Rhythm Nations:
Transnational Hip Hop In the Gallery, in the Street, and on the Stage

InterDisciplinary Experimental Arts at Colorado College
March 24 – May 8, 2014

OPENING RECEPTION
Thursday, March 27, 4:30 – 6:30pm
IDEA Space

Opening reception for exhibition and Panel Discussion with exhibition artists and CC faculty. Includes performance by students from From Fringe to Spotlight, taught by professor Idris Goodwin.

From its roots within the urban American experience of the 1960-70s, contemporary hip-hop culture has evolved into an expressive language that transcends cultural and national boundaries. Formerly subversive modes of expression, such as graffiti, rap, appropriation, and breakdancing have now become flexible strategies for personal and political communication that spans all racial, national, and economic groups.  From March 24 – May 8 2014 Colorado College will explore the ways in which the hip hop strategies of remix, mash-up, appropriation, and protest allow for the creation of new cultural hybrids within the shifting terrains of the mainstream. The project will include a gallery exhibition, public art projects, lectures, performances, films, and discussions.

The exhibition component of the project will focus on three contemporary artists Ruben Aguirre iROZEALb, and Jaque Fragua. The artists employ strategies drawn from street art practices and hip-hop culture within the context of fine art. The exhibition will uncover the tensions created when graffiti motifs are removed from lived, public spaces and realized into two-and three-dimensional forms.  Themes addressed include: an examination the relationship between the self-definition inherent in the creation street art and the drive toward individual expression of Abstract Expressionism; the power of poetic insurrection within public spaces; and the creation of hybrid identities through cultural appropriations.

Sponsored by the Colorado College Cultural Attractions Fund, the Virginia Darnes Yates Endowment,  the NEH Distinguished Professorship, Andrew G. Mellon Foundation Artist-in-Residence Grant, The Bee Vradenburg Foundationm the Office of the Dean, The Colorado College Art Department, Feminist & Gender Studies, and Theatre & Dance.