Public Art: The Mystery, the Magic, and the Making

621 Huntington Avenue,Boston MA 02115

21 April, 2022

Description

Join us for a panel discussion featuring members of GN Crew Boston and Street Theory. Moderated by Ekua Holmes. Tyrone Maurice Adderley Lecture Series Presents Public Art: The Mystery, the Magic, and the Making featuring members of GN Crew Boston and Street Theory Panelists: GN Crew Boston: Genaro “Go Five” Ortega, Rob “Problak” Gibbs, Lee “SOEM” Beard, Luis “Take 1” TaforoStreet Theory: Liza QuiñonezModerator: Ekua Holmes Free and open to the public. This lecture series, established in 1995, was named in memory of Tyrone Maurice Adderley, a talented and popular painting student. The series brings artists, writers, scholars, and social justice activists from underrepresented groups to share their work and wisdom with MassArt and the community. Learn more about the Tyrone Maurice Adderley Lecture Series. Questions? [email protected] Sponsored by MassArt's Office of Justice, Equity, & Transformation, Academic Affairs, and Institutional Advancement Please note that registration does not guarantee seating. Seats will be available on a first come first served basis. Please arrive early and on time to secure your seats! If you require an ADA accommodation, please contact Alisa Chapman in our compliance office at [email protected]. Please make this request no less than 72 hours in advance of the event. Requests that are made less than 72 hours in advance may not be guaranteed as demand for certain requests are extremely high at this time and may not be available on short notice. Liza Quiñonez (Street Theory) Liza Quiñonez is a curator, cultural producer, creative entrepreneur and founder of the award winning urban contemporary art and design agency, Street Theory. She has worked in large-scale public art and event production, arts administration, experiential marketing, cultural place’keeping’ and within the art and design industry for 15+ years – gaining a blend of experiences and skill sets that give her business acumen and a unique point of view when working with both artists and clients. She is passionate about artist rights, social justice, art activism, and multiculturalism and prides herself in amplifying authentic experiences, diversity, and street culture within all aspects of work, life and community. Liza splits her time between Boston, MA and Brooklyn, NY where she and her husband, Marka27, raise their 3 talented children. Liza has worked with national and international artists, curating and producing exhibits, experiences, and developing — to critical acclaim— Boston’s “street-art park”, Underground at Ink Block. In 2020, she spearheaded a new project and campaign “Murals for the Movement” to magnify culturally-inspired and social justice-related works by BIPOC artists, installing over a dozen Murals for the Movement projects across Boston and New York. Genaro “Go Five” Ortega (GN Crew Boston) Growing up Genaro split his time between Roxbury and Roslindale. Traveling between his mom’s house in Roxbury and his dad’s in Orchard Park gave him an opportunity to absorb art and culture in different ways from tags to murals. His love of art and being a creative led him to attend MassArt after high school where he continued to learn how to express himself as a Latinx person, but more specifically his Taino roots and his connection to Native peoples. His art and murals lean to express the beauty of his subjects and leans heavily on a connection to himself and his community. Luis “Take 1” Taforo (GN Crew Boston) Growing up in Boston, Wiso was exposed to all forms of creativity and expression. The one artform that spoke the loudest was Graffiti. For a Latinx teen growing up in the South End and Roxbury, there were many pitfalls in place to hinder his growth. Graffiti Art provided a safety net and friends that helped keep him safe. As a graffiti artist Wiso (aka TakeOne), honed his skills over 25+ years, and met liked minded people thru the ALA (African Latino Alliance) and GN (Graff Nuts) crews. Thanks to the influences and guidance of his crewmates, Wiso was able to continue to grow his voice and artform. In his opinion graffiti has changed the way art is perceived and implemented in Boston and the world as a whole. As a member of the Boston community every opportunity to paint a mural is an opportunity to show young people, especially people of color, that their voices will and do effect positive change in their communities. Lee "SOEM" Beard (GN Crew Boston) "SOEM" is a Boston raised graffiti artist that learned his craft by way of his middle school, and high school friends. Growing up in Boston and seeing traditional graffiti on his way to school and discussing who was up in the streets was always a good topic he and his graffiti driven friends had conversed about. Through the years he was taught the difference between being a fan admiring, and actually being the individual producing work. By way of his mentors and crew mates he looked up to, he learned to find his voice and realize that he himself had a talent which was to express with the tools he had grown to love, which are his spray paint cans, and markers. Having a limited supply of items is what forces him to create, and make it count. Rob “Problak” Gibbs (GN Crew Boston) Rob “ProBlak” Gibbs is a visual artist and organizer who has transformed the cultural landscape of Boston through graffiti art since the early 90’s. Gibbs grew up in Roxbury, Massachusetts during the Hip-Hop Golden Age and was in his teens when he found that the power of graffiti was a powerful form of self-expression. In 1991, Gibbs co-founded Artists for Humanity (AFH), an arts non-profit that hires and teaches youth creative skills, ranging from painting to screen printing to 3-D model making. For the past 29 years, ProBlak has served in many leadership roles at AFH and currently directs the Paint Studio. ProBlak is the recipient of a number of awards, including the 2006 Graffiti Artist of the Year award from the Mass Industry Committee and the Goodnight Initiative’s Civic Artist Award. In 2020, he was honored with the Hero Among Us award by the Celtics, Boston’s NBA team and he was awarded the Brother Thomas Fellowship in 2019 and the MLK Drum Major Award in 2021. His work has been covered in publications and media outlets like WBUR- the ARTery, the Boston Art Review, Boston Magazine, 2020 Best of Boston Artist of the Year, Forbes, PBS News Hour, the Boston Globe and many others. Beyond his own personal artistic practice, ProBlak envisions graffiti and hip-hop as avenues to reach and educate young people. Rob Gibbs continues to expand his practice as an artist and educator and role as father to Bobbi, his daughter and strongest reason for wanting to leave images of beauty, strength and resilience in the work he creates. Ekua Holmes (MassArt) Ekua Holmes’ work is collage based and her subjects, made from cut and torn papers, investigate family histories, relationship dynamics, childhood impressions, the power of hope, faith, and self-determination. Remembering a Roxbury childhood of wonder and delight she considers herself a part of a long line of Roxbury imagemakers. In this spirit, she supports those who have a calling in the arts as well as keeping her own studio practice ignited. She has created and led workshops, been a visiting artist and lecturer, and held artist residencies in public and private institutions throughout New England. In her first public art initiative, she received a Now + There Public Art Accelerator Fellowship and launched The Roxbury Sunflower Project (#RoxburySunflowerProject), in which she facilitated the planting of 10,000 sunflower seeds in her native Roxbury, MA. For her work in illustrating children’s literature, Holmes is the recipient of a Caldecott Honor, Coretta Scott King’s John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Award, Robert Siebert and Horn Book awards for her illustrations in “Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement" by Carole Boston Weatherford, her first illustration project. In 2018, she won the coveted Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration for the book, "Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets." In 2019 she won the 2019 Coretta Scott King Award again for her illustrations in “Stuff of Stars,” written by Marion Dane Bauer. Ms. Holmes currently serves as Commissioner and Vice-Chair of the Boston Art Commission, which oversees the placement and maintenance of public works of art on and in City of Boston properties. She is also currently Associate Director at the Center for Art and Community Partnerships at MassArt where she manages and coordinates sparc! the ArtMobile, an art-inspiring, art-transforming vehicle retrofitted to contribute to community-based, multidisciplinary arts programming currently focused in Mission Hill, Roxbury, and Dorchester, MA. Ekua Holmes received her BFA in Photography from MassArt in 1977.