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Oluseyi Akinyode

Author Q and A with Joel Looper, Another Gospel

By Oluseyi Akinyode

This article was originally published in Washington Independent Review of Books here.

As Election Day looms, have you pondered why Donald Trump so strongly appeals to Evangelical Christians and the far Right in America? Well, so has Joel Looper. In his new book, Another Gospel: Christian Nationalism and the Crisis of Evangelical Identity, he traces the roots of evangelicalism to colonial America, revealing how the movement’s cultural identity became enmeshed in national politics. Looper also examines the Christian mandate as modeled by the early church, arguing that, at its core, the Gospel is about witnessing Jesus Christ through the way we live our lives. An adjunct professor at Baylor University and coordinator for Shalom Mission Communities, a network of international Christian communities, Looper is also the author of Bonhoeffer’s America: A Land Without Reformation.

What personal experiences did you draw on while writing Another Gospel, and how did these shape the themes you explored?

I’m a Christian who continues to cling white-knuckled to the label “evangelical.” Whether I should or not is another matter, of course. One of the reasons I do is that the term evangelical actually means “gospel” or, better, “gospel-oriented person.” However, many people outside the movement, Christians and non-Christians, look at conservative evangelicals and at the Jesus of the New Testament, and they say, “Huh? How did you get here from there?”

I’ve had similar moments with evangelicals. One guy I know well — an extraordinarily generous man who would take an undocumented person into his home if he knew them and that they were in trouble. This same guy trumpets Trump’s nonsense claims about Haitian immigrants eating pets and worries aloud that immigrants are ruining the country. He’s hardly unique, obviously. I know dozens of others like him.

During the pandemic, many evangelicals like this man were terrified by lockdowns and mandatory masking, fearful that their rights were being taken away — even as more than one in 300 Americans died [of covid-19]. Even if I came to think the federal response was seriously misguided at certain times, this sort of reaction seriously disturbed me. Experiences like these convinced me that many, though not all, evangelicals aren’t being guided by Scripture or the commands of Jesus. And that realization was the seed of this book.

Given the upcoming election, how do you hope readers will engage with the book’s themes?

It’ll hardly surprise readers that I’m concerned about the election. I do think that Donald Trump represents a threat to our democratic republic. As a Christian, I’m even more concerned about what support for Trump has done to the church’s reputation. My hope is that, whether my name is attached to it or not, people will think about the book’s primary thesis — that Christian nationalism is a false gospel (Galatians 1:6). And, once they’ve mulled it over, that they would put it in their own words, discuss it, preach it, and get it out into the ether before November 5th. Perhaps the actuality of Christians putting Trump back in office won’t be another stumbling block to add to the pile we [as evangelical Christians] already have.

You argue that many Evangelical Christians are holding onto an idealized American way of life rather than living out the values modeled by Jesus Christ. How does this perspective help us understand Trump’s appeal within this community?

Many evangelicals fear that they’re about to lose the American way of life you’re referring to. Some of this is because of the LGBTQ movement — a long and complicated story for another day. Then Trump comes along and says again and again, “I will protect you,” “I’m standing in their way,” and “I’m the only one who can save you.” Evangelical Trump voters either don’t care or haven’t grasped that this Faustian bargain has scandalized millions, many of whom used to call themselves evangelical.

A key argument in Another Gospel is that Christian Nationalism is rooted in the nation’s colonizing of the church, not vice versa. Why is this a crucial point for readers to grasp?

Think about the kind of community envisioned in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It’s supposed to be a “city on a hill” — but it’s not America. This city operates like no other polity that humanity has ever encountered. People would have to change dramatically for the better to live this way.

Therefore, attempts to turn Jesus’ ethics into public morality is a fool’s errand. Human societies just aren’t capable of it. There is a name for this inability to do so in the Abrahamic faith: It’s called sin. To live out what Jesus is talking about, we need a different sort of polity in which people are enabled by God to live the kind of life Jesus spoke about. The New Testament calls that polity the church. So, the church is supposed to have a very different existence from the nation.

When Christian nationalists try to take America back for God (to use Samuel L. Perry and Andrew L. Whitehead’s language), the result is that the church ends up becoming obsessed with national concerns rather than living this different sort of life. They baptize American culture and allow Machiavellian political maneuvers as means to supposedly righteous ends. But it just won’t work. America isn’t baptize-able, and neither is any other nation. Even if the church were spiritually in shape enough to “Christianize” America, America isn’t Christianize-able. Instead, the nation and its politics have shaped the church’s life. As I shared in Another Gospel, the nation has colonized the church, not the reverse. That is Christian nationalism.

You note that rising Christian nationalism often coincides with declining church attendance. How might this trend impact the future of the evangelical church in America?

I think the future of the evangelical church in America is bleak, numerically speaking. Fundamentally, the gospel that many evangelicals believe in has left them with no reason to go to church. If the Christian life is an individual pursuit where the aim is to go to heaven when you die, and the Christian character is primarily geared towards “owning the libs,” why do you need church for that? You don’t, at least in the long run. Again, this is true for many evangelicals but not for all.

So far, what has been the response to Another Gospel among the evangelical community? Has any of the feedback surprised you?

Some have been enthusiastic. Ralph Wood’s review in Christianity Today is one example. But then there are friends — and, really, extended family — who went into attack mode before the book had reached the shelves. The vitriol I got from some of them really did surprise me. Saying, “Read the book!” or “Okay, can we have a conversation, look at Scripture, think about this together?” has gotten me nowhere with most of them.

Author Q and A with Scott Alexander Howard, The other Valley

By Oluseyi Akinyode

This article was originally published in Washington Independent Review of Books here.

In The Other Valley, debut novelist Scott Alexander Howard contemplates the lives of a town’s residents against a landscape that physically unfolds across time. The story follows protagonist Odile and her friends as they make their way in the world and raises questions about whether the steps we take must be informed by past decisions, or if it’s possible to carve a new path to a more fulfilling life. A resident of Vancouver, British Columbia, Howard holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Toronto and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, where his work focused on the relationship among memory, emotion, and literature.

The Other Valley addresses some heavy philosophical themes. How did you give them the attention they deserved without making the book feel dense?

Your question makes me think of something Timothy Williamson, a British philosopher, once said. He was talking about how to achieve depth in writing, and he pointed out that if you try to be deliberately deep, you will produce writing that isn’t. It’s pretentious or “dense” instead. If you aim for truth, you get depth for free. My goal was to tell a story that felt true and let any deeper philosophical themes emerge naturally, if and where they wanted to. As a result, anything that feels philosophical in The Other Valley is tightly connected to Odile and her story. It’s there because it’s true to her situation and world, not because I consciously tried to address any particular theme. The best way to write a philosophical novel is to ignore philosophy as much as possible.

The main character, Odile, makes choices as a 16-year-old that significantly alter her future. What questions about free will and predestination were you hoping to explore in telling her story?

I don’t want to give away any choices Odile makes by how I answer this question, so I’ll say this: More than free will, I’m interested in the relationship between someone’s identity and their circumstances, and especially their luck. Luck can change our lives, but typically, when we imagine our lives changing, we assume that we’ll still be ourselves, just headed down a different path. In reality, the path molds and alters us. The person walking it is fundamentally different from the person who set out. Odile is a person whose life is heading in one direction, and then, in a single moment, she starts heading in another. I wanted to explore how that change affected who she became compared with who she might have been. In the novel’s world, the person she used to be is still alive on the other side of the mountains — which adds a layer of poignancy and eeriness.

Your vivid descriptions of the landscape are striking. Did you draw on any particular experiences or memories in bringing the novel’s setting to life?

Thank you! The description of the landscape and climate in The Other Valley was inspired by parts of the Southern Interior of British Columbia, where I spent most of my childhood. It’s a region with deep glacial lakes stretching north and south. You find lush orchards by the lakeshore, but as soon as you get up into the mountains, the landscape is extremely dry and arid — in fact, it’s home to Canada’s only desert. That juxtaposition of the pastoral and the barren seemed to fit the novel, which blends longing and foreboding. So, I went with the natural environment I knew intimately and invented a new town to put there.

You made the bold choice not to use quotation marks in the dialogue. What inspired that decision?

I did it for the same reason many writers do: In a first-person story, it holds the reader inside the narrator’s mind. It’s a stylistic way of conveying that everything you’re reading is steeped in the character’s voice. It’s an effect that suited this story. Honestly, I didn’t think I was making a bold decision. Dialogue without quotation marks is easy to follow when the writing is clear.

This is your debut novel. Can you share a bit about its road to publication?

It’s tough to count how many drafts of the manuscript I wrote. I rewrote this novel from scratch at least two-and-a-half times before overhauling and revising it for what felt like ages. I read it out loud to myself more times than I can count, and I read the whole thing backward while proofreading. By the time I was ready to query agents, it was in good shape. The published book only differs from the version I queried in subtle but meaningful ways. Like most debut authors, I found querying to be a grind. I had no personal or professional connections to the publishing world, so I was firing emails into slush piles and hoping for the best. After five months of near silence, I received requests for a complete manuscript from some agents, and things moved quickly. The agent I chose sold the book to Simon & Schuster (Atria and Scribner Canada) in a few days. When I got the news, the first feeling — before joy — was immense relief. It sounds silly, but other writers will know the feeling: If I didn’t get the novel published, I felt like I’d be letting the characters down.

What’s next for you?

I’m writing my second novel with the usual churn of exhilaration, doubt, and determination. And I’m also helping develop the screen adaptation of The Other Valley.

Homecoming / Homegoing: Weaving Expressions of Community, and Healing at the Phillips@THEARC

By Oluseyi Akinyode

This article was originally published in DCTrending here.

Before visiting Zsudayka Nzinga’s Homecoming / Homegoing exhibition at Phillips@THEARC, I regarded fabrics merely as a collage component. The six artworks on display by Nzinga showcase the expressive power of textiles, where fabrics serve as frames, depict figures and vegetation, create landscape backdrops, and convey concepts of meaning like grief. 

I was struck by how the fabrics extended beyond the traditional framing, reflecting Nzinga’s intention to mirror the ongoing effects of past events in America’s history. In several artworks, Nzinga focuses on outdoor scenes, a departure from her past themes centered on family and interior spaces. This exhibition broadens Nzinga’s body of work and engages viewers in conversations about America’s founding history and its complex intersections with the Black experience.

In Run Away But Come Back Petit Marronage Act 1, the artwork depicts two Black men at a plantation. Behind them is a cabin with a red, blue, and white striped roof set against a starry navy sky fabric. With a comforting arm around the first, the man on the left looks calmly out to the plantation. The man on the right looks towards the horizon with a sad expression. To the right, five men are cast in varying silhouettes of the American Flag. A fabric of red and yellow flowers frames the entire scene. The artwork Run Away But Come Back Petit Marronage Act 2 portrays a similar scene with women as the central figures.

These artworks explore Petite Marronage, a form of resistance where enslaved people briefly left plantations before returning. These escapes were crucial acts of self-care, allowing them to assert their autonomy despite harsh conditions. Many returned because of family ties and the sense of home. The sentiment is poignantly expressed through the fabrics of red and yellow flowers that cover the slave cabins. Nzinga frames the scene with motifs of stripes and stars, juxtaposing America’s ideals with its practice of slavery. The artworks serve as visual narratives, echoing Nzinga’s desire to “use her collage paintings as counter-narratives that address gaps in America and art history.” An oral history inspired the Petit Marronage series passed down in Nzinga’s family.

In The Domestics, Nzinga continues her interrogation of America’s history through a group portrait of adults and children in front of a building made with striped fabrics. Figures are rendered in fleshy tones of acrylic, while others appear as black-and-white scribbles, or silhouettes. Though the portrait seems innocent, its meaning is far from benign. Nzinga based this collage on a historical photograph of slaveholders and enslaved workers serving as symbols of wealth.

This piece invokes earlier critiques of displays of wealth in the art, such as Thomas Giansborough’s Mr & Mrs Andrews. Just as Gainsborough unmasks the exploitation behind the English gentry’s opulence, The Domestics exposes the abuse underlying the American Slaveholder’s wealth. Nzinga renders the slaveholders as silhouettes, casting them into the shadows while highlighting the dignity of the enslaved with focused expressions. This gesture acts as a deliberate act of care, affirming their humanity while providing a sense of home long after their time.

In Sharecroppers Porch, various states of rest contrast with the theme of forced labor in the Petite Marronage series. A woman on an oversized yellow rocking chair and two women chatting suggest moments of reprieve. Nzinga has replaced the foreboding skull-filled doorways and windows from the Petitte Marronage series with colored flowers, symbolizing growth. Despite these moments of ease, Maya Angelou’s memoir, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, revealed the harsh realities of sharecroppers in the South: “No matter how much they had picked, it wasn’t enough. Then they would…end the season as they started it. Without the money… to sustain a family for three months,” highlighting their struggles.

Even so, Sharecropper’s Porch shows people finding comfort in their communities and creating a sense of home in the worst conditions. As Nzinga shared, “There’s something different about picking cotton for yourself rather than for others. For many, sharecropping was a way for Black families to sustain themselves and build businesses.

Two artworks in the exhibition, Never Lose Me and What Remains, signal a shift in Nzinga’s portrayal of grief from a physical to an abstract representation. In Never Lose Me, a young boy in a rose-red cloth with his eyes closed tightly embraces a formless figure made from marbled fabric. The boy’s arms and hands are more prominent than usual, with his right hand merging into the figure’s body. The figure, visible only from the back and unresponsive to the embrace, takes up most of the composition, enveloping the canvas. The defined black outline of the boy’s body in acrylic flesh tones contrasts sharply against the figure’s shapeless form. The rest of the canvas is filled with blue floral patterns.

The scene explores themes of grief, absence, and presence. The boy’s exaggerated arms symbolize his efforts to hold onto someone gone, reflecting the emotional struggle of dealing with loss. Although the figure is not physically present, their presence permeates the canvas, dissolving everything in its wake. In a shift from her past practice, Nzinga created the marbled fabrics used in this artwork, reflecting her desire to experiment with fabrics and their materiality—how their texture, weight, and interactions with other fabrics affect the visual impact of her works. 

The exhibition showcases how collage can express seemingly contradictory ideas, demonstrating that acknowledging one truth does not negate another. Nzinga’s collage paintings confront past injustices, reminding us that our histories continue to shape the present. They show that only by confronting the past can we move from grief to genuine healing. 

The exhibition Homegoing / Homecoming is on view at Philips@THEARC through September 26th, 2024. Admission is free.

Potomac River Shen Series At Union Station: A Panorama Of Ecological Landscapes

By Oluseyi Akinyode

This article was originally published in DCTrending here.

At Washington, DC’s Union Station Amtrak railway waiting area, you’ll come across a series of murals spanning the upper walls from Gate A through L. The murals entitled The Potomac Shen River Series, were created by local artist Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann. They’re the second installation of Art at Amtrak at Union Station, part of Amtrak’s initiative to revitalize the station and enhance the travel experience for its visitors.

For Mann, Union Station is more than a transit hub—it’s a beautiful place full of vibrant energy. She relished the opportunity to create meaningful art in public spaces. Mann’s installation, rendered on vinyl, consists of three murals that vividly depict the Potomac River’s landscape teeming with botanical and animal life. Created initially with a poured ink technique on paper in the artist’s studio, the painting was photographed and then digitally manipulated to cover the station’s upper walls. 

The Potomac Shen River Series follows the inaugural installation, A Great Public Walk, by multidisciplinary artist Tim Doud. Doud’s work reflected and celebrated the myriad of clothing styles, patterns, and logos Union Station visitors wear. In contrast to Doud’s emphasis on the human aspect, Mann’s installation shifts focus to the natural world, specifically highlighting the Potomac River. It’s a local landmark that oftentimes goes unnoticed despite its familiarity.

In our interview, I asked Mann what motivated her to select the Potomac River as the mural’s subject. Mann wanted to shift perceptions about the river, noting, “The river, for people, has a reputation as something dirty and full of trash. And it’s so much more”. She views the river as the lifeblood of the district. The Potomac River is the sole water source for the District and Arlington while forming part of the border between D.C. and Maryland. 

The Potomac River Shen Series showcases Mann’s passion for murals. The horizontal format perfectly portrays the expansive ecological landscape of the river. Unlike traditional landscapes, the murals unfold as viewers walk alongside them, revealing intricate details with each step. This interactive experience evokes the narrative progression found in Chinese scroll paintings. The murals’ vastness also encourages piecemeal viewing, prompting commuters and station employees to discover new details with each passing glimpse. This multi-viewing experience, where close observation unlocks hidden details, mirrors the essence of Chinese landscape art.

The first mural, a massive 150 feet by 10 feet high, covers the space between Gates A and D. It features a densely packed cacophony of colors—yellow, red, blue, orange, red, and purple. At its center are two plain freshwater clams, their shells adorned with multi-colored vertical stripes. Long, swirling tentacles extend from their bodies, surrounded by native Potomac plants such as cypress, oak, water lily, and lotus. 

The landscape unfolds across a horizontal scroll, sweeping from left to right, creating an immersive experience. Abstracted forms of cloud rafts, evoking floating magical islands in Buddhist iconography, add an otherworldly dimension to the landscape. Intentionally placed shapes and intersecting lines add structure to the dynamic scene. 

The clams at the mural’s center also reference the Clam Monsters known as ( 蜃 Shen) in Chinese folklore. Each clam monster is separated by a line running down the length of the mural, symbolizing a mirror. The landscapes mirror each other. Each world is simultaneously real and imaginary. Despite its intricate complexity, the composition achieves balance through repeated forms.

The second mural between Gates E and G is slightly shorter at 113 feet. It continues the core motif from the first mural but with some distinctions. The composition here is less densely packed, featuring four clam monsters with shells in shades of magenta and yellow. The plant life depicted includes water lettuce, pond lilies, lotuses, and cherry blossoms, with a more limited color palette of aquamarine and greenish-gray hues. Mann took a more subdued approach to this mural’s composition, creating a different rhythm in the viewing experience. 

The third mural, measuring about 99 feet, covers Gate H through L. It carries the subdued colors of green and gray punctuated with white space. This piece continues the visual narrative of the first two murals depicting water lilies, grasses, lotuses, maple, oak, and the clam monsters. This series of murals celebrates the ordinary organisms inhabiting the Potomac River by depicting animal and plant life within abstract forms.

Mann’s background significantly influenced the aesthetic of the murals. As a half-Taiwanese woman raised in various countries due to her father’s Foreign service career, she developed a fascination with juxtaposing disparate styles. This influence is evident in her murals, which combine decorative patterns, abstract forms, and iconography, creating a dissonance that adds an intriguing depth. The use of fantastical elements, such as the clam monsters, is rooted in her interest in Chinese Mythology. 

Her early training in sumi ink painting, a traditional Chinese art brush technique, sparked an interest in landscapes and shaped her depiction of them. Her murals also reflect a fascination with the interplay of chance and control, inspired by abstract expressionist Helen Frankenthaler. Mann’s deliberate placement of lines echoes techniques used by painter Morris Louis. 

Given the murals’ rich iconography, I wondered if transient visitors to the station might miss its intricate details. She shared that it was okay if visitors didn’t understand the symbolism in the art piece. Her goal was for visitors to find a sense of serenity amidst the bombardment of commercial signs at the station and get transported to other worlds they might not otherwise access.

The Potomac Shen River Series is on view at Union Station until September 2nd, 2024.

Intimate Moments: A Look At Sydney Vernon’s Interior Lives At Philips@THEARC

 By Oluseyi Akinyode

This article was originally published in DCTrending here.

Our lives are an amalgam of ordinary moments and significant events. Interior Lives, an exhibition featuring works by up-and-coming local artist Sydney Vernon at Philips@THEARC captures the subtleties and complexities of these experiences. Vernon was invited by Philips@THEARC to showcase her works in dialogue with Bonnard’s World, a retrospective of Pierre Bonnard’s body of work at the Phillips Collection. 

This collaboration with Vernon is particularly fitting given her exposure to Bonnard’s work during her formative years and her ties to the area. The exhibition at Philips@THEARC is part of a wider initiative between The Phillips Collection and its partners to extend programs to communities and foster collaboration with local artists.

Interior Lives features six of Vernon’s drawings on paper, two in black and white and the rest in color. The artwork that drew me right in is Prinita in Park Slope Apt. It depicts a woman enjoying a cigarette by the window, her eyes closed in bliss. A loosely drawn curtain hangs over the window sill, framed by leaves from a nearby potted plant. 

Although it’s a simple pencil sketch, it deftly conveys the essence of the fleeting moment, making it a striking piece. There is a sense we are privy to a glimpse because Vernon has captured it on paper. The paper’s serrated edge accentuates the moment’s brevity, almost as if the scene has been ripped from a snapshot of someone else’s life. The loose and fluid style of the drawing is ideally suited to the paper medium.

As a newcomer to Vernon’s work, I was curious about her choice of drawing as her primary medium over more traditional ones like paint. Vernon explained that paper is more accessible and conducive to jotting down ideas. She noted, “I can be on the train with my sketchbook and quickly sketch out an idea.” The immediacy of paper aligns well with her rapid and spontaneous creative process; she tends not to plan or overthink how a piece will unfold once she starts working on it.

It would be remiss to assume Vernon’s artistry revolves solely around elevating mundane moments to studies of contemplation. A native of Prince George’s County, Sydney Vernon studied Fine Arts at The Cooper Union in New York City. Vernon’s artistic practice involves overlaying family photographs with imagined histories and futures to create forms with new meanings.

This fusion of history and memory holds deep significance when viewed through the lived experience of Black people in America. This shared history is characterized by resilience and the triumph of the human spirit. Vernon desires for her art to reflect this spirit. She observed that each generation of her family was marking new milestones, surpassing the dreams of their predecessors, who often contended with a limiting socio-economic environment. Vernon’s approach to overlaying her images goes beyond a mere poetic reconstruction of her ancestors’ imagined lives. It becomes a powerful tool for consciously framing her world, transforming her art into a medium for personal and cultural expression.

Coastal Ride, a charcoal drawing on paper, features the artist’s aunt on a motorcycle, her smile visible beneath her sunglasses. The charcoal medium adds texture to the work. The composition, with the aunt against a vast landscape, evokes a sense of freedom and possibility. This piece is not just about the joy of engaging in a hobby but also a testament to the private moments of human life. Like Vernon’s other works, Coastal Ride exalts the beauty of everyday Black lives, in stark contrast to the tragic depictions and stereotypes often perpetuated in the media. 

Continuing the theme of intimate moments is the artwork Vacation, created with pastel and silkscreen on paper. Using a family vacation photograph as source material, the artist overlays an urban landscape with an imagined bridge. Her mother, wearing a sky-blue swimsuit, stands waist-deep in swirling waters of turquoise and blue. Her eyes are half closed as she enjoys the moment. Against a backdrop of vivid green mountains is a sky bursting with bold red, white, and yellow patches. The artist takes a similar approach in Hide and Seek, another drawing portraying the artist’s mother in the family living room against a purple, yellow, and blue background, framed to the right by green foliage. 

Both artworks, Vacation and Hide and Seek, stand out not only for their bright colors but also because of their familiar portrayals of objects in unfamiliar tones, equipping the viewer with new ways to see. More importantly, color also serves as a channel for expressing human emotions, reminiscent of the intense feelings conveyed in Mark Rothko’s 1950s paintings, with their horizontal bands of color. Vernon’s artworks are influenced by the post-impressionist French artist Pierre Bonnard. There are the brightly saturated colors, how Vernon frames her scenes with plants, and the portrayal of intimate moments.

Vernon takes Bonnard’s technique of using color to obscure his subject matter and takes it in a new direction by revealing their facial expressions, making a powerful statement about her subjects’ inner worlds. Often, societal perceptions overshadow the true essence of black individuals, treating their bodies as a filter through which to view them. Vernon’s artworks envision a world where Black individuals’ full expressions and inner emotions take prominence.

Finally, we come to the pivotal events of life in The Real Strange Thing, rendered with pastel on paper. The artwork depicts the artist’s parents in a slow dance on their wedding day, dressed in white attire. The chief bridesmaid and best man are positioned to the right, clothed in shades of magenta and gray, respectively. A crowd of onlookers, faces devoid of expression, fill the wedding hall in hues of reddish-pink and bluish-gray. The artist’s mother, gazing at the viewer, holds our attention. 

Conversations with Vernon and her mother revealed that the bride’s face in the drawing is that of her mother in the present. In The Real Strange Thing, the artist tackles themes of past regrets and the enduring consequences of choices. The artwork recalls past events and meditates on the textures of memories and their varying interpretations by individuals. In this piece, the artist journeys across time and space to her parent’s wedding, bearing witness to that day’s hopes and possible fears.

A central message for visitors to the exhibition is the reminder that there is beauty in celebrating both the simple and the momentous. To truly see others, we must peel back the layers that obscure our perceptions to appreciate the richness beneath their lives.

Alexandre Diop: Jooba, Jubba, L’art Du Defi, The Art Of Challenge At The Rubell Museum In Washington, DC

By Oluseyi Akinyode

This article was originally published in DCTrending here.

The Rubell Museum is a must-see in DC’s Southwest waterfront neighborhood for those eager to dip their toes into contemporary art. Located in the former Randall Junior High School, the museum offers a unique opportunity to sample the private collection of Mera and Don Rubell. Founded two years ago, the museum reflects the Rubells’ commitment to making art accessible and creating dialogue within the community. 

The Art of the Challenge part of the Alexandre Diop: Jooba, Jubba, L’Art du Defi, the Art of Challenge  exhibit at the museum, showcases five potent works by the French-Senegalese artist. Diop tackles complex themes such as colonialism’s lingering effects, violence, and suffering. While the themes he explores are timeless, his choice of found materials adds a fresh perspective, transforming them into a powerful commentary on the contemporary issues he grapples with.

In Le Mensonge d’État (The Lie of The State), Diop repurposes text, wood, door hinges, and plastic to create a compelling reinterpretation of Olympia, Edouard Manet’s once-controversial masterpiece. Diop engages in dialogue with viewers by incorporating a ripped cover of Civilisation Ou Babarie, a seminal work by African historian and anthropologist Cheikh Anta Diop.

On the left side of the exhibit wall, Honi soit qui mal y pense (Shame be (to him) who thinks evil of it) riffs on Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s 1812 painting, La Grande Odalisqueanot, echoing similar themes to Olympia. Alongside a series of zig-zag lines, fabrics feature prominently in this composition, with three pieces of velvet-like material in yellow, deep blue, and blueish green serving as the artwork’s background. The fabrics extend slightly off the canvas, creating a sense the viewer has wandered into the subject’s interior world.

Like many early career artists who reference established works, such as Manet’s reimagining of Titian’s Venus of Urbino, the French-Senegalese artist draws inspiration from the art history canon. Taking a subversive turn, Diop asserts his unique perspective by prompting viewers to question prevailing narratives on identity, self, and agency, which is particularly meaningful in Africa’s social and political history. Diop stakes his place in the art world through these references as if to say, “Here I am, too.”

The most striking piece in the exhibition is titled Mondo Carne. It was inspired by the 1962 Mondo documentary, which depicts humans in bizarre situations. Mondo Carne’s scale demands attention, requiring viewers to step back and appreciate its grandeur. Yet, details like a notebook page, hockey stick, and gnashed teeth draw one close to discern the ferocity of its message. 

Strewn across the canvas in disarray are dismembered body parts (skulls, teeth, limbs, ankles, and arms) amidst rich hues of deep reddish-brown, yellow, and purple. Pulsating across the canvas are gestural lines, marks, and frantic scribbles loosely framing the unfolding mayhem, conveying a sense of urgency and despair. With no space for the eye to rest, the painting can feel overwhelming and disorienting, evoking the chaos and disorder that violence leaves in its wake. In light of ongoing wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Yemen, and recently Haiti, Mondo Carne is a timely commentary on today’s realities, inviting viewers to reflect on the enduring power of art to speak to the human condition.

If you’re looking to give your eyes a rest, consider the triptych, L’ Incroyable Traversée d’Abdoulaye Le Grand, Troisième de la Lignée (The Incredible Crossing of Abdoulaye the Great, Third in Line to the Throne). Despite its innocuous title, the subject matter is anything but tame. Diop addresses the post-independence struggles of many African nations, notably Senegal, whose third president, Abdoulaye Wade, held office for just over twelve years, a tenure marked by allegations of corruption, nepotism, and human rights violations. 

This artwork consists of three panels, each featuring figures that blend human and monkey forms in profiles reminiscent of ancient Egyptian art. On closer examination, these figures, created from collages of consumer goods, reveal a coded message discernible to those who have spent time in African countries. The hidden message critiques colonialism. The materials bear the names of various European brands consumed in Africa and produced from raw materials extracted from countries under colonial rule. The irony is highlighted by an ankle constructed from a gift wrapper adorned with the words “Home Sweet Home”, underscoring the exploitation that enriched European nations at Africa’s expense. 

The final artwork in the exhibition, another triptych titled L’ Histoire du Monde – Le Temps et L’ Espace (The History of the World – Time and Space), stands in contrast to the crowded energy of Mondo Carne and the multiple figures in The Incredible Crossing of Abdoulaye The Great. Wood provides a prominent background, its surface colored with deep red hues in certain areas and interspersed with textures of mattress foam, a ruler, burnt plastic, and scraps of metal. A few scattered English letters and words hint at a broader narrative.

Two female figures, one adorned with African braids on her head, feature prominently on the first and third panels. The artist emphasizes their femininity with forms crafted from gold-colored metals and pinkish hues. Based on public interviews with the artist, the figure on the right holds an apple. This inclusion references the biblical tale of Adam and Eve, another recurring motif in works by old masters that signify humanity’s downfall. 

Examining The History of The World – Time & Space as an origin story allows us to dig deep into the exhibition’s themes of lust, violence, greed, corruption, and power. This interpretation provides a powerful thread connecting the five artworks. If the challenge is to tell the story of humanity through art, Diop has woven a masterful tale of its shortcomings. The discarded materials used in the artworks become testaments to how human behavior impacts our fellow humans and the environment. Diops’s use of these materials reinforces the message that humanity’s history is not just one of achievements but also one inextricably linked to its flaws.

The Art of the Challenge exhibition at the Rubell Museum in Washington, DC, runs through October 2024. Admission is free for DC residents with a valid ID card. 

Centuries: Imagining Black Women Cycling Across Time

by Oluseyi Akinyode

This article was originally published in DC Trending, here.

Walking on the trails near home, I’m filled with longing as cyclists swish by. There’s something about riding a bike — You can cover more terrain than by walking. Two weeks ago, I took the first step to fulfill that yearning by taking an adult biking class for beginners with a group of about 20 sponsored by the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA). The group included ten Black people, and eight of them were women. It’s a rarely represented activity in my daily life and one that I find compelling given the perception that Black women don’t ride.

As part of my biking journey, I was intrigued to go check out Centuries, an immersive digital art installation by Nekisha Durrett at the K Street Virtual Gallery, honoring five Black women cyclists (Marylou Jackson, Velma Jackson, Ethyl Miller, Leolya Nelson, Constance White) who biked on a 250-mile journey over three days from NYC to Washington, DC in 1928.

Cycling represents not just physical mobility but also socio-economic mobility. It signifies the presence of leisure time beyond daily responsibilities and the presence of expendable income. It also lends itself to exploration and movement through space without barriers. The journey of these five Black women takes on audacious meaning considering the social and racial climate then. 

The K Street Virtual Gallery is an initiative by NoMaBid that allows artists to create digital art installations projected onto the K Street underpass that sits between First and Second Streets NE as part of a broader revitalization of the area. According to the virtual gallery creators, it was their goal to create a space where people could stop, reflect, and enjoy their day. NoMa BID President Maura Brophy explained, “The gallery brings light and color to an otherwise dark space, but the rotating exhibits allow us to use the space to bring new pieces to the gallery and tell unique stories. The exhibits will change over time, allowing people to experience something new and exciting with each piece.”

The first K Street Virgual Gallery installation was created by artist My Ly, who used abstract colors and shapes moving across the walls of the underpass to render the multiplicities of transportation modes in the underpass. 

This second installation, entitled Centuries and created by Durrett, continues the theme of movement from a different perspective by paying homage to the journeys of these five Black female cyclists. Projected onto the rough-hewn stones of the underpass are AI-generated images of ten Black women cyclists dressed in period outfits spanning the past to the future. The selection includes a cyclist from Victorian times, a nod to the possibility that Black women have ridden earlier than imagined. Texts like “WE OUTSIDE WE OUTSIDE” and “BLACK WOMEN CYCLE” amplify the theme of stories in motion. 

A challenging cycling traverse was among the inspirations for Durrett’s installation. On a ride, the artist recalls suddenly hearing shouts from a group of Black women cyclists above — “Sis, you’ve got this; you’re so close. You’re walking the path of your ancestors.” Durrett believed that only with their encouragement did she emerge from the traverse. She shared that her goal for the exhibit was to remind us that “the paths we take have been paved by those who have gone before.”

This installation is in keeping with past works by the artist, such as Go-Go Belongs Here at the National Portrait Gallery, True Grit at James Madison University, and Don’t Forget to Remember (Me) in the cloisters at Bryn Mawr College. Employing text, materials, and imagery, these narratives tell the stories of individuals who have been forgotten while also envisioning limitless possibilities for the future that incorporate their unique experiences.

Durrett used AI to overcome artistic limitations, intending only to include photographs of Black women in the installation. However, the only available photo, most likely sourced from a Newspaper microfiche, was of poor quality and not suitable for reproduction. So Durett opted to use Midjourney, an AI application that generates images from texts. This allowed her to vividly portray Black women cycling, tying into Durrett’s practice of imagined realities. While sifting through AI-generated images for the installation, the artist couldn’t find images that captured her vision. So instead, she trained the AI model by inputting specific phrases to generate the images of the ten Black women featured in the installation. This experience serves as a reminder that the experiences of Black individuals may often be overlooked or forgotten in a rapidly advancing world driven by AI technology.

Given its recent past as a homeless encampment, an underpass filled only with passersby would be inadequate. The K Street Gallery is a clever approach that reflects a myriad of the city’s perspectives all the while embacing goals for redevelopment. In the future, after learning to ride, I may be one of those cyclists riding through the K Street underpass, continuing the journey of those who came before. 

The K Street Gallery will feature a roster of installations by artists throughout the year. Artists, artist teams, and designers interested in participating in the K Street Virtual Gallery can contact events@nomabid.com. Centuries will be running for the next six months at the K Street Gallery, located close to 100 K St NE.