SIR

By Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle

May 1, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-933959-38-2

Cover Art by Kenyatta .C. Hinkle

Book Design by HR Hegnauer

Published by Litmus Press

185pp

$24

SIR is based upon the conceptual premise of a name that undefines the defined. Hinkle meditates on historical perceptions of the black male body and its contextualizing geographies in relationship to her brother, an African-American man born in 1980 named Sir. SIR interrogates naming in the African Diaspora to examine collective historical trauma, transgressive perceptions of the black male body, forms of gendering, and familial modes of survival within a hostile geography.

April 15, 2019

Since 1967, the SECA (Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art) Art Award has honored more than 70 Bay Area artists with an exhibition at SFMOMA and an accompanying publication.

The award distinguishes Bay Area artists whose work has not, at the time of nomination, been accorded substantial recognition from a major institution. Recipients of the SECA Art Award are chosen by SFMOMA curators after a series of studio visits attended by SECA members. 

January 16, 2019

San Francisco, CA— The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) and San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) have selected acclaimed artists Kenyatta A.C Hinkle and Phillip Hua to create artwork for the new Southeast Community Facility, the SFPUC’s community center in the Bayview neighborhood, which is slated to open in 2021.

“Our agency is excited to work with Kenyatta and Phillip—two extraordinarily talented artists who are committed to creating art for our community center that represents, inspires and empowers Bayview residents,” said SFPUC General Manager Harlan L. Kelly, Jr. “Their creativity and brilliance are a testament to the community-driven process used to commission these works.”

“Kenyatta and Phillip’s designs for the Southeast Community Center responded to the community’s desire to see the Bayview’s distinct history represented in the public art,” said San Francisco Director of Cultural Affairs Tom DeCaigny, “ They each bring a unique and poetic approach to their commissions—Kenyatta will incorporate community members’ memories and ephemera and Phillip will pay homage to the Center’s charismatic founders. When completed, future generations will be able to look at these artworks and connect with the people and places that shaped this beautiful neighborhood.”

December 14, 2018

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has announced 16 finalists for its closely watched SECA Art Award for 2019. The awards are the region’s most prestigious recognition for emerging artists.

The finalists, all of whom work and live in the Bay Area, are Sadie Barnette, Craig Calderwood, Sofia Cordova, Brett Goodroad, Nicki Green, Kunlin He, Porpentine Charity Heartscape, Kenyatta A. C Hinkle, Sahar Khoury, Dionne Lee, Marlon Mullen, Ramekon O’Arwisters, Clare Rojas, Davina Semo, Christine Wang and Karla Wozniak.

Three winners will be announced in March following a series of studio visits by SECA members and curators. An exhibition of work by the three winners is scheduled for November. It will be organized by Linde Lehtinen, SFMOMA’s assistant curator of photography, and Nancy Lim, assistant curator of painting and sculpture.

December 1, 2018

The very first international debut and recent iteration of The Evanesced: Embodied Disappearance suite of performances took place in conjunction with the exhibition New Suns curated by Kris Kuramitsu at Paramo Galeria in Guadalajara, Mexico on December 3rd, 2018. 

December 1 - March 2, 2019

There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.

 -Octavia E. Butler, epigram for unpublished work in progress, Parable of the Trickster 

New Suns is conceived as an incomplete survey of recent paintings by artists who radically reimagine the formal and conceptual boundaries of the medium. Informed by the reemergence of genre-specific painting exhibitions, New Suns proposes that the work of this diverse, international group of women forms a constellation that is decentered and provides space for multiple subjectivities. The artists included in the exhibition site their practices in the language of portraiture, landscape, abstraction, pattern and decoration, graphic design, sculpture, installation, and performance, to give new insights into the language of painting in the 21st century. At the core of their investigations is a concern with the body, the politics of representation, and the spatial sensibilities of the pictorial plane. Drawing on fantasy, history, and memory, their formal compositions shape ideas about the world that challenge art historical narratives and technical approaches. The artists each craft independent vocabularies with their own gravitational pull that point toward possibilities that only they could imagine.

Featuring works by: Jenny Gaglka, Sherin Guirguis, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Nasim Hantehzadeh, Pearl C. Hsiung, Tomashi Jackson, Gabriella Sanchez, and Liat Yossifor

November 10 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm

Kentifrications Performance featuring a divination on the State of Our Nation with the Manatake.

November 10th- December 14th

Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle's first solo show in Michigan will feature drawings from her The Evanesced Series and video performance work from The Evanesced, Kentifrica Project and private performances involving investigations of race, gender, belonging, surveillance of the Black body, anti-trafficking awareness and more. The Seeker is a digger for the truth and justice, one who searches blindly at all cost to find it no matter what the stakes are. Hinkle's work acts as a site for recovery, uncovery, retrieval and unghosting the ghosted. Her exhibition will explore these layers and attempt to conjure up the seeker through a dialogue with visitors concerning hypervisibility and invisibility as it pertains to the Black femme body.  

October 1st - December 31st

Courtesy Of is pleased to present The Conjuration—a selection of works by critically acclaimed interdisciplinary visual artist, writer and performer Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle. Encompassing a selection of works from two of Hinkle’s past series, The Evanesced (2016-) and Tituba Black Witch of Salem (2013-), this presentation explores Hinkle’s commitment to acts of un-portraiture; to resisting the historical erasure of the female black body. The works are not actual portraits of Black women who have been disappeared within American society and beyond but the essence of or an elusive anchor of unghosting the ghosted. The Conjuration suffices as a melding pot and meeting place for the featured women and presences to converge and be in conversation with not only the viewers but the space, the institution, each other and within our psyches in which they float from beyond or periphery. They unmask, shuffle, hide, and create spaces of confrontation in which one has to contend with their presences individually and collectively.

October 3rd-November 1, 2018

The Black Woman is God is an exhibition and a movement-building platform that explores the intersections of race and gender, dismantling racist and patriarchal notions that devalue Black women’s contributions to society.

“The exhibition uplifts and makes visible the multiplicity of Black art, culture and spirituality and brings to the forefront an urgent and poignant call to combat the erasure of Black women’s lives and stories in society,” states curator and gallerist Ekundayo.

May 23, 2018 4:30pm

Is motherhood the last taboo left in contemporary art? The documentary “Artist and Mother” features four rising artists who dare to make their own experience of motherhood a part of their work: Rebecca Campbell, Andrea Chung, Tanya Aguiñiga, and Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle. Not only do they juggle career and family like so many today, but they’ve also found inspiring ways to use the materials or images of motherhood in their art. Curators Naima Keith and Helen Molesworth, journalist Jori Finkel and professors Micol Hebron and Alexandra Moctezuma weigh in on the larger art-market dynamics and gender biases at stake, flipping the script that devalues women’s creativity.

Followed by a Q & A with Jori Finkel and Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle.

April 4, 2018 6pm-8pm

SFAC MAIN GALLERY (VETERANS BUILDING)

401 Van Ness, Ste. 125, 
San Francisco, CA 94102

This call to action brings together artists, activists, advocates, and policy makers whose work directly addresses the disappearance of Black women and girls through the current sex trafficking trade in the Bay Area and beyond. Through highlighting and amplifying the work that is already being done, we hope to explore how the intersection of art and activism can inspire action and collaboration moving forward.

Speakers Include: Sharmin Bock, Alameda County District Attorney’s Office; Ifasina Clear, Young Women’s Freedom Center; Regina Evans, Regina’s Door; Minouche Kandel, San Francisco Department on the Status of Women; and Sarai T. Smith-Mazariegos, SHADE Movement, Inc.

March 8, 2018 7pm-9pm

Join us for an artist talk with SFAC Galleries exhibiting artist Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle! In this talk, Hinkle gives insight into her archival and long term practice of working with the unknown, the unnamed, and the unaccounted for. Through her studio investigations, called The Historical Present, she examines how the residue of the past effects our present and future state if left unresolved.

March 6, 2018 7pm-8:30pm

Co-organized by the California African American Museum (CAAM) and Art + Practice (A+P), this is the first in a series of panels offering meaningful dialogues about access to and our understanding of contemporary art. Los Angeles-based artists Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Ramsess, and Mark Steven Greenfield will engage in a discussion about their diverse paths and how they’ve navigated the art world at various points in their careers. The conversation will be moderated by Isabelle Lutterodt, Director, Barnsdall Park. This program will take place at A+P’s public programs space, located at 4334 Degnan Boulevard.

Points of Access is designed for individuals at all levels of understanding about contemporary art; no prior knowledge is required and all are welcome.

March 5, 2018 12pm-1pm

Kenyatta A. C Hinkle will present work from her interdisciplinary practice with an emphasis in painting.

February 22, 2018 10:30AM–12:00PM

In our turbulent political climate, having a consistent and sustained a creative practice that functions as a refuge from the relentlessly negative political rhetoric feels very important. On the other hand, creating dialogue and drawing attention to important social and political issues is absolutely necessary as well. This panel will facilitate a dialogue between artists whose work takes a variety of approaches towards aesthetics and social engagement—in an effort to address questions surrounding how we, as cultural producers, can effectively situate and sustain our practices and ourselves within our current divisive Ipolitical context.

Chair: Steve Rossi, Parsons School of Design,

The State University of New York at New Paltz

Panelists:

Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Wanlass Artist In Residence at Occidental College, Art Center
Emily Puthoff, The State University of New York at New Paltz
Cristobal Martinez, Post-Commodity Collective, San Francisco Art Institute
Kade L. Twist, Post-Commodity Collective, Otis College of Art and Design

February 8th-April 7, 2018

Opening Reception: Friday, February 16, 6:00-8:00 p.m.

The Retrieval, a solo exhibition of works by Bay Area artist Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, features a large body of works that respond to the disappearance of Black women and female-identifying women due to various abuses and the current human trafficking trade in the Bay Area and beyond. The artist asks, “There’s often a community that knows about women and girls engaged in prostitution or being trafficked? How do we ghost these women/girls and how does society at large ghost them? What one sees and what one does not want to see is crucial to the investigation this exhibition is undertaking.”

Photo by Angelica Ekeke/One World Journalist
 

February 5th-March 11th 2018

Wanlass Artist in Residence Kenyatta A. C. Hinkle will present work from her long term Kentifrica Project in the Weingart Gallery from February 8th- March 11th, in which she will continue to explore convergent histories, truth(s), imaginings and interrogations. For the duration of the show the Weingart Gallery will be turned into a Kentifrican study and research room in which visitors can have tea, research the Kentifrican archives, read books related to Kentifrica, and view Kentifrican objects and items from the College's Special Collections. Inspired by the artist's Art Outside the Bounds field trip to The Museum of Jurassic Technology in fall 2017 and extensive conversations about amassed personal archives from prompts pertaining to personal narratives and images that haunted, challenged and provoked students, this exhibition implements interrupting the aesthetic of the didactic as a colonial tool of codifying.

Photo by Michael Underwood

November 17, 2017 9am-4pm

On November 17, artists, theorists, curators and critics meet at the SMK National Gallery of Denmark, to discuss gender and diversity. The aim is, among other things, to focus on inequality and differences in the art world.In collaboration with the visual artists Michala Paludan, Lea Porsager, Anne Mette Schultz and curator Malene Dam, SMK invites the international symposium CUT THE GAP, which examines feminist practices in the art world. The symposium discusses how a historical and structural divide, gender and diversity problem continues to pervade the art world. At the same time, they present artistic and curatorial forces that insist on being difficult and strategically challenge the institutions, the classroom, the art history, the studio and the commercial galleries.

The program for the day alternates between keynote lectures and panel debates and ends with a performance by Liv Schulmann. Then CUT THE GAP goes on to SMK FRIDAYS with performances, film shows and presentations of works from SMK's collection and archive. Everyone is welcome. The symposium is in English and is free, but registration is required. 

October 20th-January 21, 2017

This major group exhibition, presented within BALTIC’s Level 3 gallery, brings together leading international artists whose work, in very different ways, each sheds light upon this contemporary condition within a framework of the important legacies of Dr. King. Some new work has also been commissioned especially for the exhibition.

Co-curated by Edgar Arceneaux and Laurence Sillars. Participating artists include Barby Asante, Louis Cameron, Season Butler, Karon Davis, Charles Gaines, Micol Hebron, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Ashley Holmes and Cauleen Smith.

August 25, 2017

Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle:
Exploring the Nowannago
with Tyler Matthew Oyer & the Kevin Robinson Ensemble (KREation)
Scott Benzel
Psychic Ills


Artist Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle presents Exploring the Nowannago: Kentifrican Modes of Resistance, a provocative performance that abstractly explores the effect of the past on contemporary identities. The performance includes her collaborator Tyler Matthew Oyer and a live score by The Kevin Robinson Ensemble (KREation). Los Angeles-based visual artist Scott Benzel, known for his analytical and presents a new site-specific piece, and New York-based psych-rock band Psychic Ills performs. 

May 30, 2017 6pm

Artist, writer and performer Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle will give a free artist lecture Tuesday, May 30th at 6pm at the Kentucky College of Art + Design's 849 Gallery.

Photo by Vinhay Keo

May 8th-June 17th 2017

Hinkle, a Louisville native now based in Los Angeles, is currently Kentucky College of Art+ Design's rotating faculty. Hinkle will be teaching a cross-disciplinary course called: Forging Identity: Race, Gender, Class for undergraduate students for the final session of the school year. 

March 14, 2017

Oxy Arts Speaker Series: Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle

The Oxy Arts Speaker Series brings five multidisciplinary LA-based artists to Occidental College to engage our community in conversation about their art, their inspirations, and why they do what they do in Los Angeles today. All lectures take place in Choi Auditorium, and are free and open the the public.

Jan. 19th-April 7th 2017

Artist Lab Residency & Exhibition

18th Street Arts Center | Main Gallery
Gallery hours: 11am-5pm, Monday-Friday

Los Angeles- and Oakland-based artist Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle brings her ongoing investigation into auto-ethnography, anthropology, museum studies, and remixing history to the Artist Lab Residency at 18th Street Arts Center from January 17 though April 7, 2017. Hinkle will weave together performance, installation, and collaborative, participatory workshops within a new, site-specific installation. The project connects 18th Street Arts Center and our surrounding Pico Neighborhood with other Los Angeles institutions and community histories to develop a living and breathing archive that thrives off of collaborations with various individuals who come from multiple social, cultural, geographical, and artistic perspectives.

February 5th 2016

Kenyatta A.C Hinkle is selected as a Los Angles based Rema Hort Mann awardee!