Edited and with an introduction by Kara Walker. Foreword by Amy Sadao. Text by Craig L. Wilkins.
Ruffneck Constructivists, published to accompany a group exhibition curated by artist Kara Walker, brings together 11 international artists in order to define a contemporary manifesto of urban architecture and change. Inspired by both the Russian Constructivists and McLyte's 1993 hit song "Ruffneck," the phrase "Ruffneck Constructivists" evokes thuggishness as an expression of abjection. The book features sculpture, photography and video by the artists Dineo Seshee Bopape, Kendell Geers, Arthur Jafa, Jennie C. Jones, Kahlil Joseph, Deana Lawson, Rodney McMillian, Pope.L, Tim Portlock, Lior Shvil and Szymon Tomsia. As Walker states, "Ruffneck Constructivists are defiant shapers of environments. Whatever their gender affiliation, Ruffnecks go hard when all around them they see weakness, softness, compromise, sermonizing, poverty, and lack; they don't change the world through conscious actions, instead they build themselves into the world one assault at a time."
Featured spread, representing Arthur Jafa, is reproduced from Ruffneck Constructivists.
Featured spread, representing New York artist Jennie C. Jones, is reproduced from Ruffneck Constructivists, the exhibition catalogue for the "smart, gripping and confrontational" Kara Walker-curated group show currently on view at ICA Philadelphia. Walker writes, "Jones' minimalist work considers the music of in-between spaces, audible perhaps to those attuned to subterranean frequencies. Deeply introspective, Jones aligns herself with visionary music legend Sun Ra: 'I'm playing dark history. It's beyond black. I'm dealing with the dark things of the cosmos.' Absence is present in Jones's work. Using the subtext of music and the (primarily) African-American creative mindset that is represented in jazz improvisation, Jones conjures those in-between, fugitive spaces occupied by Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. For Jones, the architecture of sound—speakers, soundproof panels, stereo cables, and headsets—embodies the unheard space of thought itself. In "Silent Clusterfuck (bianca)" (2013), a tangle of latex-dipped iPod earbuds, she presents the earbud, a ubiquitous and democratizing music-delivery system, clumped and oozing—dripping with the very material of its manufacture—and evoking a complex and unhearable music. In her work "Shhhh #12" (2012), a professional noise-cancelling instrument cable emerges from and collapses into the exhibition wall. The cable bends and loops with the lyricism of a dancer, possessed of its own inner music." continue to blog
FORMAT: Pbk, 8.5 x 10.25 in. / 96 pgs / 81 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $25.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $34.5 GBP £22.00 ISBN: 9780985337742 PUBLISHER: Dancing Foxes Press/Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania AVAILABLE: 8/31/2014 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: WORLD
Published by Dancing Foxes Press/Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania. Edited and with an introduction by Kara Walker. Foreword by Amy Sadao. Text by Craig L. Wilkins.
Ruffneck Constructivists, published to accompany a group exhibition curated by artist Kara Walker, brings together 11 international artists in order to define a contemporary manifesto of urban architecture and change. Inspired by both the Russian Constructivists and McLyte's 1993 hit song "Ruffneck," the phrase "Ruffneck Constructivists" evokes thuggishness as an expression of abjection. The book features sculpture, photography and video by the artists Dineo Seshee Bopape, Kendell Geers, Arthur Jafa, Jennie C. Jones, Kahlil Joseph, Deana Lawson, Rodney McMillian, Pope.L, Tim Portlock, Lior Shvil and Szymon Tomsia. As Walker states, "Ruffneck Constructivists are defiant shapers of environments. Whatever their gender affiliation, Ruffnecks go hard when all around them they see weakness, softness, compromise, sermonizing, poverty, and lack; they don't change the world through conscious actions, instead they build themselves into the world one assault at a time."
