Pics: My Uncle Arthur The Martyr - The Lunceford Way by Ronald
Herd II & "R2 Blowin' @ The Elmwood"
Ronald Herd II:
The Most Known Unknown
The Most Known Unknown
September 9 through November 7, 2011
at the Metropolitan Gallery
2936 Locust Blvd., St Louis, MO, 63103
(314) 535-6500
Hours:
11am-5pm Wednesday - Friday, and Saturday by special appointment
Accessible to persons with disabilities.
Contact:
Bro. Ron Herd II aka R2C2H2 Tha Artivist
e-mail: r2c2h2@gmail.com
phone: 901-299-4355
The Nu-Art Series proudly presents Ronald Herd: The
Most Known Unknown with an opening reception on Friday, September
9, 2011, from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Nu-Art Series' Metropolitan Gallery. FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!!!
***Artist Talk begins @ 7:30pm c!!!***
***Artist Talk begins @ 7:30pm c!!!***
The exhibition will be on display through November 7, 2011.
About The Artist
Ronald Herd II, a.k.a. Bro. Ron, a.k.a. r2c2h2 tha artivist is not
only an artist but a protean force of nature. He is a man of immense
talents and a multi-faceted personality who is also a multi-disciplinary
artist; a 21st Century Renaissance Man. A committed artist and activist,
hence the term “artivist,” Bro. Ron uses his talents to
participate in social justice movements and to highlight and address
historical wrongs.
A graduate of John Overton High School (1998), Washington University
in St. Louis (BFA 2002) and Bethel University (MBA 2009) respectively,
for 13 years he has had successful one man and group art shows in
the U.S. In 2004, his art was also featured in a group show in Paris, France, curated by the Hip Hop music supergroup The Roots. His
W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio program http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe has a listenership of nearly 500,000,
while his online W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV Shows, and his weekly public
access tv show “Real Talk With Tha Artivist” (http://www.youtube.com/weallbetv & http://www.weallbetv.blip.tv) have generated
a combined viewership in the hundreds of thousands.
Tha
Artivist has interviewed some of the most prominent movers and
shakers, icons and iconoclasts of our times including
crusading former
2008 U.S. Presidential Green Party candidate the honorable
Cynthia
McKinney, Jazz great Gerald Wilson, acclaimed historians the
late
Dr. John Hope Franklin and the late Dr. Manning Marable,
renowned psychiatrist and author of "The Isis Papers" Dr. Frances Cress
Welsing, the
great
comedian and 'huemanitarian' Dick Gregory, MLK lawyer and
speechwriter
("I Have A Dream") Clarence Jones, award-winning author
and journalist Patrice Gaines, author and activist the
honorable Judge
D'Army Bailey (the founder of The National Civil Rights
Museum), celebrated
U.S. Presidential portrait painter Simmie Knox, first Black
NASA astronaut candidate and acclaimed sculptor Ed Dwight, The Father Of
The Black TV Sitcom Eric Monte (Good Times, Sanford & Son, The
Jeffersons), 80s art counterculture
icon and the godfather of Hip Hop TV Michael Holman, among
countless
others.
Using his media acumen and investigative journalism instincts via
his W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio platform, R2C2H2 Tha Artivist was among
the first stateside to interview key participants in the Jena 6 movement
as well as investigate the recent December 2010 hanging death of a
young black man named Frederick Jermaine Carter in Greenwood (his
work in that case led to the state of Mississippi to finally release
the autopsy reports of the deceased after a several week delay) and
the August 2009 surreal assault of an unarmed young Black male in
Tallahatchie County chased by a drunken militia led by a tank driven
by the son of the lawyer who defended Emmett Till's killers and a
canine unit from Parchman Penitentiary, both outrageous and stranger
than fiction events taking place in the both celebrated and infamous
Mississippi Delta.
Bro. Ron is also an award winning author. In 2005, he self-published
his first book "James Reese Europe: Jazz Lieutenant" (http://www.jazzlieutenant.blogspot.com). The
book, which is both illustrated and written by R2C2H2 Tha Artivist
and which deals with the legacy of World War One hero and early jazz
pioneer James Reese Europe, was selected to be on the Smithsonian
Institute's Jazz Books For Kids & Young Adults List.
2005 also saw the debut of "The Arthur 'Soldier Boy Grip' Taylor
Chronicles" (http://www.soldierboygrip.blogspot.com), an online comic strip blog dedicated to the memory
of his late great maternal grandfather who was a World War 2 veteran
and member of the legendary Red Ball Express.
In 2007, R2C2H2 started The Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival Movement http://www.jimmielunceford.com
to honor the legacy of Jimmie Lunceford, the first Memphis City Schools
High School Band Director & Jazz Swing Great. His efforts led
to Jimmie Lunceford being honored with a brass note on Beale Street
in Memphis, TN, in July 2009 and a Mississippi Blues Trail Marker
in his hometown of Fulton, MS, in June 2011.
In Bro. Ron’s Own Words:
" My job an artivist (artist + activist) is to actively promote
understanding, love and appreciation for the creative arts as well
as for creative people. I use my art in particular to break down all
types of walls and barriers that people put up either to justify their
hatred, prejudice and indifference or because of their ignorance and
naiveté towards certain issues and topics concerning people,
history and culture(s). One of my main objectives in my profession
is to teach the world how to love, not just tolerate black people
and other beautiful beings and things! If I reach just one hue-man
being then my entire existence in all its meaning will be totally
justified!
" My art is created through the use and motivation of three
of my main passions: art, music and history, in particular African
and African American History. I think four of my biggest influences,
Jacob Lawrence, El Greco, William H. Johnson and Paul Gaugin, have
taught and convinced me that interesting stories can be told in a
visually expressive and highly original individual style without the
use of the written word. These artists among the countless others
that I admire like Picasso, Charles White, Van Gogh, Romare Bearden,
Lois Jones, Archibald Motley, George Hunt, Jean Michel Basquiat to
musicians Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Run DMC, Louis
Armstrong, Robert Johnson, Howling Wolf, Billie Holiday, Robert Johnson,
Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington and 2pac remind me through their prolific
outputs that research is one of the most important ingredients in
forming your own artistic voice. Before I create a series of related
artworks I dive deeply into the subject(s) of my choice. I feel artists
are like synthesizers, taking in all foreign information and materials,
mixing it with the artist's experiences and knowledge and then compressing
it into a product made in the artist's likeness or image based on
the artist's own ideas and philosophies. All great art to me seems
to be those works that have substance and tell unwritten as well as
written stories that are to be retold and reinterpreted for years
to come. Hopefully my dedication to my art will continue to lead me
in this direction."
--
"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."
"If I could have convinced more slaves that they were slaves, I could have freed thousands more."
-Harriet Tubman
"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."
"If I could have convinced more slaves that they were slaves, I could have freed thousands more."
-Harriet Tubman
