Black Portraitures VII

marking territory in the void

Date: February 17, 2022

• Time: 2:00 pm—3:30 pm

• Location: Paul Robeson Gallery Workshop B

• Speakers

  • Nyugen E. Smith

  • Amber Robles-Gordon

  • Sarah Stefana Smith – Mount Holyoke College

• Moderator

  Alex Callendar

This panel is devised around the work of Carribeanist scholars and thinkers, Edouard Glissant and Sylvia Wynter. Both articulate a desire to conceive of other worlds through a reconsideration of diasporic time, space and territory, and the opacities of history. Or, as artists we ask through their theoretical frames; how do you mark a territory to something that is a void, or an abyss, or unspeakable, or mistaken as a thing? Through studio practices, which include mixed-media, drawing, time-based works and performance, we consider in an open sense, historical recovery as sites of intervention, provisionality, and play, holding space for the language of transparency and opacity emergent in Black aesthetics.  

The roundtable puts to use this year’s convening of Black Portraiture and the capaciousness of play. Play then, to use the words of Stuart Hall, becomes a mode to consider Black diaspora being, refusal and resistance with no guarantee. Hall notes  on play with no guarantee, 

“Far from being eternally fixed in some essentialized past, they are subject to the continuous “play” of history, culture and power. Far from being grounded in mere “recovery” of the past, which is waiting to be found, and which when found, will secure our sense of ourselves into eternity, identities are the names we give to the different ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves within, the narratives of the past” (Hall 2000, 23). 

Thus, we conceive of this roundtable on play with no guarantee in manifold ways. Some negotiate historical counternarratives through the afterlife of the archive, while others meditate on materiality and matter as psychic scaffolding and memory work. 

Bios

Alex Callender’s practice uses methods of drawing, painting, and installation to trace and remap historical materials as a means to explore with both criticality and care, how we might disentangle the interwoven relations of race, gender, and capitalism. Callender is an Assistant Professor of Art at Smith College.

Amber Robles-Gordon, is a mixed media visual artist. Her creations are visual representations of her hybridism: a fusion of her gender, ethnicity, cultural, and social experiences. Known for recontextualizing non-traditional materials, her assemblages, sculptures, installations emphasize the essentialness of spirituality and temporality within life. Robles-Gordon, received a Bachelor of Science, Business Administration from Trinity University, and a MFA from Howard University. 

Nyugen E. Smith (USA, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago) is a first-generation Caribbean-American interdisciplinary artist based in Jersey City, NJ. Through performance, found object sculpture, mixed media drawing, painting, video, photo and writing, Nyugen deepens his knowledge of historical and present-day conditions of Black African descendants in the diaspora. He holds a BA, Fine Art from Seton Hall University and an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 

Sarah Stefana Smith is an interdisciplinary scholar and visual artist. Their sculpture and installation work explores the intersection of repair and disrepair. Their research communicates between the fields of Black art and culture, queer theory and affect studies, visuality and aesthetics. Smith is an Assistant Professor of Gender Studies at Mount Holyoke College.

https://www.blackportraitures.info/bp7/event/marking-territory-in-the-void/

Jiha Moon y Amber Robles-Gordon en la Derek Eller Gallery

Obervacion de Influentes cultura y herencia Taino, el clima y el machismo (Observation of Influencers: Taino culture and heritage, the climate and machismo), 2020
mixed media collage on canvas
18 x 24 in.

Desde el 6 de enero y hasta el 5 de febrero de 2022, la Derek Eller Gallery presenta dos exposiciones individuales de las artistas Jiha Moon y Amber Robles-Gordon.

Fuente: Derek Eller Gallery. Imagen: Amber Robles-Gordon, “Observación de Influencers: cultura y herencia Taino, el clima y el machismo” (Observation of Influencers: Taino culture and heritage, the climate and machismo), 2020

Nacida en Puerto Rico en 1977, pero criada en los suburbios de Washington DC, la herencia caribeña siempre ha estado presenta en la obra de Amber Robles-Gordon. Utilizando una amplia gama de materiales -incluyendo pintura acrílica, fotografía, tela y el dibujo a tinta- Robles-Gordon rinde homenaje a los temas tradicionales puertorriqueños a la vez que denuncia la relación colonialista entre Estados Unidos y Puerto Rico. La galería explica como el árbol del caucho (Fiscus Elastica, planta autóctona de Puerto Rico) es un tema recurrente en las obras expuestas en “Place of Birth and Breath” (Lugar de nacimiento y respiración), estando a veces rodeada “de ‘ecoesferas’ circulares, densamente repletas de información y artefactos relacionados con su conexión espiritual y etérea con su entorno.”

Al mismo tiempo, la galería presenta también Jiha Moon: Stranger Yellow, una exposición de obras de la artista Jiha Moon, nacida en Corea del Sur en 1973 pero residente en Atlanta. El título de la exposición hace referencia a un tono particular de amarillo empleado por la artista en sus obras, que Moon describe como “un color misterioso, exuberante, pero cautelosamente alto, que destaca”. La pieza central de la exposición, “Yellowave (Stranger Yellow)”, un díptico de unos tres metros de largo, muestra varios de los elementos habituales en la obra de la artista, desde el uso del “Stranger Yellow” hasta la presencia de elementos del folklore y la cultura popular coreana.

Ambas exposiciones pueden contemplarse en la Galería Derek Eller de Broome Street, Nueva York, de martes a sábado de 11 a 18 horas, y con cita previa.

https://theartwolf.com/es/exposiciones/jiha-moon-robles-gordon-eller-2022/

Amber Robles-Gordon’s anti-colonial quilts and personal histories at American University Museum at the Katzen Center

“y mi bandera vuela mas alto que la tuya,” 2020. Mixed media collage on canvas, 18 x 24 in. Courtesy of the artist.

By Andrea KirshDecember 17, 2021

An artist’s visit to her mother’s birth place in Puerto Rico awakens her to the complexities of immigration and family – and to the dubious socio-political actions and inactions, by the U.S. government in its far-flung territories. Our reviewer Andrea Kirsh is moved by the powerful collage works and double-sided quilts of Amber Robles-Gordon. The show closed Dec. 12.

Amber Robles-Gordon‘s first grade classmates in Arlington, VA bullied her for speaking Spanish, so she learned to speak to her mother in English. It wouldn’t be until middle age that the artist finally visited her mother’s birthplace in Puerto Rico. Successions: Traversing U.S. Colonialism, her solo exhibition at the the American University Museum at the Katzen Center (August 28 – Dec. 12, 2021) in Washington, D.C. was the product of that initial trip and a her return for a six-week residence on the island in 2020.

The exhibition presented two bodies of work. The first, “Place of Breath and Birth” is a series of ten vibrant collages on canvas, all 18 x 24 inches; two, represented by full-scale pigment prints. The collages are constructed from masses of tiny images cut from paper; even the bands of color that form their backgrounds are assembled from minute, colored fragments. And there is a very personal rhythm – like distinctive brushwork – in the way Robles-Gordon arranges the fragments.

Another personal language of Robles-Gordon’s appearing in the fragments is inspired by multiple, non-Western cultural traditions and imagery taken from magazines and photographs. These fragments are used as structuring and framing elements, incorporating the artist’s drawings of detailed and decorative, spiky, geometric patterns. An occasional small trinket or charm adds surface texture, as does the profusion of tiny, sparkly beads which outline the central, circular forms on each collage. The beads and high-keyed colors capture the intense sunlight of the Caribbean and lend a festival-like quality to the series.

Robles-Gordon culls her imagery from photographs she took in Puerto Rico or found elsewhere that evoke its lush, intensely-polychromed environment – both natural and human. While on the island, she was fascinated by the rubber trees and palms, the coconuts and mangos, street murals and public art. The titles of individual collages suggest the range of topics that were prompted by her visits: “Observation of Influencers: Taino culture and heritage, the climate and machismo,” “For bioluminescent bays and turtles.”

Her long-time interest in spirituality and syncretic, New World religious practices inspire aspects of the collages’ format, which the artist likens to personal altars. The imagery of fruit and floral offerings, flickering candles and the crystalline forms of her drawing run throughout the series and reinforce their spiritual associations. She includes photos of herself – both earlier and contemporary images – in several collages, and there is no question that the series itself is a diary of self-discovery.

“Reflexiones sobre el yo, la virgen maría y el colonialismo,” 2020. Mixed media, collage on canvas, 18 x 24 in. Courtesy of the artist.

Quilts of pointed anti-colonial critique

If the collages capture Robles-Gordon’s connection to her ancestral culture in the form of personal, spiritual reflection, the second part of the exhibition responded to her developing political understanding of Puerto Rico’s position as a U.S. Territory. The works are a public forum in which to teach, to encourage discussion, to heal, and to begin building a congregation of territorial residents. Six, large, double sided, appliqued quilts hung throughout the high-ceilinged gallery. The installation, which gave its name to the exhibition, was titled “Successions; Traversing U.S. Colonialism.” The quilts include dense references to histories that have yet to be acknowledged and the dark underside of U.S. power. Their format entangles the conventionalized emblems of history and patriotism with the domestic craft of quilting, the masculine pursuit of territory and power with a feminine tradition of healing.

On one side of each quilt Robles-Gordon addresses political history, with references to each of the U.S. Territory’s flag or seal, as well as to the exploitation of its indigenous people for medical experimentation, military support and economic interests; on the other side she constructs an altar dedicated to healing the damage of historical exploitation and the racism which underpins it. Both sides bear central medallions; they are greatly enlarged versions of the circles in the collages, and make references to the circle as a foundational religious image and form of celebration – to healing circles and ceremonial dancing. The healing altars are constructed with the same spiky, geometric patterning that Robles-Gordon used in the collages, and all have hieratic, symmetrical designs. Here they suggest abstracted figures of deities, and their patterning makes reference to a variety of Afro-diasporic and non-Western decorative histories seen in painting, textiles and ceramics. Although painted, they appear to be drawings in chalk on black backgrounds, which suggests religious images in various cultures which are intended to be temporary.

The timing of Robles-Gordon’s residency in Puerto Rico reinforced her understanding of the disparity between U.S. government support to the island after the overwhelming damage from Hurricanes Maria and Irma in 2017, and the level of disaster relief Americans have come to expect on the mainland. This understanding, in turn, led to her interest in the U.S. Territories as a group; areas under United States dominion with the highest percentage of poverty, where the government has exploited resources and sited strategic military bases, with little concern for the inhabitants – all people of color, who are largely, only nominally U.S. Citizens. The territories function, rather, as U.S. colonies.

Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands are unfamiliar to many on the mainland United States. Few Americans know that their residents are U.S. Citizens with the right to vote – although they lack full representation in Congress. Robles-Gordon included Washington, D.C., her current home, among the territories because it’s residents, too, fall under U.S. jurisdiction but have no fully-empowered Congressional representative.

Robles-Gordon used her childhood bullying as a spur to understanding her own cultural traditions, and it is characteristic of her long-developed career of teaching and producing art that she didn’t respond to the history of territorial exploitation with rage, but with honesty, offering understanding, teaching and healing as a foundation on which to advocate for social justice in the outlying regions of the United States and in powerless communities internationally. The sense of spirituality and turning towards a better future pervades her work as much as her personally-developed language of forms and patterns, use of repurposed materials, passionate polychrome, and fusion of visual traditions.

Amber Robles-Gordon, “Successions: Traversing U.S. Colonialism” is now closed. It was on view at the American University Museum at the Katzen Center in Washington, D.C., August 28–December 12, 2021.

“The eternal altar for the women forsaken and souls relinquished. Yet the choice must always remain hers/ El altar eterno de las mujeres abandonadas y las almas renunciadas. Sin embargo, la elección siempre debe ser de ella.,” 2020. Mixed media collage on canvas, 18 x 24 in. Courtesy of the artist.

“Successions: Traversing U.S. Colonialism” on Exhibit at American University Museum

“USVI Spiritual, Moko Jumbie: Walk Tall and Heal Forward” Mixed Media on quilt, (back of “USVI Political”) 2021 (Courtesy of Amber Robles-Gordon)

Amber Robles-Gordon’s “Successions: Traversing U.S. Colonialism” has a dual purpose. It consists of her “Place of Birth and Breath” solo exhibit viewed first in her native Puerto Rico in 2020, and it has evolved into a component exhibit, which is an exploration of the historical underpinnings of U.S. Colonialism.

Robles-Gordon is a mixed media visual artist whose solo exhibit at the American University Museum opened in August and can be viewed Fridays through Sundays, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. until Dec. 12.

What began as a quest, “to heal my five-year-old self: to empower her to fight for herself, her language and her culture,” the exhibition took on “the intersections of language, culture, institutional racism, anti-blackness and their immeasurable impact within the U.S. territories,” said Robles-Gordon.

A native-born Puerto Rican with family from St. Thomas, St. John, Puerto Rico, Tortola and Antigua, Robles-Gordon created a visual discussion of the historical and political plight and resilience of the District of Columbia, where she resides, and the five U.S. territories that her two-sided quilts represent. They embody the artist’s creation of a political study of the territories and on the reverse side, a spiritual and cultural study.

Robles-Gordon’s early love of art and creativity moved her delight with fabrics, quilts and found objects to the discovery that these could and would be her artistic narrative.

A writer uses words to express; my medium of expression is my art, she said. “I use a myriad of materials according to what I’m trying to convey in a particular project or a particular narrative. It’s very essential that I match up with what I’m trying to convey,” Robles-Gorden said.

The decision to dismiss her native language, Spanish, came as a result of the teasing and ridicule Robles-Gordon experienced as a five-year-old kindergartener at her school in Arlington, Virginia, far away from her birthplace of Puerto Rico. She did not look like a Latina girl that was familiar to her classmates, and hence developed the bullying of this little brown-skinned girl.

In time, Robles-Gordon realized the importance of embracing her language and her culture and the need to find ways to heal through her research and employ it through her art as the medium on her journey to healing.

Speaking of her years as an artist, Robles-Gordon’s journey toward healing is what she brings creatively in her discoveries about U.S. Colonialism, “I think that it’s a beginning. There’s not an end to my journey. It’s a part of my journey. I think I’ve done a hell of a job in starting it. I actually feel proud about it in my own life. That feels good,” she said.

Robles-Gordon made the universe know how important this part of her journey is. “I think I’ve done that,” she said.

“Successions: Traversing U.S. Colonialism” exhibits the component of Robles-Gordon’s body of work containing six quilts embodying the Commonwealth of the District of Columbia, and the five U.S. territories of Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa. The other component, “Place of Birth and Breath,” is the collage on canvas series created in 2020 and exhibited at the Universidad del Sagrado Corazon, (University of the Sacred Heart) in Puerto Rico.

“Place of Birth and Breath” is Robles-Gordon’s 10 mixed-media collage canvases that are a result of the visit with her mother to Puerto Rico where both women recaptured their roots, one of her childhood home, and the other of her birthplace.

“Isla del Encanto” collage, 18×24, 2020. (Courtesy of Amber Robles-Gordon)

A foundational symbology of the “Birth and Breath” body of work is the rubber tree that grows on the campus of the University of the Sacred Heart, which Robles-Gordon was introduced to while in Puerto Rico. “This tree appeared to be a literal fusion of past, present and future states of creation or sustaining an ecosystem. Throughout the series, are abstracted representations of the rubber tree – an entanglement of strong roots – as an example of its resiliency this tree most recently stood-fast to its native soil while 155 mph winds battered the campus,” Robles-Gordon noted.

Robles-Gordon shares her intricate ideas of how she layered her work depicting and interpreting the transitions of day to night and night to day. She relates to three major ethnic/racial groups – the Taino, the Spaniards and Africans, the stranglehold of the United States and the impact of the Caribbean Sea with its threat of hurricanes, scorching summer heat and lush landscapes.

Successions: Traversing U.S. Colonialism at American University exhibition closes on Dec. 12. The journey continues. The conversation continues. The healing continues.

See Amber Robles-Gordon’s website here..

Amber Robles-Gordon's Artwork Navigates US Colonialism for its Colonies, including DC

About this event

Millennium Arts Salon provides this salon talk featuring Artist Amber Robles-Gordon in interview with Interim Chief Curator of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Dr. Tuliza Fleming, at the Katzen Arts Center of American University. Ms. Robles-Gordon, who was born in Puerto Rico, and raised in the DC area, examines the role of the United States as a colonial power with both Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia as two such colonies, with intimations of paternalism, tyranny, and containment of citizen aspiration attendant thereto. Dr. Fleming as scholar, will guide our better understanding of Amber's magnum opus, as she explores the underpinnings of the artwork from conceptualization to execution.

Millennium Arts Salon honors our relationship with the Katzen Arts Center in bringing programs of importance to our joint and several audiences in their beautiful and monumental space.

The MAS Salon Talk will be delivered over Zoom. Please register via the Eventbrite ticket engine and an email of the Zoom link will be sent to you before the event. 

Please join us Saturday November 13 at 3:00 pm

Artfully yours,

The Board of Directors of Millennium Arts Salon

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/salon-talk-amber-robles-gordon-with-tuliza-fleming-at-katzen-art-center-tickets-204795648297

REVIEW: A deeper look into two AU Museum art exhibits

‘The Art of Reimagining Scientific Discovery’ and ‘Traversing US Colonialism’ bring spectators into new perspectives

By Olivia Barclay / Monday, October 25, 2021

The American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center opened in August and currently features five exhibits, all with very different themes. 

The museum features a variety of exhibits every season that open viewers up to a whole new world of art. “Reveal: The Art of Reimagining Scientific Discovery” and “Successions: Traversing US Colonialism” are two of the exhibits that introduce viewers to new perspectives on the world we live in today. 

“The Art of Reimagining Scientific Discovery” by Rebecca Kamen

“Reveal: The Art of Reimagining Scientific Discovery” by Rebecca Kamen uses a mixture of models and paintings. Kamen focuses on rocks, cells, cell processes and viruses in her exhibit. 

The rock models are made out of mylar and are painted with acrylic paint, making the viewer look at different types of rocks in a new way. By making these models colorful, Kamen hopes to demonstrate the importance of rocks in an interesting way. 

She also includes cell processes such as cell division in her pieces titled “Warming.” “Warming” is painted on mylar with washes of bright colors. Creating these pieces introduces viewers to the beauty of cells and how amazing the human body is in the ability to conduct such processes. 

Kamen also made several models of the coronavirus out of mylar and painted with acrylic paint. She produced these pieces to pay tribute to the losses from the virus and the relevance it has in all of our lives. She also demonstrates the complexity in the structure of the virus through the accurately placed features and bright layers of orange. Kamen encapsulates the beauty of science and the importance it has on all of our lives. “The Art of Reimagining Scientific Discovery” honors how far science has come in the past years and educates audiences on just how much we know about science. 

“Traversing US Colonialism” by Amber Robles-Gordon

“Traversing US Colonialism” is an exhibit created by Amber Robles-Gordon. It is a mixture of quilts and collages that detail the United States’ history of colonization. In her quilts, she depicts some of the territories the U.S. has invaded and the effects it's had on the people living in those areas.

Robles-Gordon’s quilts demonstrate how U.S. colonization has specifically affected people in those territories spiritually and politically. Each side of the seven quilts depicts these effects in order to demonstrate just how much damage was done as a result. The quilts intend to make the viewer think about the actions of their country in the past and how that is prevalent in the future. To the viewer, she wants her audience to question the effects of colonization on the people, not just the benefits of their country.

Robles-Gordon's exhibit also includes her own story in it, incorporating her birthplace of Puerto Rico. This portion of the exhibit is titled “Place of Breath and Birth,” which includes collages displayed on canvas. Here, she brings to light the debate of statehood for her birthplace as well as the effects that the pandemic had on Puerto Rico. Robles-Gordon intends to educate her audience on how U.S. territories, specifically Puerto Rico, are directly affected by the United States’ actions. Robles-Gordon highlights the lack of support that the country has given to Puerto Rico and how that has been similar for the other territories under U.S. control. Amber Robles-Gordon demonstrates how US colonialism affects the people within those territories and specifically how it affected her own country. 

The AU Museum brings to light many different perspectives on the world we live in today. “The Art of Reimagining Scientific Discovery” and “Traversing US Colonialism” will help students and residents better understand the advancements and tribulations of the nation to better engage in the environment around them.

life@theeagleonline.com

https://www.theeagleonline.com/article/2021/10/review-a-deeper-look-into-two-au-museum-art-exhibits