2021The Story of Spirithaus Gallery
A Black Arts Movement, Oakland Style.
Story by dana e. fitchett | Visual art and photos courtesy of Bicaso
An organic art/music house preserving the Oakland aesthetic. Rooted in the movement of self-determination and the upliftment of the under-represented.
the INSPIRATION, the INTENTION
The seeds of Spirithaus Gallery were planted as far back as 20 years ago. Josh “Bicaso” Whitaker was a founding member of the collaborative that became Eastside Arts Alliance, a cultural backbone of East Oakland and the wider Bay Area, built and sustained by radical Black and Brown cultural organizers for radical Black and Brown creatives. Bicaso’s time with this self-proclaimed third-world grassroots organization put him into close dialogue with countless Black cultural icons and jump-started his political education and commitment to radical placemaking. Among other powerful players, Eastside’s board of directors at the time included Angela Davis, Yuri Kochyiama, Bobby Seale, and Amiri Baraka who were all heavyweight contributors to the movement for Black cultural self-determination.
When Bicaso transitioned out of Eastside about a decade later, he took with him the wisdom he gained from co-creating a thriving Black cultural institution under sage mentorship, and set out on his own pursuit of land ownership and a path towards financial freedom: he signed a lease at 2217 Adeline Street, a 4800 square foot warehouse in West Oakland.
But Bicaso maintained his ties to Eastside, and in 2013, he received an invite to participate in a discussion with Amiri Baraka and Reggie Workman about the role of the Black artist in the community. Baraka was a poet and activist, and Workman an accomplished jazz bassist who worked with Coltrane and many others. Despite previously having awareness of and connection to Baraka, Bicaso's understanding of Baraka’s perspectives and his charge crystallized that night. “To present and grow Black culture on our own terms,” Bicaso learned from Baraka, “it’s the strongest thing there is.”
Just a year after Bicaso had this resounding experience, Baraka transitioned to the ancestral realm.
the VESSEL, the VISION
In the early days of the space, Bicaso and good friend Mike Louis Aaberg (b.k.a. Mike Tiger) were throwing casual jam sessions upstairs. At this time, Bicaso—a gifted visual artist in his own right—was working on a tribute piece for Baraka and reflecting on his own artistic contributions to the community. He recounts feeling the spirit of Baraka jump into his art. Realizing that his artwork engages with and exists in the spirit realm, and combining that element of spirit with what he was learning about the Bauhaus movement of 1920s-30s Germany, something came to him: Spirithaus. He would curate a Black arts gallery, guided by the spirit of Baraka’s legacy.
Not long after this moment of clarity, Mike Tiger suggested moving jam sessions downstairs and showing art alongside them. Bicaso started in on the gallery build-out. While spending time with one of his mentors, Greg Morozumi, Bicaso received more affirmation. Morozumi is another of the founding members of Eastside and a cultural warrior with decades of experience, wisdom, and tales from a life committed to justice, the power of creative expression, and Black and Brown unity. He was also a very close friend of Baraka’s.
He showed Bicaso a photo of Baraka, Kwame Ture (a.k.a. Stokely Carmichael), and H. Rap Brown, with a giant painting of Malcolm towering above them. He shared that the shot was taken at a spot Baraka had activated in Newark, New Jersey which was named Spirit House. “My heart dropped into my stomach,” Bicaso shares. He told Morozumi of the seemingly serendipitous reverberation. Morozumi advised him, “You might have some answering to do to some East Coast OGs, but if you do it right, that should be cool.”
With this new validation from the ancestral realm and Morozumi’s blessing, it was on. “One random night,” Bicaso says, “I smoked a joint and took a large sketch pad downstairs and sat in the cleaned-out room and felt the future.” He envisioned who would be there, how the energy would flow and how it all would work.
After a few hours, he had a sketch—a vision of minimalism. A smoke-filled room packed with heads; a five-foot curved wall to block visibility into the room from the entry; a semi-circle stage in the front corner, complementing the rounded bar in the opposite corner. Spaces within the space. A carefully curated landscape.
Spirithaus launched successfully in February of 2017 with a sold out art show titled Bold as Love: art from 12 Black Bay Area artists; a DJ set from Nina Sol; and live jazz. “It was the jump off to something brand new and fresh,” says Bicaso.
Bicaso showcasing is art at Bird Dog Arts in Arvin, California and with his partner Sheena.
the EXPERIENCE, the IMPACT
Within just two months, Spirithaus booked Georgia Anne Muldrow and a private party for Dave Chapelle. High vibrations, pristine sound, and efforts toward an inclusive Afrocentric environment established an underground feel powered by the spirit of Amiri Baraka and the Black Arts Movement.
Bicaso had crucial support from a small core team, but was wearing several hats. Despite being underfunded and understaffed—and taking shape in the aftermath of the devastating 2016 Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Fruitvale—Spirithaus was able to thrive. The intention, the vision, the momentum, and the power of word-of-mouth referrals kept the bookings and the people coming.
I was one of those people. For me, coming together around music and movement always has the potential to be sacred. As a radical, nonconforming, freedom-seeking, light-skinned Black/ethnically unplaceable artist, dancer, mover, I find that sacredness hard to come by in a world that broadly caters to whiteness, maleness, and capital. But at Spirithaus, I felt at home.
Spirithaus felt like a cosmic concurrence of elements, and my most frequented event at Spirithaus happened to be called Elements—a monthly, soulful/Afro-house party where DJs Patrick Wilson and Nina Sol consistently crafted musical journeys that kept me and many others there dancing until anywhere from 3 to 5am.
I also got to see musicians who I find to be some of the most brilliant and resonant of our time. But what probably speaks more powerfully to what the space was to me is that, when someone invited me to something at the spot, I didn’t need many details to decide if I was in. I could trust anything Spirithaus co-signed, and I was exposed to so much real, virtuosic, new-to-me artistry as a result.
March 13, 2020, one of my girls and I had plans to go to Spirithaus. Mark DeClive-Lowe was the headliner, but the LA.-based percussionist extraordinaire Greg Paul (who I first heard with Dwight Trible at Spirithaus) was pulling me in. But just before the world came to a halt, as we were all at different stages of perception and concern about the global coronavirus pandemic news, with no way to know what was coming, Spirithaus made the tough call to cancel the show.
A couple months later, in the face of massive uncertainty and transition, Bicaso and his team decided to close the Spirithaus Gallery chapter. When I heard the news, I was at a personal crossroads, trying to figure out if I was going to return to the East Coast to be closer to family or keep making Oakland my primary home. Knowing that Spirithaus was closing down was a legitimate factor as I made my decision to relocate.
While sadness over the ending of a thing is natural, there’s also a certain divinity about Spirithaus having its moment just before a time of drastic change, particularly relative to how we came together in close-quarters spaces. “We seemed to pull off one of the finest cultural experiments Oakland has ever seen, felt, and cherished,” Bicaso reflects. I trust in the power of that energy to move on, in the same way it came through Baraka, Eastside, Bicaso, and ultimately through all who passed through Spirithaus. We honor the ancestors by paying it forward. U
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dana e. fitchett is a trans-disciplinary artist whose practices are grounded in listening and cultivating honest languages. dana writes and edits for individuals and community organizations working for transformation and justice, and is also the Founder and Creative Director of dance collective, Movement for Liberation. As a visual artist, dana engages transcription as a form of communion and access to ancestral wisdom. She holds a bachelor’s degree in urban studies and a master’s of fine art in interdisciplinary art, and spends most of her time between Boston, Brooklyn, and Oakland.
The Oakland-based group SOL Development
Spirithaus Gallery Featured Artists
ASTU (Oak) / Jenna Bell (Oak) / Bells Atlas (Oak) / Bilal (Philly) / Kadhja Bonet (LA) / Brown Felinis (Oak) / Bugz in the Attik (UK) / Tommasso Cappellato (Italy) / Cavalier & Quelle Chris (NY) / Dave Chapelle (OH) / Mark DeClive-Lowe (LA) / Bernard Durand (LA) / Fela Kutchii (Oak) / Ha Sizzle (NO) / Nick Hakeem (NY) / Haneef and the Sound Voyagers (Oak) / The Hang House Band [Thomas Pridgen, Michael Louis Aaberg, Steve Hogan, Howard Wiley] (Oak) / Unar Bin Hassan of the Last Poets / Shafiq Hussain (LA) / Tiffany Gouché (LA) / Ivan Ave (Norway) / J Rocc (LA) / Jake and Abe (LA) / Kev Choice (Oak) / Lady Alma (PA) / Lalin (SF) / Martin Luther (SF) / Siya Makuzeni (South Africa) / MAVI (NC) / Rich Medina (NYC) / Georgia Anne Muldrow (LA) / Nina Sol (Oak) / Nyusi x Black Dynamite [Justin Brown x Mike Mitchell] (NY) / Omar (UK) / Kassa Overall w/ Abrose Akinmusire (Sea, Oak) / Ovrkast (Oak) / Pep Love (Oak) / Pivot Gang (Chi) / SOL Development (Oak) / SA-RA Creative Partners (LA) / Samoht (NC) / Javier Santiago (SF) / Selami Rose and Joe Louis Band (Oak) / Stone Mecca (LA) / Tall Black Guy (Bmore) / Thandi-Ntuli (South Africa) / Dwight Trible (LA) / Waajeed (Det) / Patrick Wilson (Oak) / WitchezBrew (NY) / Zion I (Oak) / ZuluZuluu (MN)