Gallery Talk for Successions: Traversing US Colonialism

Gallery Talk: "Successions"

DC mixed-media artist Amber Robles-Gordon talks "Successions" with curator Larry Ossei-Mensah.

About this Event:

Successions is a conceptual juxtaposition that celebrates abstraction as an art form while leveraging it as a tool to interrogate past and current US policies within its federal district (Washington, DC) and territories (including Guam, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands) that it controls. 

This event will be held virtually. Please register to receive the Zoom link via email.  Learn more about the exhibition. 

OrganizerAmerican University Museum At The Katzen Arts Center

Organizer of Gallery Talk: "Successions"

Housed in the dynamic and multidisciplinary Katzen Arts Center, the American University Museum builds its programming on the strengths of a great college and great university. We focus on international art because American University has a global commitment. We show political art because the university is committed to human rights, social justice, and political engagement. We support the artists in our community because the university takes an active and responsible role in the formation of our contemporary art and culture. 

We present exhibitions that mirror American University’s aspiration to be the premier Washington-based, global university. Our programming puts the best art of our region in a national and international context. Our collections enable us to present the art history of Washington, while our Kunsthalle attitude brings the most provocative art of our time to our place.

You may also like the following events from American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center:

• Next month, 12th October, 06:00 pm, Gallery Talk: "Seeing Climate Change"

• Next month, 14th October, 06:00 pm, Gallery Talk: "Reveal" in Online

• This November, 17th November, 06:00 pm, Gallery Talk: “In the Light of Memory” in Online

Also check out other Arts Events in Online,Exhibitions in Online.

Ticket Information: RSVP

Tickets for Gallery Talk: "Successions" can be booked below.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/gallery-talk-successions-tickets-163405503259

Ticket Price: Free

Image: Amber Robles-Gordon, y mi bandera vuela mas alto que la tuya (detail), 2020. Mixed media collage on canvas, 18 x 24 in. Courtesy of the artist.

Successions: Traversing US Colonialism Amber Robles-Gordon

August 28–December 12, 2021

American University Museum Curated by
at the Katzen Arts Center Larry Ossei-Mensah

Amber Robles-Gordon presents Successions: Traversing US Colonial- ism, a solo exhibition on view at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center in fall 2021. Successions is a conceptual juxta- position that celebrates abstraction as an art form while leveraging it as a tool to interrogate past and current US policies within its federal district (Washington, DC) and territories (including Guam, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands) that it controls. By highlighting nuances relat- ed to US governance in its federal districts and territories, Robles-Gor- don seeks to question who has access to resources, citizenship, and the right to sovereignty.

y mi bandera vuela mas alto que la tuya., Mixed Media Collage on Canvas, 18 x 24 in., 2020

Robles-Gordon creates artwork imbued with a layered visual language replete with cultural signifiers and abstract gestures. Successions is a celebration of abstraction as an artistic expression. Robles-Gordon uti- lizes iconic artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Alma Thomas, Romare Bearden, and members of the Washington Color School as vivid refer- ence points for her own dynamic use of color, form, and material within the works she created for the exhibition. These explorations will provide insights into a number of inquiries that undergird the construction of the exhibition. Successions creates a pathway towards discursive crit- icism around issues impacting marginalized communities oppressed by the United States’ hegemonic domestic and foreign policies. The exhibition features a new body of colorful abstract paintings, collages, and quilts created in 2020 and 2021 between San Juan, Puerto Rico (Robles-Gordon’s birthplace) and Washington, DC (where she current- ly lives).

USVI Political, Detail, Front, Mixed Media on Quilt, 86 in. x 90 in., in., 2021

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Robles-Gordon’s creative strategies were directly impacted as a result of sheltering in place in San Juan. The lack of access to materials and arduous circumstances she was confronted with in Puerto Rico and upon returning to Washington, DC catalyzed Robles-Gordon to impro- vise her approach to making works for the exhibition. Moreover, the ex- perience heightened her awareness of how communities on the margin are adversely treated during mo- ments of crisis.

Robles-Gordon’s also uses works featured in Successions to mine the stories, personal narratives, and aesthetics of the women of the Caribbean, particularly of African de- scent, in an effort to investigate the political, socio-economic, and envi- ronmental implications of placemaking, contemporary colonial policy, and notions of citizenship on these social groups. The debate over DC statehood, similar to Puerto Rico, has been a prevalent point of con- tention in the District but rarely featured in the national conversation. Robles-Gordon seeks to use her “backyard” as a metaphor that would

expand our understanding of notions of freedom, liberty, and justice.

A fully illustrated catalog with essays by Ossei-Mensah and Noel Anderson and in-person and virtual programs will accompany the exhibi- tion, enriching the viewer’s experience.

In Shoulder the Deed, Artists Reflect on the Present and the Past

In the exhibition Shoulder the Deed at Eckington gallery STABLE, the curators have gone back and fetched a history that strengthens the establishment not only of STABLE, but also of the Black artists living and working in D.C.

by SHANTAY ROBINSON JULY 15TH, 2021

Photography courtesy of Tony Powell.

Image Description:

(center) Starr Page.‘The’ James Baldwin Table, 2018.

(bottom center) Amber Robles Gordon The Male, The Architect, The Protector (Outer Circle) The Universe (inner circle), 2017, The Female, The Oracle, The Nurturer, (outer circle), 2017.

(left) Gail Shaw-Clemons,. Masks, 2020.

(right) Aziza Gibson-Hunter, Gri Gris, for the First Wave of the Third Millennium, 2020.

Originating from the Akan people of Ghana, the term Sankofa is often associated with the proverb “Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi,” meaning “it is not taboo to go back and fetch what you forgot.” The Adinkra symbol for the concept is a mythical bird flying forward with its head turned backward. In the exhibition Shoulder the Deed at Eckington gallery STABLE, the curators have gone back and fetched a history that strengthens the establishment not only of STABLE, but also of the Black artists living and working in D.C. STABLE, in collaboration with the Black Artists of D.C., presents an impressive collection of artworks steeped in rich African and African American traditions. As you enter the space, the wall to the right features photographs of some key personages such as Harlee Little and Juliette Madison, who, beginning in 1985, envisioned a space where Black photographers could commiserate and work. Shoulder the Deed is a spiritual reckoning. The artists in the exhibition, spanning several generations, come together to travel through time to bring forth conceptual and even modern works that speak to Black experience through portraiture, video art, assemblage, and more.

Before seeing the artwork, Black presence is felt and sets the tone for the exhibition. Upon entering the gallery, the sounds from Shaunté Gates’ video work “Free Breakfast Program” hauntingly quiets the mind. The repetitive loop of phrases such as “By their very presence…” and “I was always here …” over a go-go rhythm signals that we are in Black space, if the artworks had not already signaled this. The sound draws you to the work full of edited and manipulated images, displaying a history of the Black experience. The archival historical footage is juxtaposed with more recent archival footage as Black people perform traditional African dance and B-boys break.

While Gates’ work references relatively recent history using media technology, Gina Marie Lewis confronts history with an ancestral altar. “Libations for the Journey” is a mixed media work that uses images, cowrie shells, bottle corks, seashells, champagne, and door handles to offer the ancestors access and vision on a journey. A wooden box depicting a slightly open door sits in the middle of the altar as a doorway to the past, with candles inside to light the way in the darkness. This generous offering to the ancestors allows the artist to look to the past to create a path to the future spiritually. Lewis uses traditional technology to reach back in time to secure the blessings of the ancestors on a journey forward.

In keeping with the theme of looking at the past, Stan Squirewell’s “Monk Hancock (Innocent Criminal Series)” combines ancient times with the present in a portrait that is a mashup of a modern-day Black man dressed in a black winter coat manipulated with an overlay of the facade of an Egyptian statue and the bodice of a Roman one. Looking back to notable periods in history, Squirewell tells a contemporary story about the fight for survival. The portrait allows for a connection between how a contemporary Black man must fight for his life, much like those who have gone before in other treacherous times. 

Nekisha Durrett’s “Magnolias” says the names of women whose lives were lost too soon. In a light box, the names of three women are highlighted on magnolia leaves. These unarmed women were killed by police, referencing the threat unarmed Black women face in their everyday existences. The stories of these women’s deaths are all too common today, but by saying their names, Durrett remembers them and encapsulates their circumstance for others to know and remember their fates. 

The artworks in the exhibition work together; Michael Platt’s “Evening Ritual,” a painting of a nude Black woman depicted eight times and composed in a circle, alludes to the “magic” that Black women have been known to perform for centuries. The subject of the painting looks directly at the viewer from many angles as we witness her in ritual. The idea reminds viewers of the spectatorship Black people have gone through as the “other.” The defiance in the subject’s response shows she is not threatened by the gaze of the viewer. 

In several ways, the artworks speak of the present while at the same time referring to the past. From modernist tendencies to conceptual leanings, the show represents an array of works that belong in the same exhibition space but are each unique in their perspective. As a continuation of STABLE’s relationship with Black artists for almost four decades, this exhibition represents the importance of looking back to the foundation for clues on the direction to take next. Each of the artworks in Shoulder the Deed has a distinct quality that makes visitors want to see more from the artists. The artwork in this exhibition looks at the past while representing the contemporary moment, moving us into a more conscious future.

At STABLE to Sept. 30. 336 Randolph Place NE. (202) 953-9559. stablearts.org.

This story has been updated to clarify Little and Madison’s connection to STABLE.

Successions: Traversing US Colonialism @ American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center

Amber Robles-Gordon

Curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah
August 29–December 12, 2021

DC Political, Welcome to the District of Colonialism, Front, Mixed Media on Quilt, 86 (L) in. x 90 (H) in., 2021

Amber Robles-Gordon presents Successions: Traversing US Colonialism, a solo exhibition on view at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center in fall 2021. Successions is a conceptual juxtaposition that celebrates abstraction as an art form while leveraging it as a tool to interrogate past and current US policies within its federal district (Washington, DC) and territories (including Guam, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands) that it controls. By highlighting nuances related to US governance in its federal districts and territories, Robles-Gordon seeks to question who has access to resources, citizenship, and the right to sovereignty.

Robles-Gordon creates artwork imbued with a layered visual language replete with cultural signifiers and abstract gestures. Successions is a celebration of abstraction as an artistic expression. Robles-Gordon utilizes iconic artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Alma Thomas, Romare Bearden, and members of the Washington Color School as vivid reference points for her own dynamic use of color, form, and material within the works she created for the exhibition. These explorations will provide insights into a number of inquiries that undergird the construction of the exhibition. Successions creates a pathway towards discursive criticism around issues impacting marginalized communities oppressed by the United States’ hegemonic domestic and foreign policies. The exhibition features a new body of colorful abstract paintings, collages, and quilts created in 2020 and 2021 between San Juan, Puerto Rico (Robles-Gordon’s birthplace) and Washington, DC (where she currently lives).

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Robles-Gordon’s creative strategies were directly impacted as a result of sheltering in place in San Juan. The lack of access to materials and arduous circumstances she was confronted with in Puerto Rico and upon returning to Washington, DC catalyzed Robles-Gordon to improvise her approach to making works for the exhibition. Moreover, the experience heightened her awareness of how communities on the margin are adversely treated during moments of crisis.

y mi bandera vuela mas alto que la tuya, 2020. Mixed media collage on canvas, 18 x 24 in. Courtesy of the artist.

Robles-Gordon’s also uses works featured in Successions to mine the stories, personal narratives, and aesthetics of the women of the Caribbean, particularly of African descent in an effort to investigate the political, socio-economic, and environmental implications of placemaking, contemporary colonial policy, and notions of citizenship on these social groups. The debate over DC statehood, similar to Puerto Rico, has been a prevalent point of contention in the District but rarely featured in the national conversation. Robles-Gordon seeks to use her “backyard” as a metaphor that would expand our understanding of notions of freedom, liberty, and justice.

Reflexiones sobre el yo, la virgen maría y el colonialismo, (Reflections of Self, The Virgin Mary and Colonialism,) Mixed media, collage on canvas, 18 x 24 in. Courtesy of the artist.

A fully illustrated catalog with essays by Ossei-Mensah and Noel Anderson and in-person and virtual programs will accompany the exhibition, enriching the viewer’s experience.

Click the link below for additional information and artwork included in the exhibition.

https://www.american.edu/cas/museum/2021/successions.cfm

About the Artist:

Amber Robles-Gordon is a mixed media visual artist of Puerto Rican and West Indian heritage. She is known for her commissioned temporary and permanent public art installations for numerous government agencies, institutions, universities, and art fairs.

Robles-Gordon has over twenty years of experience exhibiting and in art education, commissioned critiques, lectures, teaching, and exhibition coordination. She received a BS in business administration from Trinity University and an MFA in painting from Howard University, Washington, DC. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including Germany, Italy, Malaysia, England, and Spain. Robles-Gordon has participated in residencies in Costa Rica, Washington, DC, and at the American Academy in Rome, Italy. Her artwork has been reviewed and featured in numerous magazines, journals, newspapers, and online publications.

Most recently, she held an online solo exhibition at Galeria de Arte, Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and was featured by Tafeta Gallery in the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London, England, and during London Art Week. In 2022, she will create a traveling exhibition in collaboration with Cultural DC and El Cuadrado Gris Galeria in Puerto Rico. 

About the Curator:

Larry Ossei-Mensah uses contemporary art as a vehicle to redefine how we see ourselves and the world around us. A Ghanaian-American curator and cultural critic, Ossei-Mensah has organized exhibitions and programs at commercial and nonprofit spaces around the globe from New York City to Rome, featuring artists including Firelei Baez, Allison Janae Hamilton, Brendan Fernades, Ebony G. Patterson, Modou Dieng, Glenn Kaino, Joiri Minaya and Stanley Whitney. Moreover, Ossei-Mensah has actively documented cultural happenings featuring the most dynamic visual artists working today, including Derrick Adams, Mickalene Thomas, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Federico Solmi, and Kehinde Wiley.

A native of The Bronx, Ossei-Mensah is also the co-founder of ARTNOIR, a 501(c)(3) and global collective of culturalists who design multimodal experiences aimed to engage this generation’s dynamic and diverse creative class. ARTNOIR endeavors to celebrate the artistry and creativity of Black and Brown artists around the world via virtual and in-person experiences. Ossei-Mensah was a contributor to the first-ever Ghanaian Pavilion for the 2019 Venice Biennial with an essay on the work of visual artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.

Ossei-Mensah is the former Susanne Feld Hilberry Senior Curator at MOCAD in Detroit and currently serves as Curator-at-Large at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), where he curated the New York Times heralded exhibition Let Free Ring and A Return: Liberation as Power respectively.       

Ossei-Mensah has been profiled in publications including the New York Times, Artsy, and Cultured Magazine, and was recently named to Artnet’s 2020 Innovator List. Follow him on Instagram at @larryosseimensah and Twitter at @youngglobal.

Artist Lecture: Amber Robles-Gordon

Hosted by American University Studio Art Department

Artist Website: https://www.amberroblesgordon.com/

Amber Robles-Gordon, MFA, is a mixed media visual artist, of Puerto Rican and West Indian heritage. Known for recontextualizing non-traditional materials, her assemblages, large sculptures, installations, and public artwork emphasize the essentialness of spirituality and temporality within life. Driven by the need to construct her own finite path, innovate and challenge social norms, her artwork is unconventional and non- formulaic. Ultimately her creations are representational of her personal experiences and the paradoxes within the imbalance of masculine and feminine energies within our society.

Robles-Gordon has over fifteen years of exhibiting, art education, and exhibition coordinating experience. She

received a Bachelor of Science, Business Administration in 2005 at Trinity University, and subsequently a Master’s in Fine Arts (Painting) in 2011 from Howard University, Washington, DC. At Howard University she received annual awards and accolades for her artwork.

She has exhibited nationally and in Germany, Italy, Malaysia, London, and Spain. Robles- Gordon is proficient in American Sign-Language and has traveled throughout the US, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, Northern Africa, and Southeast Asia. Her exhibitions and artwork have been reviewed and/or featured in the Washington Post, Washington City Paper, Washington Informer, Examiner, WAMU American University Radio, WPFW 89.3, MSNBC the grio, Hyperallergeric, Ebony.com, Houston Chronicle, Miami Herald, Huffington Post, Bmore Art Magazine, Callaloo Art & Culture in the African Diaspora and Sugarcane Magazine, Support Black Art and other various publications.

Robles-Gordon was also commissioned to create temporary and permanent public art installations for numerous art fairs and agencies such as the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, DCCAH, Northern Virginia Fine Arts Association (NVFAA), Humanities Council of Washington, D.C., Howard University, James C. Porter Colloquium, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Washington Projects for the Arts, Salisbury University, Martha’s Table, DC Department of General Services and Democracy Fund. Additionally, she

has been commissioned and or featured to teach workshops, give commentary, and or present about her artwork by the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum, Luther College, WETA Television, Al Jazeera, WPFW 89.3fm, WAMU | American University Radio, The Kojo Nnamdi Show, Howard University James A. Porter Colloquium, David C. Driskell Center, the Phillips Collection, the African American Museum in Philadelphia, Mc Daniel College, Salisbury University, Harvey B. Gantt Center, Phillips Collection, American University, and National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Throughout her career, she serves as an advocate for the Washington, DC area arts community. From November 2004 through July 2012, Robles-Gordon has been an active member of the Black Artists DC, (BADC) serving as exhibitions coordinator, Vice President, and President. BADC, a 20-year old member organization of individual of Black-Afrikan ancestry, includes artists, arts administrators, educators, dealers, collectors, museum directors, curators, gallery owners, and arts enthusiasts. Robles-Gordon is also the Co- Founder of Delusions of Grandeur Artist Collective.

In 2010, Robles-Gordon was granted apprenticeship to create a public art installation with the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, D.C. Creates Public Arts Program. In 2012, Robles-Gordon was selected to present for the Under the Influence competition as part of

the 30 Americans Exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

In 2016, Robles-Gordon was selected for a teaching residency by the Centro Cultural Costarricense-Norteamericano, Back to the Roots, in Limon, Costa Rica. In 2017, she was awarded an additional teaching residency with Washington Projects for the Arts and DC Public Schools. In 2018, Robles-Gordon spent two weeks in Thailand studying and photographing Thai art and culture. In January 2019, Robles-Gordon completed a two- week Artist/Scholar residency at the American Academy, Rome, AAR, Italy. At the end of this residency, Robes-Gordon was granted the opportunity to exhibit her completed work at AAR.

Further, in July 2019, she completed a two-month artist-in-residence and temporary public art commission, titled Fertile Grounds: Of Minds, Wombs, and of the Earth, at the Nicholson Project, artist residency program. In fall 2019, Robles-Gordon was commissioned by DC Department of General Services, for a public artwork at the Ida B. Wells Middle School, DC Public Schools. In Summer 2020, Robles-Gordon will be featured in the first online solo exhibition, Place of Breath and Birth, at Galleria de Arte, Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, (Sacred Heart University), in her birthplace of San Juan, Puerto Rico, (PR). This will be followed by a fall 2020, solo exhibition, Secession, at American University, Katzen Art Center.

Next up!!!! Saturday, April 7, 2018 Panelist at the James A Porter Colloquium, Howard University

Next up!!!! Saturday, April 7, 2018 2:15-3:15

Artist Panel: Materiality and Space at the @jamesa.portercolloquium1990

Panelists:

@jmaurelle @amberroblesgordon @gregory.coates 

Panel Moderator:  Margo N. Crawford, Ph.D., Professor of English, Department of English, University of Pennsylvania #portercolloquium

New York, NY ...Delusions of Grandeur is heading to New York!!

Rush Art Galleries is proud to debut Faculty, a new exhibition that presents the work of Washington, D.C. artist collective, Delusions of Grandeur. Through a lens of critical intellectualism and psychic vision, the six artists who form the collective, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Shaunté Gates, Stan Squirewell, Amber Robles-Gordon, Wesley Clark, and Larry Cook use their powers of ancestral memory to render symbols of communal black instincts within contemporary art in the new millennium. The ability to hear and bridge ancient history with the present and that which does not yet exist, drive the artists to capture transcendental ideas, cultural iconography and the everyday masses of people seeking to survive and transform the current political, social and economic landscape which threatens human beings. The works in the exhibition draw the viewer into fantasy paintings interspersed with digital photography, mixed media portraits, conceptions of human energy beginning with binary code, and a standing installation of lost and found objects to create new storytelling patterns and provide hopeful change in black culture and community. 

Delusions of Grandeur came together to articulate difficult conversations of race, class, social access and community through a shared commitment and desire for making new texts out of visual concepts. Wesley Clark constructs fictional artifacts, which he ‘antiques’ from an ability to ‘see’ beyond current belief systems of what is beautiful and conventional. With White neon lettering glowing upon a black backdrop that says, “Some of my best friends are black.” Larry Cook questions if that’s the case by asking the viewer to understand black culture and identity from a place of agency and nonlinear time. In Shaunté Gates’ surreal dream affects grounded in reality based photography, the color red repeats itself in remembrance of fire and sacrifice. Jamea Richmond-Edwards portraits of black women are at once ethereal and bold. Using ink and graphite, featuring bright faux couture patterns made of paper, sequins and textiles against black space, the faces come alive in the frame imploring the viewer to return their gaze and listen to the story being told through the women's piercing eyes. Light, rich color combinations of yellows, reds and blues weave the concepts of feminine and masculine energy to mine the healing terrain of holistic power sources found in Amber Robles Gordon’s work. The science of 1’s and 0’s known as binary code informs Stan Squirewell’s exploration of birth and repetition of three-dimensional vision and sound through standing installations. 

The sites of inquiry used by the artists place logical reasoning and sixth sense intuition at the center of shifting dialogue and perceptions of what black culture and community have been and what it’s becoming. Each artist, in turn, puts Faculty at the forefront of thought design, adding another layer of language to the current codes of blackness and representation. 

Faculty will run from February 22nd through April 5th, 2018 at Rush Arts Gallery (located at 526 West 26th Street, Suite 311, New York, NY 10001). An opening reception will be held on Thursday, February 22nd, 6:00-8:00 p.m.

My Rainbow is Enuf, Installation featured in Kindred the Family Soul video.

Music video for Welcome to my world performed by Kindred the Family Soul.

Directed by :Konee Rok

Styling by: Dapper Afriika shot on location at the African American Museum of Philadelphia,

www.kindredthefamilysoul.com

Featuring: My Rainbow is Enuf

https://www.amberroblesgordon.com/bv-rainbow-public-artinstallation

by Amber Robles-Gordon,

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