mendieta

“My art is grounded in the belief of one universal energy which runs through everything: from insect to man, from man to spectre, from spectre to plant from plant to galaxy.” ~ Ana Mendieta

Photo: Ana Mendieta, Untitled (Glass on Body Imprints), 1972, Photograph

filed under: influences, quotes [permalink]

junot diaz on becoming a writer

“…You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway…”
~ Junot Diaz, from Becoming a Writer

filed under: quotes, writers, writing [permalink]

review of documentations of rhythm

Ayanna Jolivet McCloud: Documentations of Rhythm (detail)

From Glasstire review by Ben Judson of Self-Revolution at Unit B (Gallery) in San Antonio:

“…Now we are confronted with a bit of a dilemma. In a show ostensibly about identity, in which all other works are photographic in nature with human subjects, Ayanna Jolivet McCloud throws us a curve-ball:

Documentations of Rhythm: 12×12 canvases painted gold with scratches and punctures. I reviewed the list of influences on McCloud’s website (a page which was taken down as I wrote this post), and figure we might as well consider this Lucio Fontana + DJ Screw. That kind of statement is probably why she no longer lists influences on her website. Still, those two links tie it all together, at least in my mind, bookending the word “revolution,” scratching and cutting us through all the permutations of media as freedom and media as oppression. This dynamic has played out perhaps most dramatically in black psyches subjected to caricatures of themselves propogated by their oppressors, who in turn captured the powerful art of the black community, dissemenated on black vinyl in white sleeves. But it’s a dynamic that has victimized us all, and set us all free.

“Matter, colour and sound in motion are the phenomena whose simultaneous development makes up the new art” — Lucio Fontana

“I ain’t gonna say nothin, I’m gonna let my hands do the talkin” — DJ Screw”

(Original review here)

filed under: news, review [permalink]

speaking about labotanica

Wednesday, October 21st, 6:30pm
Spacetaker

Featuring: Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud, Founder of labotanica
Spacetaker, 2101 Winter Street, 11B, Houston, 77007

filed under: news [permalink]

embracing the sensorial, rhythmic, and internal in painting

filed under: thoughts [permalink]

one hundred actions

Action 2: Materialize breath by blowing
Action by: Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud
Location: Houston, Texas

one hundred black women, one hundred actions is a performance of critical actions, gestures and movements by one hundred black women from around the world to be documented on this website and then performed by one hundred black women in various public and private sites.

Through physical actions which will be recorded on this website in various forms as photographs, drawings, video and written descriptions, the public can respond to the following question: “What is a gesture of personal power, an extreme action that is necessary in your daily life?” From these actions we will choreograph 100 movements to be taught to and then performed live by 100 black women at our first site, TBA. It is our desire to invoke our collective strength through a work which specifically aims to locate the presence of black female bodies as central, political, powerful forces in the world.

Participants will discover and embody those critical movements and daily actions that describe their own mechanisms for survival, living, and imagining a future. These actions, which could be daily actions, repeated gestures, movements invented, or invoked, allow us to be present in our bodies. The project performs movements across borders and geographies to envision a cumulative, collective action translated into a site specific performance that has the weight and critical mass of one hundred black women to invoke shared power. This project also recognizes the power of embodying another’s voice, physical language, experiences across diverse geographies.

one hundred black women, one hundred actions is created and organized by Wura-Natasha Ogunji and Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud.

Questions: onehundredactions@gmail.com

filed under: art, projects [permalink]

Word is thread and the the thread is language.
Non-linear body.
A line associated to other lines.
A word once written risks becoming linear,
but word and thread exist on another dimensional plane.
Vibratory forms in space and in time.
Acts of union and separation.

filed under: writers and tagged cecilia vicuna, poetry [permalink]