"Many contemporary artists seek to make Americans more aware of their history. "Plantation Monopoly," by Colin Quashie, redesigns the popular board game to take place on a pre-Civil War slave plantation."
- Erik Foner, Kathleen Duval, Lisa McGirr
Give Me Liberty (7th Edition, 2023): - An American History
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“Someone has gone rogue, installing street signs meant to provide a bit of social commentary on Charleston’s changing racial makeup.
At least eight orange road signs at key entry points to Charleston’s peninsula have appeared in recent days warning: “Be prepared to stop. Gentrification ahead.”
The signs include a central image of a simplified figure, arms extended, holding a white flag in one hand and a black stop sign in the other.
Asked about the signs, local artist Colin Quashie — who is known for confronting social, racial and political issues in his work, often in provocative ways — neither confirmed nor denied involvement.
“At least someone is doing something about gentrification,” Quashie said.”
- Adam Parker - Post and Courier:
"Unauthorized street signs on Charleston peninsula warn of ‘gentrification ahead’"
- Samantha Connor - Charleston City Paper:
Guerrilla art spoof says Charleston is gentrifying
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"An ArtFields Grand Prize winner herself (in 2018), Brown and Quashie also share a mission to challenge and disassemble racial and sexual stereotypes, social injustices, and political power structures through their work, to fearlessly take people out of their comfort zones by using provocative, sometimes incendiary images to spark dialogue that can stimulate progress toward equality and equity. "
- Kristine Hartvigsen
Columbia Living (Nov-Dec 2022): - It Takes A Unicorn
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"Social commentary is at the core of the work by John Acorn, Colin Quashie and Aldwyth. Quashie and Aldwyth make commentary, particularly around issues of race, that is often so pointed and sometimes controversial that neither artist is exhibited as often as they should be."
- Mary Bentz Gilkerson
Columbia Free Times - Triennial: Revisited Offers Distilled Look at S.C. Art Trends
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"Colin Quashie’s Linked series supports his audience in achieving insight, greater self-awareness, and sociocultural epiphany regarding the synthesis of experience. Using a montage of re-contextualized images juxtaposed in unexpected visual associations forming a visible, sociocultural “DNA”, Quashie coheres ideological connections that, as his audience, we might prefer not to see, not to consider, and not to discuss."
- Frank Martin
Object, Presence, & Reasoning:
Colin Quashie’s Linked Series as Conversational Implicatures
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If you're expecting a subtle, tasteful discussion of social justice issues in contemporary American culture, then Colin Quashie is not the artist for you. But if you are moved by engaged visual criticism and see its potential to have an immediate impact on viewers then you'll love Quashie's unflinching examination of the lingering effects of racism in contemporary American culture.
- Undefined Magazine #12
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"Contrast that with "Looked Away, Dixieland (Strom's Song)" by Colin Quashie, the most fearless artist in the show. The point of Quashie's painting, and of its juxtaposition with the historical portraits, is clear: History is not free. Belief in one view, or another, comes with a price."
- Robert Maschal
Charlotte Observer - A Fresh Look at Symbols of the South
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"(Quashie's) “Portal” is in part a commentary on painting, a work of sculpture, public art, art as social commentary, art as tourist diversion, and art as politics, fused into a single performance, but it is in any case an intricate, complex, deeply thoughtful, yet simultaneously glib and jocular consideration of a typically American series of cultural problems."
- Frank Martin
Post & Courier SPOLETO Today
Quashie’s Portal: Looking for meanings in monuments
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"Quashie’s paintings range from the savage satire and bumper sticker bluntness of Andy Warhol-like pop art, to subtle, moody realism."
- Rick de Yampert
Daytona Beach News Journal - “Artist, an equal opportunity agitator”
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"As they continue into Redux, visitors will see screenprints, acrylic paintings, mixed-media, and more. Quashie is a rare artist who balances quality and quantity, and as impressive as his ideas are the many ways he chooses to express them."
- Susan Cohen
Charleston City Paper
Colin Quashie's pointed response to the world around him
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"One black artist who participated in this year's festival, Colin Quashie, built a free-standing window and moved it to several spots around Charleston where African-American history unfolded but where there is no marker or memorial. "Charleston is a town that sells itself on its history, but it only markets certain kinds of history," Mr. Quashie said."
- Stephen Kinzer
New York Times - A Planned Museum Would Lead Charleston to it's Past
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"Quashie uses humor to make very pointed social commentary. There is a perfect balance in his work between image and text. Cool and controlled though his technique may be, there is no lack of passion in his work. Neither is there any distance between his subject and his own life."
- Mary Bentz Gilkerson
Columbia Free Times - Cerebral Approaches Dominate Triennial 2004
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"The power of this presentation is the fact that Quashie has now chosen to segregate the images of blacks even as they are gradually being included in the official canons of history. This separation is itself politically interesting and significant. Quashie has elliptically attacked the racial context of the commission for the mural, despite or because it is intended as an homage to Civil Rights and “black” history."
- Frank Martin, PhD
Daily Serving - Colin Quashie: Service
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"Another potent three-dimensional work is Colin Quashie’s Plantation Monopoly. Replicating the Monopoly game board, Quashie redefines the meaning of “property” by changing the houses and hotels into plantations — “Magnolia,” “Boone Hall,” “Drayton Hall,” “Middleton Place” — and including the value of the enslaved population as part of each mortgage."
- Tom Mack
Charleston Post & Courier
In REMIX Exhibition, African-American Artists Offer Powerful Tweaks to Familiar Themes
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"The shock of slavery and racism was best conveyed to me by the work of Colin Quashie, a contemporary artist living in Charleston. “Plantation (plan-ta-shun)”, the exhibit of his work at the Redux Contemporary Art Center in Charleston, struck me in gut."
- Arthur Dobrin D.S.W.
Psychology Today
Helping Us to Remember Correctly:
The Art of Colin Quashie: Psychic pain and historic truths aren’t good for business.
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"His work is notable for its combination of pristine technique, witty titles, explicit social and political commentary and wide-ranging use of various media."
- Adam Parker
The Post & Courier
Charleston artist links slavery to American figures of history with provocative illustrations
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"Quashie is a nationally significant artist that happens to live in Charleston. I think his work offers a scathing critique of America. His voice is strong, his ideas provocative, and his message is essential."
- wpdbadmin
Charleston City Paper
'Colin Quashie’s pointed response to the world around him'
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"Charleston-based Colin Quashie mines the darker parts of American history, digitally manipulating archival images to give them added context and more nuanced meanings."
- Chandra Noyes
Art & Object
'Linking the Past and Present:
How Two Artists Examine the History of Racism in America'
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"Quashie, who has been a Halsey featured artist three times, including an early 1994 show, one of Sloan’s first, and almost the new director’s last."
- Stephanie Hunt
Charleston Magazine, 'Meet The Wild, Weird, & Wonderful Mr. Sloan
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"Quashie, you should know, is a perfectionist, someone who often works from photographs and products that rely on commercial graphic design and meticulously creates versions of these images by hand. He has a fine eye for detail and an acerbic talent for social criticism."
- Adam Parker
Charleston Post & Courier
'Charleston artist Colin Quashie proposes $2 bills featuring historical black figures'
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"Quashie’s vision is nothing like the modern money shots of hanging moss and white weddings you’ll see on decadent blogs or in a luxury magazine — his is harsher and truer to their dark history."
- Susan Cohen
Colin Quashie: Plantation (Plan-ta-shun) Native Sun: Fahamu Pecou, 2009 To Now
