The Alternative History of an Afrofuturist Icon

Culver Center of the Arts
February 10 — August 18, 2024

Dyno-Woman was introduced in television series Good Times (1974-1979) by Jimmie Walker’s James “J.J.” Evans character. Creating the character gave “J.J.” enough means to move out of the notorious Cabrini Green housing project in the series finale “End of The Rainbow”. Black Kirby use this fantastic premise to invent a superhero narrative for Dyno-Woman throughout the various eras of mainstream comics.

Intersecting Futures and Afro-Asian Connections in a Multipolar World

Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, SUNY Old Westbury

Turning to the East is a bold exploration of Afrofuturism and Afro-Asian connections in a world becoming increasingly interconnected. This multimedia exhibition challenges the traditional boundaries of art, politics, music, anime, and film, inviting visitors into a metamodern dialogue that transcends geographical and cultural barriers.

Curated by Reynaldo Anderson and The Black Speculative Arts Movement

This visual exhibition explores the intellectual, social, and cultural impact of the Weimar Republic on the African diaspora; how people of African descent engaged and responded to the era; and the lessons to be learned in dealing with present-day threats to democratic values.

This exhibition is in partnership with Carnegie Hall's 2024 Festival: Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice.

A Multimedia Exhibition + Sound Experience

Curated by: Cheap Data + Twolegged Zoo + BLACKSTAR

BauHop: A Multimedia Exhibition + Sound Experience is a FREE multimedia art(s) exhibition is a 2 day series of in-person and virtual experiences that celebrates the vastness of multimedia art through sound, visual collage, performance and more.

This exhibition is in partnership with Carnegie Hall's 2024 Festival: Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice.

Gallery Art Bar

What is reality? Often the imagined worlds we escape into are more assessable, tangible, inhabitable, and therefore more “real” than the realities we navigate every day. Our escape into the surreal is paramount to our survival. ‘Surreality’ begins to explore what this means … and doesn’t.

Quincy Art Center
Quincy IL.

AfroNOW: a Journey Through BLACKEST SPACE on the Other Side of Time is a visual essay placing thought with visual resonance through multimedia collaboration in effort to build the inevitable Black future… in the AfroNOW.

Ewing Gallery of Art
University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Inspired by Robin D.G. Kelley’s book ‘Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination’, Audacious Black Freedom Dreams is a Black surreal space. BLACKMAU (Stacey “Blackstar” Robinson and Kamau DJ “Kamaumau” Grantham) utilize digital collage aesthetics influenced by, and digitally mimic the visual and sonic production methods of the music cultures that influenced us through collage.

UT Downtown Gallery
Knoxville, Tennessee

Black Utopias: Black Disruptions in Time Space is a design research project looking at systems of oppression and resistance through black and white logo designs and illustrations that use the emptiness of white gallery walls as the backdrop for extracting Black resistance commentary.

Black Kirby’s character Major Sankofa’s next adventure is up to you!

Sankofa’s credo is likened to the Akan people of Ghana that one should remember the past to make positive progress in the future. Black Kirby will use their practice of critical design-making as an exercise for attendees to expand the trajectory of Major Sankofa. The narrative can be expanded visually, through performance, or words.

BLACK KIRBY

Welcome to All Black Errything where it’s possible that a mirthful Black history took place! “Errything” is a phonetic moniker of the pronunciation of “everything” in the local dialect of the DMV (District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia). As we pay homage to our ancestral Native American lands the Monacan Nation, including the Manahoke people, the traditional owners of the lands upon which George Mason University stands. We are also homaging the African descendants who are creating new narratives in the present day.

Macalester College

Stacey A. Robinson, Associate Professor of Graphic Design at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign will offer a brief tutorial on the use of platforms that include the Adobe suite and emerging augmented reality tools like Scaniverse. After his presentation, he will engage the audience in a discussion about his work and the future of digital art.

Participants will have the opportunity to create new projects during the second phase of the workshop, using the tools and resources that Robinson provides.

BLACK KIRBY

is a shared pseudonym that is Stacey Robinson and John Jennings (Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, UC Riverside). Black Kirby functions as a rhetorical tool by sampling and remixing comic legend Jack Kirby’s bold forms and energetic ideas combined with themes centered around Afrofuturism, social justice, representation, magical realism, and using the culture of Hip Hop as a methodology for creating visual communication. It also utilizes the notion of an alter-ego as a symbolic allegory for DuBoisian “double-consciousness” theory.

BLACK on BLACK on BLACK on BLACK

The exhibition, which opens Sept. 24, will explore Black identity and collectivity, among other things, through the lens of the Black Quantum Future philosophy. The exhibition will feature art and design pieces from Nekita Thomas, Blair Ebony Smith, Patrick Earl Hammie and Stacey Robinson.

Black Kirby X / EBON

Two exhibits at UCR Arts, "Black Kirby X: Ten Years of Remix and Revolution" and "Ebon: Fear of a Black Planet" (March 19 to June 19), highlight the digital artwork of Afro-speculative trailblazers John Jennings, a professor of Media and Cultural Studies at UC Riverside and Stacey Robinson, professor of Digital Arts at University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, as well as underground comix pioneer Larry Fuller, the original creator of Ebon.

Afrofutuism Festival at Carnegie Hall

Showcasing illustrations, graphic design, video, literature, and mixed-media digital and analog artworks, this exhibit features emerging, mid-career and acclaimed artists, writers, performers, and designers.

Parkland College

Curated by UIUC Associate Professor & Chair of Studio Arts Patrick Earl Hammie, "In Blackest Shade, In Darkest Light" features seven nationally recognized artists, including Hammie. The exhibition includes drawings in various media and include works on paper, installation, video, and mixed media.

Black Kirby at Civic Orchestra of Chicago

Atlanta-based composer Carlos Simon explores African American tradition in Tales: A Folklore Symphony, inspired by the many heroic characters found in the works of the creative duo Black Kirby. Sergei Rachmaninov’s youthful First Symphony blends ravishing melodies and unique Romantic themes into four movements defined by superb orchestral balance, allowing the listener to follow every voice of its magnificent polyphony.

Ebon was conceived as an analog for one of the first superheroes; Superman. He was able to fly, had super speed, and super strength. Ebon was a standard superhero in that regard. However, in the story, he was able to gain strength from darkness. This allowed him to defeat the Nytan named Oju. Black Kirby re-imagined this as a “Black safe space” that empowered Ebon and gave him an advantage.

Conceived by Reynaldo Anderson and Stacey Robinson of the Black Speculative Arts Movement and guest-curated by Tiffany E. Barber, this two-part exhibition brings together an international cadre of artists whose work responds to the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-black violence, climate change, poor governance, trans-humanism, and an accelerating, technologically driven economic system on the verge of collapse.

Since the premiere of the first Candyman film in 1992, Clive Barker’s titular character has haunted the dreams and nightmares of an entire generation. The dark, violent, and romantic apparition has given us an index for projections of monstrosity and desire for black bodies. Reflection Eternal: The Candyman Illustrated Syllabus, from the Black Kirby duo, along the genius writer and award wining Damian “Tan Lee Duffy”, and the Motherboxx Collective, explore the various possible social meanings of this haunted and horrifying spirit via a collection of installations, digital media, and printed artwork.

UNCAGED: HERO FOR HIGHER is a critical race design installation that actively engages with and analyzes Marvel's Luke Cage character and his history as a representation for black masculinity in American comics culture.