ART OPENING

"Our Flesh of Flames" featuring the art work of Amiri Baraka and Theodore A. Harris AND Art work made by students at Xavier University and middle school students of New Orleans. Harris will be present to present and discuss his work.

SPOKEN WORD

Performed by Kalamu ya Salaam

WHEN: Friday, July 10, 2009

TIME: 7:00 P.M.

WHERE: Ashé Cultural Arts Center, 1712 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd., N.O. 70113

COST: FREE

INFO: (504) 569-9070

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Ashé Cultural Arts Center and the Visual Arts Network present an Art Opening and Spoken Word Performance featuring the works of Theodore A. Harris, Amiri Baraka and Kalamu ya Salaam.

Harris is a collagist, itself a modern form, and one that has been used to great advantage in pinning the political tale on the donkey, or elephant (or corrupt tiger, as the case may be). He tells about the peoples' struggles, world-wide, against oppression and exploitation, our lives under racism and the twisted rule of capital. At times, the images he thrusts at us are sharp enough to make us wince, with understanding and recognition. Harris' work is fundamentally about consciousness-raising, and this is what his art does. He is known for his canny ability to group together images and found objects to create a distinctive image with new meaning, and a sometimes shocking political statement based on the truths he finds in the objects he chooses.

Harris, who will be in town for the Fourth of July weekend, will participate in Ashé Cultural Arts Center’s July 4^th Maafa. During that procession, participants will be asked to collect objects that Harris intends to use in his art work to be exhibited at the showing.

Included in the art opening will be the work of Xavier University students and middle school students from New Orleans. Local author and poet ya Salaam will offer spoken word.

The Ashe' Cultural Arts Center is a VAN Partner of the Visual Artists Network (VAN.) This project is made possible in part through support from the Visual Artists Network Exhibition Residency, which is a program of the National Performance Network. Major Contributors are the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Joan Mitchell Foundation and the Nathan Cummings Foundation.

# posted by Ashe Messenger @ 3:50 PM