TNM Studios July 2022 Newsletter
TNM Studios July 2022 Newsletter
Ogun's child is reaping this month...
Hey Folks!
This is my month. July 2nd was my birthday. July 27th is my 10th Ocha Birthday and is also my baby Shiba Inu – Ajagunn’s birthday. Tonight, July 13th is the largest Super Moon of the year. This year, this season is very much Ogun Season for me starting on his feast day of June 29th onward. A reaping of sorts. It’s when the work gets sent out to the world. If you all do not know this about me – I am a practitioner in the Santeria/Lucumi faith and more specifically I am a child of Ogun. My spiritual practice has been my grounding force and has allowed me to care in a range of ways for myself, my relationships with others, and my work.
And this year is all about my Orisha Ogun.
In 2019 when I exhibited my work, I prayed to the wrong god for you I went for my quarterly reading after and my Baba relayed a word from Ogun. I prayed was a work that centered Shango and was very well received when it debuted during the Whitney Biennial. The word was strict and it was direct from Ogun, I had a debt and needed to reinforce my relationship privately and publicly with him as my head. I understood the word and started the process of drafting and sifting through ideas, past and present, that would allow me to execute work that centers Ogun across a range of forms and center his narrative and force in my life and others. The works I have going up today and over the next few weeks are all in his honor. MASK / CONCEAL / CARRY all Ogun…all through.
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A gift.
When academics or scholars reach out to write about my work I generally refuse to be interviewed. I am interested in what the work will allow for others to see first and up against what I know the work is for myself. The expectation is never for them to match, but I am interested in the dance of the ideas.
Scholar Jamal Batts and I never spoke about my work. On my birthday, I received an email with the link to this presentation that I want to share with all of you. Jamal has provided a beautiful reading of The Labyrinth 1.0 for Brad Johnson alongside Sunil Gupta and Essex Hemphill’s poem Heavy Breathing.
This is what I could only hope for in my practice – deep reading, to be handled seriously and with care. I want the work to speak back to me and also aid in new thoughts around the ideas of fellow Black thinkers.
Jamal Batts – thank you for giving me the gift of seeing the work work.
Announcements + Exhibitions + Events + and all else...
Today, yes today…my solo exhibition at 52 Walker opens. MASK / CONCEAL / CARRY has been a show that I’ve been in conversation with Ebony for over a year and the work is finally up and in formation. It is a massive amount of work that went behind this exhibition. Ebony Haynes is damn good curator. Her sensibility is on the ground level with you as an artist and honestly, it’s so refreshing where distance in this field between artist + curator has been prioritized. She is a force and extremely courageous when it comes to new and complex ideas. She read through the books I have and also locked in at various moments to talk through key shifts in this work. The 52 Walker model that she has created to engage with artists is one that is allowing me to present a museum-level solo exhibition akin to a kunsthalle model.
One of the most beautiful moments that I had when I was at Sommerakademie in 2016 in Bern, Switzerland was at the Kunsthalle Bern when we were able to spend half of the day in the archives (they have a stunning online archive fyi ). I was able to see the work of a few Black artists and what works they presented there. I sought out the David Hammons exhibition Blues and the Abstract Truth, an installation of works inspired by the album by jazz musician Oliver Nelson which features the legendary Stolen Moments track. The drum set, the blue, the sleeping cat. It was a special moment for me to be able to sift through those materials. The work transformed the entire space with a blue color that seemed like an object itself.
So, the approach here at 52 Walker is this; I have a solo exhibition with full support of a commercial gallery team, my exhibition is up for four months, my work is for sale, I get a book that centers this show and I get the chance to work with a curator that does not have to answer to anyone around the content of my work. I have yet to have a solo presentation in a museum, and this is not uncommon, but I will say that it is very refreshing to present my work in this way and to have it have time to grow and engage with visitors over time. Its also to for once think more about where I am in my practice and how I am thinking without the work being loaded with too much political shit. Lastly, this exhibition is free to view during opening hours.
Inspiration;
Training to failure. Season 1 Yeezy fashion show Lighting. Unmasking. The cold. Necropolitics by Achille Mbembe. Mesmerism. Thelma’s 93’ Whitney Biennial. WEB Dubois’ data portraits. Alice’s Monument Eternal. Under the Skin. Grossman Gun Head. Benin’s gates. Shirley Horn’s You’re My Thrill I imagine her singing to the most beautiful pistol…Ivory Black. Muckiness. Inconsistent. Suffocation. Death Masks. Drills. Brutal Elegance. Belly the opening scene. Leather. Fine lines. Hold. Draw. Squeeze. Pull. Release. SCAMMERS. BIG STEPPERS. 100 shots. Specters. fiefs. calibers. slowing the mark dowwwwwnnnnn. Punctures. Threats. Trembling.
On view July 13 – October 8, 2022
52 Walker, New York, NYC
Reading - I’m currently working through
One author – two books. Margo Jefferson’s Negroland + Constructing a New Nervous System.
Jefferson blew me over. The first half of Negroland was a bit rough for me but the start of the second half broke me fully open. The writing is so deeply interior, brutally honest and difficult. I like difficult work that holds nuance of uncompromising subjectivity. I think I like the way Jefferson’s writing made me uncomfortable with her reveals. It is a feeling that I am thinking about heavily - discomfort. Constructing a New Nervous System was solid through and through and was mathematically exacting and truly broke open a new way to think about how to deconstruct memoir while simultaneously writing it.
Music, Films, + Videos…
I made a playlist for MASK / CONCEAL / CARRY that I have been listening to while working through this exhibition body of work. Check it out and I’ll share a few highlights;
-Eugene McDaniels, Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse
-Shirley Horn, You’re My Thrill
-Westside Gunn FT. Boldy James, 716 Mile
Westworld is back.
Irma Vep – this series. Watching but right now it’s falling rather flat for me. The plotline, while inventive is just not being upheld by the cast. watch the original instead.
The Man Who Fell to Earth. – bizarrely not even being talked about. Worth checking out.
That’s it for now. See you all in August for some big reveals.
xTNM