Rashaad Newsom
(b. 1979)Biography
Sampling from advertising, the internet, and Black and queer cultures, Rashaad Newsome creates compositions that explore how media images communicate distorted notions of power.
Rashaad Newsome is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice blends collage, sculpture, video, music, computer programming, and performance to form a new artistic field. Sampling from advertising, the internet, and Black and queer cultures, he creates compositions that explore how media images communicate distorted notions of power. Collage serves as a technical method that allows him to construct a cultural framework of power that proposes opulence as a way to counteract societal oppression. His works demonstrate the similarities between symbols of Black culture and European heraldry. As he notes, “a coat of arms is really a collage of objects that represent social status and economic status and status as a warrior...so they’re kind of like portraits without using the figure.”1
Newsome’s creations are often accompanied by complementary programming such as workshops and performance events. In recent years, he has explored a range of subjects, including vogueing, Dadaism, fractal patterns, and rap music, to point to how Black and diasporic culture lie at the heart of many things in the modern world. His investigations into artificial intelligence and the construction of knowledge have focused on helping viewers to question systems that promote inequity through workshops combining lectures, dance, storytelling, and meditation. In this way, Newsome’s practice underscores that education—and an understanding of history—is key in contemporary society.
Newsome received his BFA from Tulane University and a certificate of study from Film Video Arts Inc. He has received support from the Berkeley Film Foundation, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Art + Technology Lab, William Penn Foundation, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, and the Tamarind Institute. The Studio Museum has presented his work in exhibitions such as The Bearden Project (2012) and Rashaad Newsome: THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO SEE (2016).
1) Melena Ryzik, “Blending Hip-Hop and Heraldry,” New York Times, October 20, 2011, nytimes.com/2011/10/23/arts/design/rashaad-newsome-blending-hip-hop-and-heraldry.html.
Rashaad Newsom
(b. 1979)Biography
Sampling from advertising, the internet, and Black and queer cultures, Rashaad Newsome creates compositions that explore how media images communicate distorted notions of power.
Rashaad Newsome is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice blends collage, sculpture, video, music, computer programming, and performance to form a new artistic field. Sampling from advertising, the internet, and Black and queer cultures, he creates compositions that explore how media images communicate distorted notions of power. Collage serves as a technical method that allows him to construct a cultural framework of power that proposes opulence as a way to counteract societal oppression. His works demonstrate the similarities between symbols of Black culture and European heraldry. As he notes, “a coat of arms is really a collage of objects that represent social status and economic status and status as a warrior...so they’re kind of like portraits without using the figure.”1
Newsome’s creations are often accompanied by complementary programming such as workshops and performance events. In recent years, he has explored a range of subjects, including vogueing, Dadaism, fractal patterns, and rap music, to point to how Black and diasporic culture lie at the heart of many things in the modern world. His investigations into artificial intelligence and the construction of knowledge have focused on helping viewers to question systems that promote inequity through workshops combining lectures, dance, storytelling, and meditation. In this way, Newsome’s practice underscores that education—and an understanding of history—is key in contemporary society.
Newsome received his BFA from Tulane University and a certificate of study from Film Video Arts Inc. He has received support from the Berkeley Film Foundation, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Art + Technology Lab, William Penn Foundation, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, and the Tamarind Institute. The Studio Museum has presented his work in exhibitions such as The Bearden Project (2012) and Rashaad Newsome: THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO SEE (2016).
1) Melena Ryzik, “Blending Hip-Hop and Heraldry,” New York Times, October 20, 2011, nytimes.com/2011/10/23/arts/design/rashaad-newsome-blending-hip-hop-and-heraldry.html.