This talk will address Brooklyn-based black visual artist Rashaad Newsome’s recent work, “Black Magic” (2019), which included live performances in both New York City and Philadelphia, an exhibition of collage, sculpture and artificial intelligence at the Philadelphia Photo Art Center, and a black contemporary art-themed drag ball. I will focus on the artist’s desire to decenter the white cube (or gallery space) in his work, even as he links performance practices with drawing and sculpture through the use of technologies like motion capture and 3D printing. Finally, I will explore the artist’s choice to center LGBT people of color themselves within discourses of both performance and visual art, figuring them as creators rather than the source material for the “real” actors of (art) history.
