Good Morning America… WAKE UP Time

PRESS RELEASE: “ GOOD MORNING AMERICA “
SOUTHWESTERN COLLEGE ART GALLERY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 8, 2014
Contact: Vallo Riberto 619-421-6700 ext. 5383
vriberto@swccd.edu

“ GOOD MORNING AMERICA “ OPENING RECEPTION, SOUTHWESTERN
COLLEGE ART GALLERY, 5:300 to 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, JANUARY 30, 2014
With a special closing party 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 22, 2014
“ Good Morning America “ is an audio/visual installation by acclaimed artist, Maxx Moses.
Mr. Maxx Moses has created Good Morning America as a collection of paintings to shine a light on the red white and Blues of the “American Dream”. This collection of paintings will be a departure from his dreamy, palatable abstract expressions, the iconic, signature images so familiar to his internationally acclaimed graffiti murals. The images from Good Morning America will disturb your emotions and evoke many of the old racial taboos that still lie smoldering beneath the surface of the American, cultural landscape. This historical interpretation, “Good Morning America” revisits slavery, religion, political ideology and of course sex.
“The goal of this exhibition is to create an installation of large- scale paintings along with conceptual products and music, all infused with an eerie twist of satire inciting us to reflect upon the symbolism, and spiritual dogma we have been conditioned to live with and ingest as the truth”. Maxx

”It’s truly a blessing to become acquainted with your work, which is rich with a necessary criticism and deep reflection on our cultural representation.
I remember reading somewhere in the works of Langston Hughes where he wrote, “America, was never America to me.” Your work reminds me of this. I think about how (white) America loves to wrap its tentacles around the work of our ancestors and take claim of their art, as (white) American art. They chose to include our work when it is convenient and beneficial to them, accepting Black people when their cultural contributions can be commoditized and exploited. This is the new age means of colonizing the body of our cultural ideas. When I ‘read’ your artwork, it says to me, “America was never America to me,” and echoes the sentiment of so many who resisted both cultural and social integration into the American system”.
Dr. Rachel N. Hastings,

Assistant Professor of Communication, Southwestern College