Kicking-off the New Year with a Parade at the 145th Street and Lenox Avenue subway station, through MTA Arts & Design. Parade, 2018 by Harlem-based artist Derek Fordjour celebrates the African-American parade tradition in all its pageantry.
The new subway mosaic piece features drum majors, majorettes, dancers and drummers, historically represented starting with the Harlem Hellfighter’s 369th Regiment in 1919 after World War 1 to the African American Day Parade founded during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s that continues today.
“For me, public art is the most successful when it reflects local identity. Derek Fordjour’s mosaic murals brought back memories of a project by Bryony Roberts, Mabel O. Wilson and the Marching Cobras of NY in Marcus Garvey Park that celebrated African American marching bands as powerful agents of cultural expression. Fordjour’s works inserts that powerful tradition in our daily commute” commented Connie Lee, the President of Marcus Garvey Park Alliance, who hosted the Marching Cobras several times over the past few years, and brought the new MTA mosaic to our attention.
The artist, Derek Fordjour, is known for richly textured paintings. He recently held residencies at the Sugar Hill Museum and the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program , and was awarded the 2018 Deutsche Bank NYFA Fellowship Award. He is a graduate of Morehouse College, earned graduate degrees in Art Education from Harvard University, and painting from Hunter College.
You will find Parade 2018 at 145th Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem.