Westward Bound interview with our artist Patrick Singh

The West Harlem Art Fund is so pleased to be working with Patrick Singh again. This Skyped interview was done while the artist was in the South of France with his gallerist. His bio is below in English and French.

Born to an Indian father and a French mother, Patrick was predestined to multicultural encounters. He spent his childhood traveling between the South of France and London, England. He is a holder of a State Diploma in Managing Leisure and Cultural Activities – French “Diplome d’Etat Relatif aux Fonctions d’Animation”.

Since 1997, Singh’s career has been punctuated by international exhibitions – collective and individual – along with artistic residencies throughout Europe, South America and Asia. Singh’s work is exhibited in multiple collections, including the Anne Cros Gallery located in the South of France. His visions come to life under his brush without his using models.

Né à un père indien et à une mère française, Patrick a été prédestiné aux rencontres multiculturelles. Il a passé son enfance voyageant entre le Sud de la France et Londres, Angleterre. Il est un détenteur d’un Diplôme d’État dans le Loisir se Débrouillant et les Activités Culturelles – le français “Diplome d’Etat Relatif aux Fonctions d’Animation”.

Depuis 1997, la carrière de Singh a été ponctuée par les expositions internationales – collectif et individuel – avec les résidences artistiques partout dans l’Europe, l’Amérique du Sud et l’Asie. Le travail de Singh est exposé dans les collections multiples, en incluant la Galerie d’Anne Cros trouvée au Sud de la France. Ses visions reprennent conscience sous sa brosse avec de ses modèles d’utilisation.

Video Commentaries on artist Patrick Singh — Part Two

More Skyped interviews that were created by Savona Bailey-McClain, Executive Director & Chief Curator of the West Harlem Art Fund, Inc. and National Park Service, Manhattan Sites. The commentaries were recorded while the participants were in Miami, Florida and Oakland, California. Again, the participants gave very thoughtful views of the artist’s work and its relationship to the African Burial Ground or African artistic expressions.

Hank Willis Thomas (American, born 1976) is a photo conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to identity, history and popular culture. Thomas’s process often involves editing existing photographs and presenting them in a new format. His work often examines the commoditization of Black identity in advertising and popular culture and urges the viewer to think critically about representations in media and beyond. Willis Thomas received his BFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and his MFA in photography, along with an MA in visual criticism, from California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco. His work is in numerous public collections including The Whitney Museum of American Art, Brooklyn Museum, The High Museum of Art in Atlanta and the Museum of Fine Art in Houston. His collaborative projects have been installed publicly in California, and featured at the Sundance Film Festival. Thomas is currently a fellow at the W.E.B. DuBois Institute at Harvard University; and he is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City.

Chris Johnson (American, born 1948) is a photographic and video artist, writer, curator and arts administrator. Johnson studied photography with Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham and Wynn Bullock; and his artwork has been exhibited at the Oakland Museum of California and at the Mills College Museum. In 1994 he co-produced a large performance work in Oakland titled “The Roof is on Fire” bringing together inner-city high school students and adults. In 1996 he produced an innovative one-hour video piece titled “Question Bridge” that investigates class divisions within the black community. In 1999 Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown appointed Johnson to be Chair of the Oakland Cultural Affairs Commission to advise on all matters affecting cultural development in Oakland. Johnson is currently a tenured Full Professor of Photography at the California College of the Arts.

Video Commentaries on artist Patrick Singh — Part One

These Skyped interviews were created by Savona Bailey-McClain, Executive Director & Chief Curator of the West Harlem Art Fund, Inc. and National Park Service, Manhattan Sites. The commentaries were recorded while the participants were in Berlin, Atlanta and Harlem. All of the participants gave very thoughtful views of the artist’s work and its relationship to the African Burial Ground or African artistic expressions.

Kamal Sinclair (American, born 1976) is a professional artist, teaching artist, and producer of live and transmedia art. Kamal obtained her BFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and graduated with honors from Georgia State University’s Robinson College of Business MBA program. Her professional career began as a cast member of STOMP where she performed in the national and international tours, as well as on the Emmy Awards, MTV’s Beach House, Good Morning America, The Today Show, BET, and PBS’s Reading Rainbow. Sinclair was the founding artistic director of Universal Arts and creative director for many festivals and awards shows. She taught business courses to artists through the Savannah School of Art and Design (SCAD) and Fractured U: Continuing Education for the DIY Artist. Sinclair is also a periodic contributor to the acclaimed theatre publication, Black Masks.

Birta Guðjónsdóttir (Born 1977) is an artist and curator. She obtained her MFA degree of Fine Arts from the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam and a BFA-degree from The Icelandic Academy of the Arts. In 2009-´11 she was a director of The Living Art Museum in Reykjavik. In 2008-´09 she was an artistic director and chief curator at exhibition space 101 Projects, Reykjavik. In 2005-´08 she had the position of chief curator of SAFN Art Collection, Reykjavik. In 2008 she worked as curator´s assistant at MuHKA; Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp. In 2007-08 she took part in the Nordic Baltic Curatorial Platform project, initiated by FRAME; Finnish Fund for Art Exchange. In 2011 she participated in the Curatorial Intensive at ICI-New York and The Cornwall Workshop organized by Tate St. Ives Museum in S-England. She has curated shows in Melbourne, New York, St Petersburg, Copenhagen and most major art museums in Reykjavik, and been an editor of four exhibition catalogues. She has been on advisory boards of the Icelandic Art Center, The Icelandic Academy of the Arts and for various commissions and art prizes. She has produced her home-gallery Dwarf Gallery since 2002, is a founding board member of Sequences Art Festival, a member of IKT, International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art and a member of curator’s collective WAG. As an artist, she has participated in over 30 solo- and group exhibitions.

Dianne Smith (born 1965) is an abstract painter, sculptor, and installation artist. Her work has beenexhibited in solo and group exhibitions in New York City’s Soho and Chelsea artdistricts as well as, numerous galleries and institutions throughout the UnitedStates. She is an educator in the field of Aesthetic Education at LincolnCenter Institute, which is a part of New York City’s Lincoln Center For the Performing Arts. Since the invitation to join the Institute over five years ago she has taught k-12 in public schools throughout the Tri-State area. Her work as a teaching artist also extends to under graduate and graduate courses in various colleges and universities such as: Lehman College, Columbia University Teachers College, City College, and St. John’s University to name a few.Recently she was invited to join the team at The Center For arts Education in New York City. In 2007, Dianne was one of the artists featured in the Boondoggle Film Documentary Colored Frames. The film took a look back at fifty years in African-American Art, and also featured other artists such as Benny Andrews, Ed Clark and Danny Simmons.That same year the historical Abyssinian Baptist Church, which is New York’s oldest African American church commissioned Smith to create the artwork commemorating their 2008 Bicentennial. In addition, she co-produced an online radio show the New Palette, for ArtonAir.org (Art International Radio)dedicated to visual artists of color. In1995, she presented Poet Dr. Maya Angelou and Broadway Choreographer George Faison each with one of her paintings: Spirit of My Ancestors I and II. Her work is also in the private collections of Danny Simmons, Vivica A. Fox, Rev. and Mrs. Calvin O. Butts,III, Cicely Tyson, Arthur Mitchell and Terry McMillian. Dianne is a Bronx native of Belizean descent. She attended LaGuardia High School of Music and Art, the Otis Parsons School of Design and the Fashion Institute of Technology. Smith is currently pursuing her MFA at Transart Institute in Berlin. She currently lives and works in Harlem.

African metalworks

Background to metalworking in Africa

There is enormous variety in African metalworking, in terms of the metals used, the techniques employed, and the objects produced.
Historically, the metals used most in Sub-Saharan Africa were iron, copper, bronze (alloy of copper and tin), brass (alloy of copper and zinc), and gold. There was also some localized use of lead, tin, silver, and more recently, aluminium.

There are substantial gold deposits in Africa, as well as a range of iron ores. Copper is sparse in west Africa, but is plentiful in parts of southern and central Africa.

History

In ancient Egypt, metal was smelted from the time of the Old Kingdom (2686–2181 BC). In Sub-Saharan Africa, it is not known precisely when native metals were first worked, but in parts of Niger and Mauritania, copper was smelted from the early first millennium BC. By AD 1000 metal use was almost universal in Africa. The ‘Three Age System’ of stone-use, followed first by bronze, and then by iron, does not apply to the history of metals in Africa. Almost everywhere, iron, copper, bronze, and brass were introduced at virtually the same time.

Techniques

Smelting

involves extracting a metal from its ore (a mineral containing the metal) by heating the metal ore in a furnace to a very high temperature. During the smelting process, oxygen in the ore combines with carbon in the fuel, escaping as carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide, leaving the metal in liquid form. Other impurities are also removed during the smelting process. During smelting, the temperature in the furnace is raised and maintained using bellows.

Forging metal

is a method of shaping metal by hammering. Cold forging is generally limited to relatively soft metals including gold, silver, and copper alloys. Most metals are hot forged. A metal object produced by hot forging tends to be stronger and less brittle than metal cast in a mould. In addition to hammering, the metal is also shaped by chisels, and by punching tools.

This heavy brass torque from Tanzania was shaped by hammering. The incised patterning was then produced using a sharp tool. It is thought to have been excavated from a Pare grave in the mid-twentieth century, and to have been made some time before 1892. It probably belonged to a woman. Amongst the Pare in the precolonial period, torques like these were made by members of the metalworking clan. They were usually purchased by a girl’s parents and given to her to mark her adulthood and the fact that she was ready to
marry.

Lost Wax Casting

An alternative method of shaping metal is by lost wax casting, or cire perdue. This method was used to produce some of the most famous African metalworks, including the Benin brasses (or ‘bronzes’), and Asante weights. It is not known exactly how lost wax casting was developed or introduced to Africa, but it was being practised by West African brass sculptors for several centuries before the arrival of the first Portuguese explorers in the late fifteenth century. Lost wax casting allows hollow metal objects to be produced. A clay or plaster model is made of the desired object. This clay mould is then covered with a layer of wax (or a similar material with a low melting point). The thickness of the wax layer is important, as it determines the eventual thickness of the metal. A second layer of clay is then formed over the wax. Ducts are left in the clay for drainage. The entire mould is then heated so that the wax melts and drains away through the ducts. Molten metal is then poured into the resulting cavity. Once the metal has cooled and hardened, the clay is chipped off, leaving the metal object.

Direct Cast Method

This is another method used to shape metal. It produces a metal model of small, organic objects such as seeds or insects. The seed or insect is covered in a thick layer of clay. The clay is then heated so that the organic material is burned away. Molten metal is poured into the cavity through specially prepared ducts. Once cold, the clay cast is then broken off revealing the metal object which is then filed and polished.

Compiled by:
Bryony Reid, Senior Project Assistant (Interpretation)
DCF What’s Upstairs?
October 2005

For more information — please read Kola Adekola’s research paper

Click to access news0311-5.pdf