Dionne Warwick knows her Twitter account is good. She first went viral last December after she tweeted at Chance the Rapper, “If you are very obviously a rapper why did you put it in your stage name?” (“I will be whatever you wanna call me Ms Warwick,” the young Chance demurred in response.)
Since then she’s delighted her more than 560,000 followers with her trademark sass — “Remember: If I follow you today, I can unfollow you tomorrow if foolishness is your thing” — and bluster — “I am always tweeting while wearing a black, vintage sequin gown…as divas do.” (To the delight of fans, she even crashed an “SNL” sketch about herself last week.)
But when curator Peter “Souleo” Wright reached out about turning her social media missives into a show for the Newark Arts Festival, the 80-year-old singer was surprised.
“I’ve heard a lot of things being done with tweets but never that,” the New Jersey native told The Post, with a bemused laugh. “I’m flattered that someone thought my tweets were something that would draw attention.”
They certainly have. “Dionne Warwick: Queen of Twitter” had a smash run during the Newark Arts Festival last month, so much so that it’s now running Nov. 20 at Newark’s Hahne & Co. building, site of the old department store where Warwick used to shop for blouses as a kid. The show features paintings, installations, collages, video and sculpture inspired by some of the Grammy winner’s most notable tweets.
“I wanted artists who had come from a different range of mediums, [that way] there’s an entry point for everyone,” Wright said of the six people he commissioned to create works for the exhibit.
But, he added, “I also wanted artists who I could trust to get the essence of the show. It’s not just a cheeky thing, we wanted to also show the substance in not only her tweets, but in her entire legacy … [to] really use [the tweets] as an entry point to celebrating her entire career and longevity.”
That legacy, of course, starts long before Warwick joined Twitter in 2020 and went viral after ribbing younger musicians like Chance the Rapper and The Weeknd and dropping pearls of wisdom — and hilarity — throughout the pandemic.
Born in 1940 and raised in East Orange, NJ, Warwick received her first standing ovation at age 6 when her grandfather asked her to perform at his African Methodist Episcopal Church in Newark. In 1957, she and her sister started their own gospel group, the Gospelaires, and, after performing at Harlem’s Apollo Theater, sang background for such legends as Dinah Washington and Ray Charles. In 1963, she had her first solo Top 40 hit with “Don’t Make Me Over,” and went on to sing such classics as “Wishin’ and Hopin’,” “Walk on By” and “That’s What Friends Are For.”
Many of the works in the show not only mine Warwick’s tweets for material, they also reference her past. The mixed-media artist Lavett Ballard’s “I Say a Little Prayer” installation features a church pew — sourced with help from Ballard’s preacher husband — filled with the accoutrements of black church life: a lace shawl, a paper fan, a tambourine and, in a contemporary touch, a surgical mask. Behind it, Ballard has hung dozens of exquisitely painted collages depicting black life as well as Warwick’s own career to, per the artist, “create a visual timeline and narrative of how each tweet came from life experience and wisdom.”
Felandus Thames also drew on the black community for his work, “Karma.” It features 40 hairbrushes with bristles he methodically picked apart and arranged to form the letters spelling out one of Warwick’s tweets: “Karma doesn’t care if you were ‘just doing your job.’”
“After encountering her Twitter feed, I was overwhelmed by the copious amount of wisdom distilled in 140 characters,” Thames — who grew up in the 1970s hearing Warwick’s music — told The Post.
“My practice explores the ‘chocolate side of town,’ and materials that are associated with and connect us to the diaspora,” he said when asked why he chose to use hairbrushes to pay homage to the singer. “[My] materials are gathered from bodegas, beautiful supply stores, restaurants, churches, barbershops, etc. in hopes of finding objects that hold memory.”
Meanwhile, Dianne Smith’s powerful video installation “‘What the World Needs Now” reminds visitors that Warwick has always advocated for peace, unity and civil rights. It’s inspired by her tweets on the Capitol insurrection and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Some of Warwick’s tweets:
Other standouts include fashion designer Beau McCall’s cheeky collages made from his collection of buttons and magazine and newspaper cut-outs that reference Warwick’s saucier tweets, such as her beefing with Wendy Williams. When the talk-show host said she didn’t believe Warwick wrote her own tweets, the singer responded with “No, I will not be egging @WendyWilliams house. It is cold outside.”
Pamela Council’s neon “Auntie” sculpture, meanwhile, has proved a hit on Instagram. And Jo-El Lopez’s stunning portrait portrays Ms. Warwick in a resplendent purple gown as “The Queen.”
“I love that one,” Warwick told The Post. “That’s my favorite color, so [the artist] really got me!”
The show also includes magazine covers, awards and other ephemera from Warwick’s 60-year career, and the singer even contributed her beloved Raiders cap and the ugly Christmas sweater Jimmy Fallon gave her after a Twitter exchange last holiday season.
“It’s wonderful to be recognized,” Warwick said. “I’m very surprised and very happy.”
“Dionne Warwick: Queen of Twitter” is open Fridays and Saturdays through Nov. 20, from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m., Hahne & Co., 609 Broad St., Newark, NJ.