From African Abstraction to Modern Art — Huntington Arts Council Workshop

Sep26

I’ll be presenting a workshop on the journey from masks to modern art — #modernprimitive — for the Huntington Arts Council on October 2. I am re-posting here the notice from the Long Island Arts Alliance that this workshop will be a signature series event of this October’s Arts Alive Festival:

Cultural Arts Workshops:
African Abstraction &
Modern Art Intertwined

Wednesday, October 2, 2013 4:30 – 7:30 PM

Huntington Arts Council

213 Main Street

Huntington NY 11743

Christopher Agostino – visual and performing artist is the author of Transformations! The Story Behind the Painted Faces and his work has appeared on TV and on magazine covers. He will display examples of mask and makeup art traditions of different cultures in Africa. The social function of masks and body arts will be examined and how these “primitive” arts influenced the revolutionary approach of Picasso, Matisse and the other early “modern” artists. Participants will design a mask and observe Christopher’s face painting technique. FREE for participating JOURNEY district teachers, $20 for general public and other teachers.

To register online: huntingtonartscouncil.org or email: artsined@huntingtonarts.org or call (631) 271-8423 X14. Learn about the full line up of workshops at: Huntington Arts Council

This is an Arts Alive LI Classic Signature Series event.

– See more at Arts Alive LI: http://www.artsaliveli.org/cultural-arts-workshopsafrican-abstraction-modern-art-intertwined/#sthash.Kmv3BXRn.dpuf

Painted Bodies: Africa — Video of Carol Beckwith & Angela Fisher

Jan22

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Wodaabe men decorated for the Geerewol celebration, making themselves attractive so that a woman might select them for courtship

Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher have been learning about and photographing the traditional cultures of Africa for 30 years, and have published several books of their work, including a seminal text on the subject: African Ceremonies (Abrams, 1999).

In September 2012 they came out with a book focusing more specifically on bodyart traditions: Painted Bodies: African Body Painting, Tattoos and Scarification (find it on amazon) and I received a link (via Craig Tracy) to a National Geographic Live! video of these two remarkable ethnologists talking about this new book and their journeys to these remote African cultures to create such a record of vanishing traditions.

VIDEO: National Geographic Live! – Carol Beckwith & Angela Fisher: Painted Bodies of Africa

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Girls of the Surma people, Ethiopia. In the video, Carol and Angela discuss how fragile such traditions are. Omo River cultures such as the Surma and Karo are going through drastic changes this year, as a new dam on the river will do away with the annual flooding that their way of life has depended on.

To learn more about our programs and performances: http://www.agostinoarts.com

The Omo Tribes: Ethiopia’s Natural Beauties. (franceleclerc.com)
About the Woodabe: Los Bororo (kysevenkuroi.wordpress.com)
Is a painted body naked?
Tribal Facepainting Concept
Destroying the Traditional Nuba —George Clooney Brings Attention to the Nuba Mountains
Traditional Bodyart – Nuba; Sudan; Africa – 1: changing my perceptions
- Traditional Bodyart – Nuba, Sudan, Africa- 2: Nuba Personal Art

Face Painting — Kids for Kids Event — Inspirations from Africa and India, including Rangoli

Dec12

the Indian folk art of Rangoli

In November, at the Kids-for-Kids Family Carnival to benefit the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids Foundation http://www.pedaids.org/, we had another opportunity to develop new face designs in support of an event theme. This year the event had a travel theme (“Journey to End Pediatric Aids”), so we offered to paint in our “World Mask” theme of styles from world cultures. The client asked us to go further and feature specifically the countries in which the foundation has its programs: the U.S.; several nations of Africa; and India. For U.S. faces we would include some iconic scenic designs like the Statue of Liberty and for Africa I have an extensive resource of mask and bodyart images which I could mine to find images from the specific countries involved. So I took this thematic opportunity to do some new research into inspirations from India. In addition to collecting some additional imagery from the elaborate theatrical makeups of the Kerala region, I did some image research into the art of Rangoli. Rangoli is a folk art that relates directly to facepainting, featuring floral and nature designs that are bright, colorful and very ephemeral, painted on the floor with colored rice, flours, sands or flower petals as an auspicious act, creating sacred welcoming areas for Hindu deities.

Click here for a pdf of the sheet of India reference images I put together for my artists: Face_Painting_IndiaImages_agostinoarts

The first third of my book, Transformations! The Story Behind the Painted Faces, chronicles my investigation of cultural sources of face and body art, and how I have incorporated those discoveries into my work.

To learn more go to: https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/books/

the images of the Holi festival are from this article: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/03/02/holi.DTL

From African Masks to Abercrombie & Fitch https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/2011/09/26/from-african-masks-to-abercrombie-fitch/

From a Mask to a Painted Face — Face Painting from Cultural Sources https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/2011/09/12/812/

Rangoli

I painted the rangoli style peacock on the left, Naoko (I think) did the one in the middle, and on the right, Lorraine abstracted the peacock and mixed it with the images of the girl's shirt