Local resident and artist Joshua Whitaker is pictured hanging one of his pieces — featuring Queens-based hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest — in Herndon Gallery ahead of the opening of the multi-artist exhibition “Rightstarter: Resistance, Rap and the Golden Era” on Saturday, May 9. Curated by Whitaker, the exhibition features works by 10 Yellow Springs, Dayton and Columbus artists, and aims to evoke the politics and culture of the hip-hop scene from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. (Photo by Lauren “Chuck” Shows)
Hip-hop, history at the Herndon Gallery
- Published: May 8, 2026
Beginning this weekend, the Herndon Gallery at Antioch College will host a new exhibition that looks backward — and forward — through the lens of hip-hop history.
Curated by Yellow Springs–based artist Joshua Whitaker, the upcoming show, “Rightstarter: Resistance, Rap and the Golden Era,” draws inspiration from the music and culture of hip-hop from around the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. The exhibition will feature work from 10 artists from Yellow Springs, Dayton and Columbus, including Whitaker.
The exhibition opens Saturday, May 9.
Speaking with the News last week, Whitaker said the show’s title is taken from Public Enemy’s 1987 track “Rightstarter (Message to a Black Man),” a call to action and historical and political consciousness ubiquitous within the reigning hip-hop voices of the time. As Chuck D raps on the track:
I’m on a mission and you got that right
Addin’ fuel to the fire, punch to the fight
Many have forgotten what we came here for
Never knew or had a clue, so you’re on the floor
“Public Enemy was a huge piece of my identity and coming-of-age experience,” Whittaker said. “‘Rightstarter’ just felt like a really cool title that would kind of tap in and trigger questions and be an icebreaker for a conversation.”
“‘Rightstarter’” sets the tone for the exhibition, rooting it in the cultural and political climate that shaped the music of the era and, Whitaker hopes, putting it in direct dialogue with the music of today.
“A lot of what I want to talk about with this show is around the music of that time and the politics at that time,” he said. “A lot of the stuff we were going through in the ’80s and early ’90s, it was kind of like an interesting mirror image of what we’re going through now — but now it’s like on steroids.”
(Photo by Lauren “Chuck” Shows)
Whitaker pointed to parallels between the Reagan-era AIDS crisis and crack epidemic and the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the opioid crisis and rising political division. In his view, Whitaker said, the difference between then and now is in how artists responded.
“The music of that era was pushing back on all of that,” he said. “You heard the consciousness elevating. … We’re going to create something that helps us, and it also pushes back. … Where is the pushback now in the music?”
Whitaker has some skin in the game when it comes to hip-hop history: Under the moniker Bicasso, he’s a member of the California-based indie hip-hop supergroup Living Legends, which was formed in the mid-1990s in and around Oakland and made waves for, as LA Weekly reported, selling hundreds of thousands of records “all by them-damn-selves.”
It was in Oakland where, before coming to Yellow Springs with his family a year ago, Whitaker operated Spirithaus, a mixed-use warehouse gallery and performance venue that combined visual art, live music and community gathering in an underground setting. Whitaker lived in the space for a time, and for several years, it hosted regular programming that drew a steady audience, before the pandemic forced its closure in 2020.
“We did not make money,” he said with a laugh. “But we made an amazing cultural space. … It was inclusive, super safe.”
Whitaker said his experience with Spirithaus continues to shape how he approaches projects like “Rightstarter,” which knits together artists working within a variety of disciplines. Whitaker said he met many of the artists featured in “Rightstarter” through past exhibitions, including a solo show last year at Crome Gallery and a group exhibition curated by Dayton legend Willis “Bing” Davis at the Springfield Museum of Art. The show reflects what Whitaker described as a deliberate mix of styles and approaches.
“I wanted to continue the momentum — that’s really what this show is about,” he said. “Little old Ohio has some reach … and I think it’s gonna be a great show.”
Among the artists included are Davis, who has contributed sculpture and drawing; acclaimed Dayton-based artist James Pate, whose charcoal drawings made art history through his development of the “techno-cubism” style; Karen D. Brames, described by Whitaker as a “child of the Golden Era” of hip-hop, who will contribute installation and sculptural elements; local resident (and YS News publisher) Cheryl Durgans, who is creating a “hip-hop apothecary”; and Columbus textile artist Don Cee Coulten, known for detailed landscapes and portraits made from fabric, leather and other materials.
Whitaker’s own contributions to the exhibition will center on mixed-media portraiture created on wood, using a process of photo transfer and painting onto reclaimed materials; some of the materials used for the pieces he’s contributing to “Rightstarter” were collected in Dayton, and one piece incorporates 1970s-era wallpaper taken from Whitaker’s Omar Circle home.
(Photo by Lauren “Chuck” Shows)
In describing his pieces — the ones on display during the interview featured seminal artists A Tribe Called Quest, Ice Cube and De La Soul — he pointed to the tactile qualities that come from embedding an image into the material, which can leave behind traces of the original paper or reveal the grain of the wood beneath. He described those qualities as being distinctly human in their perceived imperfection.
“Look at this paper — that’s a wrinkle,” he said. “It gives you information; you can say, ‘Oh, that’s wood.’ It has a gloss on it that creates shadow and light —- and when AI can make a physical thing that can do that, then I’ll say, ‘Alright, I’m tapped out.’ But I don’t think it’s there yet.”
Like past exhibitions at the Herndon, “Rightstarter” will also engage with the gallery’s physical layout. Whitaker said he has been thinking carefully about how to use the space, from its high ceilings to its central pillars.
“This space is definitely unique,” he said, noting both its possibilities and constraints. “The pillars in the middle — I’m sure that’s for structural integrity, but you have to work with it.”
Whitaker said he envisions the opening reception incorporating live performance and communal elements alongside the visual art.
“I want to open up with a libation for the ancestors, and a little bit of drumming and maybe some spoken word, and kind of set it off with that,” he said.
The opening will also feature a live jazz set by G. Scott Jones and the Freedom Ensemble, along with Bronx-inspired food from local chef Locksley Harper and digital projection mapping from local resident Justin Herman, aka Unjust.
“That’s kind of the bells and whistles,” Whitaker said. “The jazz and the food — and then the art.”
Whitaker said he aims for additional programming tied to the exhibition throughout its run, culminating in a ticketed closing event June 12 featuring live hip-hop performances. The tentative line-up includes Living Legends, underground hip-hop collective Alien Art Gang and Cincinnati-based artist Vast Aire, of New York duo Cannibal Ox, whose album “The Cold Vein” celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.
“And we’re going to keep that anniversary of ‘The Cold Vein’ as part of the narrative,” Whitaker said.
He added that both the exhibition and its accompanying events are meant to reconnect audiences with a formative cultural moment in the hope that they’ll consider its relevance today.
“The story of hip-hop has been told and told time again,” he said. “But as we come into our wisdom … we need to actually tell this story of Gen X and what that felt like, and what the golden era of rap meant.”
“Rightstarter: Resistance, Rap and the Golden Era” will open at Herndon Gallery with a reception Saturday, May 9, 2–6 p.m. Featured artists include Gawain Bartholomew, Karen D. Brame, Don Cee Coulten, Willis ‘Bing’ Davis, Cheryl Durgans, Robin Erfe, James Pate, Craig Screven, Taliaferro Sebastian and Joshua Whitaker.
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