![]() I organized that project with him as well as a separate presentation of his Swag: The Mixtape video-portraits, which ran September through January in Baton Rouge.Īn insider of two cultural establishments-hip-hop and the art world-Newsome builds a creative space that manages to critique both worlds simultaneously. This past summer, the New Orleans Museum of Art featured more than a dozen of his custom-framed collages in the exhibition King of Arms. The narrative in Newsome’s work explores heraldic systems of achievement and rank derived from New Orleans’s rich history of pageantry and parades. Strong female characters are among his common subjects, and their privilege is often equated with decorative excess. Empowerment is a recurring theme of Newsome’s artistic practice. ![]() I relate to the feminist impulse in his work, and the drive to dismantle hierarchy through performative acts and gestures. A forthcoming series of in-the-round sculptures will be based on the resultant 3-D drawings and the five primary elements of vogue-femme choreography.Ī fellow Louisianan, I have followed Newsome’s work since 2008, when we first met in New York. The lines generated in real time during the performance capture the improvisational responses of each dancer to live music and to commentary by Kevin Jz Prodigy. While much of Newsome’s work is a synthesis of historical iconography in art, “FIVE” specifically recalls action painting. “FIVE” perhaps best exemplifies the Baroque tendency in Newsome’s practice, because it uses the body as a platform to explore the dynamic visual spaces of vogue, sculpture, and vector graphics. As before, in three previous presentations of the piece, Newsome conducted the work from a laptop using a color-coded system he conceptualized with Max/MSP and Jitter software. ![]() This time, the piece incorporated an Xbox Kinect camera, which was used as a pen to reproduce the gestures of his performers three-dimensionally. Photos by Jena Cumbo, courtesy the artistĪrlier this month at the Drawing Center, Rashaad Newsome presented the latest production of “FIVE,” a multidisciplinary performance piece that he debuted in 2010 as part of the Whitney Biennial. Photos by Mike Smith, and "FIVE" (Drawing Center) in New York, performed live March 6, 2014. King of Arms exhibition and performance at the New Orleans Museum of Art. ![]()
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