<I>Black Room with Bitches Brew</I>
date: label: Date
content: 2010
name: label: Created by
content: Renée Stout, American, born 1958
label: Subject of
content: Miles Davis, American, 1926 - 1991
notes: label: Caption
content: Renée Stout is best known for her multifaceted approach to art, making use of a variety of materials and media. Her innovative incorporation of storytelling, use of the alter ego, investigation into West African spiritual traditions, and allusions to popular culture form a type of environment that is both real and imaginary. Her work evokes personal as well as collective cultural memory.
label: Caption
content: The title and objects in Stout’s installation conjure phrases such as black magic, black as midnight, black as tar, and black is beautiful, and reference themes related to gender, strength, power, nourishment, poison, and creation. They also play on Miles Davis’s innovative and influential jazz album Bitches Brew, whose cover art featured similar diametrically linked themes such as light/dark, good/evil, white/black, male/female, and earth/heaven.
label: Description
content: A jar (.4) element of an installation artwork. This large glass jar is placed on the floor in front of the central panel, and attaches to the central panel by a hand worked metal chain that hooks onto the central panel on a nail below the shelf on the panel's right-hand side. The interior of the jar is painted to appear murky, as if ambiguous liquids and materials are contained within. The jar is filled with a variety of dried organic materials, including seed pods and bones. The jar is topped with a velvet lid cover, which is tied shut around the opening of the jar with a cord finished with a large tassel. The lid cover has been decorated with cutout textile fragments embroidered with metal thread, buttons, sequins, cabochons and beaded headpins. Paillettes are attached to the chain in the links closest to the jar. There is a multicolored glass bead on the final link that attaches to the main panel.
topic: label: Topic
content: African American
label: Topic
content: African diaspora
label: Topic
content: Art
label: Topic
content: Hoodoo
label: Topic
content: Religion
label: Topic
content: Women
setName: label: See more items in
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture Collection
label: Classification
content: Visual Arts
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture
identifier: label: Object number
content: 2013.148.4
objectType: label: Type
content: assemblages (sculpture)
objectRights: label: Restrictions & Rights
content: © Renée Stout
label: Restrictions & Rights
content: Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.
physicalDescription: label: Medium
content: mixed media: glass, metal, velvet, cloth, pods (seed component), bone, plant material, shell, sequin, paillette, plastic and paint
label: Dimensions
content: H x W (Height x circumference): 11 1/2 × 19 1/2 in. (29.2 cm)