Fortune Tellers by Brew / September 29
Last weekend checked out a dope show at a gallery in Crown Heights, Five Myles. The latest show is called Fortune Tellers. Info below. Go check it out…you won’t regret it. And definitely be sure to catch Karma Mayet Johnson’s performance on Friday night:
Karma Mayet Johnson will present an Earth-based Mysticism and Black Lesbian Herstory evening performance accompanying song-cycle, rooted in the Delta: “Thunderbook: Readings from the Indigo Manuscripts.” The performance takes place onFriday, October 2 at 7:30 pm.
Fortune Tellers
Organized by Kimberly Mayhorn
Artists: Sandra Brewster . Torkwase Dyson . Kimberly Mayhorn . Jasmine Murrell . Marisa Swangha . Simone Leigh . Adjua Williams
Date:September 13 to October 18, 2009
Gallery Hours:Thur, Fri, Sat, Sun, 1 – 6 p.m.
Location:FiveMyles
558 St. Johns Place
Brooklyn, NY 11238
FiveMyles has invited visual artist Kimberly Mayhorn to organize an exhibition based on a question she has asked herself: are artists the fortune-tellers in their societies? The six artists Mayhorn has invited to exhibit with her at FiveMyles use the principles of Fortune Telling as their muse: they have examined sacred languages and mysteries to gain insight into questions and situations that may seem disjointed or without clarity.
Several of the artists dissect ancient methodologies in relation to African-American culture and issues.. In her installation of a ghetto in a bottle, Jasmine Murrell uses empty liquor bottles as her crystal ball through which to understand the present. Torkwase Dyson’s animations deal with her concept of The Black Eco Imagination. For her this means her involvement as an artist with the future and the history of black ecological innovation through technological and creative eco intelligence. In her installation of a ghetto in a bottle, Adjua Williams uses wood panels adorned with acrylic painted beaded ropes to represent thoughts in transition. Simone Leigh evokes both the concerns of feminist production as well as the 1970s Pan-Africanist and outer-space themed gestures of Afro-Futurism. Using graphite, terracotta and TV antennae, Leigh references historical iconography linked to processes of identity-formation.
Planet earth becomes Kimberly Mayhorn’s canvas by incorporating an anchor, rope, 12lb. weight, clocks, and religious texts to create a mixed-media environment of a paradise lost. As a prophesier, the Canadian artist Marisa Swangha hints at unspoken words tightly bound, by creating a polyptych incorporating miniscule books into the seven three-dimensional paintings. Her fellow Canadian Sandra Brewster, through her visual narratives, brings to life the story of her friend who answered a call from the ancestors to practice Sangoma, a traditional healer in the Zulu, Swazi, Xhosa and Ndebele traditions in Southern Africa.
Kimberly Mayhorn graduated from Howard University in 1991. She received a Whitney Museum Independent Study Fellowship in 2000 and has received art residencies at the Bronx Museum; Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts; Sculpture Space; Aljira; HERE Arts Center and was recently nominated for a daytime Emmy for editing.
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