Art

PRESS ROOM: CAAM Presents Exhibition On The Life And Art Of Ernie Barnes

LOS ANGELES SENTINEL — The California African American Museum (CAAM) announced today that it will present an exhibition that examines the life, art, and popularity of Ernie Barnes.

Published

5 years ago

May 20, 2019

Amanda Scurlock

By Sentinel News Service

The California African American Museum (CAAM) announced today that it will present an exhibition that examines the life, art, and popularity of Ernie Barnes, who created some of the twentieth century’s most iconic images of African American life. Ernie Barnes: A Retrospective will be on display from May 8–September 8, 2019.

George O. Davis, Executive Director of CAAM said, “We are honored to present the work of Ernie Barnes and to tell the fascinating life story of this artist and athlete. He was a child of the segregated south who came to call Los Angeles home.”

For fans of 1970s American television, Ernie Barnes’s (1938–2009) painting The Sugar Shack is likely familiar. The 1976 work depicting a dance scene—which was the cover art for Marvin Gaye’s album I Want You—achieved cult status by regularly appearing on the hit sitcom Good Times, inspiring a community of television viewers who discussed it after each episode.

Known for his unique “neo-mannerist” approach of presenting figures through elongated forms, he captured his observations of life growing up in North Carolina, playing professional football in the NFL (1960–1964), and living in Los Angeles. Ernie Barnes: A Retrospective includes examples of his paintings of entertainment and music, and also highlights how Barnes, the official artist of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, extensively represented athletes and sports.

“While not widely known within the mainstream art world, Barnes is revered by a diverse group of collectors and admirers across the country,” said guest curator Bridget R. Cooks, Associate Professor of African American Studies and Art History at the University of California, Irvine. Ernie Barnes: A Retrospective is curated by Cooks with assistance from Vida L Brown, Visual Arts Curator and Program Manager. The Pasadena Museum of California Art originated the exhibition.

About the Artist

Ernie Barnes was born July 15, 1938 in Durham, North Carolina during the height of the Jim Crow Era. He lived in a section of the city called “The Bottom” with his parents and younger brother, James. His father, Ernest Barnes, Sr. was a shipping clerk for Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company. His mother, Fannie Geer, supervised the household for a prominent attorney who shared his extensive art book collection with the young “June” Barnes.

Bullied as a child for being shy and sensitive, Barnes found solace in drawing. In his freshman year, a weightlifting coach put Barnes on a fitness program, which taught him effort and discipline. By his senior year at segregated Hillside High School in Durham, Barnes was captain of the football team and state champion in the shot put. He earned a full athletic scholarship to North Carolina College (now North Carolina Central University) where his art instructor, sculptor Ed Wilson, encouraged him to create images from his own life experiences

In 1960, Barnes was one of thirty African Americans drafted into the National Football League, one of nine players selected that year from a Historically Black College and University. For five seasons, Barnes was an offensive lineman for the New York Titans, San Diego Chargers, and Denver Broncos. In 1965 New York Jets owner Sonny Werblin paid Barnes a season’s salary “to paint” and subsequently sponsored the first Ernie Barnes gallery exhibition. After the success of the show, Barnes retired from football at age twenty-eight and settled in Los Angeles to devote himself to art.

From his sports experience and the study of anatomy, Barnes’ unique style of elongation captures the movement, energy, and grace of his subjects. This earned him numerous awards, including “Sports Artist of the 1984 Olympic Games” and “2004 America’s Best Painter of Sports” from the American Sport Art Museum & Archives.He was commissioned to paint artwork for the National Basketball Association, Los Angeles Lakers, Carolina Panthers, New Orleans Saints, Oakland Raiders, educational institutions, corporations, musicians, celebrities, and professional athletes. His beloved painting, “The Bench,” which Barnes created in 1959 before his rookie season, was presented in 2014 to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

His pride of North Carolina is evident in his artwork of pool halls, barbershops, porch ladies, church, street singers, sandlot games, and other memories of growing up in the South. His commentary on dance, music, sports, women, education, social justice, and everyday life continue to inspire viewers of all ages, races, religions, educational levels, and social statuses.

Barnes died of cancer on April 27, 2009.

Related Programs:

Friday, June 7, 2019 | 1:00 – 2:00 p.m.
Curatorial Walkthrough: Bridget R. Cooks

Tour Ernie Barnes: A Retrospectivewith guest curator Bridget R. Cooks, Associate Professor, Departments of African American Studies and Department of Art History at the University of California, Irvine. Cooks will offer an in-depth look at the exhibition, which features paintings, drawings, and ephemera from Barnes’s life.

Thursday, June 13, 2019 | 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.

Marvin Gaye-Oke

Get ready for a Marvin Gaye–themed karaoke night celebrating the life and work of the late Ernie Barnes, led by soul singer Torrénce Brannon-reese!This night of song is presented in conjunction with Ernie Barnes: A Retrospective,which includes Barnes’s famous painting The Sugar Shack, which was featured on the cover of Gaye’s I Want You album.

About the California African American Museum
CAAM explores the art, history, and culture of African Americans, with an emphasis on California and the West. Chartered by the State of California in 1977, the Museum began formal operations in 1981 and is a state-supported agency and a Smithsonian Affiliate. In addition to presenting exhibitions and public programs, CAAM houses a permanent collection of more than four thousand works of art, artifacts, and historical documents, and a publicly accessible research library containing more than twenty thousand volumes.

Visitor Information
Admission to the California African American Museum is free. Visit caamuseum.org for current exhibition and program information or call 213-744-7432 for tours or additional assistance.

Hours: Tuesday–Saturday 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Closed Mondays and national holidays. The California African American Museum is located in Exposition Park at the corner of Figueroa Street and Exposition Boulevard, west of the 110 (Harbor) Freeway. Easy parking is available for $12 (cash only) at 39^thand Figueroa Streets. The Metro Expo line stop Expo Park/USC is a five-minute walk through the Exposition Park Rose Garden to the Museum.

This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Sentinel.

Amanda Scurlock

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Community Struggles for City of Berkeley to Honor to Commitment to Black Rep Theater

Berkeley’s Black Repertory Group (BBRG), the only Black-owned-and-operated theater in the East Bay, is pushing for the City of Berkeley to provide the financial backing for the theater that is required by local law. At issue is whether the City of Berkeley will contribute legally required funding to support Black theater, similar to what the city does for other performing arts and cultural institutions in the city or whether it will continue to promote gentrification and forced displacement through longtime practices that undermine this historic venue. Founded in 1964, the theater is located at 3201 Adeline St. in Berkeley, a cultural arts center that houses the Birel L. Vaughn Theater.

Published

1 month ago

August 6, 2024

Oakland Post

Summer youth theater camp 2022 at Berkeley Black Repertory Theater. Photo by Pamela Spikes.

Special to the Berkeley Post

At issue is whether the City of Berkeley will contribute legally required funding to support Black theater, similar to what the city does for other performing arts and cultural institutions in the city or whether it will continue to promote gentrification and forced displacement through longtime practices that undermine this historic venue.

Founded in 1964, the theater is located at 3201 Adeline St. in Berkeley, a cultural arts center that houses the Birel L. Vaughn Theater.

“We not asking for handouts. The city should just pay what it legally owes us and also stop using city officials to harass us,” said a member of the board of the Black Rep.

Former Councilmember Cheryl Davila forcefully argues that Berkeley officials are undermining the theater as part of the city’s continued gentrification and ongoing elimination of local institutions and neighborhoods of African Americans and other People of Color.

“The City of Berkeley has continued the colonization as reflected in disparities documented in the Health Status Report, the Center for Police Equity (CPE) Report and Mason Tillman Report,” Davila said.

“The Tillman report revealed bids are awarded to white men only,” she continued. “The CPE report demonstrated the bias in policing and the Health Status Report, health disparities due to racism. The (city) has not fairly distributed funding or support for organizations that are located within the red lines.

“Redline disinvestment has been the practice in the Black, indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC) institutions in the City of Berkeley. It’s crystal clear, the city, which has invested in Caucasian institutions, outside the red lines, providing emergency and other funding passed on the consent calendar with no opposition, nor illegal break-ins for building inspections, or harassment, unlike the Black Repertory Group,” she said.

“Now, these same redlined communities are recognized as “prime” real estate, so the fines, inspections, and eviction process began some time ago and continues to eliminate “Blacks” from our communities. The attempts to confiscate the historical institutions that were never given the full support to live and thrive in a city (that upholds) a façade of being “progressive.”

Dr. Omowale Fowles, a former Berkeley health commissioner, said: “Today, in the 21st century post-Jim Crow America, a so-called ‘progressive’ Berkeley City Council has continued to perpetuate the unfair, unjust and inequitable funding practice that drove the Black Repertory Theater out of the South!

“Berkeley has not lived up to its contractual agreements to provide an annual baseline of economic support for the BBRG, nor has the city responded, in a timely manner, if at all, to BBRG’s requests for consistent maintenance sanitation, and renovations interventions,” said Fowles.

However, the Berkeley City Council has managed to award several other theaters in Berkeley tens of thousands of dollars to enable their theaters to stay alive and thrive, specifically, the Berkeley Repertory Theater in downtown and the Shotgun Players’ Theater is South Berkeley, he said.

“Such malevolent behaviors (are what we have come to expect) from a government entity that prides itself on its quasi-liberal and progressive beliefs particularly toward the arts music heritage of Berkeley,” he said.

Lady AfiTiombe A. Kambon, a longtime Berkeleyan elder who is an oral historian and actor, traced the roots of the Black Rep to historic resistance to violent racism and the KKK.

“The Berkeley Black Repertory Group Theater (BBRG) escaped Vicksburg, Mississippi, from the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) for holding artistic storytelling events for Black people in the 1940s. The Black Rep fled from hatred and the threat of lynching to a city known to practice humanity and democracy,” she said.

“Now, the theater continues to be under attack from city officials and Neighborhood Watch organized to eliminate the Black community,” Kambon said.

The Berkeley Equity Summit Alliance urges all Citizens throughout the City of Berkeley and beyond to support the Black Repertory Group and ensure that the City of Berkeley treats all the theaters equally and equitably distributing services and funding.

For more information, reach out to tiombe47@gmail.com or Dallascowboy52@yahoo.com

@PaulCobbOakland @PostNewsGroup @NNPA_BlackPress @BlackPressUSA

Oakland Post

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The Center for ArtEsteem Opens a New Space in West Oakland, Returning Home

After moving into different rental units for the last seven years, The Center for ArtEsteem, a Black-led, West Oakland based non-profit, has bought and renovated a permanent space at 3111 West St. On June 22, about 100 people celebrated the opening of the two-story, 1,500-square-foot space. ArtEsteem Executive Director Amana Harris likened the move to “coming home.”

Published

2 months ago

July 19, 2024

Oakland Post

Artworks hang in The Center for ArtEsteem's new space at 3111 West St. in West Oakland on June 24. Photo by Zack Haber.

By Zack Haber

After moving into different rental units for the last seven years, The Center for ArtEsteem, a Black-led, West Oakland based non-profit, has bought and renovated a permanent space at 3111 West St.

On June 22, about 100 people celebrated the opening of the two-story, 1,500-square-foot space.

ArtEsteem Executive Director Amana Harris likened the move to “coming home.”

Founded in 1989, ArtEsteem, which used to be named Attitudinal Healing Connection, opened its first brick-and-mortar space in 1992.

It was located in the bottom unit of a duplex housing the nonprofit’s founders, Aeesha and Kokomon Clottey, who are Harris’s mother and stepfather. That space was located at the corner of 33rd and West Streets.

“We know this community,” said Harris. “We have kids that have grown up in this neighborhood. After moving around, now we see the greater value of returning here and being more accessible to the community.”

Kamilah Crawford, who is an alumna of ArtEsteem and a former employee, told The Oakland Post she’s happy the nonprofit has returned.

“ArtEsteem not only provided me with art classes and employment after graduating from the University of California, Davis, it provided me with a sense of community and social justice,” she said. “Deep down, I believe what I learned played a role in me becoming a physician’s assistant and my desire to give back to my community.”

Since its founding, the nonprofit’s mission has been to “address social ills by providing opportunities for creative expression and healing to children, families, and individuals.”

ArtEsteem has done programming at over 75 schools in West Oakland and the Bay Area. Currently, it serves about 2,500 young people a year in 25 different schools and has a staff of 20 people.

Each year, the non-profit works closely with about 15 to 20 Oakland high school and middle school students through its Oakland Legacy Project. During a 30-week program each school year, ArtEsteem buses these students to its center two days a week after school to feed and educate them about art and environmental awareness and to build self-esteem.

“We don’t just do art for art’s sake,” said Harris. “We use art so young people can have a better understanding of themselves in the world.”

ArtEsteem got a lot of help to secure its new home. The Walter & Elise Haas Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and an anonymous donor from the San Francisco Foundation provided the largest financial donations. About 100 individuals donated $200 or more.

Artists and individuals have also helped to beautify the space and the nearby area. Students from McClymonds High School, Westlake Middle School, and Hoover Elementary School have collaborated with teams of a dozen or more artists to create four murals in the neighborhood through the Oakland Super Heroes Mural Project, which was originated by Harris, directed by David Burke, and funded by the San Francisco Foundation’s Bay Area Creative Core.

A new mural to be designed by former Oakland Legacy Project students, is in the works. The project also recently got help from Ken Houston and Beautification Council with cleaning up a mural that had been covered with graffiti.

In the building itself, one can see art everywhere.

“We want young people and their parents to feel uplifted by the beauty of the space when they come in,” said Harris. “We want to foster healing and resiliency.”

ArtEsteem is not done expanding its space. It is still fundraising and plans to build a new two-story building next door to its current space, set to open in 2027.

“Now that we own our space, we can dig our roots deeper because we won’t be uprooted,” said Harris.

Oakland Post

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The Presidio to Unveil SUPERBLOOMS, an Art Installation on July14

Tosha Stimage stood on the new Presidio Tunnel Tops and took a breath. She inhaled the salty air, and her eyes wandered over the sparkling waters of the San Francisco Bay, and the Golden Gate Bridge, shrouded in mist. She delicately explored the nearby plants, their touch and their smell bringing a sense of connection to nature, she said, that resonated deep within her. Tosha, a multimedia artist and floral designer, has translated those sensations into her new work, SUPERBLOOMS — a colorful ground mural installation on view to Presidio National Park Site visitors starting in mid-June.

Published

2 months ago

July 8, 2024

Oakland Post

Left to right, Tosha Stimage and Favianna Rodriguez. Photo by Felipe Romero, Presidio Trust

By Tosha Stimage

Tosha, a multimedia artist and floral designer, has translated those sensations into her new work, SUPERBLOOMS — a colorful ground mural installation on view to Presidio National Park Site visitors starting in mid-June. Shapes referencing the delicate tendrils of the Chilean strawberry, the pink Checkerbloom and the fiery California poppy all express the resilience and beauty of these native plant treasures.

SUPERBLOOMS is the third installation of the Ancestral Futurism Public Art Mentorship program, a project led by Oakland-based artist and environmental justice activist, Favianna Rodriguez. It invites emerging and mid-career BIPOC artists to develop temporary installations at the Presidio Tunnel Tops.

“The model of indigenous/community-led, environmentally informed practices in our public spaces is one example of how we might create more equity and inclusion in our world,” Tosha said. “Art can express the inseparable connection that requires us to consider not only ourselves but our fellow person and planet.”

There’s more to enjoy this summer at the Presidio Tunnel Tops, which opened in July 2022, and has since welcomed some 3 million visitors since. There are outdoor spots for family gatherings, the Outpost playground, views like no other, Presidio Pop Up food trucks, and plenty of free events.

Come to the free SUPERBLOOMS art launch party to enjoy hands-on artmaking, DJ music, plant starters, and more. Sunday, July 14, 12:00 noon – 3:00 pm at Presidio Tunnel Tops, 210 Lincoln Blvd. presidio.gov