Becky

“I'm wearing Vaquera headscarf, vintage Escada jacket, vintage Miu Miu skirt, Burberry x Lucien t-shirt, Tschabalala Self x Ugg boots, and Burberry Lola bag.”

May 18, 2022 ∙ Lower East Side

Hundreds Help Restore Defaced Tschabalala Self Sculpture in the UK Vandals spray-painted the artist’s sculpture of a Black woman in white. 

https://hyperallergic.com/823737/hundreds-help-restore-defaced-tschabalala-self-sculpture-in-the-uk/

Last Monday, May 15, in a South English coastal town, vandals defaced Tschabalala Self’s “Seated” (2022), a 10-foot public installation depicting a Black woman facing the sea. In what has been characterized as an act of racism, perpetrators covered the New York artist’s bronze sculpture with spray paint, violently coating the Black woman’s skin with white.

“Painting the skin of my sculpture white is an obscene act and I feel horribly for individuals in Bexhill-on-Sea for whom this event may have shocked or frightened,” Self said in a statement.

The sculpture is currently located on the lawn outside the De La Warr Pavilion (DLWP), an arts center in Bexhill-on-Sea. The artwork is part of a temporary public art installation by the arts center with support from the Pilar Corrias Gallery in London.

With Self’s support, the arts center organized a community event on Sunday, May 21 to restore the sculpture. What followed was “an act of restoration and resistance” as over two hundred local members armed with paint solvent and scrubbing materials came together over the weekend to begin cleaning the sculpture, according to a press release from the pavilion.

Self’s artwork often includes depictions of the bodies of Black women and femme individuals, rendered in various mediums. In “Seated,” Self explores what she describes as “a universal act of leisure and calm.” Commissioned by the digital art collection platform Avant Arte, the sculpture first appeared in a mall near King’s Cross in London last year.

“I wanted to create a monumental sculpture for the public that spoke to this simple joy,” Self said in a text about the work. “The woman is strong, beautiful, and self-possessed. She represents all individuals, but women in particular, who understand the power and importance of simple gestures that assert their right to take up space.”

The sculpture was later unveiled in the seaside town, on the lawn outside the DLWP, on April 19.

Sussex Police did not respond to Hyperallergic‘s request for information regarding the investigation. In October 2022, the UK Home Office, responsible for policing in England and Wales, released a report that indicated a 26% rise in recorded hate crimes.

The community restoration event began at 11am and ran until 1pm. “We hope that the peaceful community clean-up event of last Sunday — and its far-reaching impact and support — will show the perpetrators that the majority of our community will not tolerate any future acts of this kind,” a DLWP spokesperson told Hyperallergic.

“Although certain measures were already in place, we have now improved the intensity and reach of our security measures, including refreshed signage next to the sculpture to deter further acts of vandalism, which is an ongoing problem on our seafront,” the spokesperson added.

“Seated” is set to re-open to the public on June 3. For the event, the arts center is celebrating with a community picnic in commemoration of “the power of art to galvanise and connect people and communities.” The sculpture will be on view until October 29.

“Despite my disappointment, I am not surprised as Black and Female — and especially because Black Female bodies are often targets for abuse,” Self said in her statement about the recent vandalism. “‘Seated’ proudly represents the beauty of both blackness and femininity, and for these very reasons she has been harmed: covered by her assailant with white spray paint in a futile attempt to erase her colour and, in my mind, her strength.”

Tschabalala Self

Youth, 2023

Fabric, digitally printed linen, thread, painted canvas and acrylic paint on canvas

84 × 72 × 2 in | 213.4 × 182.9 × 5.1 cm

Tschabalala Self’s : Tabled

Lace, fabric, oil, acrylic, dye and painted canvas.

Tschabalala Self, Ms. Thang, 2014

Oil and collage on canvas

Yesterday, I visited the Rubell Museum in Washington, DC, and it did not disappoint. 

Artists featured: Kehinde Wiley, Vaughn Spann, Keith Haring (x2), Matthew Day Jackson, Hank Willis Thomas (x2), Tschabalala Self, Jenny Holzer (x2).

Tschabalala Self   (US, 1990)

_

Leotard, 2019. Fabric, acrylic on painted canvas  243.8 x 213.4 cm 96 x 84 in. Courtesy Pilar Corrias. - Ocula

I always wanted to make work that had mystery to it. Like, if you were to look at it, you wouldn’t quite understand how it was made.

https://ocula.com/art-galleries/pilar-corrias/artworks/tschabalala-self/leotard/

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/21/t-magazine/tschabalala-self.html

Lady

photography + © Christof Keßemeier

Tschabalala Self

Somber, 2022

Fabric, acrylic, flashe, spray paint, thread and painted canvas on canvas

84 × 79 × 1 in | 213.4 × 200.7 × 2.5 cm

Tschabalala Self’s painted women find power in domesticity Being cooped up at home because of the pandemic is a part of many people’s lives that they’d prefer to forget – sorry for the trigger. But, for artist Tschabalala Self (the T is silent) the domesticity of that chapter has become a prevalent theme in her recent work Home Body. “It relates to my […] The post Tschabalala Self’s painted women find power in domesticity appeared first on gal-dem. https://gal-dem.com/tschabalala-self-interview/

COLLAGE ON VIEW

Mulitplicity

Blackness in Contemporary American Collage at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in Houston, Texas, USA through 12 May 2024. Organized by the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, “Multiplicity” is the first major museum exhibition devoted to this rich yet understudied subject. Featuring some 80 collage and collage-informed works, the exhibition explores the breadth and complexity of Black identity and experiences in the United States. With an intergenerational group of 52 living artists, “Multiplicity” examines how concepts such as cultural hybridity, notions of beauty, gender fluidity, and historical memory are expressed in the practice of collage. By assembling pieces of paper, fabric, and other often-salvaged or repurposed materials, the artists in this exhibition create unified compositions that express the endless possibilities of Black-constructed narratives despite our fragmented society. The artists range from established luminaries to early- and mid-career figures, including Mark Bradford, Lauren Halsey, Rashid Johnson, Kerry James Marshall, Wangechi Mutu, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Deborah Roberts, Tschabalala Self, Lorna Simpson, Devan Shimoyama, and Mickalene Thomas. Read More

*****************************

Kolaj Magazine, a full color, print magazine, exists to show how the world of collage is rich, layered, and thick with complexity. By remixing history and culture, collage artists forge new thinking. To understand collage is to reshape one's thinking of art history and redefine the canon of visual culture that informs the present.

SUBSCRIBE | CURRENT ISSUE | GET A COPY

SIGN UP TO GET EMAILS

The US artist Tschabalala Self stands with a scale model of her work Lady in Blue at the National Gallery at the announcement of the shortlist for the next commission for Trafalgar Square’s fourth-plinth

Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images / Guardian

Tschabalala Self, Pop, 2017. Acrylic, watercolour, flashe, crayon, coloured pencil, oil pastel, pencil, hand-coloured photocopy, hand-coloured canvas, canvas, 243,8 x 213,4 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Pilar Corrias, London