- [Heather] Next on "Curate."

(bright upbeat music) - [Danny] There's a very spiritual time when I create pieces like this that are the full circle of life.

- [Shannon] You just look beneath the surface, shine a light on the subject matter, and it's there.

- [Doug] It's about the sense of openness.

And we don't really know what's going to happen tonight or tomorrow.

And I kind of love that.

- [Jason] This is "Curate."

- Welcome to curate I'm Heather Mazzoni.

- And I'm Jason Kypros.

Thanks for joining us.

Virginia's eastern shore is a world all its own.

- It is the longest stretch of wild coastline on the entire east coast of the United States.

But perhaps the wildest thing about it is it's people.

It's inhabitants stretch back centuries, families that have carved out a sometimes hard, oftentimes happy life here.

- [Jason] This week's "757" featured artist is Danny Doughty, a painter who captures this place like no other, it's history and its culture.

- [Heather] He's found a most optimistic way to show the world what the Eastern Shore looks like through gifted creative eyes that could only be his.

(uplifting music) - [Danny] On the Eastern Shore you were expected to be a farmer or a fisherman.

God forbid you were a boy and wanted to be a artist.

My father was a tyrant, he worked seven days and nights a week.

And if you didn't you were worthless.

I wanted hope and love, and a world I knew I'd never have, and it affected me greatly.

As a little boy I realized I'm not gonna have the life I would love to have, so maybe I can create it.

It's like escapism.

- Danny grew up in the life of the water on the seaside of the Eastern Shore of Virginia.

And he made art from when he was a child.

When you talked to Danny he will carry you right back to his childhood and the ways in which he used art to negotiate a number of challenges in his life.

- How are you?

- I am so good.

I'm so glad you finally were able to come over to see all your stuff.

- Oh thank you it's a long time - [Hilary] Come on in.

There she is.

- Oh my God.

That is like oh.

She epitomizes that amazing way with children sittin' there with the American flag draped across her lap.

I can see her sittin' on the front porch of one of the houses I would be pullin' up to with my dad peddlin' fish.

- I really think of Danny Doughty as something of a history painter.

Folks will call him a folk artist or a self-taught artist, or all these other things.

But the labels don't really work.

What he seeks to do is to represent and dignify a world that has gone by.

- One of my favorite parts about this picture is just the way the light hits that flag.

And then the pleats in her dress are just so crisp down there.

- For me it's the only thing that comes natural to me.

Everything else is a struggle for me, but this is just like, I absolutely detach from reality and I am in that moment.

There's a very spiritual time when I create pieces like this that are the full circle of life.

This is Shepherd's Plain on just the south side of Pungoteague on the Eastern Shore.

It was originally a 500 acre plantation on Nandua Creek.

I was asked to do a rendering of it in my style of work.

As I did it I fell in love with it, and it just has so many elements of what I do because it's showing you life in real time at that period.

I just think it's one of the best balances of some pieces I've done.

If I had not lived the life that I had to lead and not had these women give me what I needed to make it, I couldn't have brought that to this piece.

- The figures in his paintings who are African American women are those individuals who really stood by him, who helped him through extraordinarily difficult moments in his life.

So, he chooses to celebrate them.

- Early on I did all of my work with faces.

It got to a point where it was so painful to put the smiling face on a person that has been so oppressed, so poor.

I just couldn't do it anymore.

So, when people say, "Why are they faceless?"

Because to society they had no voice.

This could be Ms. Anna, Ms Bessie, your grandmother, or someone you know that had never had a voice.

They were never validated.

I don't include men in my artwork.

I ran from men that I had to grow up around because of the abuse I suffered.

And it was so brutal.

They took everything from me.

I learned in real time, the power, the brilliance, the most spirituality and divine life that come from these women.

They give me something fundamental when no one of my own people could give me.

They did it, they did it so effortlessly, and it was an absolute game changer for me.

Through my work, through my life.

- Well, the finished piece is the first place we take guests that visit.

Because we march them right up the steps and we say, "Look at our Danny over here."

And then it tells a story on its own.

We are so thankful.

- Danny has arrived at a style which combines a real sense of motion.

You look at his paintings and they are dynamic, even as they express a kind of inner stillness.

And the colors he uses come across as a bright palette.

But in fact it's a very somber kind of brightness that those colors that stand out so vividly also carry with them a kind of stillness.

A sense of memory, a kind of location in a past imagined world.

- When we're all together, we're our best.

We're so much more alike than we are different.

Most people's crazy is my normal.

The worst things in my life have brought me the greatest gifts.

And that's where humility and all those things come in, and you can't fake it.

You have to actually live it for it to be real.

- Learn more about Danny Doughty and all our "757" featured artists at our website, whro.org/curate.

Art collector Robert Feldman looks for art that challenges how we see race and culture.

- His collection "Shifting Gaze: A Reconstruction "of the Black and Hispanic Body and Contemporary Art" recently was shown at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Arts in Virginia Beach.

The museum let us listen in to a conversation between MOGA's Alison Byrne, and the curator of this exhibit Shannon Fitzgerald.

(uplifting music) - Welcome Shannon.

- Thank you.

Hi Alison, good morning.

- Great to see you.

- Good to see you.

- So, Shannon is the curator of "Shifting Gaze: A Reconstruction "of the Black and Hispanic Body "in Contemporary Art" from the collection of Robert B Feldman.

And we're absolutely thrilled to have this powerful exhibition here at the museum.

Thank you so much for sharing it with us Shannon.

- My pleasure.

I had the good fortune to be introduced to Dr. Feldman's collection about eight years ago.

He's a avid collector.

In the last really five years he honed in on artists of color who were really pushing boundaries about perception, with a key eye on artists that are just emerging in their career, finding footing, finding those great galleries and before the rock stars - [Alison] How did you come about thinking about "A Shifting Gaze" and why was it right for the Manila Museum at the time when you debuted it there?

- Sure, I was just looking at a lot of artists, and how they were making work about social justice, about visibility, about invisibility, and having access to Bob's collection and spending time with it, the connective tissue just happened to me.

And all of these artists were challenging how I was looking at their work.

And I think how the visitors, hence the gaze and this shifting plane, shifting dynamic in culture that I feel is global.

And all these American artists are right there.

- [Alison] So Shannon, let's look at some highlights of the exhibition.

I know you've selected a few for us to look at.

And the first one is the artist Nina Chanel Abney which is the kind of hero image of the exhibition as a whole.

- [Shannon] Yeah, I think Nina's work is so striking.

It's colorful, it's visual, it's graphic.

It just communicates so much.

You have this Black athlete, you have question marks and Xs and score.

It suggests he's in the middle of an activity but this large figure is vulnerable.

And I think it conjures the treatment of Black athletes particularly at this time, and the expectations of athletes.

- Yeah, I read an interview with her where she says that her work is easy to digest, but hard to swallow which I thought was just such a good way of describing it.

All right let's move on to our next work of art which is by Mark Thomas Gibson.

And this is such a powerful work of art that's really resonated with everything that's going on in our world today.

It feels more poignant than ever.

- [Shannon] Mark also employees a graphic sensibility more from the graphic novel, and nods to comics as well but with very serious content.

Now, I think this piece was made following the events in Charlottesville and it's certainly resonant now.

And I think he elicits a response to the viewer, are we somehow complicit?

This is how I look at this and think about the case.

Are we involved in this act?

Are we witnesses?

- So, next up we're gonna take a look at the work by Yoan Capote an artist from Cuba, and it's one of the few sculptures that are in the exhibition.

So, Shannon what was your thought when you were including this piece in the exhibition?

- [Shannon] I think this has enormous gravitas conceptually but also as the massive weight of the sculpture.

It is the human curvature of the spine comprised of handcuffs and talking about the weight of freedom, the weight of free movement and expression.

And you see these wonderful details of this kind of bronze cartilage, and the human aspect and just the weight.

The tool of arrest is addressing humanity and what's in the balance.

- So, let's take a look at the work by Hank Willis Thomas.

And Hank is a photo conceptual artist, he is very interested in exploring history and really pushes the boundaries of his art to engage with civic engagement and social issues.

- But this is a super exciting piece and represents a new exploration in Hank Willis Thomas' work rooted in photography.

But what we immediately see is this white turbulence, white noise, it's abstract.

It is as if he caught moving light.

This is an interactive piece, when a camera light is on it it reveals other information that is not abstract.

That is what it is, it's documented, and it's the harsh realities of police violence.

- [Alison] So, this piece really requires viewer engagement to activate it, and to be seen as the artist intends which I love about it.

- [Shannon] Well and I think it's a piece about concealing and revealing, and who tells the narrative.

And you just look beneath the surface, shine a light on the subject matter and it's there.

And these are hard truths but nonetheless this image is from 50 years ago, and we're having the same conversation today.

- So Shannon, the last piece we wanted to highlight today was by a local artist for you.

Award-winning Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz.

- [Shannon] Yes, we were so fortunate to have Wanda in our community.

Wanda creates archetypal figures exploring notions of stereotypes.

That being a mother, a sister, a housekeeper, Puerto Rican, American, White, Black and Brown.

and all these complexities come together.

I think what is so beautiful about this piece is is the self-ownership.

She is defiance, she looks at you and she is asserting her worth and her value.

- Powerful statement.

So, Shannon what would you like visitors to take away from this exhibition when they come and explore the work of these 27 artists?

- I hope they take away the beauty and the narrative.

And the power behind looking and seeing, and going deeper.

And the way we look and think of the other and our neighbor, and greater humanity.

I hope that there's an optimism and they think about beauty, and that the intersection of multiple narratives is an exciting thing to consider.

- Well Shannon, thank you so much for spending time together today.

It was great seeing you.

It was great to explore the exhibition together, and I hope that we will have the opportunity to meet in reality at some point soon.

- [Shannon] I do too.

Thank you Alison, I appreciate the opportunity.

- Artist Doug Aitken wants you to experience his art in new and different ways.

His recent work "New Horizon" requires not a visit to a museum, but a look skyward.

- [Doug] Traffic hot air balloon 869 Uniform Sierra, do you have me this morning?

- [Man In Collared Shirt] For this story we'll begin at the end.

On Monday we'd been taking a pretty serene ride over Andover, floating above the tree tops in a hot air balloon designed by artist Doug Aitken.

A shimmering inflatable sculpture he's titled "New Horizon."

- I see "New Horizon" as really kind of a sculpture of time.

It's something which is temporary, is changing continuously.

When it stops we can have these kind of incredible communal moments.

- [Man In Collared Shirt] But on this flight we got communal fast.

The wind picked up and we had to touch down.

After two failed attempts our pilot spotted a make-do landing strip.

- [Doug] Bend your knees, hang on hang on.

Right there hold, hold, hold, hold.

(basket scraping) - [Man In Collared Shirt] Suddenly "New Horizon" was on the ground.

It's silvery skin collapsing in a tired exhale, cars stopped, the state police rushed in.

Behind us there's cars pulling over, diving in helping.

I think it's miraculous.

- We had an exhilarating landing.

(laughing) - [Man In Collared Shirt] Pedro Alonzo is the guest curator of "Art and the Landscape" an effort by the trustees of reservations to disrupt the group's historic sites.

Not with art that's ornamental but art that engages.

Jeppe Hein's "Mirrored Labyrinth" at World's End in Hingham, Sam Durant's "Meeting House" at The Old Manse in Concord, and Alicja Kwade's "Exploration of Reality" at the Crane Estate in Ipswich.

- I'm convinced that the public wants art, they just don't want to feel intimidated or uninformed when they look at it.

And this is the kind of artwork that people will be surprised, "That was art?"

- [Man In Collared Shirt] Alonzo also takes a devilish glee in the element of surprise.

Remember the photograph that mysteriously appeared on Boston's former Hancock Tower one day?

That was Alonzo teaming with French artist JR.

They did it again two years ago, installing an image of a child peering over a Mexican border wall into the US.

- That kind of surprise is for me much more valuable than a programmed event.

- [Man In Collared Shirt] Well, what does it do to plunk a sculpture down in the middle of rush hour traffic?

- Well, first people take notice.

(laughing) People definitely take notice, and I think it's the kind of thing that just changes your day.

You're gonna think very differently about how your day went.

- In a world where everything is so homogenized, is so repetitious we need disruption.

We need moments and kind of a crack in our daily reality.

- [Man In Collared Shirt] Hundreds of feet up in the air before our sudden landing, artist Doug Aitken says when Alonzo commissioned him to create a piece for art in the landscape he knew zero about hot air balloons.

So, he used the idea of the classic American road trip as a point of departure.

- [Doug] It's kind of baked into our DNA, this idea of the other, this idea of disappearance or kind of moving into the landscape.

A landscape that we don't know.

I think there's an aspect of this project that's intensely physical.

(burners roaring) I couldn't have said it better than that sound.

(laughing) - The California based artist and filmmaker is a big thinker and creator.

He's animated an entire Manhattan block with his peace "Sleepwalkers."

He curated "Station to Station" a train that doubled as a light sculpture as it crossed the U.S.. And in "Underwater Pavilions" he submerged giant sculptures off the California coast.

- The idea of community, the idea of these kinds of flashpoints across the landscape has been very provocative.

- [Man In Collared Shirt] "New Horizon" has been floating across Massachusetts for the last two weeks moving from Martha's Vineyard to the Berkshires.

In daylight it's a 100 foot tall beacon, at night it's a floating light show.

And wherever the balloon goes people gather for music, speakers and conversation, and organized happenings.

- [Doug] And they see this object and they track it down and suddenly they're there.

And it's almost like a kind of hallucination.

- [Man In Collared Shirt] It's what we saw too, people coming out of their homes, taking a break from work.

It's from up here that we saw how different our community looks.

In the lushness of summertime Massachusetts presents as a veritable rainforest.

- Those moments when you have a kind of awakening when you really kind of see the mundane, and it becomes vital, and fresh and real again.

- [Man In Collared Shirt] And "New Horizon" reminds us that a lot of life, nature, fate, it's all out of our control.

Minutes before our adventuresome landing Aitken told me he even planned for the unplannable.

- It's a very rogue project, in the end it's kind of about improvisation, it's about the sense of openness.

And we don't really know what's going to happen tonight or tomorrow and I kind of love that.

- Key West is the Southern most city in the continental U.S. and the people who live and visit there appreciate the fact that it's a little south of normal.

Different, eclectic, weird.

All apropos when describing this quirky town which makes the band Billy the Squid and the Sea Cal Drifters the perfect Key West musical act.

(upbeat rock music) - I'm Billy the Squid.

This is Jerrod Isaman, we are a Billy the Squid and the Sea Cow Drifters.

♪ Yee-haw ♪ I'm the lead singer and harmonica player.

- I play guitar, electric guitar, lead guitar.

(audience applauding) ♪ Somewhere along this road ♪ When we first started out it was super country.

- Very country.

- Very country.

We had like slide and this slow kinda swinging country stuff.

- I think Jared was just trying to ease me in.

- Yeah, I was trying to make a rock and roller out of him.

♪ Makes it like wreckage on the road ♪ - Definitely a lot of infusion of really every influence that we've picked up in our musical careers along the way.

We all kind of brought this all together into one band and consolidated into one kind of strange sound.

♪ You've got to take that wheel boy ♪ ♪ And haul your heavy load.

♪ (audience applauding) All right.

(upbeat rock music) - Kind of like Spaghetti Western surf stuff.

We look a little out of place I think sometimes and sound a little out of place, because it's a lot of music, like he's singing like cowboy songs.

He grew up on a ranch you know what I mean?

But we're starting to kinda fit it in with not really an islandy sound, but just kind of a laid back sound, which QS Is just laid back.

Just kind of mixing the sounds together, but definitely it stands out.

- QS also had a long history of folk and country musicians coming through here for a long, long time.

I'm just happy we can kind of bring it back to more of that original sound.

♪ It won't be long you'll look for me ♪ ♪ And I'll be gone ♪ ♪ Long gone and free ♪ (audience cheering) - [Jason] You can find more "Curate" content on our website whro.org/curate.

There you'll find all previous episodes spanning more than four years worth of great stories about amazing artists.

- And you can follow "Curate" on social media.

We're on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

Thanks for joining us this evening.

I'm Heather Mazzoni.

- And I'm Jason Kypros, and we'll see you next time on "Curate."

(uplifting music)