Episode 07: Artist and Curator Anonda Bell: Raising Civilization’s Radical Voice In Newark
I first met Anonda in 2017 at the newly opened and incredibly designed Express Newark spaces in the former Hahne’s department store building in downtown Newark. I was very curious about this “Third Space” created to incubate talent, cultivate engaged scholarship and promote social practice in a unique variety of exhibition and maker spaces. Anonda volunteered to give me a tour and I was amazed at the resources offered by this creative incubator campus.
Anonda Bell is an Australian born, USA based, artist and curator. She is the Director and Chief Curator of the Paul Robeson Galleries. The PRG operates a network of exhibition venues in dedicated and interstitial spaces across the campus, including the Robeson Campus Center and Express Newark.
Paul Robeson, the esteemed Black American singer, actor, political activist and alumnus of Rutgers University, said “Artists Are The Gatekeepers of Truth. We Are Civilization’s Radical Voice.” Anonda has directed and curated exhibitions over the past 14 years that uniquely support and illustrate Paul Robeson’s mandate.
Prior to working at Rutgers, Bell has worked in various not for profit arts organizations including the Everhart Museum in Pennsylvania and Snug Harbor Cultural Center in New York. In Australia she worked at the National Gallery of Victoria and Bendigo Art Gallery.
Anonda’s personal art practice addresses issues of psychology, feminism and the environment through installation based work. Her artwork has been shown at various venues in the USA and Australia. In 2016 she was the recipient of a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship as a practicing artist.
Anonda received a Masters of Fine Arts from Monash University, a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting & Printmaking at RMIT University and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology & English from the University of Melbourne.
Visit hers and the Newark Galleries websites: http://paulrobesongalleries.expressnewark.org/ https://www.expressnewark.org/partnerships/paul-robeson-galleries/ http://www.anondabell.com/
Check out the images in this episode on: What’s Newark To Do With It?
Anonda Bell, Neither Shall You Touch It (detail), 2013-2014 from the series Reinstated. The scene is located in a liminal world, a version of the Garden of Eden, but one that might exist in a dream. It is a place that only exists after twilight and before dawn.
Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, America Is Black, 2018. Exhibition titled, Mirror Mirror, Paul Robeson Galleries, Newark, NJ.https://www.expressnewark.org/exhibits/mirror-mirror-2/
Images by Manuel Perez from the current the exhibition, Picking Up the Pieces, the 2021 Bachelor of Visual Arts Graduate Exhibition, May 13, 2021 - Dec 31, 2021, featuring the work of seven student artists whose lives were upended by the global COVID-19 pandemic.http://paulrobesongalleries.expressnewark.org/exhibition/picking-up-the-pieces-bachelor-of-visual-arts-graduate-exhibition/?back=ago
Layqa Nuna Yawar, The Robeson Paean: Performer, 2019. Wall mural. Dec 19, 2019 - Nov 25, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Paul Robeson Galleries, Newark, NJ Campus. Photography by Luisa Pinzon. Layqa Nuna Yawar was born in Cuenca, Ecuador, and lives in Newark, New Jersey. http://paulrobesongalleries.expressnewark.org/exhibition/layqa-nuna-yawar-the-robeson-paean/?back=ago
Paul Robeson Galleries Director & Chief Curator Anonda Bell at the Opening Reception for Mirror Mirror exhibition at Express Newark in 2018. Works, in a variety of media from thirty-two international emerging and established artists and one artist collective, plumb the relationship between identity, cultural norms, and representation. https://paulrobesongalleries.expressnewark.org/exhibition/mirror-mirror/
Anonda Bell, Resist: A Coloring Book for Resistant Individuals. Edition 400. Images in this book were inspired by protest posters created for marches held around the world in 2017. This book parodies the current obsession with meditative coloring books as a way to relax and disengage with the world at large. This coloring book intends to focus individual’s attention to the important matters at hand. The coloring process is intended to stimulate thought rather than empty the mind. This book is available for sale at Printed Matter (https://www.printedmatter.org/).
Anonda Bell, Biophobia: Apiphobia (Bees), Installation at Wave Hill, NY. 2011. “Biophobia” is defined as a sense of dis-ease in nature, and a derisive regard for climates and environments which are not man made or at least modified significantly by people.
The Window Gallery at Express Newark is a homage to the department store windows that were part of the former Hahne’s department store building where Express Newark is now housed. The famous French-American painter and sculptor, Marcel Duchamp, whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art, also designed a shop window at the famously expansive, Bamberger’s Department Store, located a few blocks away, in 1960. Notice that the mannequins are mimicking his famous painting, Nude Descending a Staircase, No.2 (1912). A picture of that installation is pictured above.