Artist Info: Fahamu Pecou
Bio
Fahamu Pecou (b. 1975) is an American painter based in Atlanta, Georgia whose intention is to comment on contemporary and hip-hop culture while simultaneously subverting it to include his ideas on fine art.
In 2005, along with several of Atlanta’s premier contemporary artists, Pecou created history at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art with the exhibition Arts Beats + Lyrics. Since 2005 Fahamu has been featured in several solo and group exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad. His work has been reviewed and featured in numerous publications including Art In America, Harper’s Magazine, NY Arts Magazine, Mass Appeal Magazine, The Fader Magazine, Atlanta Peach Magazine, NY Arts Magazine and on the cover of Artlies Magazine. In 2007, he was named, “Critic’s Choice for Best Emerging Artist” by Atlanta’s Creative Loafing. He was also awarded a “Best in Show” Award for the 2007 Atlanta Biennial. In 2008 Pecou was awarded a residency at the Caversham Centre in Kwazulu Natal, South Africa, additionally, Pecou’s work was included in “DEFINITION: The Art and Design of Hip Hop”, an anthology chronicling the impact of hip-hop on visual culture, written by famed graffiti artist and designer Cey Adams.
In 2009 Fahamu was featured in two international solo exhibitions; the first in Cape Town, South Africa and a second during Art Basel in Basel Switzerland. Additionally, he was awarded a fellowship and residency at the McColl Center in Charlotte, NC.
Pecou maintains an active exhibition schedule as well as public lectures and speaking engagements at colleges and museums nationwide. Currently his work addresses concerns around representations of black masculinity and how these images come to define black men across generations and geographical boundaries.
Statement
My work can be viewed as meditations on contemporary popular culture. I began my career experimenting with practices employed in contemporary branding strategies, particularly as they pertained to hip-hop music. These experiments ultimately led me to question not only the stereotypes that drive consumerism, fame, celebrity-worship etc. but how an unspoken racial and cultural divide often influenced these factors. I appear in my work not in an autobiographical sense, but as an allegory. My character becomes a stand-in to represent black masculinity and both the realities and fantasies projected from and onto black male bodies. I seek to challenge the expectations around black men and, to a larger extent, society in general. Adopting the traits typically associated with black men in hip hop, I extract them from their more popular associations and distort or exaggerate them by appropriating them within a fine art context. The end result is a parody on our obsession with celebrity, our exploitation of black masculinity and the divide that racial ignorance and stereotypes perpetuate. These ideas are expressed in paintings, videos and live performances. Each medium allows me to articulate various nuances around my themes and further distort the assumptions we tend to make about one another.
Artist's CV
Education
1997 B.F.A. Painting/Computer Art, Atlanta College of Art, Atlanta, GA
1996 Independent Study / Painting, Spellman College, Atlanta, GA
1995 Independent Study / Painting, Spellman College, Atlanta, GA
Artist in Residence
2008 The Caversham Center, Printmaking, Balgowan, South Africa
2004-current Taller Portobelo, Portobelo, Panama
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2010 Whirl Trade, The Shooting Gallery, San Francisco, CA
ALL FALLS DOWN, Grambling State University, Grambling, LA
2009 Coming From Where I’m From, Bell-Roberts Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Black Presidential, Lyons Wier Ortt Gallery, New York, NY (forthcoming Oct)
Fahamu Pecou: Whirl Trade, Get This Gallery, Atlanta, GA (forthcoming Dec)
2008 NEXT Chicago, Chicago, IL
Something Like a FAHAMENON, Vaknin Gallery, Atlanta GA
Sitting By The Front Door, MMGalleries, San Francisco, CA
Stunt’d Like My Daddy, Conduit Gallery, Dallas, TX
2007 Million Dolla Baby, Lyons Wier Ortt, New York, NY
Hustle & Show, Flanders Gallery, Raleigh, NC
Things Done Changed, Vankin, Atlanta, GA
2006 NEOPOP and Circumstance, Conduit Gallery, Dallas, TX
NEOPOPular Demand, Michael Martin Galleries, San Francisco, CA
2005 NEOPOP Goes the World, Ty Stokes Gallery, Dallas, TX
2004 Sacred Spaces, Wood is Wonderful Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2003 Dar La Luz, The Rotunda at The Roosevelt, Atlanta, GA
2002 Libations & Invocations, Wood is Wonderful Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2001 Bible Stories, The Gilbert House, Atlanta, GA
2000 Anges de Nuit, The Crescent Room, Atlanta, GA
1996 Life After Death, Gallery 100, Atlanta, GA
Selected Group Exhibitions
2008 Group Show, Bell-Roberts Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
I Am a Man, curated by Kevin Powell, Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, Brooklyn, NY
Bare Walls, No Boundaries, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum, Amistad Center, Hartford, CT
Spectrumed, Flanders Gallery, Raleigh, NC, curated by Fahamu Pecou
Modern Art. Modern Lives. Then + Now, Austin Museum of Art, Austin, Texas
2007 Taking Possession, University of Arkansas, Little Rock, AR
Pulse Art Fair, Miami, FL
Swab International Art Fair, Barcelona, Spain
Pulse Art Fair, New York, NY
Kindred Spirits; Arturo Lindsay & Fahamu Pecou, Blackburn Museum, Georgia College and State University, Milledgeville, GA
2006 What’s Goin’ Down, Taller Portobelo, Portobelo, Panama
Pulse Art Fair, New York, NY
2005 Selections, Ty Stokes Gallery, Atlanta, GA
The One, NGC224, Brooklyn, NY
Pool Art Fair, Solita Hotel, New York NY
Altares: Encuenta Cultural, Taller Portobelo, Panama
Arts, Beats & Lyrics, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
Sacred Spaces, Broyles Art Center, Westminster School, Atlanta, GA
Como Se Cuenta El Centro, Taller Portobelo
Hammonds House Galleries, Atlanta, GA; Sonja Haynes Center,
UNC Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
2003 Ferias de Portobelo, Las Orquedias, Portobelo, Panama
2002 The Delphina Project (performance), Spellman College, Atlanta, GA
Changing Traditions, Georgia College & State University, Milledgville, GA
2001 Santuario de los Reyes, Festival Iberoamericana de Teatro de Cadiz
Baluarte de Candelaria, Cadiz, Spain
1999 Sanokfa, Corridor Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
1998 Alumni Exhibition, Atlanta College of Art, Atlanta, GA
1997 Precise Significance, Hammonds House Galleries, Atlanta, GA
Talks/Lectures/Programs
2009 Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art, Ft. Worth, TX
VANSA “20:20”, Visual Arts Network of South Africa, Cape Town South Africa
University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa AL
“Fahamu Pecou presents: The 15 Project”, Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center, Atlanta, GA
2008 Spelman College, Atlanta GA
Amistad Center, Hartford CT
2007 Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston MA
“It Might Blow up But it Won’t Go POP” Woodruff Arts Center, Atlanta, GA
“It Might Blow up But it Won’t Go POP” African American Museum, Dallas, TX