’s like even with a human body, when somebody is healthy they have a glow, a lot of the time what’s going on on the inside is reflected in some kind of way.  I’m drawn to shapes that feel organic, pod-like, or root-like.  The forms are oblong and sort of narrow. Some people think it’s a phallic thing but it’s not necessarily that, or just that. 

I use different materials. I involve collage, string, and bead embroidery.  On the surface of the paintings and some of the sculptures in areas that don’t have beads, I use coffee grinds and what Dominicans call vija, a cooking powder that gives food a reddish color. I also use egg shell powder and cigar ash on the surface the paintings and the sculptures. I use them for the color but also for the cultural association.  When I’m using coffee I’m thinking about rituals and ancestors. I’m also thinking about how coffee was a slave crop which made the slave colony rich in Haiti. 

Memoria Kongo: Bambula, 2013, Mixed-media, assemblage-painting on canvas, 96 x 72 in. (Photo Credit: Chuka Chukuma) ALJIRA: How are you playing with and communicating your ideas about different cultural understandings through your work?  

BENZANT: I remember going to my first bembé and feeling that I was just at the outer layer of the celebration and there was something going on in the inner circle that was reserved only for initiated people. I appreciate not telling people everything. I realize no matter what you say, if people don’t have the curiosity, if they are closed to it, then they aren’t even going to be interested. I like to seduce people to want to know more. I guess I like the seduction game. On one level you think it’s one thing and behind it there is something else. Those who have been initiated recognize the imagery immediately in a fresh way. Robert Farris Thompson is someone I respect because of the way he deals with these topics. He was initiated in Palo, Yoruba and Abakua.  

I’m playing with different cultural understandings of knowledge and transmission of knowledge. In Western society you go to a university that you must pay for. It’s taken for granted that knowledge is free. In most African systems initiation and oral history is their way of transmitting the knowledge and the culture and so it’s concealed. I’m playing with how things are revealed and concealed. So many things about African culture and ritual is hidden in view.  Because the mainstream has the privilege of not having to know about other cultures it doesn’t even bother to check. And we’re supposed to know their paradigm but they don’t need to know ours. So we take it for granted that there’s one art narrative, the Western art historical narrative, but there are actually many historical narratives going on. It’s required to get your degree but what kind of message does that send that my own history or culture is like an elective? My own culture and history isn’t required to get that degree and everything that’s Western is at the center of the story? Why must we be so successfully colonized, especially those of us who go to school?    

The Strong Hand That Turns The World, 2010, Acrylic, ink, embroidery on hand-pieced fabric and unstretched canvas, 108 x 72 in. (Photo Credit: Chuka Chukuma)  

ALJIRA: Tell us more about the Afro-Caribbean religious references the work contains.  

BENZANT: It’s just there. Some people practice and some people shun it. It has a stigma to it. But it’s there. Some people feel threatened by the iconography of African saints, rituals and African magic. That comes from European ideas that say it’s evil, or we are heathens. For people who practice, the relationship to nature, to themselves and how to organize themselves, is very sophisticated to me. It’s a way of moving through life and the world. The different archetypes that come out of the culture are complex and profound. It’s bewildering to me to think of African philosophy and African world view as backwards.  

We take for granted that we don’t have to explain these things. People blame the artists when they don’t get it. For me, it’s important. When the Modernists like Picasso, Kandinsky, and Matisse were taking and using African forms, they didn’t care about the history or the culture or the meaning. That’s a Eurocentric conqueror’s attitude to take something and not care about what it means. They don’t do that with their own history or artifacts. They value them.  We should value our own history and connections to it.   

Subterrestrial African Magik, 2016, Oil on unstretched canvas, 75 x 96 in. (Photo Credit:  Chuka Chukuma)   

ALJIRA: What inspired the painting, “Afrosupernatural Combat”? 

BENZANT: On the one hand it’s me being playful, understanding the context, the Eurocentric gaze, the anthropologist gaze of putting other cultures under a microscope. It’s me understanding that we’re under a microscope and there are many assumptions about culture, anything that’s not European, any indigenous cultures and African cultures. And there are many. You can see how they are connected, even though they are different. Most indigenous cultures have an ancestor practice or reference to how their ancestors are connected to the land and how that impacts them in the present. They all have a cosmology that speaks to them about the past in the relation to the present and that impacts the future. Many of them have masquerading traditions and oral histories. Each culture is distinct yet has things in common. I’m referencing those connections through my work.  

The other aspect I’m referencing is the rituals that I’m immersed in. Palo Mayombe is the religion I got initiated into which was founded by the Cimarrones in Cuba. Cimarrones means Maroon and the maroons were runaway slaves. The founder of Palo Mayombe would often burn plantations down and free slaves. So in my mind, African magic is tied in with resistance. It’s not a people that want to be oppressed. It’s a people that are resisting. There’s this image that we passively accepted the slavery system. Hell no, there was always resistance. Many people think spirituality and they want  to think zen. People don’t want to get into those aspects of resistance but it’s part of the history.    

Afrosupernatural Combat, 2011, Oilstick and mixed-media on paper, 72 x 60 in. (Photo Credit: Chuka Chukuma)   

ALJIRA: How are you merging the spiritual and the scientific? 

BENZANT: Some of my shapes and the way that the colors are stacked in the sculptures are similar to that of a chromosome - if you were to look at it under a microscope. Chromosomes contain the genetic information that make us who we are, which comes from our ancestors. Our DNA is connected to our ancestors. In Kikongo, the word bambula, which means memory or ancestral memory, can be loosely translated to mean DNA.  

In Yoruba you have a deity referred to as ‘Olokun’ and in science according to Western notions the bottom of the sea preserves many things. Archaeologists often find things intact at the bottom of the sea. Olokun is associated with the mysteries at the bottom of the sea. Different cultures refer to things in different ways. The Yoruba people were very aware of the qualities at the bottom of the sea. They distinguished the bottom of the sea as Olokun and the top of the sea as Yemaya. This is classification, this is science, spoke of in another way. A different way of articulating things.  

I’m talking about religion but if you take it as a metaphor to apply it to something else just to get a sense that there are different paradigms that people come from which are viable. We don’t have to be ashamed of it because we went to Howard and have a PhD.  There’s a lot of pressure to assimilate. That’s  what I’m resisting, by embracing another paradigm and being inspired by things that are coming from another direction. I hope that people will be inspired to slow down and be inspired to being present in a way that inspires them to reflect.  I’m not against Western cultural and influences. I know Western art and I’ve studied it a lot. My heart is pulling on my African roots. 

Leonardo Benzant attended Pratt Institute from 2007 – 2010. In addition to being in several important private collections, his work was recently acquired by The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts+Culture in Charlotte, North Carolina for their permanent art collection. He was also one of the artists included in the Gantt Center's February 2015 exhibition, Venturing Out of the Heart of Darkness. His work was recently exhibited at the N'Namdi Center in Detroit, Michigan and will be included in an upcoming exhibition, Koi No Yokan, at 101/EXHIBIT gallery in Los Angeles, California opening in July 2016. Leonardo Benzant: Afrosupernatural is on view at Aljira through May 21, 2016.

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Spotlight on Pat Lay: Bending the Grid: Myth, Memory and Android Dreams

Bending the Grid: Pat Lay: Myth, Memory and Android Dreams is a major survey exhibition that presents for the first time a broadened view of Lay’s expansive life and work – in two and three dimensions – in a range of media and styles, influenced by her travels and informed by her overlapping art and non-art interests. In Thailand, Cambodia and India, Lay was struck by the impact and spiritual beauty of Buddha and Hindu deities and in the power emanating from the idealized human form.

Photo Credit: Robert H. Douglas 

“By the 1960s and 70s, Americans could no longer maintain a blinkered, isolationist stance regarding the non-Western world. Nor did most want to. How do you keep them down on the farm once they have seen Paree (and beyond) was a question from a popular World War I song. The answer is: you can’t. Our intertwined world continues to grow ever smaller, connected by air, land, sea, and instantaneously, miraculously, by intangible global networks of all kinds – for better or worse,” notes Guest Curator Lilly Wei in the exhibition’s fully illustrated catalog. “Lay, intrigued, speculates on the impact of artificial intelligence in the future, from computers to cyborgs to the yet to be imagined,” writes Wei.  

Lilly Wei is a New York-based independent curator and critic whose focus is contemporary art. She has written regularly for Art in America since 1984 and is a contributing writer and editor for various national and international publications, including ARTnews, Sculpture Magazine and Art and Auction, among others. She is the author of numerous exhibition catalogs and brochures, and has curated exhibitions in the United States, Europe and Asia. Wei lectures on critical and curatorial practices and serves on advisory committees, review panels and the boards of several art institutions and organizations.

On March 12, 2016 Pat Lay and Lilly Wei will be joined by Visiting Curator Dexter Wimberly in conversation at Aljira. A fully illustrated catalog with an essay by Lilly Wei and interview with Patterson Sims is available to purchase. Here Pat Lay shares more about the exhibition and her process.

Pat Lay, Lilly Wei and Dexter Wimberly at opening reception (Photo Credit: Akintola Hanif) 

ALJIRA: How does it feel to see and present your work spanning so many years in this major survey?

LAY:  I’ve never seen it all in one place. Some of the work was stored in my basement and I hadn’t seen it in 30 years. I was hoping everything was still in tact. Seeing the work after 30 years was one thing and seeing it all together was a wow moment.

In the beginning stages, it was really about archiving the work, collecting it with all of the important information I needed: dates, materials, etc. It’s an important thing for an artist to do, because what it leads to is a real understanding of the process and development of the work, how it all ties together from earlier work to later work. You can see the progression. I’ve always told students that they should start their archive right away and just keep adding to it as they make their work. If I’m invited into a show and they say they need photographs and dimensions, I have it.

Working through the technical aspects of the installation process and how things are installed taught me a lot. I learned there are a lot of things I wouldn’t do again. I intend to keep making sculpture but, I think in the future I will make things that are easier to install. It was definitely labor intensive.

It’s really important to work with a curator on a show like this. In putting the show together I had an idea of how I wanted it to be. Lilly had a different idea and she was right. She’s had a lot more experience putting shows together and she’s someone I’ve known for many years. The fact that she’s a woman had a lot to do with my decision to work with her.  I wanted more work and she kept eliminating things. She was absolutely right.  There are 64 works in the show. Now that the show is up, it helps me think about what I want to do going forward.  For a while, I’m going to make smaller pieces. I’ve gotten very excited about color. I’d like to continue with color and I may be finished with the figurative. My early work is all abstract. At one point I started using the figure. I may be interested in going back to abstract work.

Spirit Poles, 1992, Fired clay, glaze, steel

Untitled #3, 1973, Fired clay, steel, glass, wood, 109 x 86 x 12 (Installation Photo: Arlington Withers) 

Untitled #3, 1973, Fired clay, glaze, sand, 17 x 17 x 4, New Jersey State Museum L.B. Wescott Collection (Installation Photo: Arlington Withers) 

Anthology, 1996, Fired clay, glaze, steel, 92 x 84 x 84 (Installation Photo: Arlington Withers)  ALJIRA: What was the process for making the benefit prints and the digital collage work?

LAY: The benefit prints are based on the larger scrolls and I was excited to do them. The actual printing was done by Szilvia Revesz. She’s been our studio assistant for about 12 years. She’s primarily interested in works on paper and printing techniques, so this was right up her alley. The benefit prints are digital and silkscreen. There are three screens; two colors plus a metallic and then the digital. It starts with a digital image, then we put the screen colors over that.  I was excited about the metallic screen printing ink in them, too. The copper, silver and gold have a very beautiful quality to them. The large scrolls are not something that can be framed and they are kind of vulnerable. Sometimes taking the idea to a smaller scale makes it easier to handle and more sellable. Because the prints are small I can just keep making them. It’s a way of working that feels like I could keep going. It’s the first time I ever made prints. It’s something I always wanted to do and I never had the opportunity or reason to do it. This was it.

The digital works like “SFL40V0 #17″  are collaged together or tiled. They’re squared and the edges are borders. It’s made of lots of little parts. It’s easy to print them since I have a 13 x 19 printer at home. The beauty of collage is you can move them around until you get what you want. I had the pieces on my floor and just kept moving the pieces around until it made sense.  People ask me: “why don’t you put it all together on the computer?” I did that with the prints but the thing I like in the larger pieces, like the scrolls, is the handmade quality of it. They show the hand and the process.

Much of my process is just intuitive. A lot of it is play, which is a really important word in my work. Playing with the materials and letting things happen. Seeing what the materials want to do.

KB095-3, 2014 Collaged digital scroll, inkjet printed on Japanese kozo paper, gold acrylic paint, Tyvek backing, 96 x 48 

SFL40V0 #17, 2010, Collaged digital images from a circuit board, Epson archival ink, mounted on museum board with MDF and wood backing, 85 x 60 x 1 ¾ 

Myth and Memory #7, Elpina, 2003, Collaged digital images from a sculpture and a circuit board, Epson archival paper, a circuit board, acrylic paint, metallic tape, on board, 18 x 24 

Transhuman Personae #11, 2010, Fired clay, graphite and aluminum powders, acrylic medium, computer parts, cable, wire, tripod, 75 x 46 x 46  ALJIRA: Where did you find the wires and materials for Transhuman Personae #11? What was your process like?

LAY: It’s mostly cable wire. I was following the cable guys around in their truck and asked if they had any scraps. One guy led me to an industrial area in Jersey City where they work. They had a big dumpster where they threw away all their scraps. One of the cable guys there went into the dumpster and started pulling stuff out for me. I also used electrical chords and telephone wires. When I started using computer parts, though, I couldn’t figure out where to get them. I finally sent out an email and asked people to send me their old computer parts. But at first, I went to Techserve, since they rebuild and fix computers, and I asked them what they do with their old parts. They told me they had a dumpster and I could come by. So, I was dumpster diving. Then people started just giving me stuff. Now I have more old computers in my studio than I know what to do with.

Life Support #14, 2008, Digital assemblage, Epson archival paper, Epson ink, computer parts, archival foam core, museum board, 22 ½ x 20 5/8 x 2 ½

 Untitled #1, 1986, Fired clay, steel, clay slip, 12 ½ x 29 x 3   ALJIRA: The use of clay has a stigma that it is material suited more for craftmaking than for fine art. Are you reversing that stigma in your work?

LAY: I think that throughout my entire career I have tried to bring clay out of craft. I’ve always wanted it to be taken seriously as a material for sculpture. It has certain properties the way wood and metal have properties. Of all the materials for sculpture, clay has the most versatility. It can go from organic forms to geometric forms. I think the stigma that clay is a craft material is changing. It’s still there in certain groups but I think it’s not the issue that it was by any means. Clay is taken much more seriously.

In the very beginning I figured out the way to be taken seriously as a sculptor using clay was to combine other materials. So clay and steel are taken more seriously when used together. It’s much more interesting than having the whole thing made out of clay.

I was interested in learning how to weld. The imagery comes from Brancusi who I was inspired by. The most important thing was that I was learning how to weld combining clay and steel.

 Installation, Photo Credit: Arlington Withers 

  Constantin Brancusi, Bird in Space, 1923, Marble sculpture, 56.75 x 6.5 in.,  Metropolitan Museum of Art

ALJIRA: In your practice have you been continuing your formal investigations in a different way through each of your various works over the years?

LAY: I’ve always been interested in work from other cultures –African, Oceania, Native American, and more recently Tibet. I think it is very important to acknowledge where you get your ideas from. Everything comes from somewhere. It all comes from somewhere. One really broad general observation I have now is that people really understand the work and the ideas that are in it. I really appreciate that people get it.

Bending the Grid: Pat Lay: Myth, Memory and Android Dreams is on view at Aljira through March 19, 2016. To inquire about Pat Lay’s limited edition benefit prints call 973.622.1600. Gallery hours are Wednesday – Friday, 12 – 6pm Saturday, 11am – 4pm. 

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Currently on view at Aljira through March 19, “Bending the Grid: Pat Lay: Myth, Memory and Android Dreams curated by Lilly Wei.  A limited edition of benefit prints were announced at the opening reception and are available now. To learn more visit www.aljira.org. Click here to view more photos from the opening.  Photo Credit: Akintola Hanif 

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In the News: 

Artist Michael Paul Britto is featured in The Huffington Post. His current show at Aljira, “Something in the Way of Things”, closes on Saturday, December 19th. 

Also, don’t miss a special screening of his latest work, “LYNCHTalk”, at Momenta in Brooklyn on Friday, December 18th.  A central piece in Britto’s current solo exhibition “Shock & Awe” at Momenta, “LYNCHTalk” transforms the infamous Willie Lynch: The Making of a Slave into the style of a contemporary TedTalk, reenacted word-for-word by collaborating actor, Duane Cooper. The original speech, believed to have been presented by an 18th century white slave owner, offered systematic formulas in order to successfully breakdown and control Black slaves. Utilizing a pedagogic delivery within the familiar format of “ideas worth spreading,” Britto challenges the viewer to reflect upon and engage in dialogues around the historical parallel structures and psychology of racism today.

Check out his Huffington Post interview here. 

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In the News

Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art along with Danny Simmons, co-founder of RUSH Philanthropic Arts Foundation are proud to lead the creative team developing an art wall project in conjunction with PSEG, the Urban League of Essex County and the City of Newark.  14 local and national artists, including six from Newark, will beautify the 30-foot art wall. The lead architect on the project is Adjaye Associates, which designed the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History. Participating artists include: Kevin Darmanie, Gladys Grauer, Musa Hixon, Willie Cole, Otto Neals, Nina Chanel Abney, Xenobia Bailey, Ya Laford, Jerry Gant, Kevin Sampson, Mike Rader, Lisa Soto, Manuel Acevedo and Antonio Perez Melero.

“Victor Davson is a visionary contributor to Newark and the Arts. We are excited to partner with Aljira and RUSH because we know that they will ensure that the art will represent this community and that the residents of Fairmount are included in the project in meaningful ways,” said Urban League President Vivian Fraser. 

Click here to read the story on NJ.com.

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Aljira recently launched "NO Boundaries", a series of four concerts in the next 12 months curated by world-renowned jazz saxophonist, Oliver Lake. The inaugural concert in the "NO Boundaries" jazz series opened on November 7 featuring brilliant, young trumpeter Josh Evans and his quintet including Abraham Burton on tenor sax, Brandon McCune on keys, Eric McPherson on drums, and Derron Douglass on bass. Evans performed music from his new release “Hope and Despair". Oliver Lake is a heralded, saxophonist, artist, composer, arranger and bandleader. Whether composing commissioned works for Pro Musica Chamber and the Brooklyn Philharmonic; arranging for Bjork, Lou Reed, and A Tribe Called Quest; sharing the stage with Me'shell N'degeocello and Yasin Bey, or leading one of his many groups from his Organ Quartet, World Saxophone Quartet, Trio 3 and his Big Band, Oliver Lake has demonstrated what it truly means to be a multi-dimensional artist. In 2014, Oliver Lake received the prestigious Doris Duke Artist Award, a multi-year grant awarded to only 19 American artists in the field of jazz, theater, and dance. The "NO Boundaries" jazz series continues on December 12th for a second installment featuring violinist Jason Hwang with his trio Amygdala which features Rami Seo-gayakeum (Korean zither), Michael Wimberly (djembe/perc) and Jason Hwang (composer/violin/viola). Two additional concerts will be featured at Aljira in 2016. Photography by Akintola Hanif

To view more photos click here.