Film UbuWebPruitt-Early (Rob Pruitt and Jack Early)
Tina Lyons Express Yourself (c. 1990)
Pruitt-Early championed a mode of installation that altered pop cultural mode in a decidedly non-artful to take on conventions of polite politics, gender, and art-making. The duo's now-infamous 1992 exhibition "Red, Black, Green, Red, White and Blue" at the Leo Castelli Gallery included paintings and posters of Michael Jordan, and Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Jackson Five, among other prominent African Americans, exhibited with black obelisks, and an original rap soundtrack. This intervention into the representation and self-representation of African Americans was slammed as blaxploitation, and the ordeal ended Pruitt-Early's collaboration. Each artist began making work individually: Pruitt recovered unapologetically with a series that included a monumental line of cocaine, while Early turned to music, and has largely fallen off the art world's radar.
RESOURCES:
Jack Early in UbuWeb Film