Unusual Suspects: Jerry Gant
An Artistic Meditation of the Black Male Image in America
Curated by Linda Street and Gallery Aferro for Activate: Market Street
February 22 – May 24, 2014

Maurice Chestnut Performance
April 11, 6 PM
85 Market Street

One of tap’s brightest young stars, Maurice Chestnut is an original member of the New Jersey Tap Dance Ensemble. Straight from Newark, New Jersey, he introduces tap as an instrument. Maurice takes from his classical rhythm tap training and infuses hip-hop, funk and soul. His extensive list of credits includes his appearance at Carnegie Hall and throughout Europe with the Geri Allen trio as a featured soloist, and his performances in productions with Savion Glover such as Bring In ‘Da Noise, Bring In ‘Da Funk, Improvography, Classical Savion, Tappin’ Into Monk, Invitation to the Dancer and on “ABC-TV’s Dancing With The Stars.” At the turn of the 21st century, the Newark Star Ledger’s arts reviewers named Maurice “one of the twenty New Jersey faces to watch for in the new century.”

Creative Mashup
April 18, 3 PM
85 Market Street

Continuing Gant’s investigation of performance, audience, agency, and tropes of Black masculinity, this performance will feature some unexpected guests. For more information visit aferro.org

Market Street Blueprint Cypher
April 26, 3 PM
Gallery Aferro
 
Participants in this activity will use images and symbols provided by artists Jerry Gant and Terry Boddie as well as make their own, to make unique cyanotype prints.  This activity will provide an opportunity for creative collaboration with the artists in the moment. Please RSVP to info@aferro.org to participate. A series of original prints by Gant and Boddie will also be available for sale in art shop.

The Unusual Suspects Photograph
May 3, 10 AM
Gallery Aferro

Jerry Gant seeks one hundred African-American men for a historic invitational group photograph being created as part of the Unusual Suspects project. Please contact info@aferro.org to express interest in participating. All welcome to come witness.

Panel moderated by Lisa Bradley
May 3, 2 PM
Gallery Aferro

Bradley, Gant, and other speakers will discuss the artist’s specific philosophical and political motivations and intentions in conceptualizing the entire Unusual Suspects project, as well as the specific context of time and place: Gallery Aferro, downtown Newark, and 2014 in America.

Lisa Bradley is an interdisciplinary artist and theorist, whose practice spans the genres of performance, sculpture, sound, writing and video. Her work queries concepts of the everyday and the absurd, as expressed through the lens of popular culture and critical race theory. Her work is most compellingly informed by Dada, ethnography, post-colonial theory, and The Cartoon Network.

Lisa’s arts training includes the BFA degree in Sculpture & Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University, the MFA in Performance Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the MA in Art & Media Practice from The University of Westminster, London, UK. A National Endowment of the Arts award recipient, Lisa is a Studio Fellow alumna of the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York, as well as a former artist-in-residence at Whitechapel Gallery in London, UK.

Bradley utilizes collaboration as a tangible material in her performative installations and interventions, and has most recently collaborated in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, with master artists William Pope L. and Martha Rosler.

 

Closing Party and Performance by Jerry Gant
May 24, 7 PM
Gallery Aferro

Winding it all down, with performance. Come celebrate with us as we close all spring shows.