the vanguard artist collective at detroit artists market
Overture
Sydney G. James, Scheherazade Washington Parrish, Rashaun Rucker and Tylonn J. Sawyer, together known as The Vanguard Artist Collective, are four artists living and working in Detroit. Using history, conditioning, gender, language, politics and scale as material, these artists create works that reveal that which has been ignored rather than unseen. Rejecting the very concept of post-blackness, the works in the exhibition consider the physical and intellectual space and time they occupy in America. Organized by Jeff Cancelosi, Overture is the inaugural group show for the Vanguard Artist Collective.
Instantly capturing the viewer’s attention is the incandescent red used by Rashaun Rucker in his Black Seeing Red series. Each portrait is meticulously rendered in pain or stoicism allowing that red to express their rage. Black Seeing Red #5 seems to be at once choking back both anger and sadness allowing breath to escape from his lips as a release valve for all that emotion.
Scheherazade Washington Parrish’s work looks like legal documents with selected passages, customarily revolutionary and/or damning, stricken out illustrating the power of words. The legible remains create a poem in situ, meaning made from what is left of the original text. Beauty from ashes.
Sydney G. James’ large-scale work addresses and amplifies how society often makes Black women feel insignificant. Black List expands the disquieting starkness of the absence of safety for Black Americans to include both genders.
Tylonn J. Sawyer pays homage to his exhibition partners with exceptionally executed portraiture. He’s chosen to embellish the male images with gold denoting value while the females are surrounded by glitter signifying the universal influence of women.
These four artists draw from each other and have become a force in the contemporary art world. They each employ visually compelling storytelling via their chosen medium to convey powerful and nuanced messages of Black identity. To come together in one show makes for an exhibition that’s in your face, intentionally and necessarily unsettling.
This is the last week for the Vanguard Artist Collective’s Overture
at Detroit Artists Market 4719 Woodward Ave, Detroit
*images are mine unless otherwise indicated
SHOWS OPEN THIS WEEKEND
Really love this show and enjoyed your thoughts and views. In case you didn't notice, the words from the Sydney James painting are a Scheherazade Washington Parrish poem--in-person you'll see her read that and then look up and stare at the audience for ten or so seconds.
Note--Scheherazade will be reading from her poetry at an event called Brain Candy that I host Monday from 7-9 p.m. at Green Brain Comics in Dearborn. Beyond that, Ryan Brady Herberholz will be displaying some of his painting work and discussing it, Aubri Adkins will read some of her prose and David Simon will play four songs through the time period. The event is free (and done monthly, the third Monday of each month at that location and time).