Danger in a Body

A dedication to 22 years of my hysteria and all my intensities. Zimbabwe | DMV | California ✈ NYC

[strongbrowngod]

- praise the soft belly. - praise the skin that will stretch itself to hold you together. - praise the body most when it blooms and bloats and is full of pulp.

Warsan Shire

[asteriskmag]

Brooklyn-based photographer and mixed media artist Dane Rex re-imagines and recontextualizes magazine cover-esque images in his ongoing painting and collage work. While partly intended to challenge our contemporary understanding of perfection, Rex’s haphazardly cut and defaced collages also mirror worn and torn posters that adorn several NYC streets.

[ahfrobaang-deactivated20240222]

[strongbrowngod]

Erykah Badu is my hair icon. She isn't a prisoner of the black hair politics debate, which is increasingly becoming a natural hair militant agenda. Neither does she circumvent the issue. With every hairstyle she dons, whether natural or straightened, she transcends the binaries we've constructed, literally turns our propaganda(s) on its head.

Just to clarify, I love natural hair, all types of hair and no hair. 

[inkedupegypt]

[strongbrowngod]

Mickalene Thomas, Black Odalisque images

Thomas's images show black women who are "beautiful, sexy and strong, set against a lush backdrop, which recalls a specific cultural moment in the 70s...She has created a kind of feminist baroque portrait in which the extreme use of lighting draws the viewer into the delight of worshiping at the altar of female beauty. Thomas’ work transcends any possible accusation of narcissism because she has so effectively considered the mood and tone of her paintings. They convey an ebullient sensibility rather than a self-serving eroticism. She has accomplished something wholly pleasurable and refreshing in her art, something which will be exciting to follow" -Anne Swartz

[strongbrowngod]

A classmate introduced me to Hélio Oiticica's Parangolé images today. What I found particularly mesmerizing about these photographic arrangements is the dialectic they produce between our bodies as sites of potentialities (invoked by the vivacity imparted onto the fabric and materials by the performing/dancing body) and the possibility of collective revolution or mystical transcendence (shown through communal participation in the wearing of these capes, and the semblance to sculpture created by the amalgamation of fabric, body, and environment). 

From the artist (1937-1980): "O que interessa é justamente jogar de lado toda essa porcaria intelectual, ou deixá-la para os otários da crítica antiga, ultrapassada, e procurar um modo de dar ao indivíduo a possibilidade de 'experimentar', de deixar de ser espectador para ser participador." 

[strongbrowngod]

Wangechi Mutu

"Violent incidences are often fastened to images of privilege in my drawings. Images of altered or slightly mutilated bodies with diseased skin sometimes look like bizarre and colorful fabric costumes. There is this tiny percentage of people who live like emperors because elsewhere blood is being shed."

[strongbrowngod]

Marsha Hunt, Black is Beautiful movement

Thought it fitting to include this image In light of the Black Portraiture[s] conference in Paris exploring the ways in which the black body has been imagined in the West from the 19th century onwards.

I wish I could have been present to participate, but for the fortunate in Paris, visit: http://photo.tisch.nyu.edu/object/BlackPortraitures.html for the conference agenda.

[strongbrowngod]

Mickalene Thomas, Origin of the Universe 2

[strongbrowngod]

Godly Ambitions

“I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river Is a strong brown god”- T.S. Eliot from The Dry Salvages

I’ve always thought of myself as a strong brown impenetrable god. Sometimes a goddess. But always, a god. And in my universe, there are so few things worthy of my endeavor, among them: Love, Ecstasy, & Orgasm; Philosophy, Poetry, and Power. These are the axes, sensibilities, that balance and give meaning to my world. What is a life without Love? What is Love without Ecstasy? What is Ecstasy without a lover to rock the shxt out of my world? Just kidding (yet not really).

And Power, well… there is Power in everything, within me and all around me. In my universe, my actions, my ambitions, my transgressions, my conformity. Up until this moment, I have never felt more like a god. I am potent, dangerous, and I like it. I’ve realized that in my universe, all other external pressures and expectations are none of my goddamn business. 

And with that, welcome to my blog, a blog dedicated to probing the discourses surrounding our bodies.