Bisa Butler Presents: A Newark Arts Festival Exhibition

Experience Bisa Butler Presents, a Newark Arts Festival signature exhibition curated by internationally acclaimed artist Bisa Butler.

For this landmark presentation, Butler brings together the work of Nastassja E. Swift, Erin Mitchell, Yasmine Aziz Barboza, Ivor Clarke, and Abdoul Kone through her distinct curatorial lens, creating an exhibition that invites audiences to spend time with the work, the ideas behind it and the connections between each artist’s practice.

Presented through timed entry, it offers a more intimate way to experience the exhibition.

A word by Bisa Butler:

I am by nature and by practice a teacher. One of the most rewarding gifts you can give yourself is to be able to share a portion of your learning or experience with someone else. I spent 15 years as a high school art teacher and proudly taught at American History High School in Newark and Columbia High School in South Orange. All the while, I was creating my own artwork at home. My students were my life and received the very best of me that I could offer. I taught drawing, painting, fibers, and design. I loved the exchange of ideas in a classroom because it is not one way. I was teaching a subject but also learning from my students every single day. Some of them taught me to embroider; others taught me about their culture; and many taught me how to be a better human being. I learned patience and how to be more empathetic. They showed me how to see things from their eyes.

Bisa Butler Presents is an extension of that learning exchange. I was given the opportunity to curate this show by the Newark Arts Council and right away I knew I wanted to highlight artists whose work revolves around the manipulation of fiber.

Fiber has often been considered a craft material and not fine art, but this exhibition challenges that notion – must they be separate? It has often been said and implied that artwork made from everyday materials and accessible to everyone was somehow lower than art materials that must be purchased. Materials that have primarily been used by women, by common people, was not considered art at all. If you learned under someone else in ancient Rome you were considered an apprentice, but if you learned to quilt from your grandmother you were considered “self-taught” or a folk artist. I am not maligning Folk art as a category, but I often wonder who created these walls between the arts, and why. This false hierarchy was established throughout traditional art history that excluded the fiber artists from the halls of mastery.

I know it is possible to be an expert craftsperson and a fine artist. I was fortunate enough to be supported by my professors at Howard in the 1990s and I hope that I can do the same with the artists chosen for this exhibition. Each artist manipulates fiber in new ways that I haven’t considered before and changes my perspective on what can be and what is yet to come. I am honored to present Yasmine Aziz Barboza, Ivor Clarke, Abdoul Kone, Erin Leanne Mitchell, and Nastassja Swift at Newark ArtSpace.