Whitewall: Art, Design, Fashion, and Luxury Lifestyle

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Subscribe to the Magazine

Presents

Milan

LOEWE Chairs

Newsletter

Go inside the worlds of art, fashion, design, and lifestyle.

vanessa german, "Sad Rapper," 2022, wood, tar, 75 pounds of old blue jeans, the blues, sorrow, cuz in 1983 rappers could be bad but could not be sad— or gay, holiness, salt, a groan, tears, African blue and white cloth, love, meanness, the way that it feels to need to cry but not be able to cry— for an exceptionally long time, convinced of muscle instead of tenderness, grief, yarn, twine, loneliness, old blue bed sheets, heartbreak and lying about it, canvas, prayer beads, shame, black pigment, delusion, love, love, love, you gonna be ok ni$$a, you ain’t alone homie, it’s ok, just go’on ahead and be broken for a little while, shit~ life is hard sometimes, red and white paint, foam, ptsd, glue, plaster, heat. 78 x 48 x 40 inches; photo by Jordan Whitten, courtesy of the artist.

vanessa german, "TV Man," 2022, wood, cloth, cutter quit, glitter, sequined fabric, Yoruba hat found stuck to a shelf at a Tjmax in western North Carolina, black pigment, the meanness of houselessness in a world of abundance, a took-apart-tv, 50 feet of rope, white and red pigment, wire, foam, a vision of a man walking up a hill, plaster, plaster gauze, wood glue, heat, hurt, loneliness, magic. 88 x 32 x 30 inches; photo by Jordan Whitten, courtesy of the artist.

vanessa german, "7 Beautiful Ni$$As Awe-Struck in the Glory of An Appalachian Sunset," 2022, vintage quilt top, Astro turf, old farm picking fruit basket, gettingcaught up in the moment, foam, tar, black pigment, cowrie shells, seeing your ownself reflected in the open evening sky and wondering how anything could be so consistently beautiful and amazing as a sunset, love, gold thread, beaded rhinestone cloth, epoxy, boxing gloves, being speechless in wonder and delighta nd not having the police f*k with you at all because they are too busy weeping byyour side and clutching their own breast bones to wonder at how the rhythm of their own pattering hearts could match so perfectly the sound of light falling golden out of the sky and into their own open, stupefied maws, rhinestones, yes, yes, yes, 7 muscular wonders, 88 x 30 1/2 x20 inches; photo by Diego Flores, courtesy of the artist and Kasmin Gallery.

New York, Chelsea

vanessa german: Sad Rapper

vanessa german’s “Sad Rapper” constructs a narrative of characters from the same neighborhood as a platform to challenge urgent and current issues.

September 8, 2022 - October 22, 2022

Drawing from the artist’s upbringing in 1980s Los Angeles, vanessa german’s “Sad Rapper” constructs a narrative of characters from the same neighborhood as a platform to challenge urgent and current issues of racial oppression, structural violence, commemoration, and community. Asking viewers to enter the exhibition as a space of redemption, german’s exhibition highlights topics within the context of Black life and the American dream, utilizing her singular sculptural practice to incite compassion for the rage and grief caused by the issues at hand. The detailed humanistic figures (with names like TV Man and the titular Sad Rapper) have been constructed from an amalgamation of found objects, everyday materials, and intangible elements detailed by the artist like “a groan,” “meanness,” and “the way it feels to need to cry but not be able to cry— for an exceptionally long time.”

The artist’s first solo exhibition at Kasmin Gallery, “Sad Rapper” will be on view from September 8—October 22. For its first three days, german will also be present, interacting with visitors and performing a series of oral traditional healing rituals.