Author: nsengaknight
POLLOCK-KRASNER FOUNDATION AWARDS NSENGA KNIGHT $20,000 GRANT
New York, NY – May 12, 2019 – The Pollock-Krasner Foundation has awarded Nsenga Knight a $20,000 grant during its 2018-2019 grant cycle. This year’s grantees and award recipients include artists from 18 states, Puerto Rico, and 17 countries. During its 2018-2019 grant cycle the Pollock-Krasner Foundation has awarded $3,168,000 to 111 artists and 12 organizations . The 124 grants provided invaluable support to national and international artists and not-for-profit organizations. These highly competitive grants provide critical professional support to artists around the globe, enabling them to create new work, offset living expenses, and prepare for exhibitions. The Foundation has also provided Emergency Relief Grants to artists affected by recent hurricanes and California wildfires. Since its inception in 1985, the Foundation has awarded more than 4,510 grants in 77 countries, for a total of nearly $74 million.
With the support of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant Knight will complete a series of text-based paintings entitled Tawaf/ Sa’y and two large bodies of abstract print works—the Plateau and Chicken Scratch series. Her interdisciplinary work spans photography, printmaking, painting, drawing, installation and social practice. Unfolding across these media, and informed by her upbringing as a first-generation Black American Muslim woman, her work synthesizes influences from Islamic art, Western abstraction, and Black aesthetics.
“At the core of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation’s mission is fostering the work and development of artists, and our 2018-19 grant and award recipients highlight the impact we can have due to Lee Krasner’s legacy,” said Ronald D. Spencer, Chairman and CEO of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. “In addition, through our support of institutions such as the Barbican Centre and their upcoming Lee Krasner retrospective and catalogue, and the Katonah Museum of Art’s exhibition of the work of Krasner and other women artists who participated in the groundbreaking 9th Street Show, we are continuing to advance much-needed scholarship.”
ABOUT NSENGA KNIGHT
Nsenga Knight was born in 1981 in Brooklyn, New York. She currently lives and works in Cairo, Egypt and New York. She has exhibited work at the Drawing Center, New York, NY; Arthur Ross Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; Project Rowhouses, Houston, TX; Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College, Pennsylvania; Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY; Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art, Brooklyn, NY; Amistad Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania, New Museum for Contemporary Art, New York, NY; PS1 MoMA among others.
Knight has held artist residencies at Elsewhere Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina, the Galveston Artist Residency in Galveston, Texas, Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia, Film/Video Arts Center in New York, and was a BCAT/ Rotunda Gallery Multimedia Artist in Resident in Brooklyn, NY. She was most recently a recipient of a Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant, and a recipient of a Durham Arts Council grant, Southern Constellations Fellowship, the Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grant, and Brooklyn Arts Council grants. From 2016-2017 Knight was an Open Sessions artist in resident at the Drawing Center in New York. She earned a Masters of Fine Arts degree at the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts in Film Production at Howard University.
ABOUT POLLOCK-KRASNER FOUNDATION
The Pollock-Krasner Foundation was established in 1985 through the generosity of Lee Krasner, a leading abstraction expressionist painter and spouse of Jackson Pollock. Based in New York and operating internationally, the Foundation’s grants enable artists to advance their practice. Recipients of Pollock-Krasner grants have noted the generous and critical impact of this funding in allowing concentrated time to work in the studio and prepare for exhibitions.
To provide additional support to its grantees, the Foundation maintains an up to date and comprehensive Grantee Image Collection representing the work of artists who have received grants since 1985. For more information, including guidelines for grant applications, visit the Foundation’s website: http://www.pkf.org.
Nsenga Knight featured in the 2019 Southern Constellations Exhibition
Make Safe, Make Space featured in the 2019 Southern Constellations Exhibition
at NC A&T University
Jan. 10th – Jan. 28th.
Make Safe, Make Space is featured at NC A&T University in the 2019 Southern Constellations Exhibition— a multi-media show highlighting the work of the Southern Constellations (SoCo) Fellowship program and curatorial initiative to extend experimental arts practices, networks, and dialogues in the South. Curated by Elsewhere in collaboration with past SoCo Fellow Jessica Gaynelle Moss, the show at A&T profiles selected works from the curatorial initiative.
Artists include Fellows Nikita Gale, Stacy Lynn Waddell, Maria Molteni, Charisse Weston, Cosmo Whyte, Antoine Williams, Rachel Debuque, Jana Harper, Mictlan Studios – izelvargas.com, Magsamen and Stephen Hillerbrand, Martha Whittington, Nsenga Knight, Nick Szuberla, Melissa Vanderburg, John Q, Andrew Raffo Dewar
The SoCo Exhibition opens on Jan. 10th and runs through Jan. 28th.
Nsenga Knight’s Make Safe, Make Space featured in the 2019 Southern Constellations Exhibition at NC A&T University Jan. 10th – Jan. 28th.
Make Safe, Make Space featured in the 2019 Southern Constellations Exhibition
at NC A&T University
Jan. 10th – Jan. 28th.
Make Safe, Make Space is featured at NC A&T University in the 2019 Southern Constellations Exhibition— a multi-media show highlighting the work of the Southern Constellations (SoCo) Fellowship program and curatorial initiative to extend experimental arts practices, networks, and dialogues in the South. Curated by Elsewhere in collaboration with past SoCo Fellow Jessica Gaynelle Moss, the show at A&T profiles selected works from the curatorial initiative.
Artists include Fellows Nikita Gale, Stacy Lynn Waddell, Maria Molteni, Charisse Weston, Cosmo Whyte, Antoine Williams, Rachel Debuque, Jana Harper, Mictlan Studios – izelvargas.com, Magsamen and Stephen Hillerbrand, Martha Whittington, Nsenga Knight, Nick Szuberla, Melissa Vanderburg, John Q, Andrew Raffo Dewar
The SoCo Exhibition opens on Jan. 10th and runs through Jan. 28th.
NSENGA KNIGHT in the 2019 Southern Constellations Exhibition
Make Safe, Make Space featured in the 2019 Southern Constellations Exhibition
at NC A&T University
Jan. 10th – Jan. 28th.
Make Safe, Make Space is featured at NC A&T University in the 2019 Southern Constellations Exhibition— a multi-media show highlighting the work of the Southern Constellations (SoCo) Fellowship program and curatorial initiative to extend experimental arts practices, networks, and dialogues in the South. Curated by Elsewhere in collaboration with past SoCo Fellow Jessica Gaynelle Moss, the show at A&T profiles selected works from the curatorial initiative.
Artists include Fellows Nikita Gale, Stacy Lynn Waddell, Maria Molteni, Charisse Weston, Cosmo Whyte, Antoine Williams, Rachel Debuque, Jana Harper, Mictlan Studios – izelvargas.com, Magsamen and Stephen Hillerbrand, Martha Whittington, Nsenga Knight, Nick Szuberla, Melissa Vanderburg, John Q, Andrew Raffo Dewar
The SoCo Exhibition opens on Jan. 10th and runs through Jan. 28th.
NSENGA KNIGHT: OTHER STARS, SOLO EXHIBITION | AUG. 17 – OCT 11, 2018
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NSENGA KNIGHT: OTHER STARS, SOLO EXHIBITION
KWAN FONG GALLERY OF ART AND CULTURE
AUG. 17 – OCT 11, 2018
and
EXHIBITION TALK WITH HALIMA TAHA
OCT. 9, 2018 6 pm
Nsenga Knight, Other Stars Don’t Behave So, 2013 ink and wax drawing, 20 x 30 in. Courtesy of the artist.
THOUSAND OAKS, CA, September 25, 2018 – Nsenga Knight: Other Stars, an exhibition of geometric drawings, text paintings, photographs and oral history recordings by Nsenga Knight will be on view at the Kwan Fong Gallery at California Lutheran University from August 17 – October 11, 2018. In conjunction with the Other Stars exhibition, art historian Halima Taha will present on the work of Knight in the context of the canon of African American artwork, with a focus on the overlapping influences of Western and Islamic abstraction in her work Tuesday, October 9, 2018 at 6:00pm at the Ullman Conference Center 100/101 at CLU.
The exhibition includes a survey of Knight’s works from as early as 2007 such as As the Veil Turns her photography, video and oral history project on Black women in her hometown Brooklyn Muslim community who converted to Islam prior to 1975 and pioneered some of New York’s earliest still-existing mosques; and more recent works that place Malcolm X and Ali Shariati’s pilgrimage memoirs in sociological and formal conversation with Abū Rayḥān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Al-Bīrūnī’s 10th-century astronomical renderings.
Nsenga Knight As the Veil Turns (Shameelah), 2007 Archival Inkjet Print, 30 x 20 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Each of my artistic projects is responding to my self-reflexive question: Who am I and what is my place in this world? My artworks exist as invitations to examine new possibilities that broaden our collective imaginations and challenge traditional boundaries of race, nationhood and religion. —Nsenga Knight
On October 9, 2018 Taha will present a discussion about Knight as a contemporary artist working in film, photography, paint, and printmaking, exploring her place as an interdisciplinary artist whose visual statements are universal, yet part of the visual culture of the African Diaspora. Given the meteoric growth of art by artists of African descent in the worldwide market, Taha will discuss Knight’s presence within it and will highlight the market interest in work that provides insight into the global experience while ultimately provoking self-reflection.
Knight (b. 1981, Brooklyn, NY) has exhibited work at the Drawing Center, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art, the New Museum for Contemporary Art and MoMA PS1. She received her MFA from the University of Pennsylvania and BA in Film from Howard University. She lives and works in Cairo, Egypt and New York.
Taha is a best-selling author, curator, appraiser and independent scholar. Taha is most well-known for her groundbreaking bestseller, Collecting African American Art: Works on Paper and Canvas (Crown), the first book to validate African American art as a viable asset and commodity within the international marketplace; which created a new market for publications and exhibitions on African American art. Her work advocates the importance and value of collecting art made by American artists of African descent. She has degrees in Liberal Arts, Arts Management & Cultural Policy from Sarah Lawrence College and New York University. Currently, Taha is the President of TahaThinks,LLC, a company that provides art advisory, appraisal, collection management, and speaker services.
The Kwan Fong Gallery is located in Soiland Humanities Center at the California Lutheran University. Admission is free. The gallery is open to the public 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Street parking is by permit 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Parking lots are located on Mountclef Boulevard north and south of Olsen Road.
For more information, visit https://blogs.callutheran.edu/kwanfong/ and https://nsengaknight.com/
CONTACT:
Nsenga Knight
+201097090984
nsengak@gmail.com
Rachel T. Schmid
805-493-3697
rtschmid@callutheran.edu
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What can artists do for freedom? | Reading The New Jim Crow
I read a lot of articles, chapters from books, watch and listen to lectures, but I haven’t sat down to complete reading a book from cover to cover in a while.
One of the books I’ve been eager to read is Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. I’ve seen her speak and listened to plenty of her interviews. Last week I finally decided to pick up her book from my local library.
Since I was maybe 10-years old and learned about the Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime, I felt that this exception in the thirteenth amendment was a loophole that could in practice re-enslave Black people.
Earlier this year, Michelle Alexander spoke at the Union Theological Seminary. She called the movement to end mass incarceration our current Abolitionist Movement. Her choose of the word abolition struck a chord in me.
Many of us may not realize that even when Black people were enslaved in the Americas, many other Black folks were free. According to my family’s oral history, on my mothers side, some of our African ancestors came to the Americas freely and were never enslaved (I have to ask my grandfather more about this). What was the responsibility of those free Black people to those who were enslaved? I would like to think that if I were my free Black self over 150 years ago, I would have been working to free my enslaved brothers and sisters. Here we are in 2015 and too many Black people are still being enslaved through mass incarceration. One of the things that prompted me to ask “what can I do?” and finally pick up The New Jim Crow is the Rauschenberg Foundation’s call to artists for project proposals that WILL FOCUS ON RACIAL JUSTICE THROUGH THE LENS OF MASS INCARCERATION. I didn’t apply for the grant because I am not doing any projects that deal with this issue, but I am so intrigued by the possibility that artists can effect some change in the incarceration of Black people in particular through our artistic practices. That’s a tall order! I know there is so much more that I can do to think around and use my artistic practice to effect issues that I care about. Mass incarceration and reparations are two related issues that I am researching.
I’m also inspired by Michelle Alexander because she decided to write this groundbreaking book in the midst of giving birth to three children over the course of 4-years. Motherhood has given me a huge burst of creative energy too. I relate to her working between naps and at odd hours.
That’s also how I’ve kept my artistic practice going for my first two years of being a mom. That’s how I’m writing this blog post too. Time is precious and it has to be directed towards achieving important goals. Becoming a parent has made me ask myself what more can I do through my artistic practice to impact the lives of other people and constantly create work that addresses the issues that matter to me.
