Summer Reading List | Felandus Thames
Summer Reading List | Felandus Thames
Installation view of The Things That Haunt Me Still. Real Art Ways, Feb. 13 - May 30, 2021. Photographer: Peter Brown.
Podcast
The Midnight Miracle Podcast
Recorded during comedian Dave Chappelle's 2020 Summer Camp in Ohio, The Midnight Miracle features insights from a group of hosts: Talib Kweli, yasiin bey, Chappelle, and friends.
Books
Long Division
Kiese Laymon
Author of the critically acclaimed memoir Heavy, Kiese Laymon has a debut novel about Black teenagers growing up in Mississippi.
To Describe A Life
Darby English
This book is an examination of several artworks such as Kerry James Marshall’s untitled 2015 portrait of a black male police officer, Zoe Leonard’s Tipping Point, Pope.L’s Skin Set Drawings, among others. English analyzes these works within the context of racialized violence, particularly, the murder of innocent black women and men by white American police officers.
Just Us
Claudia Rankine
An imaginative blend of poetry, imagery, and essays, Rankine’s Just Us cites examples of white male privilege waiting in line to board a plane inside an airport. The author takes readers inside other spaces — some physical, others metaphorical — where Rankine provides a meditation on whiteness within our culture.
White Teeth
Zadie Smith
Smith’s debut novel about friendship, love, and war accompanies three families over three generations, with an unlikely friendship at its core. White Teeth was awarded several literary awards including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Whitbread First Novel Award, and the Guardian First Book Award.
None Like Us
Steph Best
At the intersection of literary and cultural studies, None Like Us investigates black identity, taking inspiration from David Walker’s prayer that “none like us may ever live again until time shall be no more.”
Music
Pino Palladino & Black Mills, Notes With Attachments
Christian Scott, The Emancipation Procrastination
MNDSGN, Rare Pleasure
Joao Donato, Jazz is Dead
Miguel Atwell-Ferguson & Carlos Nino, Suite for Ma Duke
Mach Hommy, Pray for Haiti
Felandus Thames
Felandus Thames is a conceptual artist living and practicing in the greater New York area. Born in Mississippi, Thames attended the graduate program in Painting and Printmaking at the Yale University where he received his MFA in 2010. He has been included in exhibitions at the Kravets Wehby Gallery, Tilton Gallery, Heather James Gallery, Charles H. Wright Museum, USF Contemporary Art Museum, International Center for Printmaking New York, African American Museum of Philadelphia, Mississippi Museum of Art, Yale University, Wesleyan University, Columbia University, Art Hamptons, Art LA, The Texas Contemporary, and Miami Basel.
Read his Studio Visit on the blog here.
Interested in submitting your list of summer reads? Check out the call here.
