JOHN T. SCOTT was far more than an infinitely creative mind – he was educator, mentor and guiding spirit to New Orleans’s artistic community. Two-thousand-five was a pivotal year for Scott. Works from every stage of his career appeared in a major retrospective, Circle Dance: The Art of John T. Scott, which opened in May of that year at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Read More
All Things Considered, September 4, 2007 · John T. Scott was born in Gentilly and raised in the Lower Ninth Ward. He used to say he tried to capture the musicality of New Orleans in the colors and rhythms of his sculptures. He died Saturday at the age of 67. Read More
John T. Scott, a New Orleans sculptor whose vibrantly colored kinetic art filtered the spirit of the African diaspora through a modernist lens, died on Saturday in Houston. He was 67 and had fled his home city just before Hurricane Katrina hit two years ago. Read More
“John Scott: Circle Dance” at the New Orleans Museum of Art, 2005. Video courtesy of the New Orleans Museum of Art. Read More
The New Orleans Museum of Art is about to begin a John Waters film festival to celebrate a gift of photographs and a sculpture by the movie maker – part of a much larger gift from gallery owner Arthur Roger. Read More
In The Legacy of the Black Arts Movement, author Trey Ellis suggests that the New Breed of Black artists, writers and critics advanced a broad range of aesthetic positions that pointed to an awareness and acceptance of their “cultural mulatto” status and recognized their immersion in and indebtedness to “a multi-racial mix of cultures.”[2] The New Breed Artists regularly employed popular culture as both a playground and a tool of empowerment, using highbrow and lowbrow references that were easily interpreted by all sectors of Black society. Ellis was particularly interested in the tensions these artists experienced between their competing desires to adhere to European and American aesthetic norms and to present an alternative view of Americans whose heritage included a history of enslavement and miscegenation. This double consciousness often invited a collision between content and style, but sometimes, as in the work of Robert Colescott, this twin consciousness became inextricably intertwined as it informed form and materiality. Read More
John Kemp discusses Jacqueline Bishop’s exhibition “Against the Tide” at Arthur Roger Gallery on Steppin’ Out. Read More
Arthur Roger@434 is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings and drawings by the late Robert Colescott. This selection of work is from the artist’s exhibition titled “Troubled Goods”. The artist passed away in June at his home in Tucson at the age of 83. The exhibition will be on view October 3rd – November 14th at the Arthur Roger@434 located at 434 Julia Street. The gallery will host an opening reception on Saturday, October 3rd from 6 to 9 pm in conjunction with “Art for Art’s Sake.” On November 10th, The Museum of Modern Art will host a memorial in honor of Robert Colescott from 10 am until noon. Read More
Robert Colescott—who was born in Oakland on August 26, 1925 and died June 4, 2009 in Tucson, AZ—was an energetic painter who pushed his presence into the history of American art completely on his own terms. His fifty-some-year oeuvre, featuring crude figuration, splashy, garish color, and blunt racial and sexual themes, was generated by a spirited mix of deep ties to past art, immersion in popular culture, committed social topics and uncompromising self-expression. Read More
Robert Colescott, an American figurative painter whose garishly powerful canvases lampooned racial and sexual stereotypes with rakish imagery, lurid colors and almost tangible glee, died Thursday at his home in Tucson. He was 83. Read More