Detroit Institute of Arts’ Friends of African and African American Art presents 25th annual Alain Locke Award to Michael D. Harris and Mahogany Jones Harris will give talk on Alison Saar’s work at Feb. 12 event
Updated Jan 13, 2017
January 13, 2017 (Detroit)—The Detroit Institute of Arts’ auxiliary group Friends of African and African American Art will honor artist and scholar Michael D. Harris at its 25th annual Alain Locke Award in the international category and recording and performance artist, educator and activist Mahogany Jones in the local category. The event is Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017 at 2 p.m. in the DIA Lecture Hall and is free with museum admission. A reception will follow in the FJC Dining Rooms.
“In addition to being a world renowned artist, Michael Harris is among the few African American scholars to hold the highest academic degrees in studio art, African American Studies and art history. His contributions to our knowledge and understanding of African and African American art are extraordinary,” said Salvador Salort-Pons, DIA director. “Mahogany Jones, recording artist, performer, writer and activist, is a passionate advocate of empowering girls and women. Even with her busy schedule, she makes time to give back to the community through her involvement in Detroit literary and music nonprofits. We are very excited to honor Michael and Mahagony.”
Harris is an artist, scholar, curator and author who is currently an associate professor of Art History and African American Studies at Emory University in Atlanta. He has contributed to or co-authored a number of articles or chapters in books, journals, exhibition catalogues and a textbook on African art. His book “Colored Pictures: Race and Visual Representation” won two national awards.
As an artist, Harris has been a member of the artist collective, AfriCOBRA since 1979 and has shown his work all over the United States, the Caribbean and Europe. His work is in the collections of Morehouse College, Howard University, the University of North
As part of the Alain Locke Award program, Harris will give a talk on artist Alison Saar, who uses cultural relics in her work to elicit strategies for healing and transformation useful to black women. Harris will connect Saar’s work to larger issues of cultural expression potentially disconnected from racial categorization but rooted in culture and experience.
As an artist, Harris has been a member of the artist collective, AfriCOBRA since 1979, and has shown his work all over the United States, the Caribbean, and Europe. His work is in the collections of Morehouse College, Howard University, the University of North Carolina, the City of Atlanta, the Hampton University Museum, Dillard University, the David Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, College Park, the Paul Jones Collection at the University of Alabama, the Atlanta airport and in many private collections.
Jones, a 2016 Kresge Arts Fellow, is a recording and performance artist, educator and activist who uses music to uplift the spirit, body and soul as a means to educate people. She has released three albums and performed with Gil Scott Heron, India Arie and The Roots, among others. As a hip-hop activist, Jones launched A PURE Movement to empower women and girls and confront violence against women.
Jones is a facilitator for Detroit’s InsideOut Literary Arts Project, an adjunct instructor at the Detroit Institute of Music and a lead facilitator for Yunion, a nonprofit countering negative cultural influences that misdirect the lives of youth, and as well is a member of the Foundation, a Detroit women in hip-hop collective.
About Alain Locke and the Alain Locke Award
Alain Locke (1886–1954), a distinguished African American intellectual of his generation, was the leading theoretician and interpreter of the artistic and cultural contributions of African Americans, often referred to as the “father” of the Harlem Renaissance. Locke graduated from Harvard University and was the first African American to win a Rhodes Scholarship. He earned a doctorate in philosophy from Harvard and taught at Howard University. As a professor of philosophy, his theory of "cultural pluralism" valued the uniqueness of different styles and values available within a democratic society.
The DIA auxiliary Friends of African and African American Art established the Alain Locke Award in 1992 to honor individuals who are dedicated to the promotion and understanding of African American culture.
January 13, 2017 (Detroit)—The Detroit Institute of Arts’ auxiliary group Friends of African and African American Art will honor artist and scholar Michael D. Harris at its 25th annual Alain Locke Award in the international category and recording and performance artist, educator and activist Mahogany Jones in the local category. The event is Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017 at 2 p.m. in the DIA Lecture Hall and is free with museum admission. A reception will follow in the FJC Dining Rooms.
“In addition to being a world renowned artist, Michael Harris is among the few African American scholars to hold the highest academic degrees in studio art, African American Studies and art history. His contributions to our knowledge and understanding of African and African American art are extraordinary,” said Salvador Salort-Pons, DIA director. “Mahogany Jones, recording artist, performer, writer and activist, is a passionate advocate of empowering girls and women. Even with her busy schedule, she makes time to give back to the community through her involvement in Detroit literary and music nonprofits. We are very excited to honor Michael and Mahagony.”
Harris is an artist, scholar, curator and author who is currently an associate professor of Art History and African American Studies at Emory University in Atlanta. He has contributed to or co-authored a number of articles or chapters in books, journals, exhibition catalogues and a textbook on African art. His book “Colored Pictures: Race and Visual Representation” won two national awards.
As an artist, Harris has been a member of the artist collective, AfriCOBRA since 1979 and has shown his work all over the United States, the Caribbean and Europe. His work is in the collections of Morehouse College, Howard University, the University of North
As part of the Alain Locke Award program, Harris will give a talk on artist Alison Saar, who uses cultural relics in her work to elicit strategies for healing and transformation useful to black women. Harris will connect Saar’s work to larger issues of cultural expression potentially disconnected from racial categorization but rooted in culture and experience.
As an artist, Harris has been a member of the artist collective, AfriCOBRA since 1979, and has shown his work all over the United States, the Caribbean, and Europe. His work is in the collections of Morehouse College, Howard University, the University of North Carolina, the City of Atlanta, the Hampton University Museum, Dillard University, the David Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, College Park, the Paul Jones Collection at the University of Alabama, the Atlanta airport and in many private collections.
Jones, a 2016 Kresge Arts Fellow, is a recording and performance artist, educator and activist who uses music to uplift the spirit, body and soul as a means to educate people. She has released three albums and performed with Gil Scott Heron, India Arie and The Roots, among others. As a hip-hop activist, Jones launched A PURE Movement to empower women and girls and confront violence against women.
Jones is a facilitator for Detroit’s InsideOut Literary Arts Project, an adjunct instructor at the Detroit Institute of Music and a lead facilitator for Yunion, a nonprofit countering negative cultural influences that misdirect the lives of youth, and as well is a member of the Foundation, a Detroit women in hip-hop collective.
About Alain Locke and the Alain Locke Award
Alain Locke (1886–1954), a distinguished African American intellectual of his generation, was the leading theoretician and interpreter of the artistic and cultural contributions of African Americans, often referred to as the “father” of the Harlem Renaissance. Locke graduated from Harvard University and was the first African American to win a Rhodes Scholarship. He earned a doctorate in philosophy from Harvard and taught at Howard University. As a professor of philosophy, his theory of "cultural pluralism" valued the uniqueness of different styles and values available within a democratic society.
The DIA auxiliary Friends of African and African American Art established the Alain Locke Award in 1992 to honor individuals who are dedicated to the promotion and understanding of African American culture.