Philadelphia Film Premiere of "The Triptych" at the PMA

The Philadelphia Museum of Art in collaboration with Mythmedia:21 will screen Afropunk’s new documentary project, The Triptych, as a part of the museum’s new PAY-WHAT-YOU-WISH Wednesdays.

The screening will start at 6PM in the Van Pelt Auditorium with the panel to immediately follow at 7:30PM. This event is free with museum admission.

Panelists: Terence Nance, Sanford Biggers, Barron Claiborne, Maori Karmael Holmes, founder of The BlackStar Film Festival

Moderator: Li Sumpter, PhD candidate and founder of the Philadelphia-based art and design studio Mythmedia: 21.

The Triptych is a three-part documentary series produced by Afropunk Picture and co-directed by Terence Nance and Barron Claiborne. The series’ first installment features three cutting-edge New York-based contemporary artists of African descent, including Wangechi Mutu, Sanford Biggers, and Barron Claiborne. The films themselves are works of art, giving platform to bold and culturally resonant voices in the art world. Each monologue is a reflection of the artist’s life experience letting the viewer discover how their observations have shaped the art they create. The Triptych is currently on national tour with screenings hosted by museums and universities across the country.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Wangechi Mutu is a Kenyan-born artist currently residing in Brooklyn, New York. Her work is a visceral response to personal and social critiques of gender, culture, and mass media imagery. Mutu has two solo exhibitions currently on view: one at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, the other at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University - which will travel to the Brooklyn Museum, where she was recently named Artist of the Year 2013. Within the past year, Mutu participated in India's first Kochi-Muziris Bienniale, the Paris Trienniale, the International Center of Photography's Triennial and will also be included in the Moscow Bienniale, opening this Fall

Sanford Biggers, an LA native currently working in NYC, creates artworks that integrate film/video, installation, sculpture, drawing, original music and performance. His works have appeared in venues worldwide including Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Whitney Museum and the Studio Museum in Harlem, as well as institutions in China, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Poland and Russia. In the past year he has had solo exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, SculptureCenter, Mass MoCA, the Ringling Museum, Massimo De Carlo Gallery and his concept group, Moon Medicine has performed at Art Basel and the Hammer Museum.

Barron Claiborne is a self-taught photographer born and raised in Boston, currently living in Brooklyn. He began taking photographs at the age of ten after receiving a camera as a gift from his mother (Betty Lou). The inspiration for his work is both historical and mythological drawing from dreams, stories, and oral traditions relating to his Southern American and African ancestry. For the past 3 years he has worked on a project which involved 8x10 Polaroids of the body, women, saints and goddesses. Claiborne co-directed The Triptych series with Terence Nance.