Interview with Onajide Shabaka
Posted by Heike Dempster 11 days agoCan you talk a bit about your career to date pleaseThe first show I had was in 1968. There were not many opportunities in Los Angeles, where I was living at the time. From about 1975 until 1989 I was in hiatus, so to speak. I had gone into making clothes, doing fashion design for men and women based on African and Asian styles in construction and also using tie-dye batik. I used natural fibers. In the 70s people wore polyester and I hate that stuff. I was doing the clothing and then I started racing bicycles. I was in Italy when I made the decision to do art again. I was there for six months to work and race bicycles. The reason for my hiatus was racism.
That has changed though. Museums and collectors now own your work.
My work is in a few museums now . The Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, The Vero Beach Museum of Art and I have work in the collection of the Washington State Arts Commission and a few colleges and private collections.
Do you think the educational aspect of your work deters galleries?
Well, galleries I think are changing but back then racism was involved, I hate to say it. That is part of it. A commercial gallery has to find collectors and you do not see many African American artists in any galleries. I am talking specifically about Miami. I think that my art practice has been pretty much the same but my working methods have changed.
Do you have a preferred medium?
I have a bachelors degree in photography but over the last few years I have been doing less and less photography. I did not really think about it. I did a solo exhibition at the FAU downtown Fort Lauderdale campus. Bonnie Clearwater saw some of the works, like the video, and she liked those.
(Via: Heike Dempster – Interview with Onajide Shabaka – FULL TEXT )