{"id":530,"date":"2006-02-20T03:32:55","date_gmt":"2006-02-20T03:32:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/?p=530"},"modified":"2008-11-02T03:36:31","modified_gmt":"2008-11-02T03:36:31","slug":"otabenga-jones-associates-at-clementine-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/2006\/02\/20\/otabenga-jones-associates-at-clementine-gallery\/","title":{"rendered":"Otabenga Jones & Associates, at Clementine Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"

For ‘Time Out New York’ magazine,
\n

\"Otabenga<\/a>
Otabenga Jones & Associates, Installation View, 'Symmetrical Patterns of Def', 2006, courtesy of Clementine Gallery<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nOtabenga Jones and Associates, a Houston-based collaborative that will participate in the 2006 Whitney Biennial, takes its name from an African pygmy who was put on display at the Bronx Zoo in 1906. As this detail suggests, the group is interested in the intersection of African and American history, specifically their own richly imaginative version of it as told in the show\u2019s centerpiece: a sound installation recounting the outlandish story of Mudbone, a South Bronx MC who travels to the land of his ancestors during an out-of-body experience. <\/p>\n

Mudbone\u2019s tale is full of engaging magical-realist details (his crew shakes the earth as they walk to a competition; his hair takes on a life of its own and absconds). But the installation itself\u2014a small stage decorated like an altar with a microphone; swags of red, green and black fabric; and offerings of junky items, including old sneakers and LPs\u2014doesn\u2019t do justice to the fabulous images conjured by the soundtrack. An amateurish wall mural, drawings and related sculptural objects feel like little more than a backup act for the main attraction. <\/p>\n

We\u2019re informed that Mudbone is empowered by knowledge of his ancestors, but the specifics of this revelation aren\u2019t divulged. The tale\u2019s ambiguity communicates an ambivalence about the possibility of constructing an African-American history. Inspiring historical figures like Harriet Tubman make cameo appearances in the tale but always in the confines of a stereotypical setting\u2014either an urban ghetto or a forest\u2019s dark interior. In the end, Otabenga Jones and Associates\u2019 show hovers somewhere between an affirmation and an acknowledgment of futility. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For ‘Time Out New York’ magazine, Otabenga Jones and Associates, a Houston-based collaborative that will participate in the 2006 Whitney Biennial, takes its name from an African pygmy who was put on display at the Bronx Zoo in 1906. As this detail suggests, the group is interested in the intersection of African and American history, … <\/p>\n

Read more “Otabenga Jones & Associates, at Clementine Gallery”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24],"tags":[8,29,28,18,9,15,14,13,12,17,10,16,11],"class_list":["post-530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-art","tag-art-criticism","tag-art-history","tag-artist","tag-contemporary","tag-critic","tag-exhibition","tag-gallery","tag-new-york","tag-photography","tag-sculpture","tag-tour","tag-visual-art"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BDOD-8y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":532,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530\/revisions\/532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}