Hey everyone.
4WRD! is evolving. We'll be undergoing some name and design changes over the next month.
On the plus side, submissions will be opening soon and we'll be posting more content to the website. Big moves are on the way.
Stay tuned.
-The EditorÂ
Hip-Hop, Violence and Misogyny - 16 Bars on Big Sean
If you're a hip-hop head you probably saw this Big Sean, Cyhi, and G.O.O.D. Music crew freestyle already. Me, I didnât make it past Big Seanâs verse. In hip-hop nothing is more crucial to a rapperâs acclaim than his Freestyle skills. It's strictly improvisation and displays his creativity.
âI donât touch dark hoes, dark hoes got fleas,â says Big Sean at the opening of his freestyle.
His whole verse was what you call truly classic: reminded me of the Antebellum days. I was so inspired by his words I wrote a response.Â
Big Sean bought his rhymes as a dozen
auction block quality, his words in chains
So how a cat from the home of Malcolm X
speak like he enslaved to dollah dollah, fake massa
yellin C.R.E.A.M. but ainât none in his cup?
ainât no sense in his mindâitâs like the fool forgot
he come out the belly of a black lady
finally famous? More like he inherited a plantation
and didnât free no one with his rhymes.
His soul shoot dice wit Jim Crow, he blow
then he shuck and jive
Big Sean shoot up wit Jim Crow, he blow
now he suck white lies, high,
sittin in the colored section on cloud 9, heated
he whine, spit iceberg slim rhetoric at your sister,
momma, auntee, granny, lover, he get your family strung up
meanwhile Big Sean recline, dine on strangefruit in the American Pie
another brother turned motherfucker
so I do sit-ins on his CDs, boycott his lines.
I'll now be holding rappers accountable for the shit they say, especially when its blatant violence and racism against my own people.
âAfricans are inherently futuristic given the capriciousness of our current situationâ
âThe struggle of man against power, is the struggle of man against forgettingâ
âWe use Afrofuturism to stake a place in the future so that we can strongly identify ourselves in the futureâ
Faluka, Maimouna Guerresi - Courtesy Artist & Stux Gallery, NYC
Afrofuturism is an emerging, international art aesthetic rooted in Africa and the African Diaspora. It predicts or proposes possible futures from a Black/African perspective. These artists' works show us new or lost perspectives on Humanity often through the Black experience. They work in open defiance of stereotypes which simplify people of all colors, genders and creeds through critical and creative examinations our past, present and future. I immediately associated Maimouna Guerresiâs art(pictured above) with the concepts of Afrofuturism.Â
Here in the West identity politics are comparable to a food canning factory. Most of us have likely grown up in a system that grinds up our identities, processes it, and reduces it into something easy to consume and control. This hides the ingredients that make us--our roots. In this way the West often obscures the diversity and complexity of living things.
Ignorant of the ways we've been divided by the ideas of race, gender, religion, our imagination becomes stunted. No imagination? No progress. A system based on discrimination and segregation seeks conquer and control its subjects by dividing us, limiting our ability to see new opportunities or possibilities for a future.  How? It destroys our ability to communicate with other groups, renders us incapable of exchanging knowledge.  In a segregated society ignorance grows in the place of knowledge.
So, I look for art that helps me to re-imagine the world.
Dane Verret, 4WRD:Â What compels you to create? When did you first encounter art?
Maimouna Guerresi(MG): Â My life experiences, my emotions and feelings and my desire to deepen my spiritual knowledge, are the main stimulus for my work, especially for the initial phase of my creations. Even as a child I always had an attraction to the visual arts, and after high school and the academy of art, I continued my journey of understanding of artistic practice.
I am interested in bringing out issues that have been disregarded but not truly resolved.
4WRD: Who guided you down the path of an artist?
MG: There hasn't been a particular guide who has followed my work; there have been many stimuli and many guides. Such as my first readings on psychoanalysis from authors like Carl Jung and William Reich. While my artistic references were Giotto, Piero della Francesca Bernini to Duchamp and more recently, Islamic calligraphy and mystical texts by Rumi.
4WRD: Could you tell me a little about your life? Where did you grow up and where have you travelled? What images have you seen throughout your life that inspire your artwork?
MG: I was born Italy, in the Veneto region, into a religious (Roman Catholic) family. My uncle was a missionary in Africa and one of my aunts was a nun. My parents often invited African clergy members to our home to watch films and look at photographs about their missions. I was always fascinated by that world. I graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice.
Soon after completing my academic studies in Venice, I met my first husband, an Italian, and from this marriage was born my first daughter, Marlene. With him I travelled all around Europe , visiting various contemporary art museums where I had the chance to see the great exhibitions of the body art and land art; arte povera and conceptual; and the various artistic currents of the late 70âs and the early 80âs. The work and trip impressed me a lot, and inspired my own research.
In my early work I explored the body in an historical and geographic sense, across the verticality of time, in the search for myths and the roots of the formal evolution of the body and its symbolism. I was the artist and the art work itself; I was looking for a cosmic connection with the universe through my performances and used the metaphor of the tree as a medium between the sky and the earth. I identified with Daphne (famously depicted in Berniniâs Baroque sculptures), who was transformed into the laurel tree when Apollo touched her navel, so I placed marbled bark on my body.
 Now, I represent this idea of metamorphosis in the mystical bodies of my photos âThe Giantsâ, where architecture and black spaces are part of the body itself. My most recent work - âIndian Red Cosmosâ - reconfirms my desire for transformation and identification with the universe.
At a certain point in my life, my spirit was ready for a new development and to open up to new spiritual knowledge. I knew the Senegalese Muslim community where I met the man who became my second husband. Sheriff Assane Dieye, from whom I had my second daughter Adji Fatou Amdy Dieye and who introduced me to the Islamic religion. Later, I got the name of Maimouna, (also the name of my spiritual mother). This spiritual change has marked my life and my artistic expression.
4WRD: When and why did you decide to use fantastic and mystical images to convey your ideas?
MG: In the year 2000 even though I had already made several works on the theme of the veil, I wanted to represent an image of the veiled woman who could express through her face piety and mercy, but also the mystery and fear of the unknown and the different.
I represented this with a dark face and under the name of Fatima, a name that recalls both the holy Christian and Muslim figure. After a few years I decided to represent this issue with characters. When they developed I called them âThe Giants.â
4WRD: What do the figures in your series âThe Giantsâ represent?
MG: The Giants are unreal characters and metaphysical. The layers they wear and which allow a glimpse of their shapes are architectural structures while the body is empty as an unknown universe.
Their posture, body position, hands, recall formal solutions of classical antiquity, the Renaissance Madonnas and Saints. The difference is that the physical features of my figures belong to Asian and African faces.
4WRD: Would you please vividly describe the world which your photographs and sculptures depict?
MG: In my work there are references to classical art as a structural composition mixed with calligraphy, spiritual symbols or everyday objects.Â
 Family, Maimouna Guerresi - Courtesy Artist & Stux Gallery, NYCÂ
For example, âFamilyâ is a work composed of three separate photos. The center represents a man sitting with a large surface which forms a cave. Besides him are two girls suspended in air. Here, the maternal aspect of man is shown while the two girls are spiritual beings, light, weightless, floating in a metaphysical world.
 Rey Bouba, Maimouna Guerresi - Courtesy Artist & Stux Gallery, NYC
There is another photo(above) where I represented a character with an iron scepter in his hand. It's titled "Rey Bouba" which refers to both a Muslim village north of Cameroon and bears the name of its Sultan.
âMother Minaretâ is a very tall veiled figure resembling a minaret, which I actually designed as the background for this piece. And dark steps emerge from the black robe of my photograph, âSolomonâs Throneâ. âMussaâ, meaning Moses, has long black and white robes, characteristic of Sufis.
My recent sculpture titled âSuphaâ is a resin sculpture suspended from the ceiling, and depicts a figure with a long hat and crouched leg in a very long robe made of white Lycra. This is tied like a belt from the hips then trails down to the ground. âSuphaâ is a name meaning inspired. Similarly, âSafaâ means pure in Arabic and both recall the purity and simplicity of the Sufis.
4WRD: Who is the subject of your work? Is the subject of your artwork also your audience, if not, who is?
MG: I depict the mystical figures of Islamic Africa, interpreted through my own multiethnic family. These figures have inspired me for a long time, particularly for their great charisma, and I see their characteristic commonality: âlargenessâ and âemptinessâ. Indeed, their actual form is determined by their robes, which I produce as separate sculptures.
These figures reveal just their faces and hands, and sometimes their feet are visible. As with ancient icons, I mark these visible body parts with a white line, which I interpret as a symbol of light and purification; like a white bisection marking the confines or borders between life and death, the known and the unknown. White also recalls the colour of milk, which is an element I often use in my work. It refers to many African and Asian cultures and traditions, where milk is a symbol of sacrifice and purification.
 White Oracle, Maimouna Guerresi - Courtesy Artist & Stux Gallery, NYC
4WRD: What connections do you see between the mystical figures of Africa or Asia and the people you depict in your art?
MG: In achieving the photographic series of Giant's I was inspired by the mystical figures of Islam in Africa, particularly in Senegal where I met the muridismo through the teachings of Cheich Amadou Bamba Mbacke and Mame Cheich Ibra Fall of Man, two great saints who founded this movement , a branch of Islam recently linked to the traditional Sufi philosophy.
These and other characters like the Saints Man Diara and Kunta, they not only have filled my spirit but also stimulated my creativity so I wanted to give my artistic interpretation of their size and their spiritual beauty, but not their appearance.
In fact, I photograph ordinary people or members of my family and photo titles often keep their names--like Ibrahim, Moussa or Fathima--, names which remember great biblical figures such as Abraham, Moses, Genitilla Al-Wilada, Fatima etc..
 4WRD: One element I see in your art is a confrontation with discrimination and racism. For me, your images struck me because it reminded me of an African-American tradition of remaking Europeanized religious icons to reflect our appearance. I think your work is very brave, yet very sensitive to the humanity of your subjects.
Could you offer some advice to young artists on how we can sensitively to portray people from another or adopted culture in our art?
MG: In my works I try above all to express the spiritual strength the "inner body" and even if the spirit has no color, I like to represent with dark skin. My characters have dark faces and I identify with them.
They are spirit guides, icons, ancestors, where aesthetics and ethics come together in a mystical renewal and Africa becomes the protagonist of a spiritual rebirth.
 In Islam as well as in other religions, there are differences of race or color, I discovered the mythical Malcolm X after his pilgrimage to Mecca. I am white and destiny allowed me to know Islam through the black community, and for this I am deeply grateful.
I can only say to young people to be curious, to open your mind and listen to it and follow your heart; To reflect and open up to God and religious teachings regarding them as an opportunity not as a deprivation of their freedoms; and to grow and to expand their spirit through ritual practices.
  Red Oracle, Maimouna Guerresi - Courtesy Artist & Stux Gallery, NYC
4WRD -Could you also tell me more about how becoming part of the Senegalese Muslim community transformed you? It seems like a very powerful moment in your life and I'd love to have you talk about that more, if you don't mind.
MG-I still remember with great emotion that period. After the ritual of the Shahadah (testimony of faith to enter Islam), where I got the name Maimouna, (name of my spiritual mother) I went to visit the Holy City of Touba in Senegal during the feast of the "Magal", accompanied by my husband Sherif Assane Dieye.
In those days it was the commemoration ceremony of the departure into exile of Cheikh Bamba Mbacke and faithful came from all over the world. The songs and recitations of Dhikr (the prayer of the names of Allah) were spreading across the holy city of Touba. The great faith of the murid is an inner light that expands and you drowns the spirit.
I followed the ritual of "Ziare", that is, to go and pray in the Grand Mosque of Touba where the tomb of the founder of muridismo Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba Mbacke, and visit the library where they collected his numerous poetic writings.
One of the phrases in particular stays with me: "Pray as if you were to die tomorrow and work as if you were to live forever.â
I then visited the cemetery where they are buried other great saints such as Mame Cheikh Ibra Fal founder of baifalismo, and I still do. Every time I come to Senegal I'm going to pray in Touba.
 Dauda With Violet Hat, Maimouna Guerresi - Courtesy Artist & Stux Gallery, NYC
4WRD: Where was your favorite exhibition and why?
MG: There are so many shows that I remember with great emotion, in 1999 the Foundation Mudima in Milan, where I made a large exhibition, with video installations and photographs representing figures of veiled women, understood as a mystery of divine infinity, at a time that the 'Islam was much discussed.
Later or continued on this path, then I realized several solo, but perhaps the most exciting for me was in Mali in 2009 where the African soil returned the love that I have for it with a beautiful solo exhibition at the National Museum of Bamako in Mali during the Biennial of African Art in Bamako.
Unfortunately, now with the new military regime Culture in Mali is likely to sink as well as the Bamako Biennale. Then another emotion in New York in 2010 at the Stux with artists from the Middle West and Africa.
Then the show in Fez in Morocco, in Brussels, the Boghossian Foundation where I exhibited many works both photographic and sculptural.
In 2011 I had the great pleasure to present the exhibition ars 11, sculptures and photos In a large space of the museum Kiasma in Helsinki. Now the emotions continue with my new exhibitions in India and Bangladesh.
Maimounaâs art reveals what can happen to us when we arenât afraid to transgress boundaries or to transform ourselves. It is as sincere as it is unburdened.
I once asked myself, âIs my art Black, like me, because I speak in Black figures?â
Then I realized that I was placing a boundary on my work, I wasnât allowing it to transform by working within that system. Â At first I wanted my own work to be identified solely with my cultural heritage; but it was a way to combat an insecurity Iâd internalized from growing up here in the United States. I was afraid of being assimilated, my art lashed out at this fear rather than create something to subvert it.
Iâm beginning to see both my art and my skin as extensions of all that I am. Race is not complex enough to grasp my work; though this skin and my experiences have nurtured and informed my art what I create is more than my label--it transcends it and it transgresses borders.
Like Maimouna Guerresi I choose to create new possibilities and new worlds, rooted in my own heritage, inspired by fearless exploration into new perspectives.
Please follow this link for information on her latest exhibiton with Tasveer: http://www.tasveerarts.com/exhibitions/maimouna-guerresi-inner-space/Â
Also visit Black Contemporary Art an online collection of art from the Diaspora, and the site where I first encountered Maimouna's work.
On Trickster Figures and Performing Blackness - First Take
I dreamt. I entered the dream by waking into it. I was in a bed in my grandmotherâs shotgun house, the home where I grew up, but it was no longer in New Orleans. Laughter rang outside on the front porch, crawled inside through cracks in the threshold mixed with sunlight. One of the laughs, I recognized as my Pop. I got out of the bed, walked on my long legs to the door and stared outside. Pop was telling jokes to some men standing in the shade or by the street. I felt they were from Soweto, from the Samburu in Kenya and the Ndebele of South Africa. They had hairline smiles on their faces that fractured into belly laughs. I never went outside, only watched until the men left.
Then I woke to the darkness of mid-morning. I knew I had seen beyond my father and witnessed trickster figure.
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Trickster figures seem to be universal concepts in all cultures of the globe. They vary from Bugs Bunny to the Coyote of Native American cosmologies and even to cats like Bernie Maddoff. The Trickster performs many roles in society, but the primary role is as a teacher and mediator.
My Mother says, âHey! Someoneâs in the garage!â My heart is thumping. I rush down the stairs. My eyes look to her to confirm it.
âGotâcha,â she says. Then she tells me Iâd left the garage door open.
This happened today, a few days after I dreamt about my Trickster Figure-father, but something suddenly hits me(because my brain is usually half in the real world, half day-dreaming about the spirits and future of the African Diaspora): I damn sure would never want to live with a Trickster. But I come to another realization immediately afterwards. A Trickster does more than teach a lesson or give wisdom, they ward off laziness and demand awareness. A Trickster Figure promotes growth by raising consciousness.
I connect this realization with a conversation me and my mother had. We were in a diner, talking about the differences between living a lie or remaining true to oneself. It reminded me of essays Iâd read about self-actualization, identity performance and a hip-hop song--K.O.S. by Mos Def(Yasiin Bey) and Talib Kweli.Â
âYou know how it is, the more you lie the longer you have to live with it,â she says. I nod my head, remember something from a book. A thought creeps into my head, its heavy and I start staring into my cup of tea to concentrate. Then I speak
âI think itâs that way with Blackness, today. You can perform âBlackââact black but live a lie-- or you can just be and embrace your Blackness without it limiting you.â My mother raises an eyebrow.
âI mean, the main difference between what mant Blackness for your generation and what Blackness means for mine was summed up best by Steve Biko, an activist from South Africa. He said something like, âBlackness is an attitudeâ.â
âIt feels like more people in my generation have lost touch with that idea. Instead weâre mainly performing some idea of âBlacknessâ thatâs limiting us, rather than taking it to new heights. You know what I mean, like how we dress or act or speak a certain way. But then when youâre Black and you defy all of those performance rules, do something different, people grow afraid.âÂ
Mother starts nodding. I work through my thought, flourish it like a fencing saber.
âBecause youâre showing them a new way for Blackness to be. It expands the possibilities.â
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To me, the ultimate Trickster Figure of our new century is Mediaâalso known as Tricknology, props to the Hip-Hop generation.
It is possible that Tricknology is trying to destroy people of color, the poor, the many of us on the  economic and social margins. I assert this thought on the basis of how little control we have over mainstream media, but also how little power us "little people" have worked to seize when it comes making our own media. Entrepreneurs like Pharrell and his i am OTHER internet entertainment network, Oprahâs OWN network, and independent filmmakers(please peep this link) continue to inspire me and give me hope I believe they understand that media is simply a tool, available to anyone brave enough to use it to great effect. In our century, creating media is the way to amplify our voices.
Likewise, Tricknology, the Digital Trickster Figure will destroy anyone who remains lazy, remains asleep, remains unconscious. To quote Kanye, âThe things we see on the screen are not ours.â I see those Black images that pop up in TV screens and Newspapers as only a single reflection of who we Black people areâthey do not define us, but if we let Tricknology take advantage of us weâll be stuck.Â
A Trickster Figure is meant to swoop in, cause havoc and leave a people with new knowledge to share. All this Tricknology, all these Media depictions of people of color as buffoons or criminals even as hot shots but all in the same old roles, theyâre traps when you donât see past them.
Tricknology is a wake-up call for our generation. Blackness is in a state of change, searching for new growth and ideas. Live the lies and limitations of mainstream Blackness if you want. Iâm looking for the people moving past that, people who are taking Blackness to new heights, low-end theories and continents.
As Biko said, "Blackness is an attitude", a state of mind. And the Black state of mind is constantly evolving and growing. Those who grow lazy or afraid of growth risk losing their voices and thus losing control over how they define themselves.
Meditations on Civic Unrest, Community and Media - Part 1
This article is the first in a three part series on the ways a single bullet, smaller than a pebble, can cause shockwaves throughout communities.
Two weeks ago, Annaheim, CA and South Dallas, TX were both sites of near riots followed by protests. The catalysts were set off by a volatile mix of elements: police killings of unarmed men, segregation, poverty, and miscommunication. As I read news articles I sometimes scan the reader responses. This one caught me off guard.
ââŠProtest gangs and violence, don't protest the crime fighters.â
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Iâm usually numb to the run of the mill prejudice and bigotry found in news article comments. But this comment drew a response from me because, beneath its absurdity, it touched on the idea of community ownership. I began to see the bias of the readerâs comment as a thesis; I too wondered: Why havenât we protested the drug dealers and gangbangers in our community yet? Who would be there leading it? What would it look like?
Imagine that day. The sky is the same shade of burning brass as an officerâs badge in summer heat. Weâre standing across the street from the high-traffic drug zones and gang turf. Our native daughters and sons are there, mixed with outsiders and fiends with twisted up faces we canât quite recognize. Some amusedly wave at us from low-rise home windows, others look bewildered . Â As it is with most protests, their leaders have fled the scene. Reporters are interviewing angry protestors or standing on the front porches of trap houses waiting to catch a comment on, but only trails of smoke and empty plastic bags greet them.
In our hands are signs like âThug Life is Shortâ âKeep Hope Alive, Stay Aliveâ âYou Can Do So Much Moreâ or just âCome Homeâ. The crowd is split. Do we run these guys out, or do we rehabilitate them? Would it be a peaceful protest with songs and  street theater? A free concert and a demonstration permit?
Maybe it would be a disruptive march, where we line up with parents and arms ourselves with belts, bibles, childhood photos, cakes, open arms. Then we rush everyone we see outside and drag them inside our rented or owned homes. After the glow of fresh asswhoopins, love, and cakes subsides how long would the peace last?
 Maybe the protest would end in heartbreak, with members of both sides losing their lives in a melee or gunfire. The National Guard would bury neighborhoods under martial silence and sandbags. And would a protest against drugs and gangs even been effective? Should we protest the criminals in our neighborhood, or protest the weapon and drug suppliers(would that mean fighting the FDA or the NRA too?)âhow do you even find those people? Or would we need to protest their customers?
And in which direction would the police be facing?
And how long before a colored kidâs lifeless body is too hard and stale to feed a movement?
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The usual banter around police slayings and civic unrest brings up stories about resource failure, out-of-control neighborhoods, exhaustion, terrible parenting, or justifies a death. Â I believe we need to shiftour perspective on these events, we need to inspect civilian protests, police brutality, riots as we would a dialogue. Protests and Gunfire are acts of communication, with their own language, catalysts and subtext.
Woven into my understanding of âProtestâ is Distance, Communication, Grief, Time.
We sometimes refer to them as Public-Out-Cries, and they always seem to occur after the pain has struck. While each community is different and thus the language of each Protest is different, public outcries are like poetry. We can analyze patterns, tension and metaphors in public unrest the same way we would in a poem. We also have to see protests and gunfire as allusions to breakdowns in relationships and communication.
In the case of the South Dallas shooting, the police officer in question fired on an unarmed drug suspect who fought the officer as he fled a drug house. The officer claimed exhaustion as his reason for shooting the man. After the shooting occurred, the neighborhood was on the verge of a riot because people assumed the suspect had been shot for no reason. But thereâs a pattern here as well: civil unrest, like a policemanâs gunshot, are tactics of last resortâof exhaustionâand they come in response to prior violence.
We know the officer was fought, but what violence had been directed at the South Dallas community?
Riots may be interpreted as uncivilized acts, but in truth there was a whole lot of savagery going down before they occurred. Both Anaheim and South Dallas were sites of high resource segregation and have records of police violence .For instance, in the case of the South Dallas police slaying, neighborhood members quotes echoed substantial poverty as causing the drug trade. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex is one of the third most economically segregated cities in the country. Anaheim, CA is similar. In a city of 350,000 most of whom are Latino, none of its city council election districts are in Latino voting zones, and only 3 of all its officials elected to the council were Latino. Its biggest employer and tax payer is Disneyland and most of its wealth and resources are centered there and in an affluent neighborhood.
What the statistics and shootings could reveal is Einsteinâs definition of insanityâweâre trying the same methods, yet expecting different results each time. They also reveal that civilians in these areas experience or perceive greater violence from the state than neighborhood criminals.
What would happen if police and citizens joined together and held disruptive, peaceful protests of crime stricken areas? Â Moreover, what would happen if police and citizens held protests of city councils and chambers of commerce?
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