- Jan 30, 2007
- 28,535
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Empire New series in Fox
- Thread in 'General' Thread starter Started by keko jones,
- Start date
- Mar 4, 2009
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spoken with such elegance. you described it perfectly. u got a writing background? those kinda analytical and writing skills would make u a smash in writing or marketing or reviewing
No the.monkey scene was straight out of the ferguson riot when a lady showed up in monkey suit to proteset how the cops treated them
- Nov 20, 2007
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Them thinking a hole in the tree was a good enough marker for where they buried the body was hilarious when Rhonda realizes every damn tree has the same damn hole in it 
That aside that's just how I felt about it with Lee's intent but I'd probably feel the same way if he was referencing a real life event meant to protest. He's been doing a lot of referencing off of real events that involve race.
Well I'll admit I did not follow every single detail about what went on with the Ferguson protests or what went on in that big thread on NT.
That aside that's just how I felt about it with Lee's intent but I'd probably feel the same way if he was referencing a real life event meant to protest. He's been doing a lot of referencing off of real events that involve race.
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- Mar 4, 2009
- 6,698
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Them thinking a hole in the tree was a good enough of marker for where they buried the body was hilarious when Rhonda realizes every damn tree has the same damn hole in it
- Mar 13, 2014
- 6,830
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That really irritated me. Like how the heck you not know that all of the trees in that area have the same damn hole?Them thinking a hole in the tree was a good enough of marker for where they buried the body was hilarious when Rhonda realizes every damn tree has the same damn hole in it
Well I'll admit I did not follow every single detail about when on with the Ferguson protests or what went on in that big thread on NT.
That aside that's just how I felt about it with Lee's intent but I'd probably feel the same way if he was referencing a real life event meant to protest.
- Nov 20, 2007
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It was like 5 trees forming a circle though in that area 
I thought maybe Andre was having another breakdown when he just kept digging and maybe Rhonda had something too when she saw all the holes
Thirsty just having that device was suspicious as **** too. I mean okay Lucius wanted to follow them and yeah before leaving he may have saw they were in the woods for a while but just assuming dude's body is buried there so lets bring some shovels just in case?
I thought maybe Andre was having another breakdown when he just kept digging and maybe Rhonda had something too when she saw all the holes
Thirsty just having that device was suspicious as **** too. I mean okay Lucius wanted to follow them and yeah before leaving he may have saw they were in the woods for a while but just assuming dude's body is buried there so lets bring some shovels just in case?
6 Rings G.O.A.T.
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- Feb 11, 2006
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Just in case..
- Jan 11, 2013
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yea its dumb but im guessing they were just so freaked about just having killed vernon that when they went to bury him they just wanted to do it as fast as possible and didnt think about looking around
like they arent professional body disposers so anything so they made an amateur mistake
like they arent professional body disposers so anything so they made an amateur mistake
- Jun 7, 2008
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- 7,672
thought this was pretty cool...
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cu...-contemporary-art-gallery?mbid=social_twitter
in 2014, weeks before the pilot was shot for “Empire,” the soapy Fox musical drama, Lee Daniels, the show’s creator, reached out to the artist Kehinde Wiley to ask for permission to include his work in the new project. “He didn’t know if it was going to be the biggest car wreck or the biggest success,” Wiley said. “And I said, ‘Sure.’ ” In the Season One finale, the men of the Lyon family sat at a dining-room table underneath Wiley’s “Prince Albert, Prince Consort of Queen Victoria.” It’s a portrait of a bare-chested and tattooed Jamaican man, one hand on his hip and posturing proudly. Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard) who had just found out he was not sick with Lou Gehrig’s disease, stood in a gray suit at the head of the table, stately like the figure in the ornate painting behind him, to tell his sons the news. The moment was a dramatic plot twist, and the painting stole the scene. “Just like the script, the music, the set design, and the clothes, the artwork on Empire is its own character and tells a part of the Lyon-family story,” Daniels told me.
“Empire,” the most-watched prime-time show on Fox, is now in its second season. The show’s four-stage Chicago set doesn’t feel like a contemporary art gallery; it’s much less pristine, and the artwork hangs inconspicuously on the walls amid the on-set chaos. But the art world’s influence is clear. The paintings on display, mostly portraits, represent a generation of celebrated works by black artists, which have toured America’s museums during the past two decades. The works sit underneath special lighting, designed to show off their powerful imagery when the cameras are rolling. The show’s set decorator, Caroline Perzan, works with Daniels, art advisers, museum curators, and commercial galleries to pick every piece of the art on the show. In addition to Wiley, the show has featured works by Mickalene Thomas, Barkley L. Hendricks, Kerry James Marshall, and lesser-known artists such as Lobyn Hamilton. “I’ve been doing this twenty-six years, and I was really excited because rarely do I get a director who includes the art within the shot,” Perzan said. “The art has become one of the main focal points of the set design.”
The originals of most of the works hang in museums and private collections, so Perzan and her team print and stretch replications onto canvas to be hung in the homes and offices of the Lyon family. “We choose pieces that match the taste of the Lyons and the world they live in—sometimes it’s over the top, but most times it’s classy and my definition of ghetto fabulous,” Daniels told me. His view seems to reflect a yearning to open the artworks up to an entirely new language for interpretation. For example, Wiley’s 2007 oil-on-canvas painting “Officer of the Hussars,” which hangs in the Detroit Institute of Arts, shows a young male straddling a horse, with a sword in hand. The painting plays with the aesthetics of race, power, and masculinity, as does much of Wiley’s work. Hakeem Lyon (Bryshere Y. Gray) is the youngest member of the family, and one plot line follows his attempts to be more than just a rapper; the “Hussars” replica hangs in Hakeem’s living room. The characters have never spoken about their taste in art, but Perzan, standing in Lucious Lyon’s office in front of golden works by Francine Turk, said that the work she sees as “hip-hop art” is meant to “infuse the art with the message”—that the Lyons, whose family business is hip-hop music, live in gilded surroundings that reflect their taste.
Artists who aim to be embraced by the blue-chip art market traditionally have what Wiley described as “a very strong aversion to popular culture.” The artists want their works to be properly contextualized, and museums and galleries take the care to oblige. Now artists are sending Perzan e-mails to see if they can get their works placed on the show. “Empire” gives lesser-known artists a platform to show their work that traditional museums have yet to offer. “Being on ‘Empire’ is an amazing privilege,” the emerging artist Ebony G. Patterson said. Her paintings “Untitled VI” and “Untitled I (Khani+di Krew),” which explore gender performance, hang in Jamal Lyon’s (Jussie Smollett) penthouse apartment. “I was quite excited and tickled by the opportunity, and it certainly allowed for my work to engage with a much larger audience,” Patterson said. “Through yet another layer of popular culture, my work creates even more visibility for those who have been deemed invisible.” Indeed, what’s art without an audience?
For artists, the gamble is that their works will get lost in the action of the show or, perhaps worse, be seen as merely decorative. Some artists who grant permission to the show, along with curators and gallerists who represent the artists, are doing what they can to stop that from happening. After Barkley L. Hendricks’s painting “Lawdy Mama” appeared on the show, the Jack Shainman Gallery wrote, “Did you catch the lovely ‘Lawdy Mama,’ on Empire last week?” to its fifteen thousand Instagram followers.
And perhaps visibility is the most that an artist can reasonably ask for. During the second-season première, Cookie Lyon (Taraji P. Henson), wearing a blue jacket and gold jewelry, stands in front of Toyin Ojih Odutola’s chalk-drawn self-portrait “Hold It in Your Mouth a Little Longer.” The work explores the sociopolitical concept of skin color, and was exhibited in 2013 at the Louisville Art Center. It is powerfully layered in a museum context, but hanging behind Cookie in that scene it’s more striking as an accompaniment to her fashion ensemble. “I remember thinking, Do I just want for it to be in the background?” Odutola told me as she moved about her small studio, overlooking Thirty-ninth Street. “This is not what I am thinking when I am making the work. Then you realize this is a part of a story that is bigger than my work. If someone was going to buy my work this would be happening anyway.” Daniels and Perzan have, in a sense, turned “Empire” into a prime-time gallery space for artists to break out of the canonized art world and display their work in a place where it’s sure to be seen. Isn’t that what art is all about?
“Empire,” the most-watched prime-time show on Fox, is now in its second season. The show’s four-stage Chicago set doesn’t feel like a contemporary art gallery; it’s much less pristine, and the artwork hangs inconspicuously on the walls amid the on-set chaos. But the art world’s influence is clear. The paintings on display, mostly portraits, represent a generation of celebrated works by black artists, which have toured America’s museums during the past two decades. The works sit underneath special lighting, designed to show off their powerful imagery when the cameras are rolling. The show’s set decorator, Caroline Perzan, works with Daniels, art advisers, museum curators, and commercial galleries to pick every piece of the art on the show. In addition to Wiley, the show has featured works by Mickalene Thomas, Barkley L. Hendricks, Kerry James Marshall, and lesser-known artists such as Lobyn Hamilton. “I’ve been doing this twenty-six years, and I was really excited because rarely do I get a director who includes the art within the shot,” Perzan said. “The art has become one of the main focal points of the set design.”
The originals of most of the works hang in museums and private collections, so Perzan and her team print and stretch replications onto canvas to be hung in the homes and offices of the Lyon family. “We choose pieces that match the taste of the Lyons and the world they live in—sometimes it’s over the top, but most times it’s classy and my definition of ghetto fabulous,” Daniels told me. His view seems to reflect a yearning to open the artworks up to an entirely new language for interpretation. For example, Wiley’s 2007 oil-on-canvas painting “Officer of the Hussars,” which hangs in the Detroit Institute of Arts, shows a young male straddling a horse, with a sword in hand. The painting plays with the aesthetics of race, power, and masculinity, as does much of Wiley’s work. Hakeem Lyon (Bryshere Y. Gray) is the youngest member of the family, and one plot line follows his attempts to be more than just a rapper; the “Hussars” replica hangs in Hakeem’s living room. The characters have never spoken about their taste in art, but Perzan, standing in Lucious Lyon’s office in front of golden works by Francine Turk, said that the work she sees as “hip-hop art” is meant to “infuse the art with the message”—that the Lyons, whose family business is hip-hop music, live in gilded surroundings that reflect their taste.
Artists who aim to be embraced by the blue-chip art market traditionally have what Wiley described as “a very strong aversion to popular culture.” The artists want their works to be properly contextualized, and museums and galleries take the care to oblige. Now artists are sending Perzan e-mails to see if they can get their works placed on the show. “Empire” gives lesser-known artists a platform to show their work that traditional museums have yet to offer. “Being on ‘Empire’ is an amazing privilege,” the emerging artist Ebony G. Patterson said. Her paintings “Untitled VI” and “Untitled I (Khani+di Krew),” which explore gender performance, hang in Jamal Lyon’s (Jussie Smollett) penthouse apartment. “I was quite excited and tickled by the opportunity, and it certainly allowed for my work to engage with a much larger audience,” Patterson said. “Through yet another layer of popular culture, my work creates even more visibility for those who have been deemed invisible.” Indeed, what’s art without an audience?
For artists, the gamble is that their works will get lost in the action of the show or, perhaps worse, be seen as merely decorative. Some artists who grant permission to the show, along with curators and gallerists who represent the artists, are doing what they can to stop that from happening. After Barkley L. Hendricks’s painting “Lawdy Mama” appeared on the show, the Jack Shainman Gallery wrote, “Did you catch the lovely ‘Lawdy Mama,’ on Empire last week?” to its fifteen thousand Instagram followers.
And perhaps visibility is the most that an artist can reasonably ask for. During the second-season première, Cookie Lyon (Taraji P. Henson), wearing a blue jacket and gold jewelry, stands in front of Toyin Ojih Odutola’s chalk-drawn self-portrait “Hold It in Your Mouth a Little Longer.” The work explores the sociopolitical concept of skin color, and was exhibited in 2013 at the Louisville Art Center. It is powerfully layered in a museum context, but hanging behind Cookie in that scene it’s more striking as an accompaniment to her fashion ensemble. “I remember thinking, Do I just want for it to be in the background?” Odutola told me as she moved about her small studio, overlooking Thirty-ninth Street. “This is not what I am thinking when I am making the work. Then you realize this is a part of a story that is bigger than my work. If someone was going to buy my work this would be happening anyway.” Daniels and Perzan have, in a sense, turned “Empire” into a prime-time gallery space for artists to break out of the canonized art world and display their work in a place where it’s sure to be seen. Isn’t that what art is all about?
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cu...-contemporary-art-gallery?mbid=social_twitter
- Mar 28, 2009
- 18,488
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The tree thing was stupid af. I wanted to turn it off on that scene lmao. Ehhh episode was cool tho. Jamal and Hakeem song fire
But lowkey I'm tired of them playing Hakeem, fam just weak can't fight getting beat by the gay brother
But lowkey I'm tired of them playing Hakeem, fam just weak can't fight getting beat by the gay brother
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- Nov 20, 2007
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The thing is I was thinking if they had any problems it would be when they got the body in the trunk and started driving. Maybe get pulled over or something and have to kill a cop or something equally wild.
Them not being able to find the body and facing the potential task of digging up the entire woods would've been insane
Them not being able to find the body and facing the potential task of digging up the entire woods would've been insane
truth-serum
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- May 16, 2013
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I love you.
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6 Rings G.O.A.T.
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- Feb 11, 2006
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Hakeem Lyon got taken.. Time to hire..
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- Aug 6, 2012
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I stay missing these episodes. Always catch em on demand.
- Apr 5, 2007
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The painter blowing jamals man was funny
- Mar 28, 2009
- 18,488
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^LMFAO!!! I don't know how much more of the ho-ing Andre I can take. Bruh he the realest one and they just keep making my dude lose it. If his wife ends up plotting or something I'm done with the show. He won't be able to handle it.
Hakeem stay taking Ls physically. Dude gets washed in every fight, got kidnapped easily lol smh.
Hakeem stay taking Ls physically. Dude gets washed in every fight, got kidnapped easily lol smh.
- Nov 20, 2007
- 87,866
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Yo This was another good ep and was beginning to feel like a tv show but then they hit us with the cliffhanger Hakeem gets kidnapped ending
Lucius is a foul dude. So is Thirsty. Setting up ppl to get robbed like that. Might be my sensibilities but I reacted differently when it was Tiana as opposed to when Andre set up Jamal in S1.
I don't know why Lucius doesn't just sit Andre down and tell him the truth about his moms and just adds the catch of if you tell anybody about this I'll take everything away from you. That way he can at least lighten his burden a bit and confide in somebody about one real struggle he went through. I know it's hard for him but seeing these difficult flashback scenes of a kid and his bipolar mom and then back to the present and Lucius does nothing but walk away and remain silent is frustrating. Son should at least get a therapist but I already know his reaction to that.
@ Hakeem's lame *** getting rejected so quickly by his new artist.
@ this dusty old "artist" trying to suck off anybody. I know that actor from other stuff. It's funny cuz it's like he's fallen from grace that he out there just turning tricks cuz he got permanently zooted on some bad weed.
@ Ne-Yo's head nods and how he was vibing to the beat and session in the studio. That was one of those useless cameos. Gave son lines and everything. Aint amount to ****.
This was another good ep and was beginning to feel like a tv show but then they hit us with the cliffhanger Hakeem gets kidnapped ending Lucius is a foul dude. So is Thirsty. Setting up ppl to get robbed like that. Might be my sensibilities but I reacted differently when it was Tiana as opposed to when Andre set up Jamal in S1.
I don't know why Lucius doesn't just sit Andre down and tell him the truth about his moms and just adds the catch of if you tell anybody about this I'll take everything away from you. That way he can at least lighten his burden a bit and confide in somebody about one real struggle he went through. I know it's hard for him but seeing these difficult flashback scenes of a kid and his bipolar mom and then back to the present and Lucius does nothing but walk away and remain silent is frustrating. Son should at least get a therapist but I already know his reaction to that.
@ Hakeem's lame *** getting rejected so quickly by his new artist. @ this dusty old "artist" trying to suck off anybody. I know that actor from other stuff. It's funny cuz it's like he's fallen from grace that he out there just turning tricks cuz he got permanently zooted on some bad weed. @ Ne-Yo's head nods and how he was vibing to the beat and session in the studio. That was one of those useless cameos. Gave son lines and everything. Aint amount to ****.
- Mar 27, 2007
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They done took Lucious Lyon's son..war about to pop off
- Nov 20, 2007
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When they lingered on her reactions I was thinking maybe she lost the baby and aint want to tell him and that's why she was trying to have sex with him to get pregnant again.
6 Rings G.O.A.T.
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- Feb 11, 2006
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- Aug 6, 2012
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I like how that storyline has just completely disappeared.
- Sep 3, 2014
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I was kinda meh about the kidnapping plot , but the more I thought about it I understood it. I just felt they could have saved that plot for the mid-season finale. But considering Empire wont be on for a couple weeks due to the World Series it makes sense now.
I was apathetic towards Andre , but this season he's grown on me. I feel like his intensions are the most pure out of all the brothers.
I was apathetic towards Andre , but this season he's grown on me. I feel like his intensions are the most pure out of all the brothers.
- Dec 15, 2004
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Master Zik
Bruh, for the last 2 weeks I been strugglin to remember where I know that artist from? WHAT IS IT?!
- Mar 4, 2009
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Andre is the most pure and sensible one....how ironic that he is the "crazy" one at that.
I don't think Luscious knows all that Thirsty is doing. I know he told Andre that he only does what he tells him, but maybe it is me just having some kind of heart, but I just can't see him doing that to his own family.
My wife and I wonder if Andre's wife is even really pregnant. She just said it to calm him down and give him joy/hope. Now she trying to do stuff to actually get preggo now so he won't spaz again.
When that female rapper was in the booth all over the place, and Luscious gave her a 2 min pep talk and she came back with a banger
Hakeem forever taking the L man. He was already sad because Cookie working with Jamal again and then he saw them holding hands in church .Went for a run and then got kidnapped.
The question is....who is conducting it? Luscious said it isn't him. Think it is that other record label (Barrety) coming back for revenge? Boo-boo Kitty with something up her sleeve?
I don't think Luscious knows all that Thirsty is doing. I know he told Andre that he only does what he tells him, but maybe it is me just having some kind of heart, but I just can't see him doing that to his own family.
My wife and I wonder if Andre's wife is even really pregnant. She just said it to calm him down and give him joy/hope. Now she trying to do stuff to actually get preggo now so he won't spaz again.
When that female rapper was in the booth all over the place, and Luscious gave her a 2 min pep talk and she came back with a banger
Hakeem forever taking the L man. He was already sad because Cookie working with Jamal again and then he saw them holding hands in church .Went for a run and then got kidnapped.
The question is....who is conducting it? Luscious said it isn't him. Think it is that other record label (Barrety) coming back for revenge? Boo-boo Kitty with something up her sleeve?
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