'Left of Black': Episode #27 featuring NOLA Artist Bruce Davenport, Jr.

Left of Black #27
w/ Bruce Davenport, Jr.
March 21, 2011

In a special episode of Left of Black, featuring a live audience, host Mark Anthony Neal talks with New Orleans artist Bruce Davenport, Jr. about surviving Hurricane Katrina, the cultural significance of New Orleans’ high school marching bands, and using his sketches to keep New Orleans’ culture vibrant.

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→Born and raised in New Orleans’ Lafitte housing projects, artist Bruce Davenport, Jr. lives and works in the now-infamous Lower Ninth Ward, devoting his time to meticulous graphic reenactments of the local musical culture of junior high and high school marching bands, those that were decimated by the levees breech and those that survive. His current exhibition “All I Need is 1 Pen” at the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University was curated by Diego Cortez.

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Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal, Professor of African & African American Studies at Duke University and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

Bruce Davenport Exhibition Opens @ John Hope Franklin Center

March 17 - May 14, 2011

Bruce Davenport Jr. -- All I Need Is 1 Pen
-- An exhibition of Works on Paper --

Exhibition Curator, Diego Cortez

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Thursday, March 17, 12:00 - 1:00 PM, John Hope Franklin Center

Artist Bruce Davenport Jr. interviewed by professor Mark Anthony Neal on Left of Black, Franklin Center, Room 240

Thursday, March 17, 5:30 - 7:00 PM, John Hope Franklin Center

Opening reception for All I Need Is 1 Pen, an exhibition of works on paper by New Orleans artist, Bruce Davenport Jr.

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On view at the Franklin Center Gallery will be the exhibition All I Need Is 1 Pen, a show comprised of works on paper by Bruce Davenport Jr. as well as a short video from the upcoming Richard Barber film The Whole Gritty City, which documents both the marching band culture of New Orleans and Davenport Jr.'s artistic work in response to that culture. Davenport Jr.'s work is on the cusp between folk art and contemporary art and seems to undermine the terminology of both worlds.

Bruce Davenport Jr., son of a preacher and community activist, was born in New Orleans in 1972, grew up at the 6th Ward Lafitte Projects, and currently lives in the now infamous Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. Throughout his schooling he was involved with the junior high and high school marching band cultures which are a major force in Mardi Gras and the overall musical culture of New Orleans. Following Hurricane Katrina, and the devastation to the city and its schools, about half of which remain closed today, Davenport Jr. decided to document the past glory of this unique culture in his drawings. Davenport Jr.'s work has been featured in many exhibitions in the U.S., including at the C.A.C., New Orleans, Dieu Donne Gallery, NYC, Lambent Foundation, NYC, Martin Luther King Jr. Library, New Orleans, Prospect 1.5 and Prospect.2 (Dan Cameron, Curator), New Orleans, AS IF Gallery, NYC and Ballroom Marfa, TX. His work has been collected by major collectors throughout the world. He has donated his works to many of the schools and libraries in New Orleans.

Bruce Davenport Jr. is represented by AS IF Gallery in New York (www.asifgallery.com). Diego Cortez is an independent curator based in New York. More information can be found at www.lostobject.org.

Hank Willis Thomas: HOPE & QUESTIONS BRIDGE Exhibit Opens at Duke

January 21 – March 4, 2011
Hank Willis Thomas: Hope and Question Bridge

John Hope Franklin Center and Franklin Humanities Institute
Curated by Diego Cortez

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Hope Exhibition Opening Reception
Thursday, January 20, 7-9 pm, John Hope Franklin Center Gallery (2204 Erwin Rd.)

Left of Black: Mark Anthony Neal Interviews Hank Willis Thomas
Friday, January 21, 12:00 PM, John Hope Franklin Center (2204 Erwin Rd.)

Question Bridge Opening Reception
& Artist's Talk with Introduction by Richard J. Powell
Friday, January 21, 5:30 PM, John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute (Smith Warehouse, 114 S. Buchanan Blvd.)

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The John Hope Franklin Center for International and Interdisciplinary Studies and FHI will present a collaborative, multi-site exhibition of new and recent works by contemporary visual artist and photographer Hank Willis Thomas.

On view at the Franklin Center Gallery will be the exhibition Hope, a survey show of seven major large-scale photographic works by the artist. On view at the FHI will be Thomas’ collaborative video project which is a work-in-progress Question Bridge: Black Male, which features a question-and-answer dialogue between the diverse members of the U.S. Black Male population, including those from New Orleans, using video as the medium to bridge the various economic, political, social, geographic, and generational divides between Black Males. A second work on view tethered above the FHI will be a large, specially fabricated helium balloon that will be flown above Smith Warehouse for the duration of the exhibition.

Hank Willis Thomas is a contemporary African American visual artist and photographer whose primary interests are race, advertising and popular culture. He is the winner of the first ever Aperture West Book Prize for his monograph Pitch Blackness (November, 2008). His work was featured in the 30 Americans exhibition at the Rubell Family Collection in Miami as well as in the exhibition and accompanying catalog, 25 Under 25: Up-and-Coming Photographers. He has exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the U.S. and abroad, including the Studio Museum in Harlem; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut; Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Jamaica, New York; Artists Space, New York; Leica Gallery, New York; Texas Woman’s University; Oakland Museum of California; Smithsonian; Anacostia Museum, Washington, DC; Bronfman Center for Jewish Life at NYU; National Museum of American History, Washington, DC; and National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, High Museum, Atlanta, and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among others.

Hank Willis Thomas is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery in New York. Extensive information on his work can be found at http://hankwillisthomas.com. Diego Cortez is an independent curator based in New York. More information can be found at http://www.lostobject.org.