To conclude Dominique Duroseau’s gal·va·nizing strat·e·gies: [Black on Black with Black] on view at Cuchifritos Gallery, Artists Alliance presents Rap on Race without Rice. A continuation of Duroseau’s ongoing participatory performance series, Rap on Race with Rice, this iteration of the project unfolds through a new series of one-on-one conversations that foster public and private discourse around issues related to race and racism. Inspired by the 7.5-hour conversation between James Baldwin (writer and social critic) and Margaret Mead (anthropologist), entitled “A Rap on Race,” in 1970, this performance addresses the nuanced complexities of race and racism today.
Pre-recorded and archived on the Artists Alliance website, these open-ended conversations feature Duroseau’s peers, collaborators, friends, and mentors with whom she has been in discussion around these ever-evolving questions: Alessandro Orsini, Andres L. Hernandez, Katherine Simóne Reynolds, Michael Paul Britto, and Zachary Fabri.
Part I: Dominique Duroseau with Alessandro Orsini
Alessandro Orsini is an architect and founding principal of Architensions. He received his Master in Architecture and Urban Design summa cum laude, at Roma Tre University Rome and completed post-graduate studies at Columbia University. He teaches at Columbia University GSAPP, and he is the director of the Summer Study Abroad Program at the Hillier College of Architecture and Design at NJIT. Orsini has lectured in Italy at the Casa Dell’Architettura in Rome, the Civic Museum in Siena, and in the United States at the Center for Architecture in New York, and Archeworks in Chicago. Parallel to designing, Alessandro has been writing in journals, such as Vesper, Studio magazine, and contributing to the book Forma Urbana published by Libria in 2015.
Part II: Dominique Duroseau with
Andrés L. Hernandez
Andres L. Hernandez is a Chicago-based artist, designer, and educator who reimagines the environments we inhabit, and explores the potential of spaces to support creative production, public dialogue, community building, and social action.
Part III: Dominique Duroseau with Katherine Simóne Reynolds
Slippage
Anti-articulation
Overhealing
Katherine Simóne Reynolds’ practice investigates emotional dialects and psychogeographies of Blackness within the “non”, and the importance of “anti-excellence”. Her work physicalizes emotions and experiences by constructing pieces that include portrait photography, video works, choreography, and sculpture. In the process of making subtle changes to her practice she has learned that creating an environment built on intention brings the most disarming feelings to the work. Utilizing Black embodiment and affect alongside her own personal narrative as a place of departure has made her question her own navigation of ownership, inclusion, and authenticity within a contemporary gaze. She draws inspiration from Black glamour while interrogating the notion of “authentic care”. Her practice generally deals in Blackness from her own perspective and she continuously searches for what it means to produce “Black Work”.
Reynolds has exhibited and performed work within many spaces and institutions including the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Museum of Modern Art New York, The Luminary, and an upcoming solo exhibition at the Knockdown Center in Queens. She has exhibited in national and international group and solo shows, has spoken at The Contemporary Art Museum of Saint Louis and The Saint Louis Art Museum, and the Black Midwest Initiative Symposium at University of Minnesota. Alongside her visual art practice She has embarked on curatorial projects at The Luminary in Saint Louis, SculptureCenter, and an upcoming exhibition for The Stanley Museum of Art for 2024.
Part IV: Dominique Duroseau with
Michael Paul Britto and
Zachary Fabri
Michael Paul Britto’s interdisciplinary practice spans a broad scope of mediums from videos to digital photography, sculpture, collage, and performance. He has a BA from City College, NY. His past residencies include The New Museum, Smack Mellon, The Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation, and LMCC. He has exhibited at El Museo del Barrio, The Studio Museum of Harlem, and The Kitchen in (NY) as well as internationally at The Zacheta National Gallery (Warsaw), and the Victoria and Albert Museum (London). Britto has been written about in The New York Times, Art In America, and The Brooklyn Rail. He is also a teaching artist and the co-founder of the “Young Men Of Color” film/video training program at Downtown Community Television in New York City.
Zachary Fabri is an interdisciplinary artist engaged in lens-based media, language systems and the built environment; often complicating boundaries around studio research, performance, and socially engaged practice. Fabri’s work has been exhibited at Art in General, The Studio Museum in Harlem, El Museo del Barrio, The Walker Art Center, The Brooklyn Museum, The Barnes Foundation, Performa. Recently he has collaborated in projects at the Museum of Modern Art, the Sharjah Biennial, and Pace gallery. He is the recipient of the 2020 Colene Brown Art Prize and recently completed an NYC artist in residence with Residency Unlimited in 2021.