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Nasher Museum of Art Durham Nc Nina Chanel Abney

A Young Artist'due south First Solo Museum Show

The Nasher Museum presented Nina Chanel Abney: Royal Affluent, the first solo exhibition in a museum for the Chicago-born artist. The exhibition was a 10-year survey of approximately 30 of the artist's paintings, watercolors and collages. Abney besides painted a large wall landscape on the archway wall of the exhibition. Abney, born in 1982, is at the forefront of a generation of artists that is unapologetically revitalizing narrative figurative painting, and every bit a skillful storyteller, she visually articulates the complex social dynamics of contemporary urban life.

"We are so excited to introduce this important young artist to wider audiences," said Marshall N. Price, Nancy Hanks Curator of Mod and Gimmicky Art and curator of the exhibition. "In her monumental paintings, Abney takes on some of the most pressing issues today from racial dynamics and criminal justice to consumerism and celebrity civilisation. Her seductive visual language is comprised of a jumble of figures, words and shapes to the bespeak of information overload. With this every bit her backdrop, Abney creates paintings that explore some of the deeper recesses of human being nature."

Touring Nationally

Nina Chanel Abney, Class of 2007, 2007. Acrylic on canvas, 114 × 186 inches (289.7 × 472.4 cm) overall. Rubell Family Collection, Miami, Florida. © Nina Chanel Abney. Photo by Chi Lam.
Nina Chanel Abney, Class of 2007, 2007. Acrylic on canvas, 114 × 186 inches (289.7 × 472.4 cm) overall. Rubell Family Collection, Miami, Florida. © Nina Chanel Abney. Photo by Chi Lam.

Nina Chanel Abney: Regal Flush traveled to the Chicago Cultural Middle (Feb 10–May six, 2018) and will travel to Los Angeles, where it will be jointly presented past the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (September 23, 2018  ̶  January 20, 2019) and the California African American Museum, Los Angeles (September 26, 2018  ̶  January 20, 2019). The concluding venue for the exhibition is the Neuberger Museum of Fine art, Purchase College, Land University of New York (April 7–August 4, 2019).

Abney emerged in 2008 when her work was included in the notable exhibition xxx Americans, organized by the Rubell Family unit Drove, Miami. Every bit one of the youngest amidst a distinguished grouping of intergenerational African American artists, she immediately became part of an important creative lineage. Her large-calibration paintings in that exhibition included Grade of 2007, depicting her MFA course as African American inmates conspicuously wearing orange jumpsuits. It was a commentary on incarceration, race and inherent inequities in college education and signaled the artist'due south immediate willingness to confront difficult issues. Abney continues to mine aspects of American civilisation to create compelling, narrative tableaux reminiscent of 1000 manner history painting.

Cartoons, Video Games, Hip-Hop as Inspiration

Nina Chanel Abney, Incite (COM), 2015. Unique ultrachrome pigmented print, acrylic, and spray paint on canvas; 48 x 36 inches (121.92 x 91.44 cm). Collection of Isis Heslin and Jacqueline T. Martin. Image courtesy of Kravets | Wehby Gallery, New York, New York. © Nina Chanel Abney.
Nina Chanel Abney, Incite (COM), 2015. Unique ultrachrome pigmented impress, acrylic, and spray paint on canvas; 48 10 36 inches (121.92 x 91.44 cm). Collection of Isis Heslin and Jacqueline T. Martin. Prototype courtesy of Kravets | Wehby Gallery, New York, New York. © Nina Chanel Abney.

Abney's works are informed as much by mainstream news media as they are past animated cartoons, video games, hip-hop culture, glory websites and tabloid magazines. She draws on these sources to brand paintings replete with symbols that appear to take landed on the canvas with the stream-of-consciousness immediacy of text messages, popular-up windows, a Twitter feed or the scrolling headlines of an incessant 24-hour news bike. By engaging loaded topics and controversial bug with irreverence, humor and lampooning satire, Abney'southward works are both pointed contemporary genre scenes also as scathing commentaries on social attitudes and inequities.

Abney'due south works are lively menageries populated past characters who are tearing villains, unwitting victims, aspirational heroes and ineffectual anti-heroes, set up against the backdrop of narratives that bear upon politics, race, homophobia, celebrity, consumerism and other potentially incendiary topics. She comes from a generation raised on screens, in which multitasking and processing multiple streams of information simultaneously is the norm, and thus loads her works full of visual information.

"Easy to Eat, Hard to Digest"

Nina Chanel Abney, Close But No Cigar, 2008. Acrylic on canvas, 84 x 146 inches (213.36 x 370.84 cm) overall. Collection of Scott R. Coleman. Image courtesy of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion. © Nina Chanel Abney.
Nina Chanel Abney, Close Only No Cigar, 2008. Acrylic on canvas, 84 x 146 inches (213.36 x 370.84 cm) overall. Collection of Scott R. Coleman. Prototype courtesy of the Nasher Museum of Art at Knuckles Academy. Photograph by Peter Paul Geoffrion. © Nina Chanel Abney.

These densely packed paintings can be challenging to decipher. The artist has said that her work is "easy to swallow, hard to digest," and certainly its playful and seductive nature belies its oft serious tone. She was identified by Vanity Fair magazine as one of the many artists championing the Black Lives Matter move.

Several of Abney's early paintings direct confront interracial violence and at present seem like eerily prescient harbingers in the wake of the recent deaths of African Americans and law in cities across the country. The titles and the imagery of these, along with more contempo works that take on similar subjects, pose larger philosophical questions about the dynamics of power and responsibility, the ethics, agency and inherent bias of policing, methods of interrogation, and the politics of discriminatory practices. Often based on real events and filled with metaphor and allegory, Abney'south works have us on occasionally uncomfortable existential investigations of our own imperfect humanity.

The title of the exhibition was taken from a actor's nearly valuable hand in the game of poker. Royal Flush is something of double entendre. "It refers to Abney's work, which contains iconography reminiscent of playing cards and the 4 dissimilar suits," Price said. "But the title Purple Flush as well suggests that the artist holds a valuable manus. When Abney 'lays her cards on the tabular array,' she presents paintings rich in critical commentary and meaningful metaphor."

Exhibition Catalogue

The exhibition was accompanied by a richly illustrated, total-color catalogue published by the Nasher Museum. Art critics atThe New York Times chose this catalogue for its list of Best Fine art Books of 2017. Burnaway likewise included this catalogue in its Best of 2017 list. The catalogue also earned accolades from Culture Type.

The catalogue includes many images that highlight Abney's most important and iconic works of the past ten years. The catalogue was edited by Marshall N. Price with essays by Cost and too Jamillah James, curator at the Constitute of Gimmicky Fine art, Los Angeles; Natalie Y. Moore, a South Side agency reporter for Chicago Public Media, WBEZ; and Richard J. Powell, John Spencer Bassett Professor of Fine art and Fine art History at Duke. Nina Chanel Abney: Royal Flush is distributed by Knuckles University Press and designed by ReneĆ© Cagnina Haynes. The catalogue is available at the Nasher Museum Store.

Public Radio Interview

Heading into the WUNC-FM studio at American Tobacco Complex. Instagram photo by J Caldwell.
Heading into the WUNC-FM studio at American Tobacco Circuitous. Instagram photo by J Caldwell.

Listen to an interview with artist Nina Chanel Abney past Frank Stasio on "The State of Things," on WUNC (91.5 FM), the public radio chapter in Durham.

"Extremely versatile and talented"

For more information, delight peruse the mini website that was on view while the exhibition was at Duke.

Run across recent press about Nina's work.

This project is supported in office by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. At the Nasher Museum, the exhibition was also supported by Ann Chanler and Andrew Scheman; Parker & Otis; Susan Rosenthal and Michael Hershfield; and Gail Belvett.

Artist in Residence at Duke

Rubenstein Arts Center
Rubenstein Arts Eye

In Bound 2018, Nina Chanel Abney was chosen as the get-go artist in residence at the new Rubenstein Arts Center, beyond the street from the Nasher Museum. More data.

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Source: https://nasher.duke.edu/exhibitions/nina-chanel-abney-royal-flush-2/

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