VISUAL VOICES 2021, BLACK LIFE AS SUBJECT MATTER II

SHANGO: Center for the Study of African-American Art and Culture (501c-3) is pleased to present the Visual Voices 2021 Exhibit titled: black life as subject matter II. SHANGO, Inc. is honored to have the Virginia W. Kettering Foundation as the primary funder for this exhibit with additional support from the Dayton Power and Light Foundation.

It has been said that we express best that which we know the most about. The joy, the sorrow, the pain, and the hopes for a community or a nation is often reflected through the creative arts. We are a community, a nation, a world in a great state of struggle and change. Artists can be viewed as griots. Visual griots are story tellers who capture aspects of life as they see and experience it by using the artistic and creative gifts that they have been given.

To more fully gage the temperature of a community or a nation, we need to listen to the songs it sings, the spoken words it speaks, the dramatic events it performs, the movement of its dancers, and the images that adorn the interior and exterior walls. The arts may not have solutions to all the problems in society, but the arts have the energy and power to identify things to celebrate and preserve, but the arts also reveal questions worthy of discussion within the community and the nation.

The proposed theme of BLACK LIFE as subject MATTER II permits the artists to select any aspect of the Black experience as possible subject matter for his/her artistic expression.

America and the world is going through social, political, and economic changes that impacts everyone alive today and the multitude yet unborn. Peoples of African descent, peoples of color around the globe and the many concerned and well-meaning peoples from other cultures are joined together in search of solutions for age-old problems that have hindered achieving a fair and just society. Artists are lending their vision and creativity to the struggle. Visual art, music, dance, drama, poets all are helping to tell the story of what’s going on, what should be going on and how can we build a peaceful and just society.

BLACK LIFE in all its manifestations is, indeed, a worthy subject MATTER for creative expression by African-American visual artists in search of truth and beauty.

Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the exhibit will be a virtual exhibit via https://www.bingdavisartstudio.org and small groups by appointment, 10 people masked with social distancing.

The appeal of this relevant and timely exhibit has led to a collaboration with the Springfield Museum of Art in Springfield, Ohio to travel the exhibit to the Springfield Museum of Art in an expanded form that will include additional works of art around the theme by African-American artists from other urban areas in Ohio i.e. Springfield, Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Akron, and Youngstown.

Springfield will also add a humanities component to the exhibit project that will include scholarly speakers and educational and community programs around race and unity.

The Ohio Arts Council Riffe Galleryin Columbus, Ohio has requested the Dayton based exhibit with additional expansion for late 

2022 dates TBD.

For Additional Information:

Willis ‘Bing’ Davis, Curator

EbonNia Gallery

1135 West Third Street

Dayton, OH 45402

937-223-2290

bing@wbdavisart.com

https://www.bingdavisartstudio.org