T-shirt: Rashaad Newsome, "Build or Destroy," 2021

Rashaad Newsome (born in 1979 in New Orleans; lives and works in Oakland, California) is a multimedia artist whose work takes inspiration from Black and Queer culture.  This t-shirt features a still from Newsome's Build or Destroy, 2021, a video and NFT commissioned by the San José Museum of Art, in which Newsome brings to life the female composition in his large-scale collage "1st Place". Animating the bedazzled and blazing body, the artist explores ideas around identity construction--particularly Black trans femme identity--and how performance might offer space for it's creation and detonation.  Build or Destroy premieres at the 2021 Gala + Auction broadcast and will be viewable on the Museum's website through December 31, 2021.