Adventures in the Art of Life: Music, Dance, Film, Theater, Travel, Activism, Culture …
#ArtIsAWeapon
✍️🏾#ArtIsAWeapon
#ThePenIsMightierThan TheSword
#HopeInDesolateTimes #MovementJournalism
Reposted from @prismreports 💌 Applications are OPEN for the Spring 2025 Reflective Journalism Project cohort! We will be accepting applications through 11:59ET, April 18, 2025.
Prism’s Reflective Journalism Project: Hope in Desolate Times, is an in-depth, interactive 3-part live training workshop and professional development program about how to write, build, and publish an accurate narrative that supports movements for justice. The three virtual workshops will take place May 7, May 14, & May 21.
We currently contend with a second Trump presidency rife with chaos, fascism, and disinformation. From the ramping up of forced disappearances of immigrants enforced by ICE to increased surveillance and criminalization of marginalized communities to nonstop political theater that intends to destabilize us with fear, exhaustion, and disorientation, movement journalism is a powerful lens that keeps us focused.
In an age of mainstream media aiding and abetting fascism and imperialism, our work as movement journalists demands an unwavering commitment to amplifying the resistance efforts, organizing tools, and resources needed to fight oppression and sustain movements for collective liberation.
Our goal is to train, teach, and share strategies with editors, journalists, and media professionals to bring your newsroom or publication into closer alignment with movements for liberation.
Seats are limited and applications are reviewed on a first-come, first-serve basis, so don’t wait to apply! You can find more details about scholarship opportunities, session topics, trainers, and more at the link in our bio.
🏳️⚧️ #ArtIsAWeapon
Happy Trans Day of Visibility! Despite every wicked effort to deny your humanity and erase your existence, you are seen, valued and loved 💜
Images by artist @liberaljane (reposted) 🏳️⚧️ Happy Trans Day of Visibility!
✊ trans rights are human rights. full stop. #TDOV #tdov2025
alt-text included on all pieces
#LGBTQIA #TransRightsAreHumanRights #TransDayOfVisibility
🎭#ArtIsAWeapon
I’m so glad I got to see @maleahjoimoon, the Tony Award-winning star of @hellskitchenbway, last week before her departure from the production.
Her last performance as “Ali” in the musical, which is based on the early life of Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter @aliciakeys, was last night, March 30. I’m also glad I got to see RnB singer @therealtank star in his first Broadway role.
🎥Video reposted from @oprahdaily @tiktok
#HellsKitchenBroadway
#Musical #AliciaKeys #MaleahJoiMoon #BlackGirlTheaterGeeks
🕊💃🏾#ArtIsAWeapon
#MarjorySmarthForever
@livetruedancefree 💜
🎥✍️🏾 reposted from @versastylela Street Dance Pioneers you should know about: MARJORY “LOTUS” SMARTH #WomensHistoryMonth #StreetDance #HouseDance #LiveTrueDanceFree
🇬🇭👑🖤#ArtIsAWeapon
**swoon** @owu3.0
LEWKS!!!!
(I’m still not watching the NFL but, baybeeee, I’m watching him!!!)
Reposted from @nwe 🇬🇭 Ghanaian NFL star, Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah. Compilation of his dopest game-day looks.
Every game, a new African fit.
This is culture.
🤴🏿 @owu3.0
🎥 @nflafrica @clevelandbrowns
#JeremiahOwusuKoramoah #King #Fly #AfricanFashion
✊🏿👏🏿🍉#ArtIsAWeapon
Spotlight on Abi Salami - “…a self-taught artist who creates surrealist works that explore her experiences as a Nigerian immigrant and Black woman in the United States. Through the use of a personal visual lexicon made up of symbols, she explores topics such as sexuality, mental health and race.” https://abisalami.com/
🎨🎥✍️🏾 by artist @abi.m.salami (reposted) Too provocative for the Dallas Art Fair?
That’s what a gallerist told me when I tried to exhibit this painting in 2022.
I created this piece in response to the attacks on teaching critical race theory in American education.
A white woman representing the USA, hides a slice of watermelon behind her back. The juice drips down her fingers—sticky, inescapable. The watermelon, an already racially polarizing fruit, becomes a symbol of America’s brutal, racist past. She tries to conceal it, but the stains remain.
The juice—like the blood of Indigenous people, enslaved Africans, and civilians in U.S.-occupied nations—clings to her hands.
In the water, I reimagined myself as Mami Wata, the African water deity, biting into my own slice of watermelon with joy and mischief. Because she knows what happens to those who deny their past.
The lifebuoy labeled USA SOS is a warning: history denied becomes danger deferred.
I painted this with equal parts rage and joy—because sometimes the only way to confront erasure is to paint it loud, proud, and unforgettable.
Save this post if it resonates. Share it if it challenges you. Tag someone who needs to see this.
#AbiSalami #Art #BlackArt #BlackGirlArtGeeks #AfricanArtists #ContemporaryArt
🎶🤯#ArtIsAWeapon
Y'all - HOW is THIS album 25 years old? Happy Anniversary to @common’s classic “Like Water for Chocolate,” which was originally released on this day - March 28 - in 2000.
And it was a TIME…
A moment of incredible creative collaborations that birthed the #Soulquarians music collective that expanded and reimagined Hip Hop.
Track Listing:
1 . Time Traveling (A Tribute To Fela)
2. Heat
3 . Cold Blooded
4. Dooinit
5 . The Light
6 . Funky For You
7 . The Questions
8. Time Travelin’ Reprise
9 . The 6th Sense
10. A Film Called (Pimp)
11. Nag Champa (Afrodisiac For The World)
12. Thelonius
13. Payback Is A Grandmother
14. Geto Heaven Part Two
15 . Song For Assata, A - (featuring Cee-Lo)
16. Pops Rap III…All My Children
Reposted from @common A blessed and Happy Anniversary to Like Water For Chocolate. 25 years ago this album was released. I go back and forth on what’s my favorite album that I have made and this one seems to always be in my top 2. Whether it’s my favorite or not, I do know this album changed my life. It was a rebirth 🙏🏾
#Common #HipHop #LikeWaterForChocolate #ForTheCulture #BBoys #BGirls
✊🏿🖤👏🏿#ArtIsAWeapon
Thank you Brittney @mspackyetti for this whole word that we need on today as these wicked forces continue their futile attempts to erase us. Although discouraged and sad and angry about the threats against our sacred, treasured @nmaahc, we gotta believe that we will win and pledge that we won’t ever forget.
Video and commentary reposted from @mspackyetti we love and will protect that building, its gifts and its people.
and, not but…we have always been and will always be bigger and tougher than brick and mortar.
on memory, what we need to survive, and what no one can take.
thank you @nmaahc. we will continue to fight for you and always, for us.
#NMAAHC #Blacksonian #DEI #DiversityEquityAndInclusion
🎨#ArtIsAWeapon
Last night my girl @shansimp and I finally got to connect with one of our favorite artists @caleblee81 to tell him how much we love his work at the opening of his gorgeous new exhibition “Robert Peterson: We Are Forever” at @albertzbenda.
Always good to see you @bevysmith!
The exhibit is on view through May 3, so be sure to check it out.
#BlackGirlArtGeeks #RobertPeterson #artists #contemporaryartists #BlackArtists
🎨#ArtIsAWeapon #ExhibitClosing “Todd Gray: While Angels Gaze” closes at the Lehmann Maupin New York on Saturday, March 29.
📍501 W 24th St, #NYC, 10011
🎥✍️🏾 reposted from @lehmannmaupin Todd Gray’s solo exhibition, ‘While Angels Gaze’, is on view at our New York gallery through March 29.
Here, the artist speaks about his work from his studio in Los Angeles, offering firsthand perspective on his photo assemblages.
In his newest body of work, @ToddGrayLA integrates Roman Catholic imagery and architecture with photographs sourced from his own archive, including self portraits, images of the Ghanaian landscape, and figures from pop music. The mining of his multi-decade music photography archive is an important component of Gray’s practice and one that offers a view into the history of music, featuring recognizable figures from Al Green to Iggy Pop. In ‘While Angels Gaze’, Gray combines these titans of the music industry with images of Roman Catholic cathedrals and ancient Roman statuary, drawing parallels between religious or mythical personages and the idols of today. In these compositions, modern pop stars are cast as the contemporary equivalents of historical figures—where societies might once have inlaid images of saints in golden basilica ceilings or erected statues of religious leaders on building facades, modern idols play on elevated stages to crowds of tens of thousands, becoming enshrined as mass media icons.
Throughout the exhibition, Gray’s lens extends beyond imaging pop icons, with some works devoid of figures all together. In works like these, Gray moves beyond celebrity adoration to examine the veneration of other false gods—commerce, wealth, power—exploring the enduring nature and consequences of such idolatry across centuries.
📹 Film by Jeremy Eichenbaum
#ToddGray #ArtExhibit #Artist #BlackArtist #LehmannMaupin #BlackGirlArtGeeks
📸🖤 #ArtIsAWeapon YES @laylahb!!! Shine, Sis!!
#WomensHistoryMonth
#YallGonnaGetThisBlackExcellence
📷Images and ✍️🏾story by @becauseofthem (reposted) She’s helping to shape our narrative!
#LaylahAmatullahBarrayn constructs narratives, curates history, and amplifies the voices of the African diaspora with a lens sharpened by decades of experience. As a documentary and portrait photographer, writer, and curator, @laylahb’s work is a force that preserves Black stories with reverence and precision.
Her name is etched in some of the most influential publications of our time—The New York Times, Vogue, National Geographic, The Washington Post, BBC, NPR, The Nation, and Le Monde. She has traveled the world, documenting Black communities in Minneapolis, Senegal, Martinique, and beyond, always centering culture, tradition, and the nuanced experiences of Black women.
Barrayn’s photography isn’t about spectacle; it’s about presence. She understands that representation means nothing without dignity, depth, and truth. Her 2020 monograph, We Are Present, is a testament to that philosophy, capturing portraits of resilience in a year that challenged everything.“
🔗 Click the link 👇🏾 to learn more about Laylah Amatullah Barrayn and the Because of You: Legacy in Focus project from @becauseofthem and @mostincrediblestudio.
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#becauseofthemwecan #homeofblackexcellence
#BlackArtists
#BlackWomenArtists
#Photographers
👉🏾Follow @becauseofthem to join our community for more positive and uplifting Black stories, news, and more ✨
🕊#ArtIsAWeapon
Peaceful transitions to the brilliant, fearless photographer / visual artist @nonafaustine, whose groundbreaking work deeply resonated with so many of us. Speaking her name and sending my deepest condolences to her family and loved ones.
From @artnews: “In ways both provocative and beautiful, Faustine’s photography explored conditions afflicting Black women across time. She frequently photographed herself in ways that considered how her body acted as a record of histories of exploitation and empowerment.”
2024 video and caption reposted from @brooklynmuseum: “We owe it to [our ancestors] to acknowledge what happened here—on this Earth, in this city.”
In this episode of Reclaimed, Nona Faustine joins us from the Lefferts Historic House, a historic homestead in Prospect Park, to discuss sites across New York City that are built upon legacies of enslavement, which Faustine has depicted in her photographic series, “White Shoes.”
Today, the Lefferts Historic House is jointly operated by Prospect Park Alliance and the Historic House Trust. The Alliance launched the ReImagine Lefferts initiative in 2021, which continues to allow artists, scholars, and community members to explore the lives, resistance, and resilience of the Indigenous people of Lenapehoking and the Africans enslaved by the Lefferts family between 1783 and 1827. This summer [2024] at the Lefferts Historic House, explore artist Adama Delphine Fawundu’ site-specific installation, which will include 25 textile pieces, paying homage to the everyday heroism of the 25 individuals enslaved by the Lefferts family, installed across the historic house’s Flatbush Avenue facade.
Our Reclaimed series focuses on art as a tool to reclaim lost narratives of history and lived experience. An effort to highlight and empower groups that have been left out, stigmatized, and misrepresented. Follow along for a celebration of our differences and strides toward collective healing and social progress.
Watch the full video and learn more
#NonaFaustine #ArtistActivist #BlackWomenArtists #BlackWomen #FYP #WhiteShoeSeries
🎨#ArtIsAWeapon
Artist @asherald ’s “Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance)” is this week’s @newyorkermag cover. I am so excited that her traveling exhibition “Amy Sherald: American Sublime” lands in #NYC at the @whitneymuseum on April 9!
Image & caption reposted from @newyorkermag The cover of this week’s Spring Style & Design issue is “Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance),” by Amy Sherald (@asherald). Read the full cover story:
Images & caption reposted from @hyperallergic A sweeping exhibition of works by the acclaimed American #painter #AmySherald, best known for her portraits of former First Lady Michelle Obama and Breonna Taylor, is coming to New York City this spring. Nearly 50 portraits of Black Americans will go on display as part of “Amy Sherald: American Sublime” at the Whitney Museum of American Art from April 9 through August 10. The mid-career survey is the artist’s first solo exhibition in a New York museum.
Spanning works from 2007 to the present, the show will explore Sherald’s signature figures rendered with skin tones in shades of gray and colorful clothing against vibrant backgrounds, merging black-and-white photography aesthetics and American Realist painting traditions to redress art history’s long exclusion of Black subjects in portraiture.
Read the story by Hyperallergic Staff Writer @mayapontone:
1 - Amy Sherald, “Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance)” (2014) (© Amy Sherald, photo by Joseph Hyde; courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth)
2 - Amy Sherald, “Breonna Taylor” (2020) (© Amy Sherald)
3 - Amy Sherald, “They Call Me Redbone, but I’d Rather Be Strawberry Shortcake” (2009) (© Amy Sherald, photograph by Ryan Stevenson; courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth)
4 - Amy Sherald, “For Love, and for country” (2022) (© Amy Sherald, photo by Joseph Hyde; courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth)
5 - Amy Sherald, “Saint Woman” (2015) (© Amy Sherald, photo by Joseph Hyde; courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth)
6 - Amy Sherald, “If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it” (2019) (© Amy Sherald)
#AmySherald #Portrait #BlackArtists #BlackGirlArtGeeks
🌼#ArtIsAWeapon
So Long Winter, Hello Spring!
Renew
Revive
Reset
Rethink
Rebirth
Art by @jason_obrien_gallery_live - “AFROSE 🌹& DASIES” 🌼
Images and caption reposted from the artist #JasonOBrien: “This work is a special one because it’s the first time I incorporated my daughters’ artwork with mine. She did the daisies on another piece of digital art she was working on and I loved it! and had to figure out a way to incorporate it in with my art and this is the result.
I love the daydreamy, whimsical vibe of this work ✨👌🏽
What do you think?
Medium 🎨 : Digital painting on Procreate 2025. ”
#SpringAffair
#Springtime #DigitalArt #BlackGirlArtGeeks
