Vanessa German


Vanessa German is an American sculptor, painter, writer, activist, performer, and poet based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Her sculpture often includes assembled statues of female figures created with their heads/ faces painted black and a wide range of attached objects flowing outward including fabric, keys, found objects, and toy weapons. German serves as an activist addressing problems such as gun violence and prostitution.
Her work is held in numerous permanent collections including the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and has been reviewed by Sculpture and discussed in The New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, and on NPR's All Things Considered. Her art has been featured in a wide range of galleries, museums and traveling exhibits, including the 2012 "African American Art 1950–present" touring exhibit from the Smithsonian Institution. She was a 2015 recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Grant.
She was the winner of the 2018 Don Tyson Prize, a biannual $200,000 award from the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
German uses her art to address hate in the world while also expressing hope for the future.

Early life

Vanessa German was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and raised in the Mid-City area of Los Angeles and Loveland, Ohio by her mother, a fiber artist, quilter and costume maker. She is the third of five children. She moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2000 and began to perform and exhibit her work locally. She describes her work as heavily influenced by her childhood in Los Angeles, where her mother encouraged the children to make their own clothes, and she was also impacted by the AIDS epidemic and drive-by shootings.

Artistic career

A self-taught artist, much of German's artwork is collage and sculpted assemblages. German's sculptural work frequently includes female figures that she calls "power figures" and "tar babies". She creates them by decorating and painting large dolls and figures, then sculpting outward, and adding a wide range of materials including, for example cowrie shell lips, plastic guns, feathers, bottle caps, seashells, toys, and vintage products. She often uses found and donated materials from her Homewood neighborhood. She describes discovering that her work included elements similar to the central African tradition of Nkisi nkondi, guardian statues pierced with nails and other materials.
Her materials list for works often include both the physical and non-tangible materials. Recurring themes addressed in her work include food, birds, violence, injustice, poverty, and Black Madonna imagery. In her artist statement for 2016's dontsaythatshitoutloud, she describes the impact of finding two men murdered outside her house within a four-month period.
Her work includes the symbolic use of color throughout. Describing beads from one work, she said "If they’re red, they're holding rage and love simultaneously. If they’re white – they're holding ghosts – the presence of your ancestors...and they're also holding forgiveness and peace."

ARThouse and Love Front Porch

German also leads the ARThouse and Love Front Porch, a community art institution, in the Homewood neighborhood in Pittsburgh, PA. She started the ARThouse when she needed to create her art on her porch due to a low basement ceiling. When German began making large sculptures, she was heartbroken when pieces had to be taken apart to be removes from the basement. After moving to the porch, ARTHouse was born. Neighborhood children began gathering on her porch to watch her at work. This expanded into a dedicated community art space, which moved twice before moving into its permanent location, a house purchased with donations and proceeds from her art sales, dedicated in December 2015. In 2012, Love Front Porch received a $4,000 grant from the Sankofa Fund of Southwest Pennsylvania, which highlights empowering grass-roots African-American community projects.
German also runs the Tuesday Night Monologue Project at ARThouse, a weekly event where guest artists and members of the community can write and share works with each other.
Homewood was described as "The Most Dangerous Neighborhood in America" by MSNBC journalist, Rachel Maddow. German has said about Homewood, "...that doesn't happen every day. It doesn't happen every week. Most people aren't shooting each other. Most people are not running drugs. It's a very small percentage of the population who are engaging in really extreme activities."

Collections

German's work is held in the following permanent collections:
"Tar Baby Jane". Filmmaker Gregory Scott Williams, Jr., 2010.

Selected reviews

"Vanessa German." Sculpture magazine. July/ August 2012.
"Cut-and-Paste Culture: The New Collage". ARTnews. 12 December. 2013.
"Exhibition Review: Unloaded." afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism. 22 May 2015.
"i take my soul with me everywhere i go". The Georgia Review, 13 September 2016.
"Review: “Africa Forecast” shows how convention inspires Black women’s spirit". ArtsATL, 11 November 2016.

Notable appearances