Nsenga Knight (Former MFA) and X Collaborator: Taji Ra'oof Nahl X Speaks multimedia performance lecture -APRIL 2, 7:30PM

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Nsenga Knight and  X Collaborator: Taji Ra'oof Nahl 

X Speaks multimedia performance lecture 

thursDAY, 2 april, 7:30PM
AT MUSSER AUDITORIUM, PFAHLER HALL, URSINUS COLLEGE                                                            E MAIN ST, COLLEGEVILLE, PA 19426

As part of the exhibition Under Color of Law, Berman Museum at Ursinus College presents X Speaks a collaborative multimedia performance lecture led by Nsenga Knight. Along with X Collaborator Taji Ra'oof Nahl, Artist Nsenga Knight will deliver excerpts from Malcolm X’s final speeches, letters, and interviews, interspersed with visuals and video clips that link the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s with current protest movements targeting unfair—and sometimes deadly—policing practices in minority communities. A former student of Terry Adkins (also included in Under Color of Law), Knight's X pays homage to his Blanche Bruce, a role played by Taji Ra'oof Nahl and many other collaborators throughout Adkins' career. The “X” in X Speaks represents Malcolm X and his legacy, but it is also a variable—an open space in which different people can make their voices heard.  Audience participation will be encouraged via Q&A, traditional call-and-response feedback and live streaming social media.  

Nsenga Knight earned a Masters of Fine Arts degree at the UPenn and a Bachelor of Arts in Film Production at Howard University. She has exhibited work at Project Rowhouses in Houston, Texas, the New Museum for Contemporary Art, PS1 MoMA, the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art, Smack Mellon, and the Amistad Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania among others. Forthcoming exhibitions of Knight's work will be held at Gallery 100 in Durham North Carolina and the  Contemporary Art Museum in Houston. Knight has held artist residencies at Elsewhere Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina, the Galveston Artist Residency in Galveston, Texas, Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia, Film/Video Arts Center in New York, and was a BCAT/ Rotunda Gallery Multimedia Artist in Resident in Brooklyn, NY. She was most recently a recipient of the Southern Constellations Fellowship in 2014, and was also awarded with the Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grant, Finishing Funds from the Philadelphia Independent Film and Video Association, and Brooklyn Arts Council grants.  

Philadelphia native, Taji  Ra'oof Nahl is an interdisciplinary self taught artist that works as "a vessel" thru medians of; photography, performance art, sculpture , painting, poetry & fashion. As creative director for Ra'oof Atelier,Taji spearheads & collaborates with artisans of vast disciplines to develop art with the purpose of evoking compassion, freedom, justice, modesty, activism.   

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Under Color of Law 
Terry Adkins, Nsenga Knight, Hank Willis Thomas, Nari Ward, Carrie Mae Weems  

ON VIEW THROUGH 15 MAY

UNDER COLOR OF LAW brings together works by five acclaimed African American artists to catalyze important conversations about race, privilege, speech, and historical memory. 

Please visit the Berman Museum’s new website at www.ursinus.edu/berman for the most up-to-date schedule of public programs accompanying Under Color ofLaw. 

 

ABOVE:

image: Nsenga Knight and X Collaborators Cristal Chanelle Truscott and Amir Tariq McMillan, Texas A&M Prairieview University, X Speaks: The Oppressed Masses of the World Cry Out for Justice Against the Common Oppressor, 2015

The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College

601 East Main Street 

Collegeville, PA 19426 

610 409 3500

www.ursinus.edu/berman

Open hours:

Tuesday–Friday, 10–4 

Saturday & Sunday, 12–4 

Closed Monday

www.nsengaknight.com

NEW WORK by Alexi Worth - Senior Critic at UPenn MFA - Opens March 26 in NYC

Demetrius Oliver MFA alum in group show in LA - Opens 3/21

Ernel M Martinez, Co-founder of Amber Art & Design, performing at the PMA

March 2015       Wednesday, March 25   Poets, performers, and scholars guide visitors through an evening inspired by Represent: 200 years of African American Art:     Push/Pull: Precession of Healing with Amber Arts Collective:  A traveling, multi-media piece inspired by the MOVE bombing of 1985. As visitors process throughout the galleries, they will encounter multiple site-specific performances that explore this historic event's impact on the cultural makeup of Philadelphia. 6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m., Begins in Gallery 239 Tracie Morris: Tracie Morris is a self-identified sound poet that ingeniously mixes narrative and music to create a singular style of performance. She and her trio host an evening of original works. 7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m., Gallery 161 Wikipedia Edit-a-thon: Help improve how African American artists are represented online. Learn how to create and edit information about these artists on Wikipedia. New and experienced editors are welcome; laptops and power cords are encouraged.  Click here to register.  5:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m., seminar room Admission every Wednesday night is Pay What You Wish.

Mohammadreza Mirzaei (MFA '14) opens solo show "Newer Photographs" at O Gallery in Tehran

                                     

In Mohammadreza Mirzaei’s photographs, there is always a confrontation between “abstraction” and “pragmatism,” and of course between “entity” and “null” which he considers the essential traits of photography. In his upcoming exhibition, Newer Photographs, which opens three weeks after the publication of his new book in the US, by eliminating words, Mirzaei, once again invites the audience to view photographs that might very well be un-paraphrase-able.

Ordinary and routine matters are overlooked due to their continuous presence and overfamiliarity, and are at times promptly and at other times very hastily and without us noticing, replaced by alternatives. They are like a silent background to our life and existence. However in Mirzaei’s photographs, these very things look original and artificial as though they are a reflection of other things.

At the first encounter with his photographs, we are rarely confronted by narratives or an effort to create meaning, but a short while later, similarities and repetitions of certain elements, make us wonder about the possibility of the existence of conceptual and validity relations. Although some of his abstract images are eye catching, it is obvious that the photographer is not just after capturing the best form of the subject, and perhaps the forms are mostly designed to give rise to question rather than to discover and manifest beauty. Sometimes he is too close to the subject, or has exposed it to so much light that we can hardly say what that thing really is. And here, the title of the exhibition, the only descriptive words besides the works, may appear more important. But, he dawdles, as his photos do, and chooses the title, Newer Photographs for this exhibition, which especially after his previous exhibition New Photographs, seems like an oblique and absurd title.

These photographs, regardless of their subject and from whatever aspect “newer;” placed in this exhibition, alongside one another, form an object so that in its encountering, the audience is faced with numerous questions and contradictions. Perhaps an experiment similar to existence in today’s world filled with contradictions.

Mohammadreza Mirzaei

Newer Photographs 

March 6 - 16. 2015

Opening Preview: March 6th, 4-9 pm

O Gallery

46 Khosrow Alley,  Villa St., 

1698814315 Tehran

Iran

Hours: Mon - Thu 12 - 8 pm 
Fri 4 - 9 pm
Closed on Saturdays

T (+9821) 88 92 20 28

http://www.ogallery.net/

Faculty Member Matt Freedman at Studio 10 in Brooklyn - Opens 3/20

Paz Ortuzar (MFA'14) and Orlando de la Garza (MFA'13) in a group show in Brooklyn - OPENS 3/20