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Portland art blog + news + exhibition reviews + galleries + contemporary northwest art
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PSU’s MFA Monday Night Lecture Series Begins Robert
A. Pruitt to open the series October 9th  Low Rider Art, 2004 stool, crushed velvet, bicycle wheel, chrome 57 1/2" x 16 1/4" x 9" Robert A. Pruitt, of Houston, TX, folds the anxious race relations of contemporary and historic America into the aesthetics of desire. Re-contextualizing traditional twentieth-century textbook art with African American history and experience, he “explores contemporary stereotypes of African-Americans, adornment, black aesthetics, and black visual traditions” (quoted text from Clementine Gallery-where he will be showing in the Main Gallery November 30, 2006 - January 6, 2007). Recently, Pruitt participated in the 2006 Whitney Biennial (there's a great podcast at this link). In Houston, he has worked with Project Row Houses, and is a member of the collaborative group Otabenga Jones & Associates. In 2004 he was the winner of the prestigious Artadia award.  Throw Yo Hood Up, 2004 digital print on canvas, found frame 17 1/4" x 15" Pruitt writes: "I have been educated by the contemporary art system, but my neighborhood, and most of its residents, are unaware of this world, and that world is unaware of it. This is the dichotomy out of which I work. An inhabitant of two worlds, my work attempts to bridge the gap between African cultural traditions supposedly lost to African Americans, and contemporary art making tactics. I fuse Hip-hop sensibilities, rewritten histories, and penchant for the found, (or cheaply bought) object. I romanticize the revolutionary ideologies of the seventies, the dope fresh styles of the eighties, and the conceptual art making practices of the nineties. I collect objects, quotes, and events from my stereotypically disenfranchised neighborhood, bring them back to my studio, and mix them up to make art. My materials are artifacts stained with memory and meaning. I use these artifacts to make objects and images that expound on the black condition in America, and I use a chitlin circuit style of humor to sneak it into the subconscious of my audience."  America's Most Wanted, 2004 rhinestones, prop gun 3 1/2" x 5" x 1" Funded in part by PICA, Reed College, PNCA, Lewis and Clark College, and The Affair At The Jupiter the PSU MFA Monday Night Lecture Series is truly a community event. Subsequent Monday lectures are as follows: Julia Bryan-Wilson: Oct 16 Jeffery Mitchel: Oct 23 TBA: Oct 30 Jessica Jackson Hutchins: Nov 6 Vanessa Renwick: Nov 13 Marc Horowitz: Nov 20 Jeanne Finley: Nov 27 James Lavadour: Dec 4 Open to the public • FREE Mon. Oct., 9th • 8:15p 5th Avenue Cinema Room 92 • 510 SW Hall St. (on the corner of SW 5TH & Hall on the PSU Campus) |