Cullen Washington’s work exudes energy, rawness, and a visceral urban vibe, manifesting a fighting engagement with painting practice, painting history, and painting’s entrapments and luring out into the open the hidden implications of masculinity and race versus the purity of painting semantics. In this interview Washington reflects on the discipline of painting, the challenges he faces as he refines his skills, and his aims as he positions himself to claim a place in the present discourse. The interview covers such topics as his heroes and what they represent, what is important for painting today, science fiction and outer space as a frontier for blackness, Ralph Ellison’s influence on him, and Washington’s artistic and cultural inspirations, as well as his experiences as a graduate student.
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Research Article|
November 01 2010
The Artist’s Artist: Cullen Washington in Conversation with Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons Available to Purchase
Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons
Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons
Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons is an artist active at international and local projects, a professor at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and cofounder of GASP Arts in Brookline, Massachusetts. Her upcoming solo show, Sugar, opens at Smith College Museum in the fall of 2010. Her work can also be seen in the 2010 traveling exhibition Afro Modern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic
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Nka (2010) 2010 (27): 62–69.
Citation
Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons; The Artist’s Artist: Cullen Washington in Conversation with Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons. Nka 1 November 2010; 2010 (27): 62–69. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/10757163-2010-27-62
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