Basketball Virtuosity: The Black Aesthetic
The large format mixed-media painting ‘M.A.A.D. City> Zulus’ (B-ball Virtuosity) is skip hill’s visual commentary on contemporary Black male identity in American popular culture and African American aesthetic consciousness, as examined through the framework of American basketball.
‘M.A.A.D. CITY / ZULUS ‘ (Basketball Virtuosity) 2022 Skip Hill Mixed mediums of collage, acrylic paints, inks, paper and varnish on wood panel. Dimensions: 80”h x 89.3/4” x 1.3/4”
Sketchbook notes sourced from various essays and books including Nelson George’s ‘Elevating The Game’ and William C. Rhoden’s ‘40 Million Dollar Slaves’. Danielle Alexandria Davis Howard’s Ph.D. dissertation, ‘Making Moves: The Performance of Black Bodies and The Function of Aesthetics in American Basketball’ has been a most helpful contribution to the conceptual foundation of this artwork.
The M.V.P. launching with a vertical leap into space like NASA, a street ball disciple dropping bombs like Nas. A fierce visage covered in warpaint and poetry, a profile in bronze like Ife-Benin royalty. Improvising tempo with free agency like jazz, like Miles.
The artwork contemplates basketball as an embodied art form utilizing improvisation, costumes, and an ensemble of actors with the ball court as a stage, where African American culture, ideas of masculinity, sport and the free agency of performance intersect.
Embedded in the work are elements of symbolism, and social political commentary by the numbers. Forty acres and a mule. Forty-yard dash. and a Forty oz of King Cobra. The figure of the “m.A.A.d.City Good Kid” working the back court from Compton to the top of the key, dipsy-doo freestyling like Kendrick supreme.
“Run it like we drew it up.” Basketball play diagram adds an element of abstraction to the image.
The background is composed of collaged images from Black barber shop haircut posters. Each profile represents unfulfilled aspirations and dreams of making it to the NBA.
Black Lives Matter patch on jersey serves as a graphic element reflecting sport as a voice for political and social protest.
Orchestrating order out of the chaos of my palette
In Studio: Artist POV
The size of this work intentionally combines the massive scale of ancient Assyrian relief carvings that decorated the palaces of king Ashurnasirpal in Nimrud and Nineveh; with the formal composition of Egyptian tomb paintings that extolled for eternity the larger-than-life exploits and royal deeds of the pharaohs. The colorful foliage at the base places the towering figures above the canopy of a jungle, and among the foothills of Mount Olympus battling like demi-gods for the open shot, for the rebound, for basketball supremacy.