Michael Richards



About the work of Michael Richards

Excerpt from, Passages: Contemporary Art in Transition
© SMH 2000

Using the iconology of flight in sometimes playful, sarcastic, poetic and absurd ways, Michael Richards documents as well as jabs at contradictions in American social history. Over the years his art has focused consistently on the concept of motion, and in Passages he explores flight in particular. Richard’s sculpture is truly inventive.

During the early 1990s his conceptual sculpture and installations featured components such as built-in motors, video, and audio, together with wings, human, animal and aeronautical. His art rotated and/or fluttered in the spaces they occupied, allowing viewers to experience the aura of movement - which was usually frustrated by some earthbound force that kept them from flying aloft. The three works in Passages are related by these considerations but take on more literal, figural forms and narrative tones. Tar Baby Vs. St. Sebastian, for example, recalls a little-known part of American history, and African American history in particular. It is a graceful and statuesque tribute to the Tuskegee Airmen, a team of World War II air force pilots who served bravely though the armed forces were racially segregated at that time. They never lost a life and were among the most trusted war escorts in history. This large gilded sculpture is classical in stature; its regal physique glows with dignity and peace though its body, like the martyr St. Sebastian is pierced throughout its torso; in this case, by small replicas of World War II airplanes. Michael served as the model in casting this figure and his presence is often visible in recent works.

From the Tuskegee Airmen to reconfigured back-scratchers, Richards cut through the smoke and mirrors of popular and conventional culture. His works all speak to aspects of African American life and American history while amplifying the ironies and dichotomies that riddle our larger cultural history. Travel Kit is both amusing and startling. A ubiquitous mirror and brush set is recast as spiteful tools, which hold bunches of human hair. For some, it may be a reminder of the “good hair/bad Hair” issues common among people of color. With Richards’s Travel Kit you take it with you, and you cannot escape certain truths no matter which head of hair you’re born with, or which process you employ to change it.

~ Essay by Deirdre A. Scott


Travel Kit

1999
Bonded bronze, hair, wood
13 x 6 x 13 in.  ed. 1/6
Collection of the artist; Courtesy Ambrosino Gallery, FL

 

Other featured images:

"Tar Baby vs. St. Sebastian
1999
Resin and steel
81 x 30 x 19 in.
Collection of the artist; Courtesy Ambrosino Gallery, FL.

Winged
1999
Bonded bronze, metal
20 x 38 x 4 in.  ed. 1/6
Courtesy of the artist



RESUME

Michael Richards (1963 - 2001)
born, Kingston, Jamaica


1992 - 1993 The Whitney Museum of American Art, Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, NY

1991    M.A., New York University

1985    B.A., City University of NY, Queens College

 

Selected Solo Exhibitions

1995    Installation, Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus, Brooklyn, NY

1991    Master’s Thesis Show, 80 Washington Square East Art Gallery, NY

 

Selected Group Exhibitions

2000    Passages: Contemporary Art in Transition, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Deirdre A. Scott, curator. Traveled nationally.

1998    Postcards from Black America, De Beyerd Center for Contemporary Art, Breda, the Netherlands,  traveled internationally

1997    Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY

Michael Richards & Kathleen Lewis:
Recent Work, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY

1996    No Doubt, Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut

...To Carry Me Home, The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY

Benefit Auction Exhibition, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY

1995    Three Installations: Michael Richards, Nurit Newman, Dread Scott, Shirley Fiterman  Gallery, Borough of Manhattan Community College, NY

The Sum and the Parts, 450 Gallery, NY

Page 12, 450 Gallery, NY

1994    Head To Toe, Longwood Arts Center, Bronx, NY

Identity is Dead?, MMC Gallery at Marymount College, NY

Social History: A Black and Tan Fantasy, Bronx River Arts Center, NY

Young, Gifted and Phat, Long Island University, NY

Artists in the Marketplace, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY

Phrenology: A Magic Lantern Show, A collaborative Video Opera and performance,    Millennium Film Archives, NY, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, NY

1993    Current Wave, Bronx River Arts Center, NY

Concrete Signal,Tribeca 148 Gallery, NY

Whitney Open Studios, Whitney Museum of American Art, ISP Studios, NY

1992    Ecstasy Shop, Dooley LeCappellaine Gallery, NY

Choice Histories, Artists Space, NY

Same Old Song and Dance, Grey Art Gallery, NY

1991   Race and Culture, 494 Gallery, NY

Race and Culture, City College Gallery, NY

1990    NY Area M.F.A. Exhibition, The College Art Association, Voorhies Gallery, Hunter College

 

Selected Grants, Awards and Fellowships

1999-97        Artist in Residence, NFAA Fellow CAVA Award, Miami

1997             Artist in Residence, Socrates Sculpture Park

1995-94        The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation

1994             The Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY

1992             Whitney Museum of American Art, Van Lear Award


TO CARRY ME HOME          VISUALS  &  BIO          ESSAY           GETTING HERE

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Designed and curated for the Web by Deirdre A. Scott, © 2001.
The AIR exhibition was originally curated by Jorge Daniel Veneciano in 1996.