1275 Minnesota St /
Gallery 106
Rashaad Newsome: Build or Destroy
Opening Artist Reception | January 15, 2022 | 4-6 pm
Minnesota Street Project Foundation (MSP Foundation) is pleased to announce the public debut of Build or Destroy, by multimedia artist Rashaad Newsome. Build or Destroy is the fourth exhibition by the inaugural grantees of MSP Foundation’s California Black Voices Project, which launched in 2020. The final exhibition featuring grantee Indira Allegra will open in March 2022.
Newsome is a multimedia artist whose work takes inspiration from Black and Queer culture. Collage is both a technique and conceptual framework for the artist whose wide-ranging practice includes sculpture, film, photography, music, computer programming, software engineering, community organizing, and performance. Repurposing imagery from art and cultural history, advertising, and the internet, he creates aggregate and inclusive forms of media such as the self-possessed, non-binary chatbot Being 1.0 (2019), which is trained on data sets of texts by cultural theorists bell hooks and Michel Foucault, as well as the baroquely adorned female figure in 1st Place (2016), a major large-scale collage comprised of cut-up images of glossy lips, diamond bracelets, fishnet stockings, and fiery explosions.
In his new single-channel video, Build or Destroy (2021), Newsome brings to life the female composition in 1st Place. Animating the bedazzled and blazing body against an original soundtrack, the artist explores ideas around identity construction—particularly Black trans femme identity—and how performance might offer space for its creation and detonation.
Build or Destroy is written, produced, directed, and edited by Rashaad Newsome, featuring Honey Balenciaga, Legendary Divo Ebony, Kevin JZ Prodigy, and Kyron El. The dancers who contributed movement to this work are Honey Balenciaga and Divo Ebony. Build or Destroy premiered at the San José Museum of Art’s 2021 Gala + Auction broadcast and was exhibited online through October 31, 2021. The California Black Voices Project grantee exhibition at Minnesota Street Project is the first opportunity to view Newsome’s newest work in-person.