Robert Colescott the Bad Boy of Black Art| Meet Collecter Malik Nevels

January 30, 2022 NEWSLETTER

SHOP NOW

Pigment International at the Penthouse Miami

WHAT'S GOING ON: HOW A COLLECTOR HAS GROWN A FRIENDSHIP AND HIS ART COLLECTION

A Jaguar Hood as Art

By Temple Hemphill

Collecting Robert Lewis Clark’s artwork is a family affair, chuckled Malik Nevels. “My mother saw the [first] piece I bought and then bought a piece. Then my brother bought a piece…Then, I purchased three smaller prints from [Clark] and gifted them to my mother-in-law.”

Nevels, Chief Operating Officer at TASC (Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities) met Clark in 2006. Their friendship grew alongside Clark’s blossoming visual arts career. Around 2010, Nevels purchased Clark’s Beautiful View and since added three more of his pieces, including Untitled, 44, and his most recent purchase, Good Times.

Robert Colescott, the Bad Boy of Black Art

First Black Artist to represent the U.S. at the Venice Biennale

Robert Colescott was the bad boy of Black art. The son of two New Orleans musicians came of age in the subversive Berkeley counterculture. He studied in Paris under abstract painter Joseph Henri Léger, where he solidified his French cool. The four times married artist's works are both compelling and controversial and tackle race, gender, and social inequality in America with fearless wit and irony.

In 1997, at age 71, he became the first African American to represent the United States in a solo exhibition at the Venice Biennale, the century old contemporary art exhibition.

In his work Black subjects are observers agents, and narrators of an incomplete and revised history. The exhibition Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert Colescott is now on exhibit at the Chicago Cultural Center.

Chicago Cultural Center, Exhibit Hall, 4th Floor now through May 29, 2022. Read more from the the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

"Blacks have lived in the armpit of white people ever since slaves were brought here, and their presence has changed the identity of the place in fundamental ways," Colescott

Colescott, right, his work Tin Gal below.

TO SEE . TO READ . TO DO

Sculptor Edmonia Lewis, painted by Alex Bostic and based on a photograph taken by Augustus Marshall in Boston between 1864 and 1871 is the 45th stamp in the USPS’s Black Heritage series, which dates back to 1978. It was unveiled on January 26th.

The stamp features a portrait of Lewis, painted by Alex Bostic and based on a photograph taken by Augustus Marshall in Boston between 1864 and 1871.

Blake Lenoir is one of 15 artists commissioned to participate in the “Black and Brown Faces Art Exhibition” founded by the Cincinnati-based, Paloozanoire.

The group’s theme for 2022 is “Paying Homage To” for which Lenoir will produce work in tribute to local leaders. The goal of the exhibition is to “bridge the gap between Black fine art and giving our leaders their flowers while they are still here,” according to the organizers. The works will be exhibited at the Cincinnati Arts Museum, March – June, 2022.