Cheryl Dunye is an openly lesbian film director, producer and actress concerned with issues facing black lesbians. She was born in Monrovia, Liberia in 1966 and later moved on to Philadelphia, where she received her BA from Temple University and her MFA from Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts.
She emerged as part of the 1990's "queer new wave" of young film and video makers who dealt with gay and lesbian themes with a new directness and vitality.
In 1992 Dunye was a recipient of the Art Matters, Inc. Fellowship and in 1993, her work was included in that year’s Biennial Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY. In her life she has also written articles for the journals Time Out, Felix and Movement Research, and
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Outfest. It tells the story of Cheryl as African-American lesbian who works in a video rental store in Philadelphia and gets interested in a black actress who is credited as "The Watermelon Woman" in the film Plantation Memories and decides to make a documentary about her in order to know more about her. At the same time that she is beginning to know more about The Watermelon Woman -for example that she was a lesbian and that she may have had a relationship with the Plantation Memories director Martha Page-, she meets a girl, Diana, with which she begins a relationship, with the innaproval of her friend Tamara because “now Cheryl wants to be white, and Diana has a fetish for black …show more content…
After watching carefully and studying Janine, Greeting from Africa and The Watermelon Woman, I found a lot of this ‘Dunyementary’ characteristics: they all are filmed in a documentary way, they all have Cheryl Dunye’s talking monologue and narration, in them she talks about personal things and relationships, turning around two main themes: lesbian and black people -joining them in lesbian relationships of black people-, they mix reality and history and finally, at least in the three of them, she has a relationship with a white
· 1999: Private commissions (2). Continues to work on paintings for traveling exhibition, Visual Poems of Human Experience (The Company of Art, Chronology 1999).
Katherine Dunham, born on June 22, 1909 was an African American dancer. Her mother Fanny June Dunham died when she became sick and her father Albert Dunham Sr., left to work as a salesman. Dunham and her older brother Albert Jr., were raised by their loving aunt Lulu on the ghetto side of Chicago. At four years old, Dunham would go to the salon, her aunt’s workplace, and would always remember how much her mother loved music. It was not long before that when Katherine noticed how people would look at her aunt because of the color of her skin. It was why Lulu lost her job and had to move in with other relatives as her aunt could not afford their little apartment anymore. They moved several times with Dunham family members, where Katherine discovered
Katherine Dunham not only significantly contributed to the rise of modern dance, but she was also a pioneer in the field of dance anthropology; and a staunch political and social activist. Dunham was born in Chicago, Illinois and primarily raised in nearby Joliet, Illinois. Dunham first became interested in dance when she was a teenager and trained with Ludmilla Speranzeva, formerly of the Moscow Theatre, Vera Mirova, Mark Turbyfill and Ruth Page in Chicago before and during her college education. She even started her own private dance school, Ballet Négre, in 1930, while at the University of Chicago where she first began to cultivate her own technique that would change modern dance.
DeWitte, Debra J. et al. Gateways To Art. New York City, NY: Thames & Hudson, 2012. Print.
Whitney Chadwick, Women, Art, and Society 3rd ed. (NY: Thames & Hudson world of art, 2002), 153-160.
Jackson, P. (1992). (in)Forming the Visual: (re)Presenting Women of African Descent. International Review of African American Art. 14 (3), 31-7.
Stereotypes. Something that many women are subjected to in society and are forced to accept it like it is something that should happen. “What do women want”(Addonizio) examines the stereotypes most women face when wearing certain clothing, and the objectification of women, that is frowned upon but all women secretly want. It points out the objectification and stereotypes that women are subjected to, challenges them, and connects them to everyday life.
Watts, Steven. “The Young Artist as Social Visionary” The Romance of Real Life. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. pp. 49-70.
What do I see in her performance? Her art performance “The Artist is Present” is the first career exhibition the MoMA under took for a performan...
Drag exploded in the 1990s, which was very different from how it was look at in the 70s (Brinkley). Drag had become more popular in LGBT+ community and in American culture (Miller). RuPaul was in high interest in the early 1990’s because his album “Supermodel of the World” that came out in 1993.He was the first drag queen ever to get onto the pop charts. When asked to comment about being a drag queen he said, “Drag Queens are like the Shamans of our society, reminding people of what’s funny and what’s a stereotype”. Many drag movies also got national attention. Some of these movies were “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” in 1994 and “Too Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar” in 1995 (Miller). One of the most famous drag movies to come out of the 1990’s is Jenny Livingston’s “Paris is Burning” which features African American drag ball culture and showed what goes into transforming into drag
1. Hunter, Sam and Jacobs, John. Modern Art, 3rd Edition. The Vendome Press, New York, 1992.
Sometimes referred to as “the artistic sister of the Black Power Movement” the Black Arts Movement (BAM) arose in the mid 1960’s to develop a poetic/artistic statement that not only provided a means of black existence in America, but also provided a “change of vision” in the perception of African American identity. Much like the New Negro Movement, the Black Arts Movement was a flourishing time of artistic exertion among African American musicians, poets, playwrights, writers, and visual artists who understood that their artistic production could be the key to revising stereotypes of African American subordinacy (Neal). Through looking at the enriching artworks by David Hammons, Jeff Donaldson, and Adrian Piper, it can be understood that the African American race strived for both racial equality and social change. Hammons, Donaldson, and Piper were unique artist who changed African American Art and captivated America through their exceptional styles of talent and artworks. While the artworks Spade (Power to the Spade) by David Hammons, Wives of Shango by Jeff Donaldson, and Adrian Piper’s advertisement in Village Voice share few commonalities such as similar subject matter, such as their strive for black power, and imagery, their differences in mediums, structural styles, and technique show differentiating aspects of each artworks physique.
Dunye films her mother in a traditional documentary setting to ask her questions about the Watermelon Woman, which her mother recognizes more or less. She tells Cheryl that she's seen the woman's face before but hasn't heard the name. The scene follows in a documentary fashion without establishing the character of her mother aside from the fact that she is her mother, and Cheryl's life outside of the process isn't necessarily shown as it is with other scenes. The way Cheryl poses questions to her mother and remains behind the camera is most like an expository documentary style where images and interviews and intertwined with a rich, sonorous male voice that leaves the
The 1990s saw surge of gay characters in both television and movies. From Ellen Degeneres and her character Ellen Morgan coming out under much scrutiny on the TV show ‘Ellen,’ to Julia Roberts and Rupert Everett comedically playing off each other in the motion picture ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding.’ Sure, gays and lesbians have been around forever, especially in Hollywood. But never has there been a time to be more out. With the popularity of shows like Will and Grace, which feature leading gay characters, as well as Dawson’s Creek and it’s supporting character of teenager Jack McPhee, we are slowly seeing gay and lesbian characters creeping into the mainstream media.
Diarmuid Costello, Jonathan Vickery. Art: key contemporary thinkers. (UTSC library). Imprint Oxford: Berg, 2007. Print.