Paul Stephen Benjamin’s current video installation at Poem 88 in Atlanta, Georgia, God Bless America (2016), is a monument to the ambiguous relations between cultural achievement and state patriotism within the contemporary African American political experience.[1] Read against the traumatic history—and current iterations—of racial terror, state violence, and surveillance leveled systematically at Black Americans throughout our nation’s history, God Bless America’s synthesis of flickering and[…..]

In addition to examining pedagogy and learning in the arts as part of this Summer Session’s topic of Back to School, we are excited to provide resources for both teachers and students alike that could inform and enrich their art and pedagogical practices. Today we bring you a syllabus by scholar M. Shadee Malaklou from her Jesus Fucking Christ Blog. An assistant professor and Mellon Faculty Fellow[…..]

Shotgun Reviews are an open forum where we invite the international art community to contribute timely, short-format responses to an exhibition or event. If you are interested in submitting a Shotgun Review, please click this link for more information. In this Shotgun Review, Tanya Gayer reviews Bechdel Test Movie Night: Foxy Brown  at New Parkway Theater in Oakland. Foxy Brown (1974) is widely described as a blaxploitation film—a genre that[…..]