The Blackburn ETCH
7pm, Monday, March 20, 2017
Black participation in print. Robert Blackburn and his guild of artists of color. What allowed space for artists to congregate in the segregated world to find a commonplace in printmaking. Sumesh Sharma discusses with Shubho Saha, Michael Kelly Williams and the days of Blues and Prints.
Discussion is available on YouTube.com
Sumesh Sharma is the curator at Clark House Bombay and he researches world conceptual practice specially in the context of the Black Arts Movement through printmaking. He curates a show on the connections between India and Africa through forms of modernism and conceptual art through Dakar in Senegal and Asilah in Morocco, looking into Santiniketan. The exhibition is on at Aicon Gallery , 35 Great Jones Street, New York.
Michael Kelly Williams is a printmaker and sculptor from New York, who began his practice in Detroit. His work entails musical instruments that fashion themselves into Yoruba masks and etched prints that talk to the Gnawa dance. He spent many years working with Bob Blackburn and as he stood cleaning the shop floor would take in all that transpired in the studio.
Shubho Saha is a printmaker from Bangladesh and he is presently on a research grant from the Asian Cultural Council New York researching print studios in New York. His practice comes from printmaking and then lends itself to performance , sculpture and installations.