The Grace Jones Project
The Museum of African Diaspora (MoAD) presents its first iteration of The Grace Jones Project, an exhibition dedicated to Grace Jones as an icon of culture and art.
The exhibit is the latest way of presenting MoAD’s mission of actively engaging in the cultural expression of the African Diaspora and is concurrent with another group exhibition, Dandy Lion: (Re)Defining Black Masculinity, which portrays the variance and diversity of cisgender black male masculinity and the expression of this identity.
The Grace Jones Project highlights a group of artists interacting with queer identity and the black body—subjects Grace Jones helped bring into conversation. The exhibit displays the great influence the model, singer, actress, and icon held and still holds today. Certain works pay a direct tribute to Jones, such as Harold Offeh’s video installation, Arabesque, After Grace Jones, 1989 (2008–2009), while others have works dealing with Jonesian subjects relating to androgyny, fluid gender identity and sexuality, and the objectification and reclamation of the black body. The exhibit showcases over 20 works in the form of photos, videos, and performances.
Curator of the exhibit, Nicole Caruth, believes that Grace Jones’ recent memoir, reemergence, and great contribution to Afrofuturism, an artistic movement that involves narratives of the African Diaspora in relation to sci-fi, futuristic themes, demonstrates why the exhibit is needed today. While each work deals with Jones through distinct methods and treatments, be it aesthetically or influenced by the persona and mysticism of Grace Jones, each highlights how, as Caruth puts it, “Jones lives in a person’s subconscious.”
Located in the Yerba Buena Arts District in San Francisco, MoAD is an arts and culture institution and non-profit organisation committed to conserving and sharing narratives of the African Diaspora. The museum is dedicated to spreading and building a deeper understanding and awareness of the common African heritage among the diaspora through art and programs.
The Grace Jones Project is on now at the MoAD in San Francisco until Monday 18 September 2016.
Words: Perwana Nazif.
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Entering to win Grace Jones exhibit tix.