Latest News in Black Art, July 24, 2023, Culture Type.

Native American Artist Anna Tsouhlarakis unveils 'The Native Guide Project: Columbus’

Native American artist Anna Tsouhlarakis gives a look into indigenous culture and society through her exhibit “The Native Guide Project: Columbus” which will be available through July 9.

Tsouhlarakis’ art contains statements that are both playful and provocative such as “It’s True! There was a voice before Columbus,” and “I notice how you listen when the mounds speak,” which brings attention to Native American history and narratives. Her art is present at the Wexner Center of the Arts and around Columbus to guide viewers who encounter the pieces.

“She is absolutely a multidisciplinary new media artist,” curatorial intern Bethani Blake said. “I think she is pulling from all sorts of movements but then is creating something that is so unique, so her own, while also making it clear that her work is something that isn't new, that she is making her stance, and she is unapologetic about it.”

By LanternTV reporter Gia An Thach

Monster Drawing Rally at WesterBall 2023: There’s A Space For Us, February 25th, 2023, Arts Council of Westerville, Westerville, OH.

WesterBall is our premier community arts event of the year and also serves as a fundraiser for The Arts Council of Westerville. The event will identify passionate supporters of the arts, raise money for local arts & music programming, and help us realize our goal of a cultural arts center in Westerville.

We encourage attendees to 'dress to the nines' for this spectacular evening featuring The Big Badd band, dancing, student & professional performances, silent auction, monster art rally, and SO MUCH MORE!

WesterBall brings us all together to promote art and artists, celebrate our diverse cultures, and showcases the talent that exists in our city.

Wexner Center for the Arts Winter–Spring Exhibitions to Open February 11, 2023

Anna Tsouhlarakis: A Native Guide Project: Columbus

An artist of Navajo, Creek, and Greek descent, Anna Tsouhlarakis (she/her) reframes the discourse around Native American identity. For this exhibition, she trains her eye on the forced migration of Indigenous peoples—including in the Central Ohio area..

A new, multilayered commission, A Native Guide Project: Columbus builds on Tsouhlarakis’s The Native Guide Project (2019–present), which deploys phrases that are variously poignant and pithy, such as “I LIKE HOW YOU SEE NATIVE AMERICANS AS YOUR INTELLECTUAL EQUAL.” It will engage the Wex’s interior and exterior spaces, as well as sites around Columbus through a partnership with Orange Barrel Media.

A Native Guide Project: Columbus continues the artist’s earlier text-based works such as Edges of the Ephemeral (2012) and In Other Words: A Native Primer (2013)—in which she worked closely with members of Native American communities about their beliefs and experiences.

In January and February 2023, The Box, the center’s dedicated video gallery, will present Tsouhlarakis’ Breath of Wind (2017), a short video work highlighting the deadly effects of the 1979 Church Rock, New Mexico, uranium disaster. The largest radioactive spill in US history, the disaster poisoned the water, soil, and air of the Navajo Nation with uranium waste, causing ramifications that remain evident today.

Anna Tsouhlarakis: A Native Guide Project: Columbus, is curated by Chief Curator and Director of Exhibitions Kelly Kivland with Curatorial Intern Bethani Blake. Tsouhlarakis’s Breath of Wind is curated by Film/Video Studio Curator Jennifer Lange.

“Black Joy” Hear from the Artist Series: Bethani Blake

As part of the "Black Joy: Expansive, Unfiltered, Unapologetic" exhibition hosted at The Ohio State University’s Thompson Library and the Frank W. Hale Black Cultural Center (Aug 2022 – Feb 2023), several of the artists represented in the exhibition have participated in this video series to speak about their work and how it relates to their idea of Black Joy. Blake describes her experience growing up in the suburban Midwest with an Immigrant father and the impact visiting Jamaica had on her agency.

Meet the 2022-23 Wex Interns, September 28, 2022, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH.

After working at the Whitney Museum of American Art for the better half of a year, Blake decided to pursue a curatorial internship at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, OH. As a contemporary art institution apart of the Ohio State University, Blake will be conducting research and writing for the Exhibitions team, working under Chief Curator & Director of Exhibitions, Kelly Kivland and Associate Curator, Lucy I. Zimmerman. Blake will be collaborating exclusively with Kivland to organize the creation of static and digital installations by Anna Tsouhlarakis within the institution and throughout the city of Columbus.

Black Joy: Expansive, Unfiltered, Unapologetic. August 20, 2022 - February 28, 2023. Frank W. Hale Jr. Cultural Center, Columbus, OH 43210

Blake was asked by the Undergraduate Student Black Caucus at The Ohio State University to take part in a multi-venue group exhibition after relocating to Columbus, Ohio from Brooklyn, New York. The show features sixteen students and community members to discuss the Pan-African movement as a way to uplift the Black community.

In Conversation with Katharina Grosse and Dan Cameron

Alumna Bethani Blake (B.F.A., painting, 2021) presented Grosse (b. 1961, Freiburg/Breisgau, Germany) with the deFINE award from the historic Trustees proscenium. "Challenging our perceptions of surfaces and ideas of spectatorship, she creates rich connections between colors, shapes, and elements of architecture and landscape," Blake said of Grosse. "The artist's unique creative process, which involves the use of an industrial spray gun, and the resulting gestures and movement coalesce in otherworldly installations that expand the dimensions of painting."

Meet Bethani Blake, Shoutout Atlanta

Blake was approached by Shoutout Atlanta to discuss risk, her studio practice after completing her undergraduate degree and her holiday itinerary in NYC. Blake talked the move from Columbus to Brooklyn and about her part-time job at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Installation view of Fragments. April 9 - 15, 2021. 400 West Rich, Columbus, OH 43215.

Inspired by appropriation and imagery found online, Fragments recontextualizes eleven reproduced images in the form of acrylic paint on yupo paper. The work features various celebrities Blake uses as vehicles to describe her relationship with online echo chambers. The exhibition is achromatic with a strong emphasis on not only black and white, but the grey area in between which she finds much more nuanced. Rather than giving the viewer a definite reason for the given imagery, Blake hopes that they can independently seek out the correlations between the crossover of information she has provided.

Installation view of Drawing Works. March 5 - May 1, 2021. 668 Indian St, Savannah, GA 31401.

​Blake's Darcy I was featured in Drawing Works, a group show at Alexander Hall in Savannah, Georgia that emphasizes the importance of the technical and experimental aspects of drawing. At a scale of 22 in x 30 in, Blake used charcoal on Arches Cover paper to revisit form through the materials and techniques of the Old Masters.

5 Questions with Bethani Blake, Connect Savannah

During a pandemic interview with Rachel Flora, Blake was able to talk about her theatrical background during undergrad and how it continues to inform her studio practice.