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Source: @spotify / Spotify
A new art exhibition in collaboration with Spotify highlighted women in Hip-Hop including Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, and GloRilla.
The enormous contribution of women to Hip-Hop culture is undeniable, and a new art exhibition in New York City put that on display. The Gold Standard is an exhibition of artwork by Manon Biernacki paying homage to the prominent women rappers of the day. The rappers featured are Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B, GloRilla, Ice Spice, Latto, Doja Cat, the City Girls, Saweetie, Sexyy Red, and Flo Milli. Their countenances are portrayed in larger-than-life fashion in paintings imbued with Biernacki’s Renaissance-inspired vision. An Instagram post by the streaming platform’s Hip-Hop entity RapCaviar announced the exhibition earlier in July, proclaiming it was highlighting “the Golden Era of women in Hip-Hop.”
The Gold Standard was hosted in a one-day-only exhibition on Wednesday (July 31) at The Hole gallery space in the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City. Visitors to the free exhibit were greeted with a lavish table set up for a feast as they walked in, with mirrors hanging on the wall to their right adorned with the words “Feelin’ Myself” where they could take selfies. Each female rapper was represented with a lush painting of themselves in the gallery, accompanied by a biography of their life and career.
The exhibit’s centerpiece was “The Cloud Room”, a separate area of the gallery covered in trimmings that resembled lush clouds that harkened back to the famous Sistine Chapel artwork of Michaelangelo with a painting featuring all of the artists seated together in the rear of the room. Guests could also take photos in that setting while seated in chairs fixed in front of that painting. They were also able to snag flyers with reprints of each artist’s painting which contained a code on the back that when scanned, took them to that artist’s playlist on Spotify.
For Biernacki, having the opportunity to contribute to the art comprising The Gold Standard is a realization of her inner passion. In a statement, the Mali-born artist who now resides in Vancouver, Canada said: “As an artist with a rich cultural background, I am passionate about celebrating the origins and stories of diverse female artists. Projects like The Gold Standard series allow me to honor and uplift voices that resonate with my own experiences and heritage.”
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Source: The Billie Holiday Theatre / The Billie Holiday Theatre
A popular statue commemorating The Notorious B.I.G. will return to Brooklyn for a special exhibit on Black resistance and music in time for Black History Month.
Source: The Billie Holiday Theatre / The Billie Holiday Theatre
On Friday (Feb. 9), The Billie Holiday Theatre announced that it would be hosting Sky’s The Limit: Music Is My Resistance, a visual art exhibition. At the heart of the exhibition will be the striking statue dedicated to a beloved son of the borough, the late Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace aka Biggie. The statue, created by artist Sherwin Banfield, is entitled: “Sky’s the Limit in the County of Kings,” which will be present at the theatre for the duration of the exhibition.
The exhibition is slated to also feature smaller sculpted pieces from Banfield’s extensive portfolio of work in addition to paintings, prints and sculptures from a slew of other artists. All of the works will be displayed in the lobby of The Billie Holiday Theatre, located in Bedford-Stuyvesant only minutes away from where The Notorious B.I.G. grew up. The exhibition will open Feb. 15 with a reception featuring a Q&A session with Banfield. The Queens, New York, native will return to the theatre Feb. 28 for an artists’ talk on resistance with Hip-Hop icon and host of Video Music Box, Ralph McDaniels, and Hip-Hop historian Leroy McCarty. Sky’s The Limit: Music Is My Resistance will be free to the public for viewing until May 30.
“Music and the arts have always been a cornerstone of Black expression through which we get to authentically tell our stories. For this exhibition, we wanted to highlight how vital music has been to the Black experience as it relates to resistance and we wanted to do it in a way that was unique to Brooklyn,” said Shadawn Smith, The Billie Holiday Theatre’s executive director in the announcement. “With his Biggie sculpture as the centerpiece, Sherwin Banfield is the perfect collaborator to help us bring that vision to life.”
“The Notorious B.I.G. is the truest representation of Brooklyn. His poetry is peppered with mentions of Brooklyn throughout his short but impactful career. By immortalizing The Notorious B.I.G into a respected monument, we introduce a unique cultural and educational opportunity for his community and his millions of fans around the world to experience this monument in B.I.G.’s Bed Stuy neighborhood while showcasing a diverse representation of creativity here at The Billie Holiday Theatre,” Banfield said in the press release.
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