Noel W. Anderson: Electric Boogie, Help Us Find the Funk

Selling Exhibition • 13 October–10 November 2022 • Paris

N oel W. Anderson: Electric Boogie, Help Us Find the Funk drafts its title from the synthesis of two significant African American dance classics: Marci Griffiths’ Electric Boogie (1983) and Parliament-Funkadelic’s Flash Light (1977). Where Griffiths’ reggae infused hit explores the irresistibility of resisting a music’s rhythm, Parliament-Funkadelic’s song laments the loss of the beat, resulting in the protagonist’s immobility, singing, “Ooo, I will never dance.” Coupling these tracks, Electric Boogie, Help Us Find the Funk explores black dance as a location of joy and release.

Using images from famed African American television dance show Soul Train, this exhibition presents woven images in which black dancers leap, bend, contort, and sway to the pleasurable possibilities of African American music. Double-exposed images approximate the irresistibility of the beat; folks just have to move. Corporeal energy echoes the opening line of Griffiths’ dance floor anthem: “It’s electric!” To accompany this sentiment, Anderson pulls the woven image’s threads, thus exposing the textured picture’s electric filaments. In addition, he brushes the textile’s surface, producing a fuzzy, softly legible, televisually inspired image. The resultant surface — blurry and wiry — is beautifully energetic. It’s electric!