Rashaad Newsome Pulls Out All the Stops
One of Rashaad Newsome’s greatest contributions to contemporary art has been to highlight and champion vogueing — a stylized form of dance invented by pioneers of Black and trans culture whose ideas have gone mainstream in America.
Vogueing runs like a thread throughout “Assembly,” Newsome’s grand, opulent and smart exhibition at the Park Avenue Armory. The project goes light years beyond his formal forays into vogue, weaving together a video installation, collages, sculptures, an hourlong performance with dance and singers; and a workshop conducted by Being, a cloud-based artificial intelligence that Newsome designed. “Assembly” is a rich sensory experience, as well as a springboard for rethinking the roots of American culture.
But first, vogue. The dance originated in the ballroom competitions of Harlem in the 1960s through the 1980s held by the Black and Latino L.G.B.T.
community. Vogueing entered the white mainstream after the release of Madonna’s hit song “Vogue” (1990) and “Paris Is Burning” (1990), a documentary by Jennie Livingston, which remains a complicated and controversial document.
