***UPDATE: Thursday Sept. 10, 2015***
The N'Namdi Center and Leonardo Benzant regret to announce that due to circumstances beyond our control, the exhibition has been postponed until further notice, and subsequently this Saturday's artist talk has been cancelled. In lieu of Benzant's exhibition, the N'Namdi Center will be showing works by Howardena Pindell in the Rose Gallery.
***Be sure to still join us in the evenings of Sept. 11 and Sept. 12 for Dr. George N'Namdi's birthday celebration! A special performance by Bilial to follow on Saturday at 7:00pm & 9:30pm*** Event info: https://www.facebook.com/events/541693539322129/
Purchase tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bilal-the-nnamdi-center-black-box-tickets-18489363183
$25 presale and $35 at the door
NY sculptor Leonardo Benzant is in town for the weekend and will be doing an Artist Talk at 2:00pm on Saturday Sept. 12, following the Friday Sept. 11 opening of his installation "The Cosmology of Resistance and Transformation" in the Rose Gallery. The work will be on display Sept. 11 - Oct. 31, 2015.
Leonardo Benzant - Artist Statement:
"Cosmology of Resistance And Transformation" is part of an ongoing series called "Paraphernalia Of The Urban Shaman M:5" My work alludes to a worldview of resistance simply because to be creative means to resist conformity by embracing your own unique soul while appreciating and adapting timeless ancestral principles. In the process, what emerges is an aesthetic comprised of both personal and cultural codes: a particular creative DNA or language which is intimate, personal, ritualistic and self-generating. In my practice, I tune into the specific and contemporary moment as I experience it intuitively without necessarily disowning cultural memory. It was important to our ancestors to keep cultural memory alive in a way that could grow, adapt and flourish. This was an act of resistance on their part, in a Eurocentric environment that has always been destructive, xenophobic or violently opposed to blackness. My vision is informed by the understanding that much of our people's resistance in the African Diaspora, including the success of the Haitian Revolution was informed and inspired by various forms of African modalities or its spirituality at the foundational level.
Opening reception event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1628327067407556/
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