D.C.

Watergate Equals Politics Equals Art - 'Reclamation' Exhibition Features Street and Primitive Styles by Maxwell Young

Archival artworks by Absurdly Well, Divorce Culture & Erik White

Washington, D.C.—Reparations, resistance, reprisal—these are the nouns of upheaval. Do you not feel a change afoot? A new generation of activists and artists march in droves, with phalanxes not seen since the civil rights movement, deposing false idols; myriad of declarative expressions exhort an awakening, both socially and politically. Much like the fate of their fore-fathers and fore-mothers, time will bare their commitment to radical progress.

Reclamation, Watergate Gallery's upcoming group exhibition opening on August 29th, posits three District artists in the present civil discourse. Absurdly Well and Divorce Culture are tenured street artists, celebrating print, graffiti, and wheatpaste styles with a regiment of public works--messages from the misrepresented margins of our nation's capital--encroaching the superstructure of Congress. Erik White, the cool itinerant of the trio, assembles primitive paintings, like X-rays, offering insight into the debasement of the black body, requiems for the legend of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Space is a hot commodity in D.C. Barricaded streets, and wooden sheaths shuttering storefronts create more canvas for guerrilla artists but cause other works to be lost in translation. "I'm stoked to be able to show art in a space during a time when there's so much going on," said White. This triad of creators does not take the gallery setting for granted.

Due to the concerns regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, this month-long show is a restricted viewing. The gallery will permit groups of eight inside the salon at a time, with RSVP, temperature checks and face masks required upon entry. The opening reception will be Saturday, August 29th from 5-7 pm. To RSVP for the exhibition, please visit the Watergate Gallery & Frame Design’s website.

Watergate Gallery and Frame Design

2552 Virginia Ave, NW

Washington, D.C., 20037

Pittsburgh Artists Enter D.C. Art Auction by Alex Young

Bid to Fight COVID

“John Henry” by Quaishawn Whitlock, Bid to Fight COVID logo & “Platinum Club” by Hannibal Hopson

It would be easy for despair to invade minds right now. The pandemic set siege on our social lives and some jobs. Black men and women fall, murdered by police live on the Internet. You think it will stop, or when there hasn’t been a case of fatal racism broadcasted for a while, you think the human climate is better. You were wrong. You get a therapist for your P.T.S.D. that this whole ordeal causes you subconsciously amidst the other shit flying towards you in life— perhaps a bullet from a mass shooting or an ex-lover giving you angst. A good therapist might tell you not to dwell on the emotion and pain, but use it in action as you progress. So, you focus on other things that make living worth it, like art.

“Historically, art has played a pivotal role in improving the public welfare during adverse periods,” Maxwell Young wrote in the summary of Bid to Fight COVID, an online art auction where the proceeds support 21 artists from D.C. and two from Pittsburgh, along with Martha’s Table— a non-profit building community through education, food and opportunity.

The Pittsburgh native artists among the cast of D.M.V. talent in the auction are Hannibal Hopson and Quaishawn Whitlock.

“Art articulates longing and belonging, an act that signifies and indexes the displacement and disorientation of the lived experience, acting as a compass for societies to transform themselves through the process of digestion and expression of the suffering and triumphs of communities,” Hopson said explaining art’s responsibility to humanity.

The intrinsic value of art becomes apparent when a piece captures and grounds life’s intangible beauty that resonates with everyone in some form or another. To own that or have that feeling hanging on your wall is an entire phenomenon in itself, which is a true privilege. “When buying and collecting artwork either from a particular person, time, or style - that individual is investing into that conversation and sharing amongst others who experience the artwork,” Whitlock said.

Bid to Fight COVID T-shirts | Photos by Maxwell Young

On Friday, May 29, grab the chance to win lot number six, “Platinum Club” by Hannibal Hopson (5” x 21” acrylic on canvas), or lot number 11, “John Henry” by Quaishawn Whitlock (22'“ x 30” CMYK screen print on paper), during the Bid to Fight COVID auction via Instagram Live at (@bid2fightcovid) or Zoom call (meeting ID 836 5734 1750 & phone hotlines 646-558-8656 or 301-715-8592) from 7 p.m. - 10 p.m. You can still register for the auction here. Participants can also enter a raffle to win buttons made by some of the artists in the auction, or souvenir Bid to Fight COVID T-Shirts printed by Maxwell Young and Quaishawn Whitlock.

Both Hopson and Whitlock shared their thoughts in interviews below about how the pandemic impacts art, as well as the value in buying and collecting art.

Register to Bid to Fight COVID. Register to Bid to Fight COVID. Register to Bid to Fight COVID.

Explore the auction book here to view the artwork.


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“Platinum Club”

Interview with the artist Hannibal Hopson

ITR: What is art’s role during times of hardship and how are you fulfilling that?

Hopson: Art articulates longing and belonging, an act that signifies and indexes the displacement and disorientation of the lived experience, acting as a compass for societies to transform themselves through the process of digestion and expression of the suffering and triumphs of communities. Art has always played a very vital role during times of adversity and distress. For artists and creators, hardship challenges us to tap into our core innerstanding of what no longer matters, what needs to be destroyed, what needs to be made and who needs it the most.  For observers and collectors, art translates the story of life, reminding people where they are and what they need to remember about themselves and the world around them at any given time. 

Most of the world's greatest social/political movements were birthed during times of distress. From a Western Contemporary lens, when we acknowledge the Great Depression and WWII as significant global shifts, we also recognize 1) the impact of the New Deal, which led to the expansion of community art centers, public murals, and artist collectives in America, and 2) the genocide of non-Aryan people and desecration of “degenerate art” by Nazi Germany, launching the post-war scramble for old masters and emergence of the NYC art market. Some of the most notable and influential Western artists and art forms were products of this time period and in its aftermath, of which the value of the names, works, and movements speak for themselves in today’s art market.

Personally, I am currently quarantined in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Although I have come in contact with an incredible space for art and artists here, really what I have found is a very striking challenge and opportunity to iterate my own existence away from a densely human populated area and submerge myself within my own true nature, breathing with the Earth. My role within art during this time is to share my story and the essence of my being as I unearth reactive frequencies and make way for a more proactive me.

ITR: How has the pandemic impacted how you create art or sustain yourself through art?

Hopson: In my isolation I have asked myself, ‘why must i create’? The answer that was revealed to me was simple and resounding: ‘because you are living’. It is clear to me that every living thing in nature must create and sustains itself through its own reaffirmation of being. Every season brings change, the only way we know that change exists is because we are around long enough to change also.

I have been fasting from vibrations that do not bring about a positive light within me. My focus and intention is to share the essential characteristics of my purest self through creation, offering my heart--light and love--from the communities I embody around the world that emanate from my person. I have been studying the simplicity of village life and the collaborative energies that are mobilized in close knit connections through action or inaction.

ITR: What’s the value in buying/collecting art?

Hopson: I always like to think that there are moments, at your family dinner table, in your bathroom, or in your bedroom, where anything is possible and everything happens and changes. At the same time, the art in your environment is undisturbed and  immersed in the present moment. You may enjoy the moment or you may destroy the moment, however the art is always the moment itself. I encourage embracing and investing in your own moments, whether good or bad.

Art, as a repository of cultural memories that represents a collective archive of being for all humans, transcends time and space. This means that something that you create today may have more value to you than it would 30 years from now, or vice versa. 

When it comes to buying and collecting visual art (performance, culinary and written art are slightly different), there are a few unique qualities that generate its value as a commodity. Visual art serves as medium of exchange, a store of value, it is scarce, you cannot double sell the same piece (only one person or entity can ‘possess’ an original work of art at any time), and it has a distinguished provenance (the art value is generated and chronologically recorded from its inception as a legal track record, or ledger, of proprietary ownership) similar to a home or a vehicle. These are important aspects of the value of visual art because like other commodities, the market value is regulated by the fixed, finite supply of work in the market and its liquidity is protected by market appraisal. 

In today’s economy, visual art as a commodity of exchange can be great for an artist to generate revenue, or terrible for an artist if the market were to devalue works not championed as exchange or investment commodities, especially in the age of mass entertainment and mechanical reproduction (see Walter Benjamin), remixing and cultural appropriation. 

ITR: What do you hope to get back to once life returns to normalcy?

Hopson: I am a wanderlust. I love traveling and visiting my friends around the world. I enjoy dancing, celebrating and connecting with others without fear. The nature of COVID-19 and the problematic jargon of “social distancing” is that it has encouraged a world of social agreement extremes.  I feel that trust is even more at stake with every encounter now as we hold more social responsibility for others’ safety in a physical manner. The masculine electric energy source within me is reminded of moments in which I had taken space between myself and others for granted. Now I feel a heightened level of feminine magnetic energy that will repel as much as it attracts, unwilling to connect if the frequencies aren’t divine. What’s normal again? 

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“John Henry”

Interview with the artist Quaishawn Whitlock

ITR: What’s the value in buying/collecting art?

Whitlock: Artwork can be a vehicle to communicate across almost every platform available. I believe when buying and collecting artwork either from a particular person, time, or style - that individual is investing into that conversation and sharing amongst others who experience the artwork.

ITR: Talk about John Henry as an icon

Whitlock: John Henry is/was a manifestation and experiment of how these stories can be woven into both my work but my practice as a whole. Some heard or read the story growing up - The freed slave who was one of the best railroad drivers of the time period. Over time and tales of the folk hero/man who raced against the steam engine to keep his job.

District of Columbia Artists Rally to Provide Coronavirus Relief by Maxwell Young

Register to bid in the auction here.

Register to bid in the auction here.

Washington, D.C. -- In an effort to uplift the local arts ecosystem amid strenuous times, Absurdly Well, in collaboration with InTheRough and The Washington Informer Bridge, presents “Bid to Fight COVID,” a virtual art auction featuring select works from the District’s burgeoning artists. The event will take place on Friday, May 29th.

The unprecedented number of layoffs and furloughs caused by the coronavirus pandemic has left communities worldwide without resources to support some of their most primary needs. Food supplies and living arrangements are threatened as people struggle to find employment let alone money to purchase essential goods. Full-time artists and artists working part-time gigs to support their practice, as well, find themselves in similar positions, with museums, galleries and studio spaces shuttering to mitigate the viral spread. Compounded by the sad reality that grants, commissioned projects and funding initiatives have slowed or halted altogether, creatives are looking for enablement to support their vocation, their wellbeing and their loved ones.

“We’re attempting to transform our art into something that is going to ease the burden for families during this crisis,” said Absurdly Well, the street artist behind D.C.’s polarizing public images of Donald Trump, Greta Thunberg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the timely ‘Wash Your Hands’ motto. “We need a stimulus for our art, but we also need to create that stimulus for ourselves and give back to the community that has given us so much inspiration and opportunity to convey our visions.”

Historically, art has played a pivotal role in improving the public welfare during adverse periods. The Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project employed hundreds of painters and muralists to enrich civic buildings through the doldrums of the Great Depression. And in the throes of World War II, facing calls to reduce Great Britain’s arts’ budget, then Prime Minister Winston Churchill defended such funding, asking rhetorically, “Then what are we fighting for?” Artistic endeavors are noble pursuits. Artists capture the beauty, the humor, the hardships and the trauma of life in ways that allow observers to appreciate its fragility and cope with its obstacles.

In 2020 when quotidian life has been turned upside down, we need restorative power and we must remain optimistic. The COVID-19 relief virtual auction will aid artists in need of assistance and help subsidize the broader D.C. community. Patronage of visual artists will not only buoy practices during the tumult, but a portion of the proceeds from the event will also be donated to Martha’s Table. For 40 years, this Washington, D.C.-based non-profit has been an access point for healthy food, quality education, and family resources in the same communities that have cultivated the city’s strong arts heritage. Their commitment to protect the health and safety of District residents is more essential now than ever and they have doubled down on programming efforts during this crisis. We elect them as trusted recipients.

“Bid to Fight COVID” will be held from 7 to 10 pm, EST on Friday, May 29. Prospective bidders will be able to tender for artworks via the @bid2fightcovid Instagram page, only after registering through the Eventbrite portal

To learn more about the artists involved in the auction as well as a preview of works, please refer to the partnering websites of PR firm InTheRough or The Washington Informer Bridge.

Uptown Cypher to the Main Stage, Supporting Medhane, Wifigawd & Odd Mojo by Maxwell Young

A curious hotel guest listens to the first Uptown Cypher of 2020. Polaroid by Maxwell Young, The LINE Hotel, 1/29/20

A curious hotel guest listens to the first Uptown Cypher of 2020. Polaroid by Maxwell Young, The LINE Hotel, 1/29/20

‘Uptown Cypher to the main stage. Uptown Cypher to the main stage, it’s showtime,’ a sound engineer’s Walkie-talkie growls under the stirring crowd as stage crews prepare for opening curtain. At least, this is how I imagine Saturday’s show at Comet Ping Pong; the Cypher sharing the spotlight with boisterous ambassadors of D.C.’s rap conglomerate in Wifigawd and Odd Mojo, while Medhane’s shooting star passes through District limits. Hip hop in its most instinctive and communal moments juxtaposed with the more compositional and performative elements of the genre—this is an experiment controlled by Angelie Benn, founder and lead events director of Capitol Sound D.C.

“Including interactive performances at [Capitol Sound] events has been on my agenda since last year, but I rarely ever saw an opportunity to do so where it made sense,” Benn said over email. “Now, with the Uptown Cypher a part of this lineup, it furthers our mission of building the bridge between local and national acts…”

Throughout 14 episodes broadcast via the home base of Full Service Radio, the Uptown Cypher has served as a public service announcement, amplifying the myriad of sonic pockets evident in the DMV’s hip hop community: the street sense of MARTYHEEMCHERRY, Fleetwood Deville, Paydroo and SQ; the esoteric consciousness of Mavi, Thraxx King, NAPPYNAPPA and Nate G; the head cranking brought to you by Discipline 99, Johnny Caravaggio, Mfundishi, Supa Statiq, Suede Moccasins and Magnus Andretti; contemporary bops by Cozi Bob, Mesenfants Infinity, Tedy Brewski, Odd Mojo, Khan and Toothchoir; fundamental soul from legends YU, Fat Kneel and Thrty Smthng; the effervescent Greenss; backpack licks from Flex Matthews, Rafael, Nate Jackson Kills Niggas and Paris; the brand name presence from THFCTRY and Sir E.U—Andrew of ROOMHAUS and his necessary warmup mixes. More than 60 locally-based vocalists, emcees and producers have taken the pilgrimage to The LINE Hotel to expand the reach of the DMV sound. For hip hop heads young and old, for the rookies and the veterans, the Uptown Cypher is a platform for artists to hone their skills live and direct, on air. Ultimately, it’s an archive of the District’s musical ecosystem.

Thanks to the one-night triumvirate between InTheRough, Capitol Sound D.C. and Uptown Arthouse, we are proud to present a sampling of the Uptown Cypher program. While we invite all willing wordsmiths and beat-makers to participate, Saturday’s session will be kicked off by longtime friends of the Uptown Cypher, including Nate G, Greenss, Thraxx King, MARTYHEEMCHERRY and Master of Ceremony Jamal Gray. Tickets to this weekend’s show are available here.

The Uptown Cypher is broadcast live via FullServiceRadio.org from 7-9 PM, EST on the last Wednesday of every month. Listen to the one-year anniversary Cypher or the first Cypher of 2020 below.

Uptown cypher

March 7, 2020

10pm-1am

5037 Connecticut Avenue, NW

Washington, D.C., 20008

Carousel images from the one year anniversary episode of the Uptown Cypher, courtesy of Diana N.

InTheRough Presents Franchise Players: Sounds from the Gridiron by Maxwell Young

Art meets entertainment. Entertainment meets art. Or maybe they were always intertwined.

Flyer designed by Rob Stokes.

Flyer designed by Rob Stokes.

Sunday, September 8 begins an unorthodox spectating experience at Dangerously Delicious Pies in Washington, D.C. Part football game, part art piece, part game within itself—InTheRough presents Franchise Players: Sounds from the Gridiron—an audiovisual performance mashing together the 2019 NFL kickoff, music, food and art.

Football is America’s game, omnipresent during fall months, and although not everyone agrees with its gladiatorial competition or politics, it is an efficient geographical identifier. Of course, this is one way to delineate participants in a cultural community like D.C. that is transient and increasingly informed by non-natives. With the primetime matchup between the New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers as the focal point, Sounds from the Gridiron will bridge the gap between sports fanatics and artists with kindred creative experiences.

During the live television broadcast of the game, two performing acts will each represent the Patriots and Steelers cohorts. By way of Connecticut, underground rapper Tedy Brewski and master blender/producer Greenss will be the sonic backdrop for the New England contingency, while Pittsburgh-based band Jack Swing and quintet October ‘71—who’s reinterpreting the soot and smog of a vintage Steel City—will amplify Steelers Nation. Beginning with the traditional coin toss and decided by possession of the ball, each band will take the stage with their respective team’s offense. At any given moment, however, performances will interchange due to turnovers (interceptions, fumbles & 3-and-outs) and score conversions. This will be monitored and officiated by referee Sir E.U as the game is projected onto the performers. Think the visual hodge-podge of Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable with the sounds of The Velvet Underground, but reoriented for football and contemporary tunes—it’s chaos.

On the sidelines of the show, Pittsburgh-inspired eats from the Pie Shop reinforce the fact that Steelers fandom extends beyond the three rivers and across the nation. Tedy Brewski along with Pittsburgh-based artist Quaishawn Whitlock will also showcase their latest 2-d works regarding sports history and popular culture.

Tickets for the event are available for purchase here. Until then, listen to a brief playlist of the acts below.

An unorthodox spectating experience... Pittsburgh (October '71 & Jack Swing) vs. New England (Tedy Brewski & Greenss) -- Sunday, September 8 @ Dangerously Delicious Pies, Washington D.C. (1339 H St. NE) Each "team" will be represented by two performing acts. Beginning with the traditional coin toss, each performer takes the stage during their team's offensive possessions. At any given moment, possessions may switch due to turnovers and score conversions. This will be monitored by the live broadcast of the game projected onto the stage. The game will be monitored by an official referee. 7pm until end of game

Franchise Players: Sounds from the Gridiron

Sunday, September 8

Dangerously Delicious Pies

1339 H St. NE

Washington, D.C. 20002

7pm — End of game