Newsome’s videos, including 2014’s “ICON” (above and below) document different iterations of the dance form throughout the years.
Move over, Madonna. Rashaad Newsome is on a mission.
The New York City-based multimedia artist wants us to understand the origins of vogue, a dance that entered mainstream consciousness after Madonna’s 1990 hit song and video.
Newsome has videos of his own. Rashaad Newsome: ICON, at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art through Dec. 3, includes four video pieces that span the artist’s storied career and provide some new context for understanding vogue.
Vogue rose out of Harlem’s dynamic African American and Latino drag ballroom scene in the 1970s and ’80s. Full of electric, jubilant energy, it created avenues for many LGBTQ individuals to express themselves and claim their own unique, richly complex identities.
But for many in that community, Madonna’s song was considered an act of cultural appropriation that aligned an important rite of drag culture with the glib, often vacuous, world of pop stardom.
And this history is what Newsome aims to rewrite. The artist believes that many people have outdated notions of what vogue is and he wants its creators and practitioners to retain agency over the form as it progresses.
“It’s really important for me to make this work within that community [of vogue],” says Newsome.
What’s beautiful about Newsome’s work is that he isn’t pointing fingers; he’s searching for solutions. Instead of attacking the culture that created a watered-down interpretation of vogue, he’s creating positive representations to highlight the origins of the style. “ICON celebrates the world of drag balls, which rarely receive the attention many believe they deserve,” he says.
ICON approaches vogue from multiple perspectives, attempting to capture what the style is capable of, and to document different iterations of the form throughout the years. “[The early pieces] act like portraits, or archives, of the dance form,” says Newsome.
“Untitled,” (2008) and “Untitled (New Way),” (2009) are stark and poetic. “Untitled” depicts a silent freestyle vogue performance by dancer Shayne Oliver (who has since become a fashion designer) against an unadorned backdrop. After an initial recording session, Newsome spliced together a series of Oliver’s elegant and hypnotic moves, which were then recreated by the dancer and recorded into their final form. The video screened at the 2010 Whitney Biennial.
2014’s “ICON” and 2016’s “Stop Playing in my Face!” take the artist’s video work in an entirely different stylistic direction, utilizing a green screen and massive amounts of digital manipulation to depict work buzzing with undeniable energy, kaleidoscopic visual patterns and massive soundscapes.
During one segment of “ICON,” the noise of a percussive heartbeat gives way to a faster, louder glitch track while dancers seductively spin above an image of a Cuban link chain, a style of jewelry closely tied to hip-hop culture. A surreal, full-scale zoom reveals that the chains are a mosaic of tiny human beings; a quick pan out finishes the segment with a single dancer, voguing alone.
While the references to imprisonment are clear, the most moving aspect of Newsome’s MMoCA show is his commitment to optimism. “It can all be read as an allegory,” says the artist of his lush digital landscapes. “Reality doesn’t create hope. When the world doesn’t, though, that’s one of the great things about being an artist. You can make it for yourself; you can make these worlds.”