Towards a Critique of Nature

Bryant says, "At the time [1999-2005] I was reading Kongo Political Culture by Wyatt MacGaffey, African Art in Transit, by Chris B. Steiner, Flash of Spirit, by Robert Farris Thompson, Trick Baby, by Iceberg Slim, Everything But the Burden, and Flyboy in the Buttermilk, by Greg Tate, Mixed Blessings, by Lucy Lippard, and The Primal Mind, by Jamake Highwater.

No. I co-curated the exhibition “Afrofuturism” in 2005 for Obsidian Arts as my senior project. It was an exhibition of artists envisioning the cyber–techno future and its impact on Black culture. My advisor was MCAD professor emeritus, Kenji Akagawa. In 2006, the exhibition traveled to Spaces Gallery in Cleveland, OH. The majority of the work and thinking currently associating itself with the term Afrofuturism, in my opinion, is a redundant celebration of “negrophilia.” It hasn’t much to do with the original tenets of Afrofuturism or what we [artists and curators] were concerned with in that exhibition. [Can you say more?] I prefer not to.” Concerning intertextuality, there is a connection between the work, “Self Medication” to a later work, “Towards a Critique of Nature, 2018.” They both share the unique vector of technology & performance. Self Medication, demonstrates the performance of a technological object that assists in the activation of space, identifying pathology and administering panacea. “Towards a Critique of Nature,” enacts an oral technology as the object that assists in activating the space.

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