Latest news with #BlackArt
New York Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Punk, Monet and Puerto Rico: New Photography From Elle Pérez
Subtle resistance to representation is on display in a handful of new shows, where some artists are refusing the notion that figuration must be their primary subject, or what is required to be successful. 'Source Notes,' Lorna Simpson's riveting new show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, highlights her shift toward painting while still emphasizing the artists' career-long interest in destabilizing expectations of Black life and the art that makes sense of it. The painter Jordan Casteel's newfound focus on florals is a dreamy drift away from her signature portraits. And one of the most fascinating new artists I found to be coyly refusing to play the game of identity politics is the New York photographer Elle Pérez, whose exhibition at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in Upper Manhattan centers the politics of personhood over the consumption of that same self. The lens lingers on physical terrain: yards, curving coastlines. The portraits included are mantle-size, which, in the cavernous space, dares you to come close and forge an intimate relationship with the work. At first glance, one could erroneously wonder if the show, comprising nearly 30 images, a slide show, a short film and a collage, is a premature retrospective. The works on display span the artist's career from 2009 to 2025 and seem to be organized semi-chronologically. But it quickly becomes clear that 'The World Is Always Again Beginning, History With the Present,' organized by Jenny Jaskey, chief curator, in collaboration with Pérez, functions as a cut section invitation into the sacred practice of process. This is a show that starts before you get to the show. The Academy is nestled in the vibrant and rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Washington Heights, near Boricua College. The elaborate iron gates of the 1923 building that welcome visitors invoke the Gilded Age and its arts patronage, a sorely needed reminder of possibility amid devastating arts defunding. As Pérez explains inside: 'This is the neighborhood that made me.' Pérez was born in 1989 in the Bronx to Puerto Rican parents who were also born and raised there. (As Pérez said in a recent interview, 'My grandparents were the generation that made the jump.') Instead of traditional blocks of wall text, the artist chose to install fragments of their poetry, like those lines, which start the exhibition. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Forbes
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Printmaking At Cleveland's Karamu House Highlighted In Exhibition
'Swingtime,' c. 1938 . Charles Sallée (American, 1911 – 2006). Etching and aquatint; image: 14 x 17.4 cm; sheet: 25.2 x 33.2 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Created by the Federal Art Project, Works Progress Administration, and lent by the Fine Arts Collection of the US General Services Administration, 4215.1942. The popular history of Black art in America in the early and mid-20th century has been reduced to production emanating from a handful of epicenters–Harlem, Chicago, D.C., etc.–along with mostly self-taught 'folk' artists out in the countryside, places like Gee's Bend, AL. In the same way important soul music was produced beyond Detroit, Memphis, and Philly, in places like Cincinnati, hotspots for African American visual arts existed in places like Louisville and Nashville and Cleveland. Those locations previously omitted from the story are finally being returned to it. At the Cleveland Museum of Art, 'Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community,' highlights the role of printmaking at Cleveland's Karamu House, one of the best-known sites for Black American culture since opening in 1915. Initially founded as a settlement house by Russell and Rowena Jelliffe, 'an integrated community center dedicated to fostering human relations through the arts and humanities,' Karamu House soon became known for using the arts as a means of encouraging racial integration. The Jelliffe's, a white couple, were gender and racial equity activists and philanthropists, along with supporters of the arts and education in Cleveland throughout the 20th century. Although mostly noted today for its premier theater program, Karamu House birthed a printmaking workshop beginning in the 1930s where artists and community members alike—including a young Langston Hughes—could experiment with various techniques, playing on printmaking's fundamental accessibility and democracy. This exploration led to the formation of Karamu Artists Inc. in 1940, a group counting some of the most recognized Black printmakers of the Works Progress Administration era as members: Elmer W. Brown (1909–1971), Hughie Lee-Smith (1915–1999), Charles Sallée (1913–1906), and William E. Smith (1913–1997). 'What was going on here in Cleveland during the 30s and 40s was just as important and substantive and prolific as what was going on in places like Philadelphia and New York, it just hasn't gotten the same attention,' Britany Salsbury, curator of prints and drawings at the Cleveland Museum of Art and exhibition co-curator, told 'It felt important to draw attention to it and reintegrate (Karamu House) into what we know about Black artists working during the WPA years and in the years after the Harlem Renaissance.' The Works Progress Administration was a New Deal program launched by the federal government during the Great Depression. Its aims were pouring millions of federal dollars into building projects supporting the public good like libraries, schools, hospitals, roads, and post offices. Hundreds of thousands were employed in the process, keeping millions of Americans off the streets and out of poverty. The program also supported tens of thousands of artists–painters, printmakers, dancers, musicians, actors–through the Federal Art Project. Among them were photographer Dorothea Lange, sculptor Louise Nevelson, and painters like Jacob Lawrence, Willem de Kooning, Stuart Davis, Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, and Marsden Hartley. Imagine that, the federal government valuing and helping artists and the arts instead of working to destroy them. The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural explosion of African American creativity across all disciplines during the 1920s. Key figures included Zora Neale Hurston, Augusta Savage, Aaron Douglass, James Van Der Zee, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald. 'This is one of those instances in which there's a dearth of scholarly attention paid to the mechanisms of artistic manufacture and production that were going on here because it's Cleveland, precisely because it's not New York, Chicago, or LA,' Erin Benay, associate professor of art history at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and exhibition cocurator, told 'That was one of the things we wanted to rectify on both a scholarly level, but also on a much larger level for viewers and residents and people who share in this history and these centers.' Karamu artists come up as an aside within scholarship on the WPA's arts programs and the aftereffects of the Harlem Renaissance, but haven't fully been integrated within the understanding of those topics scholarly or popularly. Cleveland artists had direct connections to the Harlem Renaissance and wider American art world through personal networks, travel, and education. They aligned themselves with the philosophical architect of the Harlem Renaissance, Alain Locke. Their work was promoted by pioneering African American art historian James A. Porter. Truth was, the Harlem Renaissance took place outside of Harlem. As Denise Murrell's exceptional Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition 'The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism' detailed, what's come to be known as the Harlem Renaissance was a flourishing of African American creativity and cultural production spanning the U.S. and the Atlantic Ocean. 'It's a common misconception that the Harlem Renaissance was about Harlem,' Benay said. 'We wanted to make sure that we weren't just treating these artists biographically, both in terms of the biography of Cleveland and the biography of the specific artists, but rather that we were situating them within the proper art historical dues they're owed, which is to think about them in this broader Harlem Renaissance trajectory from a stylistic perspective. Then also to integrate careful and precise research that shows the way that these artists were specifically connected to the WPA. There's a vagueness around the artists and the relationship of Karamu House to the WPA that we really wanted to nail down with archival research.' To that end, the exhibition is accompanied by a deeply researched catalog including a catalogue raisonné, an exhaustive, detailed compilation of all known prints produced by the group during the 1930s and 40s. Some had been previously unpublished. Extensive catalogue footnotes provide a roadmap for future art historians and scholars to find sources enabling them to think about these artists as individuals. The project is a launching pad for further scholarship and recognition. 'My Son! My Son!,' 1941. William E. Smith (American, 1913–1997). Linocut; image: 19.7 x 13.7 cm; sheet: 28.5 x 22.7 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the Print Club of Cleveland, 1941.122. Prints and printmaking have always been the artwork of the people. For the people. Democratic. Collaborative. Graphic. Relatable to and understandable by general audiences. Prints are more affordable to make and collect. Easier to transport and distribute. They're lightweight, non-precious, and produced in multiples. Printmaking has served as a means of taking a message to the masses since its invention and Martin Luther through the Mexican revolution and today. It's always been a tool of protest. Woody Guthrie put a sticker on his guitar reading, 'this machine kills fascists;' the same can be said of the printing press. The medium has always been a tool for underrepresented people. It was perfect for the artists working at Karamu House during the Great Depression and Jim Crow segregation in America. 'Printmaking is a collaborative medium,' Benay explained. 'It's hard to successfully make prints alone. Someone has to have clean hands to handle the papers. Someone usually helps with the inking. There's a lot of trial and error. This idea of collaboration and community was integral to Karamu House and transcended any particular aspect of the arts programming.' Cleveland also had a strong history of commercial lithography and was one of five cities in the United States designated as a site for a graphics workshop as part of the Works Progress Administration. Karamu House, however, was not a WPA community art center like the South Side Community Art Center in Chicago or the Harlem Community Art Center. The WPA graphics workshop did provide Karamu artists with access to a wide range of materials, tools, and expertise. Subscription services for the purchase of prints unrelated to Karamu House were also flourishing in Cleveland during the 40s–nationally as well–all adding to the uniquely fertile ground under which the Karamu House Inc. printmaking project began. 'One of the ways this (exhibition) speaks to a larger art historical story than just a Cleveland story is in the way that it focuses on printmaking, and on prints in particular, which is also a marginalized medium in art histories and doesn't get the attention it deserves,' Benay said. 'The story of printmaking ties directly to the story of Black artists and to the success of Black artists nationally, and the ways that then fueled trajectories for art making in the 1960s and 70s, not just for Black artists, but for all artists of color, particularly in the United States.' Black artists like Charles White and Elizabeth Catlett. Chicano artists. All prominently used printmaking in the mid and later 20th century to great prominence and effect. Karamu House Inc.'s greatest recognition within the broader American art world occurred in 1942 with an exhibition at Associated American Artists Gallery in New York, one of the major venues for seeing prints at the time on Fifth Avenue. 'Many of the Karamu artists were among the first Black artists collected by museums and white collectors, who helped to cultivate and create a Black art market, both in Cleveland, but also nationally,' Benay said. Shortly after the 1942 exhibition and the end of World War II, Karamu House Inc. disbanded as a group. WPA funding ceased. Many of the artist's careers were ascending and they explored individual opportunities elsewhere. Artmaking at Karamu House kept on rolling however. 'Printmaking did not cease at Karamu House, in fact, the art program continued to foster and develop artists throughout the 60s and 70s, even when they didn't always make their art on site,' Benay explained. 'As art institutions like the Cleveland Institute of Art accepted more and more black students, sure, artists would seek professional development from an art school that had more robust offerings, but Karamu House continued to anchor the arts community by fostering exhibitions, by having print sales, and that was a huge part of the way that it cultivated professional development for Black artists in Cleveland and continues to do so to this day.' Galleries at Karamu House remain fundamental sites of exhibition for Black artists in Cleveland. That began in the 50s. An evolution. As much as Benay and Salsbury want to situate Karamu House within broader national artistic currents surrounding the WPA and Harlem Renaissance, they are also taking care to point out what made it special. Its post-War evolution distinguished it from any arts center before or since. 'One of the primary ways Karamu House was distinct was that it became a stopping place for Black professionals traveling across the country in a very Green Book style trajectory,' Benay said. 'The Negro Motorist's Green Book' was a travel guide published from 1937 through 1964 aimed at safely guiding African Americans to friendly lodging and dining establishments during Jim Crow segregation. 'It was not officially published as a Green Book destination, but it operated as one essentially, and because of its theater, because of its performing arts tradition, it had this gathering place quality, which is uncanny, because Karamu in Swahili means 'a place of joyful gathering,'' Benay continued. 'That only continued to be a part of its identity as it transitioned out of the 40s and into the Civil Rights era which is when Muhammad Ali and Amiri Baraka and MLK and Malcolm X and everyone is stopping at Karamu House. They came to Cleveland, but they specifically came to Karamu House, and its identity as an art center changed profoundly over the years to be a place that cultivated civil rights activism and social justice initiatives while carefully threading this needle not to be too provocative, so that it could still be interracial, that it could still welcome diverse audiences.' Karamu House was unique from inception. About more than art from inception. 'It had things like a daycare, it truly was this third space for members of the Black community in Cleveland, but also as this racially integrated space at a time in Cleveland's history, in America's history, when there wasn't a lot of interest in racial integration,' Salsbury said. 'Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community' is free to visit and can be seen through August 17, 2025.
New York Times
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Sinners' and Beyoncé Battle the Vampires. And the Gatekeepers, Too.
When Beyoncé wails, in the opening moments of her 'Cowboy Carter' album, that 'them big ideas are buried here,' I've imagined 'big' standing in for 'racist' but have never hit pause to wonder about the GPS coordinates. That song's called 'Ameriican Requiem,' so the cemetery is everywhere. And yet partway through Ryan Coogler's hit 'Sinners,' I thought, Oh, this is where 'here' is, inside a movie about a 1932 juke joint whose music is so soulful that vampires, who are also a white minstrel trio, want to suck its blood. She's envisioning utopia — a place where a Black woman feels free to make any kind of music she wants, including country. He's imagined a nightmare in which Black art is doomed to be coveted before it's ever just simply enjoyed. She's defying the gatekeepers. He's arguing that some gates definitely need to be kept. To that end, the movie keeps a gag running wherein vampire etiquette requires a verbal invitation to enter the club, leading to comic scenes of clearly possessed, increasingly itchy soul junkies standing in a doorway begging to be let in. People have been calling certain white performers interested in Black music vampires for years. Here's a movie that literalizes the metaphor with an audacity that's thrilling in its obviousness and redundancy. There's never a bad time for good pop art. There's never a bad time for Black artists to provide it. But these here times? Times of hatchet work and so-called wood-chipping; of chain saws, as both metaphor and dispiriting political prop; a time of vandalistic racial gaslighting. These times might call for an excessive pop art that takes on too much, that wants to be gobbled up and dug into, an art that isn't afraid to boast I am this country, while also doing some thinking about what this country is. These here times might call for Black artists to provide that, too, to offer an American education that feels increasingly verboten. That's not art's strong suit, pointing at chalkboards. But if school systems are being bullied into coddling snowflakes, then perhaps, on occasion, art should be hitting you upside the head and dancing on your nose.
CBC
13-04-2025
- Health
- CBC
Want to be sedated (for surgery)? Anesthesia assistants could help shorten wait times
One solution to a critical shortage of anesthesiologists in Canada could lie with increasing the ranks of anesthesia assistants, advocates say. "In a situation where we have a serious ... access to surgical care issue, we have to think about creative solutions to move forward and get people the care they need," Dr. Sally Bird, pediatric anesthesiologist and chief of pediatric anesthesia at IWK Health Centre in Halifax, told Dr. Brian Goldman, host of CBC Radio's White Coat, Black Art. Although many Canadians may not yet be familiar with their work, the anesthesia assistant profession was established more than 50 years ago in Quebec and about 15 years ago in most other provinces. However, they are not yet available everywhere. As the name suggests, anesthesia assistants (AAs) work under the direct supervision of anesthesiologists. Rob Bryan, a veteran AA at Mackenzie Health in Richmond Hill, Ont., just north of Toronto, said that "the role of an anesthesia assistant is to extend the care and the service of the physician specialist in anesthesia in the anesthesia department." "A physician is always in charge of the patient's care," said Bryan, who was working in an endoscopy room providing anesthesia for colonoscopy patients on the day White Coat, Black Art visited the hospital. In contrast, specially trained nurses called nurse anesthetists can practise anesthesia independent of doctors in the United States, but they have not been able to do so in Canada since the end of the Second World War. Nurse anesthetists, also called certified registered nurse anesthetists, can have their own practice similar to the way a nurse practitioner can provide primary care in the absence of a family doctor. That means they can fill a gap in rural and remote areas of the U.S., for example, providing sedation in places where it wouldn't otherwise be possible to even get an epidural for labour and delivery. Duties of AAs vary among provinces Canadian anesthesiologists say it doesn't make sense to launch a new program to certify nurse anesthetists, given that Canada already has an established system with AAs that could be scaled up — not just in numbers but in scope of practice. "We work so well together as a team, and there's already a high level of trust," IWK's Bird said. That's also the official stance of the Canadian Anesthesiologists' Society, which came out with a position statement the last time there was a push in British Columbia to introduce nurse anesthetists, saying the organization "firmly rejects" nurse anesthetists in Canada. Instead, its plan to address surgical wait times includes, among other things, increasing the number and availability of trained AAs. Most anesthesia assistants have backgrounds as respiratory therapists (RTs), although some come to it from the ranks of registered nurses and all have additional training in anesthesia. Mackenzie Health's Bryan has a designation called Certified Clinical Anesthesia Assistant, or CCAA, given by the Canadian Society of Respiratory Therapists to RTs like him who received that additional training. In Canada, not all anesthesia assistants are CCAAs like him. While what anesthesia assistants are permitted to do varies from province to province, they're becoming part of anesthesia teams in more and more parts of Canada. WATCH | Canada still struggling to clear surgical backlog: Knee, hip replacement surgery wait times longer since the pandemic 1 year ago Duration 2:02 New data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information shows patients in all provinces are waiting longer than before the pandemic for some priority orthopedic and cancer surgeries, but it's not all bad news — overall more surgeries are being performed than ever. 'Pretty incredible people with a lot of expertise' Dr. Jerod Gollant, chief of the department of anesthesiology at Mackenzie Health, said that before AAs joined the hospital's staff, it routinely had to postpone procedures because there weren't enough anesthesiologists. That doesn't happen now, he said, because anesthesia assistants have allowed the department to be more efficient and see more patients. For example, having multiple AAs working in the endoscopy unit under the supervision of one anesthesiologist allows another anesthesiologist to be freed up to work elsewhere in the hospital, Gollant said. "So we're able to provide the therapeutic diagnostic and screening endoscopic procedures for all of our community while not cancelling any surgeries downstairs in the main operating room." At IWK in Halifax, the scope of practice for AAs has expanded gradually starting in 2021, said Bird, the hospital's chief of pediatric anesthesia. "Initially, when they started they would do things like help us out with putting patients off to sleep, help out in the recovery room," she said. "But we slowly realized that these are pretty incredible people with a lot of expertise to offer, and so our anesthesia assistants now, in collaboration with us, are doing independent procedural sedations." Sami Jreige is one of the certified clinical anesthesia assistants who works with Bird. "We are a little unique in terms of what the AAs can do.... We can provide deep sedation to patients to have procedures done that would otherwise require an anesthesiologist to do," he said. "That's probably my favourite part of my job is being able to go off and clear a waitlist or schedule elective cases specifically for the AAs, where we can get things done in a more timely and efficient manner." Limited training capacity An editorial in the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia in September 2024 said not only is there a relative lack of awareness of the profession as a career option, but training capacity is too low. The editorial points out that there are only four accredited AA training programs in Canada — two in Ontario and two in British Columbia, as well as one provisionally accredited program in Alberta. "I don't think we're a very well-known profession, to be honest," Jreige said, noting that even among health-care workers, those who don't work in operating rooms or with anesthesia departments may not have heard of AAs. Carolyn McCoy, director of professional practice for the Canadian Society of Respiratory Therapists, which represents certified clinical anesthesia assistants, said it takes one to two years to complete the additional training required to become a CCAA. "Typically, because the education to become an anesthesia assistant is not funded, in order to pay the bills ... the vast majority continue to work full time while they're taking this additional education on the side." The editorial in the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia said training subsidies could be part of increasing the number of AAs, as could better pay. A more robust supply of trained AAs is also key to avoiding burnout among existing anesthesiologists, it said. Bird said she firmly believes AAs can make for a stronger anesthesia workforce in Canada, especially given that anesthesia assistants are already in place in many hospitals.
CBC
12-04-2025
- Health
- CBC
Health care's taking a backseat in this election. That's a missed opportunity, expert says
Social Sharing In this federal election period, the twists and turns of tariffs, annexation threats and other surprises from the Trump administration have stolen focus from addressing the state of public healthcare in Canada. A leading expert on health law and policy experts says that's a shame. "We are in an emergency situation in Canadian health care, and we have been for a couple of years post pandemic," said Colleen Flood, who is also dean of law at Queen's University. An estimated 6.5 million Canadians don't have access to a family doctor and one-third of those who do find it difficult to get an appointment. Patients waited 222 per cent longer to see a specialist in 2024 than they did in 1993, ranking Canada the worst in wait times of all high-income universal healthcare countries. Across the country, more Canadians are paying out of pocket for health care that the Canada Health Act says should be available to them in the public system. Virtual private-pay family medicine is readily available, and most provinces and territories now have in-person clinics as well. In November 2024, CBC Radio's White Coat, Black Art visited a busy private-pay family medicine clinic in Vaudreuil, Que., where patients pay $150 to see a family doctor for 15 minutes. Flood told White Coat, Black Art host Dr. Brian Goldman that this election is an opportunity for voters to demand the next federal government provide Canadians with the healthcare they need. Here is an excerpt from their conversation. The Canada Health Act includes an expectation of "reasonable access" to healthcare. Can you define it? We all have a sense of what the bare minimum is, right? We want access to a family care team or a family doctor. We all want access to tests and diagnostic methods and specialists and hospitals within a reasonable time period. The Canada Health Act sets out criteria: reasonable access, which is a bit of a joke at the moment; comprehensiveness, of hospital and physician services, effectively; [and] portability — you should be able to get health care where you need it across Canada. The only way those criteria can be enforced is if the federal government uses its discretion to withhold money. The feds have never used their discretionary power to keep back money from a province that is allowing wait times to grow or not ensuring that everybody has access to a family doctor…. They're quite nervous about using a hammer rather than a carrot to get where they want to go. WATCH | Lining up for a chance to get a family doctor: Hundreds wait in the snow to get a family doctor in rural Ontario 3 months ago Duration 2:03 You have written extensively about how the Canada Health Act could be strengthened or at least better enforced. Have a go at that. That's a lovely thing to talk about. The Canada Health Act has been an incredible tool for Canadians since [former Minister of Health and Welfare] Monique Bégin brought it to pass. But it needs to evolve, in particular around reasonable access. I think the Canada Health Act should be overhauled so that the federal government requires the provinces to have a fair, transparent process to determine what reasonable access is. What does that mean for us in New Brunswick, in Manitoba, in Saskatchewan in terms of access to a family health-care team or a nurse practitioner or a primary care doctor? In terms of maximum wait times, in terms of coverage?…. And then this is revisited from time to time to make sure that it's updated to change with our needs, because our needs do change. Any idea what the federal parties are saying about what's happening in this current election environment? With the very serious situation in the U.S., health care is unfortunately taking a back seat. And that is a real shame because we are in an emergency situation in Canadian health care, and we have been for a couple of years post pandemic. We need the parties to speak to their plans for improving public medicare. And Canadians must hold their feet to the fire on this. I counsel everyone to ask their candidates about what they specifically will do to make sure that everybody has access to the care that they need. A lot of public health care in Canada came to pass after the Depression and World War II, where people realized that medicare should be available to everybody. So maybe this will actually bring us together more around the importance of public health care, that we need to protect it. What would you like to see the party leaders saying about the future of health care during this election period? Honestly, I'd like to see them say anything about what they will do. Conservatives may involve more private for-profit care inside of public medicare. The Liberals may involve more of a [mix] of getting there. The NDP may prefer more public hospitals, perhaps more salaried physicians, and moving more to an NHS-style system like you see in the U.K. Everybody may have their different recipe for improvement, but I think that's what Canadians need to hear: What are your plans? What will you actually do? And how will you ensure that myself and my family are going to be able to get the care when we need it? I want to close by asking you, what should voters be listening for during this election period when it comes to health care? Voters should be looking to parties to acknowledge that we are actually in a crisis, we're in an emergency, and that we need to take very significant steps very quickly to fix medicare. It is simply unacceptable that 6.5 million Canadians do not have reasonable access to the most basic of care, family medicine. It is even worse than that they are queuing up and desperate for care, clogging up ERs and so on, waiting to a point where the condition that could have been dealt with has got away on them. So what we want to see is that the parties are taking this crisis, this emergency, extremely seriously, and they have a serious plan to deal with it.
