Rashaad Newsome (American, born 1979). <em>Knot</em>, 2014. Video installation: video, color and sound Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the artist and De Buck Gallery, 2018.49. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2018.49_view01_SC.jpg)

Rashaad Newsome (American, born 1979). Knot, 2014. Video installation: video, color and sound Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the artist and De Buck Gallery, 2018.49. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2018.49_view01_SC.jpg)

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Knot

Rashaad Newsome

Contemporary Art

KNOT combines many of the touchstones of Rashaad Newsome’s multidisciplinary practice: spinning decorative jewelry, lavish Gothic architecture, Black ballroom dancing, mathematical knot theories, and a frenetic energy that emerges from the extraordinary dancers and vocalists, as well as the artist’s surrealistic digital collaging techniques. Commissioned for the Brooklyn Museum’s 2014–15 exhibition Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe, the video heralds the legacy and longevity of Vogue Fem dance’s Black, Latinx, queer, and trans originators and innovators.

ARTIST Rashaad Newsome, American, born 1979

MEDIUM Video installation: video, color and sound

DATES 2014

COLLECTIONS Contemporary Art

ACCESSION NUMBER 2018.49

CREDIT LINE Gift of the artist and De Buck Gallery

PROVENANCE December 18, 2018, gift of the artist to the Brooklyn Museum.

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CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION A spectacular short video “Knot” (3:45) shows fragmentary figures floating, twerking, and dancing in a variety of constructed spaces. The work references baroque architecture, hip-hop culture, and black and LGBTQ subcultures and highlights desire, capitalistic obsessions, and systemic oppressions. Newsome shows a keen awareness of art historical and alternative cultural sources to offer pointed commentaries on contemporary culture and identity politics.

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Solid Gold

MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view

CAPTION Rashaad Newsome (American, born 1979). Knot, 2014. Video installation: video, color and sound Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the artist and De Buck Gallery, 2018.49. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2018.49_view01_SC.jpg)

IMAGE screen capture, Timestamp: 00:07, 2018.49_view01_SC.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2020

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Knot

Rashaad Newsome

Contemporary Art

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