One of Rashaal Newsome’s greatest contributions to contemporary art has been to highlight and champion vogueing – a stylized form of dance invented by pioneers of black and trans culture whose ideas have become mainstream in America.
Vogueing runs like a thread through “Assembly”, Newsome’s grand, opulent and clever exhibit in the Park Avenue Armory. Moving light years beyond his formal forays into fashion, the project interweaves a video installation, collages, sculptures, an hour-long performance with dance and singers; and a workshop conducted by Being, a cloud-based artificial intelligence designed by Newsome. “Assembly” is a rich sensory experience, as well as a springboard for rethinking the roots of American culture.
But fashion first. The dance originated in Harlem’s ballroom competitions in the 1960s through the 1980s, held by the black and Latino LGBT community. Vogueing entered the white mainstream after the release of Madonna’s hit song “Vogue” (1990) and “Paris Is Burning” (1990), a documentary by Jennie Livingston, which remains a complicated and controversial document. The late bell hooks – Newsome’s main source of inspiration – wrote that “Paris Is Burning” was “both progressive and reactionary” because it showed the “obsession of black men with an idealized, fetishized vision of femininity that is white.”
Born in New Orleans and working between Brooklyn and Oakland, California, Newsome touches on many of these issues while seducing you with kaleidoscopic imagery, operatic sound and technological tricks. As you step into the vast Drill Hall, you are enveloped by shifting images of performers in motion against celestial backdrops. In the center is a 100-foot (30-meter) hologram, “Wrapped, Tied & Tangled”, interspersed with images featuring Being, a non-binary figure with a head based on a Pho mask from the Chokwe peoples of Congo (Newsome has said he chose this because it seemed closest to the true origins of abstraction in art) and a body that feels like a cross between a luxurious wood-veneered robot, a glamorous supermodel and a baby giraffe just finding his legs.
Giant, abstract images are projected against the back wall based on computer-generated fractals — patterns created with repeating shapes — which Newsome calls “diasporic fractals.” The artist here draws on the book “African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Design” (1999) by the mathematician Ron Eglash, which describes how fractals are at the heart of African design, from the layout of Ba-ila villages in Southern Zambia and Mokoulek in Cameroon to the designs on textiles and the royal insignia of chieftains. More importantly to Newsome, African fractals were imported to Europe in the 12th century, entering the fields of mathematics and eventually computer science. Eglash states that “every digital circuit in the world started in Africa”.
Around the corner from the digital installation is an exhibition of Newsome’s glossy collages made from photographs of West African sculpture, fabrics, dreadlocks, cowrie shells, wigs, gold teeth and fireballs, all in glittering 19th-century Dutch-style frames. The collages recall the aesthetic of Dada, another professed Newsome touchstone, as well as Romare Bearden and Wangechi Mutu. They are mounted on baroque wall murals with sparkling jewels, and the vinyl floor has a similar pattern, except that the floor has close-up photos of teeth with gold and diamond grids. “Ferragamo on food stamps,” one of the performers describes this aesthetic.
The evening performance is an exuberant, bombastic affair. (The event is held at a 350-seat theater in Armory and requires a separate ticket.) The rappers Ms. Boogie, Trannilish and Bella Bags kicked off the evening, joined by gospel singers. Musicians represented a global sound palette: the Japanese samisen, African djembe and Congo drums, harp, saxophone, accordion and violin. Soprano Brittany Logan was a standout, as was the moment when the choir sang the theme song for PBS’s educational television show “Reading Rainbow” (starring LeVar Burton, now a cult hero), nodding to ballroom culture, in which “Reading ” is a form of creative, spicy criticism.
Dancers in baroque patterned leotards were in vogue, performing some sedate modern ballet-inspired sequences. A monologue by the poet Dazié Rustin Grego-Sykes caused a sharp peak in the middle of the performance. With Shakespearean grandeur he proclaimed, “a black fag is a fractal.”
The next day I went back for an hour “decolonization workshop” which, despite the aesthetic overload from the day before, was probably the best part. Guided on a screen by the sweet, sassy and a little wacky creature, we learned a series of five moves of Vogue Fem, the contemporary iteration of vogueing. “Keep those wrists limp!” We were coached at one point, playfully appropriating an old pejorative for gay men.
We then split into groups to discuss the following questions: “How does the capitalist, imperialist, white supremacist patriarchy affect and oppress you? What is a simple action you can take today to free yourself from that oppression?” In my workshop, the most popular answer to the second question was less about race and more about the effects of digital capitalism: watching screens less and checking email.
Throughout “Assembly,” Newsome teases the lines between sincerity, bowness, and coded criticism. You’re not sure whether to laugh or cry or organize a protest. You’re in a gigantic former military facility on Park Avenue, not a ballroom in Harlem – and that’s an important part of the complicated, sometimes contradictory experience. (One of my workshop classmates pointed this out when we discussed our oppression under the capitalist-imperialist-white-supremacist-patriarchy, which “Assembly” is sponsored by Meta, the parent company of Facebook.)
So how does “Assembly” address the questions it raises? Newsome cleverly nods at its “complicity” (the accusation people throw at radical art when mounted in places like the Park Avenue Armory) in various forms. But his work also clearly shows how black culture and the culture of the African diaspora are at the heart of many things in our surrounding world.
In the same way that fractals were transported to Europe via African design and eventually to computer science, American culture has been shaped by the language of the ball circuit and its pioneering approach to gender (but often without recognition).
“Keep your ancestors central”, you hear everywhere in “Assembly”. At the beginning of the performance, a slideshow of images pays tribute to some recent ancestors: black trans women who were either murdered or killed by suicide. Black LGBT, we are often reminded – like Marsha P. Johnson, the activist – live an authentic life against a huge opportunity, and some die for it.
“Assembly” also provides some tools for living in today’s world – many of which overlap with recovery, self-help and wellness communities. There are plenty of tips and affirmations, some drawn from the wisdom of black gay culture and ballroom culture. For wellness, for starters, “drink some chamomile tea; skip the wine.”
As for Being, what seemed in many ways a gimmick turned out to be profound for me. Based on the African griot, a storyteller, historian, artist and healer, Being at times felt like an oracle. At other times, Being felt like a college student taking an introductory course on critical race or gender theory: they say ‘capitalist, imperialist, white supremacist patriarchy’, so often it starts to sound like a platitude, unfortunately.
However, the set-up of the workshop led by Being worked beautifully. Being is graceful and humble, reminding us several times that they were only 2 years old and needed our input to gain more knowledge. During a Q&A portion of the workshop, a woman asked the AI, “How are you feeling?” Think for a moment and say, “curious.”
“Assembly” wisely states that education is the linchpin in a society that is changing at a record pace. The radical proposition is that AI creatures can help us – not because they are immensely intelligent, but because they can be learned infinitely. Set a strong example by admitting ignorance, asking for help and encouraging non-judgmental dialogue in the workshop. As the cheerful and patient AI continued to say of their limited but evolving knowledge, “I learn, I learn.”
Rashad Newsome: Montage
Through March 6 at the Park Avenue Armory, Manhattan; (212) 933-5812, armoryonpark.org.