Black Belt.STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM It's 1974. "Kung Fu Fighting" is number one on the charts, the TV show Kung Fu airs every Thursday on ABC, and Bruce Lee (who died the previous year) is a box-office draw. As a non white hero battling The Man, Lee's popularity extended to African Americans as well as Asian audiences. For a generation of artists, the kung fu phenomenon of the '70s left an indelible impression: "I was struck by just how many people are making work about it," says the Studio Museum's Christine Y. Kim. The curator has selected twenty artists, including Sanford Biggers, Ellen Gallagher, Luis Gispert, Michael Joo, and Glenn Kaino, for "Black Belt Black Belt, term applied to several areas of Mississippi and Alabama, the heart of the Old South, which are characterized by black soil and excellent cotton-growing conditions. The Black Belt area was historically important as the nation's main cotton producer in the mid-1800s. Soil depletion, erosion, the boll weevil, and economic conditions combined to eliminate cotton from the region. Livestock, peanuts, and soybeans have become the area's chief crops.," a show of mostly new works. The catalogue, which features a roundtable discussion among the artists, the curator, and a martial-arts instructor, should kick ass. Oct. 15-Jan. 4. |
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