iona rozeal brown at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland

iona rozeal brown
On view January 29th, 2010 through May 16th, 2010

ON VIEW in the William D. Ginn Gallery and Dr. Gerald and Phyllis Seltzer Rotunda Gallery

Organized by MOCA Cleveland

Curated by Megan Lykins Reich, Director of Education and Associate Curator

Recipient of the 2009 Joyce Award, this exhibition features recent and newly commissioned work by Washington D.C.-based artist, iona rozeal brown, who examines the globalization and appropriation of hip-hop culture in vibrant large-scale acrylic paintings. Sparked by her interest in ganguro, a trend in the late 1990's among Japanese teenagers (mostly girls) who were infatuated with looking like African-American hip-hop stars, brown integrates hip-hop's stylistic motifs into the compositional framework of Japan's most illustrious modern artistic tradition: ukiyo-e printmaking. Connecting hip-hop's material culture to the opulent ukiyo-e world of geishas, samurais, and Kabuki actors, brown reveals the malleable, polymorphic nature of history, culture, and identity.

This exhibition will feature a commission of new paintings referencing prints from the collection of the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College. In addition, rozeal brown will be working with select area high school students* in January 2010 to design and paint wooden Japanese screens that will be exhibited in our Rotunda gallery.

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