Art

REVIEW: Ishmael Reed’s Play “The Slave Who Loved Caviar,” Comments on Black Artists and White Sponsors

[Haitian-Puerto Rican American artist, Jean-Michel] Basquiat rose to fame in the neo-expressionist art movement in the 1980s and [Andy] Warhol, one of his mentors, had gained renown for Pop Art and drug use in the 1960s. They died within a year of each other, Warhol at age 59 in 1987 and Basquiat died of an overdose at age 27 in 1988.

Published

2 years ago

January 9, 2022

Oakland Post

Detective Mary van Helsing (Roz Fox), left, rescues Jennifer Blue (Kenya Wilson), one of the victims in the continuing exploitation of Blackness. Photo by Jonathan Slaff.

By Wanda Sabir

Ishmael Reed’s current play, directed by Carla Blank, “The Slave Who Loved Caviar,” at Theater for the New City until January 9, explores Black culture and white exploitation in the relationship between the Haitian-Puerto Rican American artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol.

Basquiat rose to fame in the neo-expressionist art movement in the 1980s and Warhol, one of his mentors, had gained renown for Pop Art and drug use in the 1960s. They died within a year of each other, Warhol at age 59 in 1987 and Basquiat died of an overdose at age 27 in 1988.

There are so many analogous parallels, both fictional or mythic and actual that it is amazing that the play only has one intermission.

In his play, Reed postulates that the older, white artist presented himself as a benevolent father figure. While under the influence of drugs, a willing Basquiat allows Warhol to install him in a basement where Basquiat churns out art like an assembly worker.

Reed’s premise here is that Warhol had gotten away with a crime.

The cold case is reopened by two forensic scientists, Grace and Raksha, (Monisha Shiva and understudy Kenya Wilson) who want to bring the perpetrators to justice. As the contemporary team investigates, time shifts back and forth as what happened to Basquiat had perpetuated with other captives.

Slave owners used cocaine — which Basquiat used excessively — to increase productivity among the captives, Reed says. Just as slavery was once legal, the Warhol machine also had legal protection, money and power.

Reed’s writing is crisp and sharp as are the actors who deliver and deliver and deliver some more. Carla Blank’s direction is also on point as the diction and storylines unfold clearly in nuanced layers.

I love the scene in Act 2 where the ghost of Richard Pryor — appearing as a shadow puppet danced by actor, Kenya Wilson — tries to prevent Basquiat from going up in chemical flames like the late comedian had.

Pryor’s ghost speaks to the art of selling out to Hollywood, another type of killing field for Black art and artists. We sense Pryor’s regret that he didn’t stay with people who loved him. It’s hard to tell friend from foe when engulfed in f(l)ame(s).

Reed’s characters also convey the prevailing attitudes by police that allow the wealthy and famous to get away with everything from theft to murder, a very real problem on and off the page.

Roz Fox’s Detective Mary van Helsing is a cool sleuth who goes looking for the missing appetizer, “Jennifer Blue” (actor Kenya Wilson) despite legal disinterest. She is our hero. Don’t worry, this is a spoiler, but there is so much going on here, you will probably forget I told you.

In “Slave” we see too often how historians are propagandists who lie to keep the empire solvent.

Remember Orwell’s Ministry of Truth in “1984”? I am reminded also of Jimi Hendrix (1970) and his demise—yes to a drug overdose. . . Fuquan Johnson (2021), Shock G (2021), Juice WRLD (2020), Billie Holiday (1959), Whitney Houston (2012), The Artist Formerly Known as Prince (2006), Michael Jackson (2009).

Since it is Ishmael Reed, we can actually have a happy ending.

The late bell hooks wrote in “Outlaw Culture: ‘Altars of Sacrifice: “Re-membering Basquiat’,” that the young, yet masterful artist “journeyed into the heart of whiteness.

White territory he named as a savage and brutal place. The journey is embarked upon with no certainty of return. Nor is there any way to know what you will find or who you will be at journey’s end. . . . Basquiat understood that he was risking his life—that this journey was all about sacrifice [. . .]” (36). this and his refusal to allow the dominant culture to tell our story, the 99%, the percentage who matter.

How difficult it must have been for the artist to have his say as he dangled from a purveyor’s noose. Herein lies Black genius. Herein lies the tragedy. Ishmael Reed’s ability to cultivate success for the past 60 or so years stems from his artistic eReed’s research is impeccable—I lose track of some of the names, like the artist who boycotts with other Black artists a museum that sets out to exploit them.

Reed is certainly prescient as is the Theater for The New City’s Artistic Director Crystal Field. As confederate monuments are toppled throughout the nation and reparations are a very real possibility, “The Slave Who Loved Caviar” certainly sets a precedent. “Slave” is a challenge and a wakeup call to those who have not been paying attention to the right thing. “Slave” says, change the channel. What did the Last Poets say about the Revolution?

The play is streaming through Jan. 9, 2022, at Theater for the New City. Streaming tickets are just $10+ small fee. For in person ($15.00) and virtual tickets visit https://ci.ovationtix.com/35441/production/1091241

You can learn more about Reed on my radio or podcast interview here.

We had a conversation with many members of the cast January 5, 2022 on Wanda’s Picks Radio Show podcast. Tune in (subscribe): http://tobtr.com/12046944

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Art

Marin County: A Snapshot of California’s Black History Is on Display

The Marin County Office of Education, located at 1111 Las Gallinas Ave in San Rafael, will host the extraordinary exhibit, “The Legacy of Marin City: A California Black History Story (1942-1960),” from Feb. 1 to May 31, 2024. The interactive, historical, and immersive exhibit featuring memorabilia from Black shipyard workers who migrated from the South to the West Coast to work at the Marinship shipyard will provide an enriching experience for students and school staff. Community organizations will also be invited to tour the exhibit.

Published

2 weeks ago

April 16, 2024

Oakland Post

Early photo of Marin City in the exhibit showing the first department store, barber shop, and liquor store. (Photo by Godfrey Lee)

By Post Staff

The interactive, historical, and immersive exhibit featuring memorabilia from Black shipyard workers who migrated from the South to the West Coast to work at the Marinship shipyard will provide an enriching experience for students and school staff. Community organizations will also be invited to tour the exhibit.

All will have the opportunity to visit and be guided by its curator Felecia Gaston.

The exhibit will include photographs, articles and artifacts about the Black experience in Marin City from 1942 to 1960 from the Felecia Gaston Collection, the Anne T. Kent California Room Collection, The Ruth Marion and Pirkle Jones Collection, The Bancroft Library, and the Daniel Ruark Collection.

It also features contemporary original artwork by Chuck D of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group Public Enemy, clay sculptures by San Francisco-based artist Kaytea Petro, and art pieces made by Marin City youth in collaboration with Lynn Sondag, Associate Professor of Art at Dominican University of California.

The exhibit explores how Marin City residents endured housing inequities over the years and captures the history of plans to remove Black residents from the area after World War II. Throughout, it embodies the spirit of survival and endurance that emboldened the people who made Marin City home.

Felecia Gaston is the author of the commemorative book, ‘A Brand New Start…This is Home: The Story of World War II Marinship and the Legacy of Marin City.’ Thanks to the generous contribution of benefactors, a set of Felecia’s book will be placed in every public elementary, middle, and high school library in Marin.

In addition, educators and librarians at each school will have the opportunity to engage with Felecia in a review of best practices for utilizing the valuable primary sources within the book.

“Our goal is to provide students with the opportunity to learn from these significant and historical contributions to Marin County, California, and the United States,” said John Carroll, Marin County Superintendent of Schools.

“By engaging with Felecia’s book and then visiting the exhibit, students will be able to further connect their knowledge and gain a deeper understanding of this significant historical period,” Carroll continued.

Felecia Gaston adds, “The Marin County Office of Education’s decision to bring the Marin City Historical Traveling Exhibit and publication, ‘A Brand New Start…This is Home’ to young students is intentional and plays a substantial role in the educational world. It is imperative that our community knows the contributions of Marin City Black residents to Marin County. Our youth are best placed to lead this transformation.”

The Marin County Office of Education will host an Open House Reception of the exhibit’s debut on Feb. 1 from 4 p.m. – 6 p.m.. All school staff, educators, librarians, and community members are encouraged to attend to preview the exhibit and connect with Felecia Gaston. To contact Gaston, email MarinCityLegacy@marinschools.org

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Activism

Alternative Outcome to Slayings by Police Explored in One-Man Play

BLACK MEN EVERYWHERE! is the explosive new one man play written, directed, and performed by Jinho “Piper” Ferreira. Set against the backdrop of a presidential election, the play explores how political and cultural leaders wield the myth of the dangerous Black man to manipulate the masses for personal gain. Piper penned the follow-up to his ground-breaking solo play, “Cops and Robbers,” after an impromptu cross-country Black history tour.

Published

2 months ago

February 16, 2024

Oakland Post

BLACK MEN EVERYWHERE! is the explosive new one man play written, directed, and performed by Jinho “Piper” Ferreira.

Special to The Post

What would happen if police officers who have gotten off for killing unarmed Black people started turning up dead?

Piper penned the follow-up to his ground-breaking solo play, “Cops and Robbers,” after an impromptu cross-country Black history tour.

“My wife and I had been talking about it for years,” Ferreira said. They had taken their three children to Brazil several times and West Africa but had yet to explore their history as Black people in this country. “It was Juneteenth last year and I realized we had a few weeks to make it happen, so we just jumped in the car and left” Piper said.

Three weeks later the family had seen everything from the African American Museum of History and Culture in Wash., D.C., to the phenomenally preserved Whitney Plantation in Louisiana. They’d stood outside of the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., and paid their respects at the Africa Town cemetery – where the passengers of the Clotilda (the last known U.S. slave ship to smuggle captured Africans into this country) were buried near Mobile, Ala.

“We had the kids keep a journal of the trip and my wife and I took notes, but once we got back home, I knew I had to make the pen move,” he said.

Ferreira plays 21 characters in the 60-minute emotional roller coaster ride; personalities we all know. While brilliantly weaving in themes of revolution, treachery, and revenge, “Black Men Everywhere!” is surprisingly — more than anything else — a love story.

“I wrote the play for Black men and everyone who loves us,” Ferreira said. “The play is narrated by a sistah and performed in front of the deeply spiritual artwork of Nedra T. Williams, an Oakland priestess of Olokun. It’s called ‘Black Men Everywhere!’ but we don’t exist without the Black woman.”

For tickets, please go to: http://tinyurl.com/5dm3mhra

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Art

City of Stockton Seeks Applications for Public Art Murals

The City of Stockton Arts Commission (SAC) has announced the opportunity for artist(s) and/or artist teams to apply to design and paint original artwork on City-owned property through a Public Art Mural Program. The deadline for applications is Friday, March 8, 2024, at 5 p.m. Applications and additional information are available online at www.stocktonca.gov/publicart.

Published

3 months ago

January 24, 2024

Oakland Post

The Public Art Mural Program incentivizes mural installations by providing city funding and the means of curating the City’s collection of murals.

City of Stockton

The deadline for applications is Friday, March 8, 2024, at 5 p.m. Applications and additional information are available online at www.stocktonca.gov/publicart.

The Public Art Mural Program incentivizes mural installations by providing city funding and the means of curating the City’s collection of murals.

This program has $50,000 in available funds for artist(s) and is also available for those who have already identified funds and would like to complete a mural project on city-owned property. Applications will be reviewed on a competitive basis and selected by the SAC.

To learn more about the Stockton Arts Commission (SAC) or qualifications and eligibility for Public Art Mural Program, please visit www.stocktonca.gov/publicart or call the Community Services Department at (209) 937-8206.