November 20, 2013 – CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE © Ekaterina Markova
LGBTQ Invisibility
Featured Guest – Fabio Aiosa – Transgender Day of Remembrance – Washington Square Park – November 20, 2013 – Islan Nettles (Murdered @ 21yo)
Islan Nettles, Age 21 – Cause of Death: Blunt Force- Harlem, NYC © Fabio Aiosa
(CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE)
Today, November 20th is Transgender Day of Remembrance. It is a day the LGBTQ community remembers the people who were violently taken from us in acts of hatred. These are only a few of the hundreds of people murdered this year alone, and many more will remain unnamed and unknown.
FAB Spotlight on Street Art: Be Pleasant – Three Generations of Artists
By placing ourselves into the environment with the paintings, we create a layered effect that distorts reality and offers a kind of real time interaction with the environment which suggests that we are part of the art. – PLEASANT
Greetings, my name is Pleasant…. I am a visual artist who is currently presenting a selection of my work in a project I have titled: Portable Expressions. In this series… I use static imagery and live interaction to convey a series of ideas. I was in Fort Greene recently performing this art [and] currently in the Nederlands bound for Paris in a few days where I shall appear in a documentary film piece about my new approach to street art and design.
Portable Expressions
These newest images come from Leiden with Pleasant’s Artist assistant, Farah participating in collaboration.
I very much believe in diversity and providing layers of creative content. An alumnus of the New York School of Visual Arts, I also make indirect commentary related to men’s issues and gay rights… in addition to socio-political commentary. Sadly this fact has isolated me in the USA at times. As most recently the so called ‘diverse’ Brooklyn Street Art association refused to cover my work. Their communication with me would be considered hostile at best. Perhaps a little racist too? maybe, I felt it. However despite this kind of treatment and blatant exclusion I continue forward in my work.
Pleasant Promo Shot
Both my father and grandfather were artists and both contributed to the city of Savannah significantly. I have produced a book of the collected murals, paintings and signage of my family titled, ‘PLEASANT Signs’. You can see some of my Dad’s work via his website. I also present a lecture series titled, Three Generations of Pleasant Art. The book Pleasant Signs has found it’s way to the Collegiate school, School of Visual Arts and Bank Street College’s libraries. My Dad documented life in his art in the south during the civil rights movement from a local perspective. My Dad was a Bahai’ and an advocate for integration and the rights of all people including homosexuals, women and others. He took much abuse during his lifetime as a mixed race Black American artist. To this very day the local (tax-supported) art museum, the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah refuses to support or acknowledge my father’s art contributions. His collection of paintings are unique and vast and his murals and signage dominate Savannah’s environment, appearing on many of Savannah’s, media promoted, famed historical tourist destinations. Despite this fact, there is little to no mention of my father’s art contributions… I continue as the third generation of Pleasant Artists continuing my family’s art legacy.
Pleasant Signs book produced in collaboration by Designer, Jalal Pleasant and Author, David Pleasant.
My Dad (Willam Pleasant, Jr.) was a Bahai’ and an advocate for integration and the rights of all people including homosexuals, women and others.
The shy Duck who inspired the World to smile – © PLEASANT
Overview of ‘Portable Expressions’
Portable Expressions is an evolution of my Suspended Thoughts installation art series. It continues my work in the development of establishing a static interactive experience for observers of this art. I have presented several versions of this series around the world. Similarly, Portable Expressions will take place (someplace) in New York City, Amsterdam and Paris. February-March 2013. Documentation of this project, including location details as to where observers may publicly see Pleasant art graphics shall be published via my website and FACEBOOK.
This outdoor art installation consisting of several pieces sometimes suspended by wire, offers viewers an opportunity to become participants. Through multiple modes of interaction, you can independently touch elements and rearrange them in any given pattern. This installation is constructed in a method that integrates with and compliments its host space. Sometimes my ‘suspended’ style artworks have been referred to as “portable graffiti”. This is a result of the stylized art’s ability to enhance a setting without permanently altering it’s environment via creating a layered affect.
This installation uses a mix of fine art painting, graphic and conceptual design and sculptural elements. The host outdoor space serves as a foundation for the canvas. I often begin by planting a pre-rendered graphic design image of my Pleasant Spaceman graphic to represent the optimism of the future and go from there. Other elements include natural and inorganic imagery.
My mission is to engage all, and specifically young people in critical thinking; to question the order and structure of their environment and to consider how they may actualize their own personal understanding of creative expression and their role in defining the environment in which they live. – Troy Davis, Warming, Corporate Bullshit, dreams and the loss of the old New York. …Dude Where’s my Bodega? This Sucka ain’t dead yet. In contrast it isn’t Pleasant art. …Is it edgy?
bio:
b. 19 . 12 . 1974 (Georgia, USA) native Pleasant attended Pratt Institute and is an alumnus of the New York School of Visual Arts. Pleasant is a full-time Fine artist, Installation Artist, Curator, Lecturer and Designer. Pleasant received formal art instruction under the tutelage’s of NYC abstract painter Michael Goldberg, Kenny Scharf and fashion art Illustrator, Jack Potter. And is currently gallery represented along with Artists, Shepard Fairey, BustArt, Inkie, London Police among others. In addition Pleasant is an active published Apple® Developer/Designer. Select collections include, Estate of American Comedian Richard Pryor, Batoto Yetu and the University of Haifa. Pleasant has published appearances with the Nation Magazine, BlackBook Magazine, Nickelodeon Television/MTV Viacom, Het Parool, DeVolkskrant, Woodstock Times (NY) and The New York Press / Chelsea Clinton News, New York, New York among many others. Pleasant is currently working on publishing his second art book slated for release in late 2013.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr – Gandhi & Rustin
Fading Ad Campaign – © Frank H. Jump
Gandhi and Rustin
With assistance from the Quaker group the American Friends Service Committee and inspired by Gandhi’s success with non-violent activism, King visited Gandhi’s birthplace in India in 1959. The trip to India affected King in a profound way, deepening his understanding of non-violent resistance and his commitment to America’s struggle for civil rights. In a radio address made during his final evening in India, King reflected, “Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. In a real sense, Mahatma Gandhi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation.”
African American civil rights activist Bayard Rustin had studied Gandhi’s teachings. Rustin counseled King to dedicate himself to the principles of non-violence, served as King’s main advisor and mentor throughout his early activism, and was the main organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. Rustin’s open homosexuality, support of democratic socialism, and his former ties to the Communist Party USA caused many white and African-American leaders to demand King distance himself from Rustin. – Wikipedia
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr & Bayard Rustin – deeppencil dot com
Before meeting King, Rustin was a founder of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) which was formed in 1942.
CORE was conceived as a Pacifist organization based on the writings of Henry David Thoreau and modeled after Mohandas Gandhi’s non-violent resistance against British rule in India.
These principles of non-violence became the backbone of the SCLC and the personal philosophy of Dr King.
- Martin Luther King Jr Had a Gay Mentor – deeppencil dot com
An Other Strange Fruit
Fruit: Comparing the Struggles of African-Americans for Civil Rights with the Struggles of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Peoples
by Miss Poppy Dixon, 06.01
The word ‘fruit’ has, in the context of this article, three meanings. Billy Holiday’s haunting 1939 rendition of the song “Strange Fruit” gave voice to a nation’s anguish over the lynching of African-Americans. [1]
Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh!
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
The word “fruit” also refers derogatorily to homosexuals. A little more than a month after the nation was rocked by the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard, a black transgendered woman, Rita Hester, was stabbed to death in her Boston apartment. And on the 4th of July 2000, two teenagers murdered a gay African American man, Arthur “J.R.” Warren. He was kicked and beaten, his skull fractured, then driven over by his captor’s car four times. Hester and Warren violated the boundaries of both race and gender. To claim their deaths were caused by one prejudice, and not the other, would be presumptuous.
The meaning of the word “fruit” has bled into other categories.
Finally, I use the word “fruit” in the biblical sense, “…by their fruits ye shall know them,” from Matthew 7:20. The fruits of oppression in the United States have Christian roots; the same Bible once used to enslave blacks is now used to discriminate against black homosexuals, and white homosexuals. – Strange Fruit: Comparing the Oppression of African-Americans and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Communities
Black History Month – Remembering Bayard Rustin – New play based on biography – Lost Prophet
© Frank H. Jump
Bayard Rustin’s life is depicted in a new play and a biography by John D’Emilio. – Amazon dot com
Check out the details of the new play at Jeff Kelly Lowenstein’s blog.
Wondering if Harold Ford of Tennessee will be in attendance?
Bayard Rustin: Gay Man in the Civil Rights Movement.
National Equality March – Come One, Come ALL!
Click for Equality Link
Click for link
Bring a straight friend! Bring your mom! Bring your demand for equality!
Point of reference:
In 1978, I went to Philadelphia at age eighteen to help plan the first march on Washington for LGBT rights. In 1979, my mother came to Washington with me and marched in the New York Pride March with P-FLAG for twenty years to follow. I urge all people to support this march regardless of your sexual orientation. We are at a critical point in history where the opposition is well organized and gaining ground in their fight against equality. We can’t do this alone. Please show your support.
