{{unreferenced, date=May 2014
The ''M'bwebwe'' painters and poets originally met while attending
Kent State University
Kent State University (KSU) is a public research university in Kent, Ohio. The university also includes seven regional campuses in Northeast Ohio and additional facilities in the region and internationally. Regional campuses are located in As ...
in the U.S. state of
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
in the mid-1970s. They include painters David Wayne Cole, Thomas David Little (1955–2006), and James F. Quinlan, sculptor Christopher Cosma, computer artist Jeff Brice, and multi-media artists Peter Brill and Mark Bloch. The group soon grew to include others including Douglas Ferguson, Sylvia Sherry, Susan Cole, Lauren Silver, Nan Truitt and John Fletcher.
The word M'bwebwe does not in itself mean anything. It was uttered at random one day, although who uttered it is now forgotten, when it was time to select a name for a particular event and it stuck. It has since come to represent either a place or a group of artists, depending on usage.
In 1978, M'bwebwe began as an art space at 23 Second Avenue on
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
's
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets.
Traditionally an im ...
. The living quarters and studios, located above a Jewish monument store in a former B'nai B'rith meeting hall, soon became a de facto exhibition space, dance club and neighborhood hangout that garnered attention by hipsters and cognoscenti around the rapidly changing area soon to be known as the East Village.
While the M'bwebwe painting style held craftsmanship in high esteem, the subject matter could be described as irreverent, Dada, tongue in cheek and funky. A number of musical projects, most notably by Quinlan, Brill, Little and Bloch, took the funk idea back to its roots as a musical style (see George Clinton,
James Brown
James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th century music, he is often referred to by the honor ...
and
Robert Wyatt
Robert Wyatt (born Robert Wyatt-Ellidge, 28 January 1945) is a retired English musician. A founding member of the influential Canterbury scene bands Soft Machine and Matching Mole, he was initially a kit drummer and singer before becoming para ...
) that was blended with elements of
Devo
Devo (, originally ) is an American rock band from Akron, Ohio, formed in 1973. Their classic line-up consisted of two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs (Mark and Bob) and the Casales (Gerald and Bob), along with Alan Myers. The band had a ...
and
Pere Ubu
Pere Ubu is an American rock group formed in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1975. The band had a variety of long-term and recurring band members, with singer David Thomas being the only member staying throughout the band's lifetime. They released their d ...
that had also come out of northern Ohio. M'bwebwe is also linked to predecessors such as
Dada
Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
,
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...
,
Fluxus
Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...
,
concept art
Concept art is a form of visual art used to convey an idea for use in films, video games, animation, comic books, or other media before it is put into the final product. Concept art usually refers to world-building artwork used to inspire the ...
,
punk
Punk or punks may refer to:
Genres, subculture, and related aspects
* Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres
* Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...
,
industrial music
Industrial music is a genre of music that draws on harsh, mechanical, transgressive or provocative sounds and themes. AllMusic defines industrial music as the "most abrasive and aggressive fusion of rock and electronic music" that was "initiall ...
, and
electropop
Electropop is a hybrid music genre combining elements of electronic and pop genres. Writer Hollin Jones has described it as a variant of synth-pop with heavy emphasis on its electronic sound. The genre was developed in the 1980s and saw a re ...
, and most importantly,
'pataphysics
Pataphysics (french: 'pataphysique) is a "philosophy" of science invented by French writer Alfred Jarry (1873–1907) intended to be a parody of science. Difficult to be simply defined or pinned down, it has been described as the "science of ima ...
.
The M'bwebwe group is less a style of art or music than a loosely-knit group of artists from the midwest with a likeminded penchant for the Gabba Gabba Hey sensibility that could be heard emanating from the club
CBGB
CBGB was a New York City music club opened in 1973 by Hilly Kristal in Manhattan's East Village. The club was previously a biker bar and before that was a dive bar. The letters ''CBGB'' were for '' Country'', '' BlueGrass'', and '' Blues'', Kri ...
located just behind the M'bwebwe space on Second Avenue. M'bwebwe the geographical location existed from 1979 to 1982. Most of the original participants still reside in New York City. One of the founders of the group, Tom Little, a painter musician and master printmaker, died in 2006 due to natural causes.
Mbwebwe is an African surname. Mbwebwe Province is the home of ''
George of the Jungle
''George of the Jungle'' is an American animated television series produced and created by Jay Ward and Bill Scott, who also created ''The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show''. The character George was inspired by the story of Tarzan and a cartoon char ...