![]() ![]() ![]() Personal possessions of music icons from Bo Diddley to Cee Lo Green and other objects of material culture add an innovative dimension to the exhibition’s story. While concentrating on visual art, the exhibition’s study also traces the sonic roots of southern hip-hop, beginning with blues. ![]() High Museum of Art, Atlanta, given by John F. With this shrouded figure, he points to human lives made invisible and delivers visibility and agency for the communities of the African American South.Ĭoronation Theme: Organon, 2008, Nadine Robinson (American, born England, 1968), speakers, sound system, mixed media. He seeks to untangle the “myth of blackness” at the root of Southern lore. Ross, a visual artist based in Alabama and Rhode Island, is also a filmmaker and writer. This striking print, which suggests a union of physical and spiritual realms, captures the soil’s rich color and texture, partially exposed youthful skin belonging to an otherwise cloaked body, bare feet on clay, and an almost ghostly shroud. One of the exhibition’s thought-provoking and poignant works, Caspera (below), an inkjet print by RaMell Ross, profoundly embodies the exhibition’s three themes, which Cassel Oliver identifies as prevailing references to the landscape, the Black body, and belief systems. The exhibition speaks to the complexities of cultural influence and the numerous tributaries that pour into a collective identity. While it comes out of an African American expression, it really frames our collective expression.” And as Cassel Oliver explains, “It is that persistence of traditions that evolve with each successive generation. While the exhibition, which opens May 22, 2021, focuses on the past 100 years, it acknowledges centuries of artistic contribution and influence. Loan from Susanne Vielmetter Gallery, Los AngelesĬassel Oliver curated The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse, VMFA’s groundbreaking art exhibition that investigates southern Black culture’s influences on American art, music, and other forms of cultural expression. In a validating and thought-provoking declaration at the 1995 Source Awards, when the Atlanta duo known as OutKast won “Best New Rap Group,” André 3000-as he accepted the award amid boos from his East Coast and West Coast peers-famously proclaimed, “The South’s got somethin’ to say!”Īsterisks in Dockery (Blues for Smoke), 2012, Rodney McMillian (American, born 1969), vinyl, thread, wood, paint and lightbulb. The encompassing term frames southern hip-hop that is infused with a more melodic style and with tempos and lyrical expressions rooted in soul, gospel, and funk. However in the 1990s hip-hop culture lifted them up, evoking not only the term but also a reverence for the Dirty South-giving the region, the culture, and the people their due. Those African American contributions, which flourished for centuries, had been largely recessed after the civil rights era. The cultural, spiritual, and artistic practices passed down from enslaved Africans, in particular, figure prominently for their role in shaping regional and national identity and expression. The term describes an identity born out of the southern landscape and its agriculture as well as its diverse mix of races, ethnicities, practices, rituals, and beliefs-a flavorful amalgamation of African, European, Indiginous American, and Caribbean influences. “Dirty South” is an expression that endearingly refers to the southern part of the United States-from Virginia to Florida, Texas, and the states in between-whose Black traditions and artistic expressions have shaped the culture of the region and the nation. ![]()
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