Newswise — Amalia Amaki: Boxes, Buttons and the Blues, featuring more than 70 mixed-media works by renowned Atlanta-based artist Amalia Amaki, draws influence from sources as varied as singer Billie Holiday and surrealist photographer Man Ray. Amalia Amaki: Boxes, Buttons and the Blues, presented in three thematic sections, features photographs, quilts, souvenir fans, mixed media works, and digitally manipulated photographs. Incorporating fabric, beads, pearls, buttons, paint and glitter, Amaki, in many of her works, turns found objects, photographs, and quilts into playful visual puns. Her beaded and button encrusted heart-shaped candy boxes, for example, are full of tempting faux chocolates made from buttons.
A mid-career retrospective, this exhibition examines the breadth of Amalia Amaki's work spanning more than three decades. Drawing from such sources as blues music, photography, familial history, and American heritage, Amaki's work challenges traditional views of African-American culture and focuses on positive images of African-American life — love, loyalty, pride, and strength. Amaki's work examines the cultural contributions that Black people continually make in America and addresses cultural issues relevant to African-American life.
Amaki is an artist, art historian, curator, and scholar of American art and culture. Perhaps best known for mixed-media quilts that celebrate the lives of African-American women blues singers and button-encrusted cyanotypes, Amaki is also recognized for commissions completed for Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport, Absolut Vodka and Seagram's Gin. She earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Georgia State University, a bachelor's degree in photography and painting from the University of New Mexico, and a doctorate from the Graduate Institute of Liberal Arts at Emory University.
Currently, she is the scholar-in-residence at Spelman College, and curator of the Paul R. Jones Collection and assistant professor in art, art history, and Black American studies at the University of Delaware. Her work is in the permanent collections at numerous museums including the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Minnesota Museum of Art, Emory University in Atlanta, and the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art.
A collaboration between the National Museum of Women in the Arts and the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Amalia Amaki: Boxes, Buttons and the Blues, will be on view at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in Atlanta from January 26 through May 13, 2006. Amalia Amaki: Boxes, Buttons and the Blues is generously sponsored by The Coca-Cola Company. Major support is also provided by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners under the guidance of the Fulton County Arts Council. Additional support is provided by the Massey Charitable Trust and the LUBO Fund Inc. Official Media Sponsors: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Atlanta Daily World.
A color catalog including essays by Andrea D. Barnwell, director of Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Leslie King-Hammond, dean of Graduate Studies at The Maryland Institute College of Art, and Gloria Wade-Gayles, the eminent scholar's chair in Independent Study at Spelman College, accompanies the exhibition. Co-published by NMWA and Spelman in association with University of Washington Press, this 136-page book includes a fully illustrated checklist. The hard cover edition retails for $35.
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 26, 2006, 6:30 p.m. The opening reception is organized in collaboration with the Visual Arts Network of Atlanta and ATLart06. WCLK is the official Radio Partner for the opening reception.
About the MuseumThe Spelman College Museum of Fine Art is the only museum in the nation that focuses on works by and about women of the African Diaspora. Since it was established in 1996, the Museum has received awards from prestigious organizations including The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Fulton County Arts Council, the Institute of Museums and Library Services, the Museum Loan Network, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Peter Norton Family Foundation, the Getty Foundation, and the Henry Luce Foundation, Inc.It has also received a host of accolades including the "Best Museum Off Peachtree" (Creative Loafing December 2004); one of the city's "Fabulous Five Museums" by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (July 2005); and the "Best Kept Museum Secrets" (Atlanta Magazine, December 2005).
The Spelman College Museum of Fine Art is open Tuesdays through Fridays from 10:00am to 4:00pm and on Saturdays from 12:00pm to 4:00pm. The Museum is closed Sunday, Monday, holidays and Spelman College Breaks. The Museum is located on the first floor of the Camille Olivia Hanks Cosby, Ed.D. Academic Center. For more information about the Museum and its programs please call 404.270.5607 or visit http://www.spelman.edu/museum.
Founded in 1881, Spelman College is the only historically Black college in the nation to be included on the U.S. News and World Report's list of top 75 "Best Liberal Arts Colleges—Undergraduate," 2005. Located in Atlanta, Ga., this private, historically Black women's college boasts outstanding alumnae, including Children's Defense Fund Founder Marian Wright Edelman; U.S. Foreign Service Director Ruth Davis; authors Tina McElroy Ansa and Pearl Cleage and actress LaTanya Richardson. More than 83 percent of the full-time faculty members have Ph.D.s or other terminal degrees and the student-faculty ratio is 12:1. Annually, nearly one-third of Spelman students receive degrees in the sciences. The students number more than 2,186 and represent 43 states and 34 foreign countries. For more information regarding Spelman College, visit: http://www.spelman.edu.
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