The Carbonist School... Is In Session: June 24 - August 5, 2006

• You were anticipating it, even though you didn't know what it was.
• You sensed it, familiar yet unknown.
• Your pulse was racing, but you weren't sure if from fear or anticipation...


(above right, Family Photo, Cauleen Smith)

•• Is a dream a wish your heart makes? ••

Well, African American artists Beatrice L. Thomas, Cauleen Smith, Cinqué Hicks, and Lanneau White had a dream, or a vision, or an itch that in 2004 they worked over into a cosmic supernova pearl and birthed the Carbonist School Manifesto (2005).

For a manifesto, the Carbonist School's fiat is rather playful even as it is earnest, rather joyful even when it is laying down its party line, and, suprisingly, unabashedly revels in love. (I'm just gonna let the "man"-ifest destiny, "Man" I-festival wording alone right now, but I would have gone with something less specifically gendered and patriarchical-referent like, "Declaration," "Pronouncement" or "Resolution")

From the Carbonist School Manifesto:

DECLARATION: Because the properties of space and time determine the nature of motion, and the properties of motion, in turn, determine the nature of force; because of a brutal confinement of notions of blackness as content, commerce, and culture; because of a dismissal of the fundamental truth that blackness is the universal quotient, the neutral mode of measurement, the wholeness, the totality, and the void...The Carbonist School Be!

The Carbonist School is having its first public exhibition at the Eyedrum Gallery in ATL. The exhibition opens Saturday June 24th, but the Opening Reception is July 15th, 7-11pm. Gotta be a part of history, folks! As Gladys Knight would say: "I got-tuh go! I got-tuh go! (The Pips: All a-board, on the midnight train to Georgia...)."(above right, I Stand Alone, Beatrice L. Thomas)

Who's showing? A little patience, but we thought you'd never ask!

Here's the listing from organizers/curators Charles Huntley Nelson and Cinqué Hicks. (I inserted the webpages below, so if each one is not the most current representation of the individual artist's work to date, don't blame Nelson and Hicks.) (below right, still from Lil' Big Head, Jabari Hall-Smith)


"The Carbonist School: Study Hall"
Eyedrum Art/Music
Suite 8, 290 MLK Jr. Drive SE
Atlanta, GA 30312, USA
404-522-0655
• June 24, 2006 through August 5, 2006 •

OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, 15 July 2006 7–11 pm

"Study Hall" artists are:

Ogechi Chieke, New York
William Cordova, Miami
Torkwase Dyson, Atlanta (and here)
Kojo Griffin, Atlanta (and here)
Jabari Hall-Smith, Los Angeles
Leslie Hewitt, New York (and here for her archival intervention, Cast, at Yale University)
Charles Huntley Nelson, Atlanta
Mendi + Kieth Obadike, New York
Kevin Sipp, Atlanta (right, Mae De Santos, Kevin Sipp)
Cauleen Smith, Austin
Greg Tate, New York (and here; and here)
Beatrice L. Thomas, Austin (what! no website! see her image above)

Some more artist images to further expand the viewing palate:

(below, detail from William Cordova's studio)



(below right, Couple in Bed, Kojo Griffin)





(below, Greg Tate conducting, Burnt Sugar Arkestra; photo, Laura Williams)
(below, Ogechi Chieke)