All right, I think we can get
started.
So thank you for joining us today.
The lunchtime art talks, which
as many of you know, is a weekly
series led by
curators on the works from our
collection.
In this iteration, the series will
focus on artists featured in Made in
L.A.: a version,
Made in L.A. 2020.
Free reservations to visit our
biannual at the Hammer are now
available. So please visit our
website to reserve your time
for those who aren't familiar.
My name is Ikechukwu Onyewuenyi
I'm a curatorial assistant here at
The Hammer and for the Biennial
I was an assistant curator of
performance,
supporting my dear colleagues
and curators
Lauren Mackler and Myriam
Ben Salah.
And today I'll be facilitating this
lunchtime art talk, which will be
focusing on Justin
Leroy's project SON.
And then after the presentation,
I'll be able to answer all your
questions, a few
Zoome tidbits
before I begin.
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OK, King
shot out the queen today, he's going
to be helping with the slides,
so slide.
So today I'll be talking
about Justin. And Justin was one of
the first cultural workers I met
in L.A.
that I could sense
had a clear vision.
When we spoke, there was
an intensity that was kind of
overlaid with care,
tenderness and curiosity.
We met at the underground museum
and we kept in touch discussing
the evolution of some possible
points of collaboration, seen as
SON is a multifaceted
project that focuses on
black masculinity and the expression
of it.
I was drawn to the possibility of
talking to Justin about convening
black men, to chat about life
notions, etc..
Some of you may know I was a
therapist in my past life
and before I left the
practice, I used to work out of
putting together some ideas for
anger management workshops for black
men.
Based on what I was noticing in my
individual classes.
And I think for me
that was something I was thinking
about proposing to Justin.
And I think I've mentioned it
briefly about getting men together,
but something about
sitting with Justin and just
chat with him. I knew there was a
strong vision here
and something that just gravitates.
People gravitate towards him, given
that those visions.
I also sat with Justin
and was a part of some
barbershop themed photos that he
took
out of one of the spaces and
celebrity spaces for the underground
museum, which I came through.
And I believe I
may have been featured in the first
iteration of SON, which was
a photo exhibition.
And then since then, it kind of
blossomed into what it is now, this
kind of like multimedia,
multidimensional kind of platform.
And Justin also had a show
on NCIS radio, a SON radio
show that's worth listening
to. And I think for us,
Lauren, Myriam and myself, that was
the impetus behind
our early conversations and what his
contribution to Made in L.A.
2020 would be.
You know, to be clear,
SON's contribution to
the vanua is a suite of podcasts.
So it's kind of building off of the
show and EMTs
that one could conceivably listen
to from the hammer
to the Huntington or vice versa.
So, again, something that we've
talked about in some of these
last time outs of this space in
between. And I think Justin's
project was something that
we envisioned.
And you can also think about how
you can listen to the project
at any time.
And it shifts the exhibition out
of physical space.
But I think I want to reference
Justin's with specifically in terms
of wiki, because I
think that's superimportant.
So my work derives from my own
personal needs.
I ask myself, what kind
of world do I want to live in?
What kind of conversations that I
wish to be a part of?
What do I want to hear?
I'm looking to uplift myself when
creating sound. I was personally
seeking a space where I could be
vulnerable and collaborative with
men that looked like me.
Spaces for black men have been
difficult for me to navigate, but I
knew I couldn't be the only one.
The challenge to perform as
hypermasculine and without any
emotion or intuition had presented
itself to me at five years old, and
I've never felt aligned with its
demands even when trying
I couldn't survive in
my development, I began to see high
expectations of this performance
exhausted the men around me, as well
as the relationships, their
relationships and worldviews.
I felt called to research my
world and to bring
some peace to this paradigm.
Next life.
So I want to sit with this idea of
spaetzle world building as a way to
survive, and in talking
about this, it would be remiss not
to note the work of
unreeled IFAB and Doreen Massey,
who stated in space,
this is what ensures survival
of being.
And for me, I was drawn to SON
for this desire to meditate on what
survival looks like,
what being looks like, but also
how that meditation is deeply
entrenched in the history of the
barbershop.
So Stan's podcast recordings
program means it's all
tied to a space
touched by an angel.
So it operates out of the space
called Touched by Angels, which is
Justin's father's longstanding
barbershop in south central L.A..
And the reason I have these two
books up here is because these books
build on this meditation of the
barbershop as a space for survival
or at a push this
idea of the harsh harbor and
in verse none of this book
we learn, broadly speaking, that the
hush harbors most secretive spaces
that allowed enslaved people,
enslaved black people to explore
literature and faith based
practices,
sites a slave
from North Carolina and they must
charity and
how the harsh harbor was tied to the
quest for literacy.
And quote, I have seen Negroes
up in the country going away on the
large and in secret places,
sitting in the woods with spending
books.
Relatedly, hush hush those
necessary, because as poet Professor
Miguel Boyd points out,
slaves could be beaten, even killed
for having a spelling book.
By having a spelling book for trying
to read as such rebellious
rhetorical spaces was linked to
intellectual freedom and by
extension, physical
freedom.
So from this, if you've been in the
barbershop, you know, it's a space
where banter, politics, ideas and
the like happen.
And there's an element of that
that's bound up in the Hushabye as a
concept.
But I think these spaces feel very
hypermasculine. That's just a note.
So I think that's where the power of
SON and the programming's shines
through.
Another point I want to stress is
the lineage of the barbershop as an
abolitionist base,
but it also held tension in doing
so.
Next slide, please.
They were segregated spaces in
during the antebellum era and during
reconstruction,
the black barbershop only
catered to white men.
So it was like privilege for black
men to cut the black man's hair
and to make profit from it.
So there were limits on how
black men related to other
black men and white slave
owners wants to hire out their black
brothers to cut
white folks here in the town.
So this space, in a way, was like
prohibitive of homosocial bonding
between black men, which
I think is key to thinking
about son. And it's kind of like
what it's doing.
But it also provided this unfiltered
access to information that fueled
abolitionist sentiment.
So the barbershop kind of lives in
the body and moves through
various spaces, much like the
itinerant nature of the hushabye.
And oddly enough,
white men really spoke
paradoxically.
But it was weird because they
surprisingly did not think.
The black barbers could kind of like
convey what they were speaking about
to the community, so it's almost as
if they saw the black barber as just
this laboring entity and not
a sentence being that could listen
and relay information.
But what you're seeing up on the
screen is John Vashion.
He was a barber and he reminds me of
Justin's father.
Vashion
had a barbershop in Pittsburgh.
And what was interesting is he
had the barber shop and then he
expanded out to
set up Pittsburgh's first public
bathhouse called St. Bart's.
And it was on Third Street between
market and very streets downtown.
But in addition, I think his
barbershop activities was kind of
like the hub similar to SON
and touched by an angel.
In nineteen eighty three, Vashion
organized the Pittsburgh Antislavery
Society, which was
the first organization of its kind
in the area.
And you know, while SON doesn't
recognize, I don't I don't think SON
is a space explicitly
focused on antislavery as an
institution.
But the program is tied intimately
to pushing against anti black
society as it impacts black
men.
And I think related to
how Justin thinks about SON
as a hub of kind of like
fueling ideas and so forth,
that Sean also saw
his barbershop and his work as
pushing the importance of education,
lack of knowledge, professionals,
lack of a threat was a threat to
freedom. And in eighteen, thirty
two, he actually got with
black residents to form the
Pittsburgh African Education Society
to establish a small school,
another barbershop, another bottle,
just to mention Alfred Nyjer.
He was based out of Providence and
he started in 1840 when
the Rhode Island Anti Slavery
Society.
So you can see in the 19th century,
the barbers were focused on
abolitionist work that
Shunsuke instance financed
and supported and distributed
William Lloyd Garrison's deliberator
newspaper.
So a white abolitionist newspaper.
And I think what's also interesting
is nineteenth century abolitionists
focused, but also 20th century.
And again, speaking to the attention
you can see the Black Bible was
published. Barbershop was fueling
specific, rigid ideas of
what black masculinity and esthetics
should look like.
Next slide, please.
Now, I also want to think about how
SON exists in a multifaceted way
in the exhibition of Made in L.A.,
the hub of SON, the barbershop
touched by an angel is also a sight
for Coolio's Josef's blackness
that I talked about some weeks back.
And I think, you know,
black news in many ways is a
continuation of black TV programing
that blossomed during the post
civil rights era.
I think we're still advocating for
civil rights today.
But Justin is a music director of
Black News and Delima.
A son with black news almost
invites the consideration of
the barbershop as a public.
Black public square
and interestingly enough, William
Greaves, who is the executive
producer of Black Journal from
1968 to 1970,
likened black TV
programing platforms as
a type of communal space
or similar to the black barbershop.
And you can see here
with the quote, We were aware that
we had to develop programing that
communicated to the black community.
And one of the paradigms or one of
the devices that are used in
developing monthly programs was
the black barbershop.
The kinds of things that routinely
discussed are routinely discussed in
a black barbershop.
I used to filter these
concepts to a black barbershop in my
own head.
Next slide.
And here you can see images of
black news installed.
In Touched by an Angel
next flight.
Again, blackness is just this
project, and it's a
two channel
kind of fugitive news broadcast
that is located
throughout Los Angeles in
various neighborhoods throughout
South Central.
Next slide.
And again, this is an interesting
kind of like juxtaposition.
For example, if you're conceivably
looking and getting your hair cut
and looking at yourself in
the barber chair into the window,
you can almost watch black news.
So whether you're getting your
haircut or you're waiting for
your child or significant other to
get their hair cut, you can always
kind of like take in the content.
So I think it's really interesting
consideration of esthetics and
so forth.
Next slide.
Next, let.
So just give me visuals of what it
looks like on the next slide.
And I wanted to kind of like touch
on this poem.
It's a really beautiful poem.
The barbershop is a ritual.
I think it's by Sharon
Strange.
And I think it dovetails with
this idea of the hushabye,
this idea of the spiritual
practices that come out of the
barbershop.
I will read the whole thing.
And if I think if you're interested
in it, I
can make it available.
But I think what's interesting is
like the last passage where it talks
about head bowed, church solemn,
he sheds hair like mother love and
virginity weightier than
Air Jordans and designer sweats,
euphemistic battle gear.
He received the tribal standard, a
nappy helmet, splitting arrows,
lightning bolts, rows of lines,
newworld.
I can go on, but I think what's
interesting about that last stanza
is kind of like thinking about
the tensions around
black masculinity, how it's
performed.
How it kind of like shows up in one
spiritual practice,
but also how it's also in concert
with
femininity, motherhood,
different types of
presentation of black self that I
think it says weightier than Air
Jordans and designer.
And that's not to knock Edgerton's
and designer sweats
and so forth, but it's thinking
about how.
There's a polyvalent
way in which Blackmun's could show
up, which I think is very critical
to what Justin is doing
with some like.
But I want to close with Justin's
first podcast that is available, and
I think I encourage you to listen to
it if you haven't already, it's a 30
minute or 20 minute
clip.
And I think it was rather novel how
Justin approached the podcast, given
the limitations of covid.
Initially, we were thinking about
his radio show on NTFS.
But, you know, Justin took time
with it and just flip the script.
And since he could have gotten
people to come together, you
know, the voice notes of care
that Justin's friends and
community shared with him, he splice
that together into
this kind of like.
Kind of like sonic assemblers
with a school produced with
Slosson Malone, and it produced this
really ecstatic experience,
the first episode is called On God,
which is fitting.
And in the promotional video that
Justin made to launch the podcast,
it kind of blew me away in the way
you'll see in this video of someone
driving down.
A dark road like winding
down, just kind of like stable road,
and it evokes this idea of faith
given its title, but also
given the way you think about faith,
how it steers you.
And I'm thinking about like the late
theologian Paul Tillich, he
saw faith as something
as a state of being ultimately
concerned with one's success,
salvation or safety.
And I think when you think about
these three things, you know,
Justin's mastery of sound
of community building will
build in.
And healing and so forth is so
assuring that you felt safe
as you're watching this promotional
video and who's behind
the will and the project is called
Leave a Message.
And what Justin has done
is folks can call a number and
he says, leave a message
and you can leave a message.
And these fragments
will get worked into future
iterations of the podcast.
But for his first podcast,
Justin kind of weaves this voice
into messages and it dwells
in this kind of like nebulous space
of faith.
Think about faith as this
orientation towards the future.
But I think what's really beautiful
and poetic about these
words is how faith is also
thinking about the here and now
with folks sending notes about
how they're dealing with the
pandemic, but also
how faith is also a meditation on
the past.
And I want to focus on a particular
segment if you can play
this section of the podcast,
but.
I wanted to.
Summer and
then
talk about her
relationship to the dark,
because it really informed my
relationship to the dark growing up
as a child.
She was someone who.
Pretty much was.
Invested in a sort of kind
of spirituality
that.
Wrestle with demons, wrestle with
girls, wrestle with
all of the sort of things that
the bad things that you.
That could happen,
and I picked up a lot of that from
her and usually.
That's why I would sleep with
her like growing up, because
I was so deeply afraid of the dark,
because of all the things that she
had told me about it,
and it's where my imagination went.
Wow. Just as much as her
imagination.
And so we share that in common
in terms of like our relationship to
the dark. But
we also find it dark and.
So that was my dear friend, Shiki
is a photography installation
artist, really amazing
person and artist, definitely check
out his work,
but I keep that in.
That segment is talking
about his relationship with his
grandmother.
And I think it reminds me of this
Bell Hooks riveting essay from
nineteen ninety five called
Anesthetics of Blackness, Strange
and Oppositional. And I think those
two descriptors are really
relevant.
I want to highlight parts of that
essay because I think it relates to
also shape his relationship
with his grandmother.
So in a passage
no Hooke's notes, making and
listening to black music, both
secular and sacred, was one of
the ways black folks developed an
esthetic celebration of popular
forms, ensure the survival
kept them as a legacy to be passed
on, even as they were altered and
transformed by the interplay
of varied cultural forces.
And I think thinking about how
SON, the podcasts
and Justin's ultimate project
evolved kind of speaks this element
of survival. How do you kind of
change your art form?
And then I think towards the end of
the essay, Bell Hooks kind of closes
beautifully, she says.
After reading the essay on
Esthetics in Praise of Shadows.
I tell this just in the late that
conversation that I'm learning to
think about blackness in a new way.
Tanizaki, in the essay, speaks
of seeing beauty in darkness, and
she says this moment of insight,
quote, The quality that we call
beauty, however, must always grow
from the realities of life.
And our ancestors forced to live in
darkrooms presently came
to discover beauty and shadows,
ultimately to guide shadows towards
beauty. And my sister
has skin darker than mine.
We think about our skin as a dark
room, a place of shadows.
We talk often about color, politics
and the ways racism has created an
esthetic that wounds us, a way of
thinking about beauty that puts us
in the shadows. Of late night.
We talk about the need to see
darkness differently, to talk about
it in a new way.
In that space of shadows, we long
for an esthetic blackness, strange
and oppositional.
And I think that's just a really
poetic way to and
to think about what
SON leave a message Justin
is producing through
this body of work and what to
look out for in the forthcoming
podcasts.
I think there are three more that
will drop over the run of the show.
So, yeah,
you have questions.
Let me know I am here.
I see someone asked, will there
be a new episode added before?
Yes, they will be. So I think
Justin is working on
dropping a new one.
I've given a listen.
It's very good.
It's very.
I think he kind of like
riots, tensions in a very beautiful,
caring way, and
this next one is no different.
I think
I'll give a bit of a tease about it.
Talks a bit about.
The pandemic vaccine,
the history of vaccines and for
me when I listen to it, kind of
reminded me of
this essay by a Chilean member
called Niekro Politics and how
you can think about.
Some hesitation around
the vaccine
in relation to
just the history of pharmaceutical
warfare, especially if I'm from
Nigeria and Pfizer
had a very kind of
thorny history in the early
1990s.
So listen to the podcast
know reflecting on
the state of things
gets you thinking about
your own personal relationship to.
You know what's going on in
the complicated ways to think
about, you know.
You know, I think in
Bayh talks about like.
Petrochemical, wholesale, just
chemical warfare and how it's like
warfare is no longer like a hit and
run, then it's
enduring, you know?
That being said, I'm not like.
Get vaccinated or whatever, whatever
you feel comfortable.
I just want to say that I
think this is just stoking
debate, which is good.
The.
Someone asked, would you say, son
is a kind of way for biproduct
men to lean into the ambush
intelligence about mental
health during the presentation?
Yeah, I think, you know,
right now I'm not sure what
Justin Leroy has up his sleeves
in terms of.
Programing, and I know with the
pandemic, things shift, but, you
know, he had ideas around like,
yeah, gathering's book clubs,
you know, spaces of conversation,
running clubs, there's like a
physical component to this element
of mental health that
is kind of like kind of tied
together, which I love because I'm
part of a run club in Koreatown.
So, yeah, I think she's thinking
about a very holistic.
Approach to.
Mental health and so forth.
Megan Steinhof, shout out to you,
how has worked with Justin Leroy son
and black news affected
uplift how you think about
collaboration?
It's a good question.
You know, I think for me, it's.
Patients.
And yeah, I think
patience is probably.
And just letting people just do the
do their thing, you know, I think
having faith,
it's just enough having faith.
In the process, I think
just in the
episode of God are talking about how
safe is this?
How safe is this kind of like idea
of being ultimately concerned, I
think you can be concerned about
something, a collaboration without
being
paternalistic or micromanaging.
And I think one thing that has
I've learned is also trust in the
process.
Like I think when the pandemic hit
and Justin was like in
the throes of figuring out how to
tackle this podcast,
you know, that would be weeks
that we wouldn't hear from him.
And I think you can
panic. But knowing Justin
and his brilliance and
similarly, Khelil and black news,
you know, we know that they're going
to deliver.
And I think even bringing
it to black news and how close
a deal like news is always
shifting is always
uncertain and depending on what is
new to you.
So questioning the authority of what
is news through presenting
by presenting new information
or context or
ideas, I think.
Again, does this patients with
oneself, with the process,
with the outcome.
And also was not even like
resting on,
you know, the end product,
because I think after
Black After Son finishes
with the very podcast, the project
will live on in perpetuity.
You can listen to the podcast,
but then son is going to go on and
continue to do programing and so
forth. So I think it's
the patients and the questions
authority supersedes
the museum and the exhibition as a
context. You know, I think because
black news and some will keep
on going long
after Made in L.A.
closes. And I think that's the
beauty of, you know,
when something is collaborative and
community based, you know,
it has wings and legs to kind of,
like, keep pushing.
So, yeah, I
think collaboration's patients trust
in the process and just.
Yeah.
Any more questions to answer that
question?
That's more patience and trust, yes,
yes, we need that.
I think we are good,
so, yeah, definitely.
Spotify, Apple Music,
wherever you listen to podcast,
check out some.
I think the barbershop is open,
are important, but I
think the barbershop is open, so,
yeah, in South Central, swing by
and get a haircut.
I clearly need a haircut.
But
anyway,
thank you for coming
in. I have some clothes and stuff to
talk about.
So I think that's all we have time
for questions.
Thank you again for joining us for
this afternoon and special thanks to
Bank of America for presenting
Made in L.A. 20 20 aversion
to support programs like this and
future programs. We invite you to
become a member or donate
to the museum by visiting
us at Hamma the UCLA
edu forward slash support.
And be sure to join us next week.
For the last time I took Made in
L.A. 20 20 cocreator Lauren
Mackler. We did a presentation on
the work of Jeffrey Stuka.
Definitely come to check it out
and thank you very much for coming.