What's Newark Got To Do With It?

Episode 15 • David Jacobsen: Transforming Communal Spaces into Vibrant Cultural Centers through Art. The “What’s Newark Got To Do With It?’ Podcast.

Gardy Saint Fleur Podcast My first question, at the beginning of any phone call to my good friend and colleague, Gardy St. Fleur , is “What are you up to?”. And he usually answers “I’m here doing my part.” His “part”, in his own words, is “pushing the culture”. That pretty much sums up the passion and commitment Gardy has for discovering, rediscovering and elevating BIPOC artists.  I’ve alway...

Dome (detail), Lola Flash, 2019. Archival pigment print. Courtesy of the artist © Lola Flash

Peter “Souleo” Wright curates entertaining and informative events, exhibitions, and cultural programs. His focus on education and amplifying underrepresented stories are paramount to his curatorial mission and practice.

Declared as, "one of the very greatest bass voices of the century", Kevin Maynor has sung throughout the world in both opera houses and concert halls. Image: Kevin as The Masque in Trilogy Opera’s FIVE.

Emma Wilcox shares her unique view of art spaces and the overarching power of eminent domain. Image: Emma Wilcox, Art & Audience, TEDxNJIT, 2016

Navindren Hodges, Bill Hodges Gallery Director , boasts the gallery’s collection ranges from 19th-century Black artists Henry Ossawa Tanner to modernist, abstraction icon Norman Lewis to contemporaries Willie Cole and Carrie Mae Weems. Image: Demetrius Oliver, Totem, 2004

Anonda Bell is an Australian born, USA based, artist and curator. As the Director and Chief Curator of the Paul Robeson Galleries in Newark, NJ, she continues to make sure the “Radical Voices” in art are seen. Image: Anonda Bell, “Neither Shall You Touch It”, 2013-2014.

Artist Victor Davson’s professional and charismatic leadership has, and continues to have after 35 years, a profound impact on the artistic landscape of Newark and the Tri-State region.

Award-winning playwright, Richard Wesley, shares how the 1970s Black Arts Movement in Newark inspired his contributions to theater, film and books over the past five decades. Image: Scene from his play “The Black Terror”

Join me in a lively conversation with Nell Painter to discover how this brilliant Newark transplant uses her artistic talents to “disturb the peace”. Image: Nell Painter, 3g. Motherwell in the Adirondacks 17, 2016

Filmmaker Ernest Dickerson, directing Raised By Wolves in Cape Town, South Africa, shares how growing up in Newark, NJ continues to inform his filmmaking career. Image: Abubakar Salim in ‘Raised by Wolves’,

Willie Cole, contemporary American sculptor, printer and conceptual and visual artist, shares how Newark informed his early art practice. Artwork: Willie Cole, Street Dragon.

Art advisor and art collector, Roger C. Tucker III, shares with his daughter, Ara, how growing up in Newark informed his evolving art practice. Artwork: George Sheffield, Facing Abstraction.