Without question, Art Basel Miami has become the most influential art explosion in America. With 267 galleries from 31 countries exhibiting an estimated three billion dollars worth of contemporary art, the December art affair has become the place to be for gallery owners, collectors, and curators who descend upon Miami Beach to capture the new trend in art. This year prolific scholar and visual artist, Fahamu Pecou will present his much talked about collection from December 3rd to December 5th.
In the past two years, Pecou has single handedly become our modern day Andy Warhol, depicting scenes of everyday black life in a manner that has not been captured before. Pecou’s infusion of hip hop and art creates a new perspective in contemporary art. Pecou’s focus is surrounded by his concern of contemporary representations of Black masculinity and how these images impact both the reading and performance of Black masculinity.
While Paul Gauguin gave us a glimpse of culture with doses of blackness, Pecou gives us a surplus of culture in its entirety with no apologies. His remarkable paintings that satirize stereotypes and critique the one dimensional perspective of Black men forced upon us by the media have been impressively acquired by the Smithsonian Institute. In addition, Pecou’s art has been featured on the walls of Cookie and Luscious Lyons home on Empire as well as on ABC’s hit series, Blackish. Pecou spoke about his art, inspiration and the obstacles he has overcome to become who he is.
“I began my career experimenting with the branding strategies employed in hip-hop music and entertainment. These experiments ultimately led me to question not only the stereotypes engendered by the commodification of hip-hop culture, but more, to consider how the influence of historic and social configurations of race, class and gender impact and inform these representations.”
Pecou continues to bring his art to the streets as he was recently commissioned to paint murals on Atlanta’s Marta stations. Meet Fahamu Pecou at Art Basel on Sat December 5th from 3-5pm at Pulse Miami- Lyons Wier Gallery. Pecou hosts a quarterly art meets Hip Hop event called “InterSessions”, which has featured T.I., Nzinga Stewart and stic.man from dead prez as guests. For more info please go to http://pulse-art.com/ and visit http://www.fahamupecouart.com
-Abesi Manyando (@abesipr)
