TONIGHT @ 6PM | Two Free Art Parties in Anacostia!

Hello Folks!

Tonight Anacostia is the place to be for fun! Honfleur Gallery (1241 Good Hope Rd SE)  and Vivid Solutions Gallery (1231 Good Hope Rd SE) are both hosting FREE ART PARTIES from 6pm - 9pm tonight, May 9th! The art parties will be celebrating the two new art exhibits opening tonight. I've taken a peak and they are really cool (there are waterfalls!!!!!)! You are not going to want to miss this! 

Vivid Solutions Gallery is located inside of the Anacostia Arts Center -- so make a night of it and be prepared for a fun night by shopping in the shops and have dinner and drinks inside of NURISH Food + Drink. Honfleur Gallery is located two doors down so you can bounce back between the two events with ease!

There will be refreshments, free drinks, and fun! And don't forget some great art!

See you tonight! Be there or be square! 

@HONFLEUR GALLERY | 1241 Good Hope Rd SE

Parallels: Sculptures & Installations by Nara Park 

Opening Reception: May 9, 2014, from 6-9 pm 

Exhibit Dates: May 9 – June 27

In the works that make up Parallels, land and water are highlighted in different contexts—from a waterfall to a fish tank—that connect across common forms, materials, and a shared ephemerality. Nara Park contemplates the parallels between the cycle of life as demonstrated by varying forms of nature. The way rocks are formed, the way water flows and freezes, and the way moss grows—these processes are not very different from each other. Similar, too, are their processes of decay. 

Park’s interpretation of nature is somewhat unusual in her sculptures and installations. She uses packaging boxes that she custom-designs to resemble rocks and plants as false representations of nature. The surface of the boxes are printed with patterns of stone or plants. Her items of mass-reproducible nature exemplify our contemporary desire to mimic nature in a quick and convenient way. She explores how far she can push the boundaries of imitation in order to inspire reverence and respect for its visual effect. She does not aim to trick the viewer with the faux, but rather generate life from it. 

In Park’s fabrications, the distinction between reality and representation vanishes. Some of her works incorporate actual water which is combined with her boxes evoking sacredness with irony. The incorporation of water in these simulations of nature takes into consideration the practical and spiritual roles it plays as an essential element. There is admiration and hope for life where there is water. Park’s work allows the viewer to explore the symbolic meanings of water that are parallel to life.

@ VIVID SOLUTIONS GALLERY | 1231 Good Hope Rd SE (inside of the Anacostia Arts Center)

F WE CAME FROM NOWHERE HERE,

WHY CAN’T WE GO SOMEWHERE THERE? 

curated by 

OPENING RECEPTION: MAY 9 FROM 6-9PM

CURATORS’ TALK: MAY 24, FROM 2-4 PM

EXHIBITION DATES: MAY 9 – JUNE 27

If We Came From Nowhere Here, Why Can’t We Go Somewhere There? is a photography and video-based exhibit charting journeys into temporality, flux, and Afrofuturism as explored by self-identified women of Black/African descent–Charmaine Nicole Bee, Nakeya Brown, Sonia Louise Davis and her partner and collaborator Ivan Forde, Danielle Deadwyler, Bree Gant, Naima Green, Dhool Hassan, Janna Ireland, Kali-Ma Nazarene, and Sienna Pinderhughes.

Taking its title from the song “Imagination” by noted jazz musician and Afrofuturist artist Sun Ra, If We Came From Nowhere Here, Why Can’t We Go Somewhere There? features portraiture, found photography, collage, and video art that challenge us to explore the “somewhere there” as both a metaphor for the site of possibility as well as the journey to recontextualize the present moment. Constructing and deconstructing narratives of Blackness and womanhood, these emerging artists mine their personal histories and occupy a liminal space (Liu), illustrating that “every act of creation is also an act of thought, and an act of thought is a creative act, because it is defined above all by its capacity to de-create the real.” (Agamben) Through the act of de-creating, these artists are creating new histories and new trajectories of Black critical theory.

Works cited: 

Agamben,Giorgio. “Sixth International Video Week”, Centre Saint-Gervais, Geneva, Switzerland. November 1995.  Lecture.

Liu, Hung. “Blues Notes for Blues People,”Weems Live: Past Tense/Future Perfect. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY. 25 April 2014. Lecture.

MAMBU BADU is a collective of cultural producers and artists who curate art-based experiences that center the process and product of Black self-identified women with a focus on photo-based work. Founded in 2010, MAMBU BADU currently is  Yodith Dammlash, Allison McDaniel, Kameelah Rasheed, and Danielle Scruggs.

FEATURED ARTISTS:

Charmaine Nicole Bee, Nakeya Brown, Sonia Louise Davis, Danielle Deadwyler, Bree Gant, Naima Green, Dhool Hassan, Janna Ireland, Kali-Ma Nazareth, and Sienna Pinderhughes.