Apr 30, 2023

N’Namdi Contemporary

N’Namdi Contemporary

6505 NE 2 Ave
Miami, FL 33138
[email protected]
nnamdicontemporary.com
786-332-4736

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Rashaun Rucker:
Contemplation of Flight

November 6, 2020

N’NAMDI Contemporary, Miami is proud to present, Contemplation of Flight, a solo exhibition of new works by Rashaun Rucker. “If you can control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his action.” These words of Carter Godwin Woodson, author of The Mis-Education of the Negro are the impetus to the artist, Rashaun Rucker’s latest body of work, Contemplation of Flight. In a series of 23 drawings, Rucker, a skilled printmaker, and draftsman, takes us on a journey in dissecting the complexities of the Black American male psyche, and what he calls “psychological gentrification” or the capturing and conditioning of the mind. In this series, Rucker highlights the ways in which fear, inferiority, and inaccessibility negate the exploration of greater heights and a better life. Using “America’s most hated bird,” the pigeon as a metaphor for Black masculinity, Rucker employs that stigma and the feral nature to personify the way in which Black men are treated. Amagelmating 23 male figures with appendages of pigeons. 2 large scale works and 13 smaller works depict the amalgamated figures pigeonholed into “redlined coops” which speak to the destructive policies of discriminatory housing practices and mass incarceration, both among many devices used to continue the implementation of America’s caste system.

About N’Namdi Contemporary

Jumaane N’Namdi, director of N’Namdi Contemporary Miami and N’Namdi Contemporary Chicago, was introduced to the professional art world at the age of six. It was at this time in 1981, when his father, George, founded the G.R. N’Namdi Gallery in Detroit, Mi. Reared in the gallery business and amid an extensive family art collection, Jumaane developed his innate appreciation and understanding for the interrelationship of art, artist and collector.

Upon graduation from Morehouse College in 1997, Jumaane, begin his formal career in the arts at what was then the burgeoning G.R. N’Namdi Gallery Chicago. His discerning eye began to distinguish great pieces from good ones, making it possible for his art patrons to meet world-renowned artists and to develop some of the country’s most prestigious art collections. While under his father’s tutelage, Jumaane quickly assumed the directorship of G.R. N’Namdi Gallery Chicago and subsequently G.R. N’Namdi Gallery New York.

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