Also this issue: Landmark Events -Juliet Fletcher Mozart Goes to School -Peter Burwasser The Truth About Ruth -Debra Auspitz No More Drama -Paul Burress

November 7-13, 2002

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Juke Joint

Images of phantom shapes, dancing into early hours, are but one fixture in artist Willie Little’s tribute to a fading part of Americana culture, “Juke Joint: An Installation.” “Juke Joint is a re-creation of my father’s illegal liquor house and a recollection of my experiences there as an African-American child growing up in rural North Carolina,” Little says. The juke joint played a pivotal part in the lives of its patrons, acting as an always-open convenience store by day while broadening its scope to corn liquor and other spirits at night. Though the juke joint is particular to the African-American experience, like any cultural signifier it gives a glimpse into the lives of individuals barring race or culture. Little has constructed four vignettes, comprising multimedia sculptures of paperclay, peat moss, cackleburs, mannequin parts and acrylic paint, all set in a replica juke joint. Immersed in the sound of the blues, the sculptures give individual insights on how the characters they were based on dealt with society around them. As Little describes it, “[Juke Joint] is a historical and cultural work in that it documents a fading part of rural lifestyles. The installation’s goal is to facilitate the viewer’s experience of the characters’ passions and their desperate drive to not merely exist but to live joyfully despite the tragedy of a marginalized existence.”

Runs through Feb. 28, African-American Museum in Philadelphia, 701 Arch St., 215-574-0380.

—Paul Burress