Black August
August 7, 2020 - August 31, 2020
Whose Streets?
The Crenshaw Dairy Mart’s special online streaming of the 2017 documentary Whose Streets? on PBS’s independent documentary program POV streaming has now ended.
This Film Streamed from August 7 - 9, 2020
Film now available on Hulu.
THE CRENSHAW DAIRY MART is pleased to announce its EXHIBITION, “BLACK AUGUST”, WITH A SPECIAL ONLINE STREAMING OF THE 2017 DOCUMENTARY WHOSE STREETS? ON PBS’S INDEPENDENT DOCUMENTARY PROGRAM POV ALONG WITH CURATED PROGRAMMING FEATURING GUEST ARTISTS LOLA OGBARA, JEN EVERETT, AND ADRIAN OCTAVIUS WALKER. THE FEATURE LENGTH-DOCUMENTARY - CO-DIRECTED BY SABAAH FOLAYAN AND DAMON DAVIS - CHRONICLING THE FERGUSON REBELLION OF 2014 WILL STREAM ON THE PLATFORM FOR 72 HOURS UNTIL SUNDAY, AUGUST 9TH, BEING SIX YEARS FOLLOWING THE MURDER OF 18-YEAR-OLD MICHAEL BROWN BY OFFICER DARREN WILSON, WHO HAS YET TO BE INDICTED FOR HIS CRIME. THE DOCUMENTARY ECHOES THE HISTORY OF VIOLENCE BY THE MILITARIZATION AND SURVEILLANCE UPON BLACK NEIGHBORHOODS, PARTICULARLY SEEN IN STATE AND FEDERAL MANDATED RESPONSES TO THE BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT UPRISING TODAY. "WHOSE STREETS?" IS ALSO CURRENTLY AVAILABLE TO VIEW ON HULU.
THE FERGUSON REBELLION ARCHIVED IN DAVIS’ FILM FOLLOWS IN THE FOOTSTEPS A HISTORY OF BLACK RESISTANCES AND REBELLIONS WHICH HAVE AROSE IN THE MONTH OF AUGUST, EARNING THE NAME, BLACK AUGUST. AMONGST THOSE - FROM THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION, THE NAT TURNER REBELLION, TO THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON - THE WATTS UPRISING REMAINS THE CLOSEST IN PROXIMAL HISTORY TO THE CRENSHAW DAIRY MART OF INGLEWOOD.
IN CONJUNCTION WITH THIS PREMIERE, DAMON DAVIS HAS CURATED THE WORKS OF CONTEMPORARY BLACK REVOLUTIONARY ARTISTS, LOLA OGBARA, JEN EVERETT, AND ADRIAN OCTAVIUS WALKER FOR CRENSHAW DAIRY MART’S INSTAGRAM AS WELL AS CONDUCTING IG LIVE INTERVIEWS AND TAKEOVERS WITH EACH ARTIST THROUGHOUT THE 72 HOUR PREMIERE.
This exhibition has been curated by Damon Davis.
Jen Everett, Untitled (From Series, “Redoubled/something we carry”), Digital Collage, 2019. Courtesy of the Artist.
As curator of an exhibit of Black artists during Black August, I wanted to take into consideration what the tradition of Black August is. Black August is the celebration of all of the events throughout the global Black liberation struggle that occurred during the month of August. When I think about Art and its relationships to liberation, I think it is usually the first realm in which the ideas of change are born or at least expressed. All of these artists are St. Louis based or have been when I met them. These are my contemporaries, my comrades, and my friends. This work is a love letter to our city and all the strides in Black liberation that have come from it. I used three specific criteria in reference to how art facilitates liberation and expression in Blackness when selecting artist and works for this exhibit: Rebellion Within Rebellion, Radical in the Regular, and Documenting Us
- Damon Davis
Damon Davis, Graduation I, Digital Collage, 2019. Courtesy of the Artist.
Rebellion Within Rebellion
Currently we are both pushing against the status quo of race being a source of oppression, but we as a community are also have internal conversations and rebellions against other forms of oppression that exist within our own communities such as classism, patriarchy, transphobia, homophobia and a host of other oppressive forces in the black community. These works in this section all speak to me as works that are interrogating these problems and rebelling inside of the rebellion itself against multiple forms or oppression that hinder true change and transformation. These pieces also, each in their own individual way, are visual expression of transformation itself.
- Damon Davis
Lola Ogbara, Untitled (From Series, “Classy, Bougie, Ratchet”), Digital, 2020. Courtesy of Artist.
Lola Ogbara, Untitled (From Series, “Classy, Bougie, Ratchet”), Digital, 2020. Courtesy of Artist.
Lola Ogbara, Untitled (From Series, “Classy, Bougie, Ratchet”), Digital, 2020. Courtesy of Artist.
Adrian Walker, Mortal Man "Be Still"
30” x 30”, Archival Pigment Print, Oakland, CA, 2019.
Courtesy of the Artist.
Adrian Walker, Mortal Man "Passion Over Pain"
30” x 30”, Archival Pigment Print, Oakland, CA, 2019.
Courtesy of the Artist.
Lola Ogbara, All That Glitters Ain’t Gold (“A Good Day to be Black & Sexy”, series), Glitter on stoneware. 2020. Courtesy of the Artist.
Radical in The Regular
Most of history has only shown Black people in a few scenarios that white supremacy is comfortable seeing us in, but we are so much more. The beauty of everyday existence is radical because it has rarely been an option for black people in the popular zeitgeist. We are either superhuman athletes or entertainers, or viewed as subhuman, low level predators in society. We deserve the room to express every aspect of who we are, and be able to do it without the fear of harm or censorship for the sake of comfort from oppressive forces. These works speak to me in the way they disrupt the normal depictions of our people, where they are images and ideas we have seen before or not, there is a different level of truth when you hear it “straight from the horse’s mouth” in that of the work of black storytellers.
Lola Ogbara, Black the Berry (“A Good Day to be Black & Sexy”, series), Dimensions unrecorded, Stoneware, 2020. Courtesy of the Artist.
Damon Davis, The Trembling Giant, Digital, 2018. Courtesy of the Artist.
Lola Ogbara, Land of the Brave II (“A Good Day to be Black & Sexy”, series), 18” x 26” x 18”, SToneware, 2020. Courtesy of the Artist.
Jen Everett, Unheard Sounds, Come Through (detail)
From Series, “Unheard Sounds, Come Through”
Dimensions Variable, Found Objects, 2019.
Courtesy of the artist
Jen Everett, Unheard Sounds, Come Through – Act 2 (detail)
From Series, “Unheard Sounds, Come Through”
Dimensions Variable, Found Objects, 2019.
Courtesy of the artist.
Damon Davis, Crack II, Concrete, Amethyst. 2019. Courtesy of the Artist.
Damon Davis, Crack VII, Concrete, Pyrite, & Clay. 2019. Courtesy of the Artist.
Documenting us
There is something truly cathartic, important and vital to seeing yourself represent in the world. These works do an incredible job at normalizing Black culture not for the sake of voyeurism, but for Black people to see themselves with all the candidness and complexity they deserve. Seeing the pain, the love, the struggle, the joy, and the mundane in everyday Black life, portrayed through the lens of Black artists themselves, is important because we have been for so long represented for the point of view of the outsider.
Adrian Walker, We Matter "Covered in Crowns"
27 x 40 Inches, Wood Frame, Archival Pigment Print, Oakland, CA, 2018.
Edition of 5. Courtesy of the ARtist.
Adrian Walker, We Matter "Rest"
13.5 x 20 Inches, Wood Frame, Archival Pigment Print, Oakland, CA, 2018.
Edition of 5. Courtesy of the Artist.
Adrian Walker, We Matter "The Power Of Kinship"
30 x 40 Inches, Wood Frame, Archival Pigment Print, Oakland, CA, 2018.
Edition of 3. Courtesy of the Artist.
Damon Davis, All Hands on Deck: Lucas, Archive Print, 2015. Courtesy of the Artist.
Jen Everett, Untitled (From Series, “Redoubled/Something We Carry”).
Dimensions Variable, Digital Collage, 2018.
Courtesy of the artist.
Jen Everette, Untitled (from series, “Redoubled / Something We Carry”)
9 inches x 11 inches, Solvent transfer on paper, 2018.
Courtesy of the artist.
Damon Davis, Transitions, Digital Collage, 2019. Courtesy of the Artist.
Participating Artists:
Lola Ogbara
Lola Ayisha Ogbara (interdisciplinary artist/ sculptor / arts administrator) born and raised in Chicago, Illinois holds many talents under her belt, i.e.; painting, design, mixed media, sculpture, photography and illustration. “My practice explores the multifaceted implications and ramifications of sexuality in regards to the Black experience. I work with clay as a material in order to emphasize a necessary fragility which symbolize an essential contradiction implicit in empowerments”. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Arts Entertainment & Media Management that she received at Columbia College Chicago in 2013.
In 2017, Ogbara co-founded Artists in the Room, a collective of artists and scholars who host artists, emerging and well-known, in hopes of serving as a catalyst for artist development and networking. Ogbara has received numerous honors and awards, including the Multicultural Fellowship sponsored by the NCECA 52nd Annual Conference.
Ogbara has exhibited in galleries and museums across the country including and currently based in St. Louis, Missouri, working as a visual artist. Ogbara is a graduate student at Washington University Sam Fox School of Art & Design and will receive her MFA in the year 2020.
Damon Davis
Damon Davis is an award-winning, post-disciplinary artist who works and resides in St. Louis, Missouri. His work spans across illustration, painting, printmaking, music, film, and public art. His solo exhibition, “Darker Gods in the Garden of Low Hanging Heavens” premiered in St. Louis in 2018, traveling to Art Basel Miami later that same year. Davis has work in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts and the San Diego Contemporary Museum of Art.
For the documentary short “A Story To Tell” (2013), which profiled Davis, his work, and the creative process, Davis won an Emmy Award Mid-America for Best Short Form Program. His work has been nominated for Critics’ Choice Award, Gotham Award, and NAACP Image Award; Filmmaker Magazine selected him and Director Sabaah Folayan for their “25 New Faces of Independent Film 2016” for their work on critically acclaimed documentary “Whose Streets?”, chronicling the Ferguson rebellion of 2014. Davis is a 2015 Firelight Media Fellow, a 2016 Sundance Music and Sound Design Lab Fellow, a TED Fellow (2017), and a Root100 Honoree (2017).
Jen Everett
Jen Everett is an artist from Southfield, Michigan currently working in Saint Louis, Missouri. She is interested in the myriad ways Black people produce and transmit knowledge.
Her practice encompasses lens based media, installation and writing. Jen’s recent work considers the relationship between rupture and Black interiority through an investigation of the materials we collect, the information we hold in our bodies and where the two may converge.
Adrian Walker
Adrian Octavius Walker is a mixed-media artist based in Chicago, IL by way of St. Louis Missouri.
His work is inspired by the Black body, dynamics of the Black family and archival work related to the African American experience and the untold stories they share. Working in both film and digital-format photography, Walker creates penetrating portraits influenced by his deep awareness of the nuances that pervade the human experience. His greatest milestone to date is being one of the prize-winning artists in The Outwin 2019: American Portraiture Today Competition currently on display at the National Portrait Gallery Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. Walker is currently represented by pt.2 Gallery Oakland, Ca. You can find him curating artist talks and creating dynamic installation work. He enjoys collecting photobooks, some commercial photography, and discovering artists on the web.