ALL BLACK ERRYTHING
/All black errything - pop culture and nostalgia from afrofuturist perspectives
Curated by Alissa Maru, Soohyun Bae, and HOMME gallery
MARCH 24 – MAY 20, 2023 @ Mason Exhibitions Arlington
About the Exhibition
Welcome to All Black Errything where it’s possible that a mirthful Black history took place! “Erreything” is a phonetic moniker of the pronunciation of “everything” in the local dialect of the DMV (District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia). As we pay homage to our ancestral Native American lands the Monacan Nation, including the Manahoke people, the traditional owners of the lands upon which George Mason University stands. We are also homaging the African descendants who are creating new narratives in the present day.
There has been a systemic denial of Black memory and dispossession of narrative autonomy including the natural coping process of nostalgia. According toBadia Ahad-Legardy, “as early as the eighteenth century, there existed a biomedical belief by white Americans and Europeans that people of African descent could not experience nostalgia. As a result, Black lives have been predominately narrated through historical scenes of slavery and oppression. As such, there is a missing archive of the positive historical scenes and memories from which the African-descended could draw upon.”
Baring the thread of AfroNostalgia to AfroSurrealism and finally to AfroFuturism, an evolution of memory and myths have propelled AfroFuturism to be the response of Blackness ordained in the future.
All Black Errything, creates a new archive of imagined history. Although AfroFuturism contains elements of science fiction literature, music, and movies, AfroFuturism isn’t entertainment- it’s the affirmation that Black people will exist in the future, and with jubilance.
These particular narratives often represent a pre-American vision or a distant Black Utopia in an African space or a time beyond. The artists in this exhibition counter these expansionist or separatist impulse of the Afrofuturist imaginary, and look to the American pop-culture landscape of the recent past as sites of reclamation. Many of their works ask: What does it mean to place the Black body in the nostalgic but historically White spaces of 20th century advertising and pop-culture? If there had been positive Black images throughout the history of American popular media, how would America’s collective remembering and popular nostalgia give new perspectives of Black people?
As Dust II Onyx noted “ We are often asked why we have to have this and that be “Black”. Many never stop to think about what it is like to look at something and try to find identity in places where it does not exist. When you have privilege, you don’t know you have it, and you cannot conceptualize the results and implications of not having it. So many have been looking at these skewed representations of themselves for so long that it is normalize and often results in cognitive dissonance they may never recover from.”
This exhibit will showcase recent artworks by Maurice James Jr., Marqus “Mark” Clark, Eric Charles (Egzo), and duo Black Kirby (John Jennings and Stacey A. Robinson).
Maurice James Jr., Green Book Galaxy , acrylic on canvas, 76" x 61"
About the Artists
Maurice James Jr.: Maurice James Jr. is a self taught Contemporary Artist and Graphic Designer from Philadelphia, PA who now lives and works in DC, his greatest source of inspiration as an artist. Maurice's work intertwines iconic American pop culture with powerful Black images to positively promote Black Love, Black Beauty and Black Power. His work also focuses on portraying the splendor and strength of Black People, and embodying the importance of Black representation. Using digital graphics and merging genres that have not traditionally been combined to recreate well known pop-culture moments, Maurice’s art answers questions such as “How could Black folklore integrate into comic book culture?”, or “What if Black artistic genius was hailed in the light of deity?”. His work strives to create a glimpse of a reality in which Black People and Black Culture are one with Pop Culture.
Artist Website: www.mauricejamesjr.com
Artist Instagram: www.instagram.com/art4theblackmarket_/
Mark Clark: Painter Marqus "Mark" Clark is a lifelong contemporary artist from Washington D.C. Heavily influenced by the unique street culture of the D.C. area, high fashion, and underground hip hop. Mixing bold colors and heavily contrasting images is his signature style of graphic paintings and murals. His work quite literally paints Black people into the past, showcasing reimagined events in a way that prompts the idea that maybe the imagery depicted one day won’t be so unfathomable.
Artist Instagram: www.instagram.com/_marks_a.r.t/
Eric Charles (Egzo): Collagist and multi-media designer Eric (Egzo) Charles uses the space-time continuum and beyond to infuse African masks and symbols, solidifying Black existence into the future of the universe. Charles was born in 1980 in Guadeloupe to a Haitian father and Guadeloupean mother. In his adolescence, he discovered hip hop culture which values he embraced (peace, love, unity, fun). He then became a rapper and a beat maker with influences such as J Dilla and Madlib. In 1997, Charles left his hometown for Martinique where he continued his studies in literature and culture, and there, he discovered the world of visual art. It was the abstract art and its close link it maintains with music is what created a real revelation for him. In 2012, Charles created the concept Xo[beat]box. This idea reappropriates the idea of music and offers 5D works that combine art with technology. In 2015, Egzo joined the collective of artists 59 Rivoli. He then held his first solo exhibition in 2017 and has participated in several collective exhibitions in France as well as abroad (the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Italy, and Ivory Coast) since.
Artist Websites: www.egzoteric.bandcamp.com/ & www.xobeatbox.bigcartel.com/
Artist Instagrams: www.instagram.com/egzotericcharles/ & www.instagram.com/xobeatbox/
Black Kirby: Black Kirby is a collaborative entity consisting of John Jennings and Stacey A. Robinson. Their art celebrates the groundbreaking work of legendary comic creator Jack Kirby and functions as a highly poetic framework by combining Kirby’s bold forms and revolutionary ideas with themes centered on Afrofuturism, social justice, Black history, media criticism, science fiction, magical realism, and the utilization of Hip Hop culture as a methodology for creating visual expression.
John Jennings: John Jennings is a professor, author, graphic novelist, curator, Harvard Fellow, New York Times Bestseller, 2018 Eisner Winner, and all-around champion of Black culture. As Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California at Riverside (UCR), Jennings examines the visual culture of race in media forms such as film, illustrated fiction, comics, and graphic novels. He is also the director of Megascope, a publisher of graphic novels focused on the experiences of people of color. His research interests include the visual culture of Hip Hop, Afrofuturism, politics, Visual Literacy, Horror, and EthnoGothic and Speculative Design and its applications to visual rhetoric. Jennings is co-editor of the 2016 Eisner Award-winning collection The Blacker the Ink (Rutgers), co-founder/organizer of The Schomburg Center’s Black Comic Book Festival in Harlem, the MLK NorCal’s Black Comix Arts Festival in San Francisco, and SOL-CON: The Brown and Black Comix Expo at Ohio State University.
Jennings’ Website: www.johnjenningsstudio.com
Jennings’ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnjenningsart/
Stacey A. Robinson: Stacey A. Robinson, MFA, was born in Albany, NY, and is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The influence of science fiction, Black liberation politics, and comic books fuel Stacey’s multimedia practice. He moved to NYC the day that Tupac died and the next day became an intern for Milestone Media Inc., a Black owned comic book company that inspired many of today’s comic creators. Soon after he interned at Black Enterprise magazine, and Acclaim Comics. Soon he moved to Fayetteville, NC where he attained his associates, and bachelors degrees while working professionally as a graphic designer. Receiving a full scholarship, and the Arthur Schomburg Fellowship he attended the SUNY Buffalo where he received his MFA in 2015.
Robinson’s Website: www.staceyarobinson.com
Robinson’s Instagram: www.instagram.com/staceyarobinson/
INSTALLATION VIEWS
Credit by Sophie (Soohyun) Bae
Outdoor Digital Screen
The Evening Under the Stars
On Tuesday, April 4th, George Mason University’s College of Science hosted An Evening Under the Stars in Collaboration with Mason Exhibitions to celebrate the current exhibit at Mason Exhibition Arlington, All Black Errything: Pop Culture and Nostalgia from Afrofuturist Perspectives. We are so grateful to Deputy Director of GMU’s Observatory Robert Parks and observatory tour guide Johnathan Saldana for letting us interview them and teaching us about the observatory and the intersections between science and the arts. We would also like to astrophysicist Hakeem Oluseyi for speaking about current scientific developments and showing us how to spot the moon as well as a few constellations such as Orion and Sirius. An Evening Under the Stars is a unique experience that is free to the public, and Mason Exhibitions will be collaborating with the observatory again on May 2nd! So come out and join us for another exciting night of viewing the stars next month!
A Conversation with Dr. Thomas Stanley:
Exhibit Images
Additional programming supporting the exhibition:
Events will take place at Mason Exhibitions Arlington unless otherwise noted. The exhibition and events are free and open to members of the media and the public.
