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Artist a Day Challenge (12): DeCarava and Jazz
“In between that one-fifteenth of a second there is a thickness.” Roy DeCarava Roy DeCarava’s photos of jazz musicians are some of my favorites in his body of work. Photographers who are also musicians in their own right, capture what the rest of us don’t see in the moment. “Jazz I think approaches the visual experience…
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Artist a Day Challenge (11): Roy DeCarava
Photography has always been used as a powerful tool for social change. From Frederick Douglass’ early adoption of photography a medium for countering negative images, to Sojourner Truth’s use of Cartes de Visites, W.E.B DuBois’ curated images at the Paris Exhibition of 1900, to James Van Der Zee’s documenting of the black middle class during the Harlem…
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Artist a Day Challenge (10): W.E.B Du Bois, Writer, Scholar, Artist?
“It’s a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eye of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.” W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk In yesterday’s post we placed a spotlight on Theaster Gates…
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Artist a Day Challenge (9): Theaster Gates at Regen Projects
Theaster Gates puts viewers to work when they experience his art, and this is precisely what drew me to a particular group of paintings at his current show Regen Projects in L.A. The exhibition titled But to Be a Poor Race is an homage to W.E.B. Du Bois’ 1903 book, The Souls of Black Folk, the seminal series of essays…
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Artist a Day Challenge (8): The Unknown Collective of Eleven Associated
I mentioned in my first Artist a Day Challenge post how instrumental the Hammer’s digital catalog for Now Dig This! was in documenting many of the incredible artists that came out of the black arts movement between the 1960s’-1970’s. The curator for the show, Dr. Kellie Jones and her team uncovered some interesting themes, one of which was the…
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Artist a Day Challenge (7): William Pajaud
William Pajaud was a New Orleans based artist who lived in Los Angeles and specialized in design and watercolor. He was also the first appointed art director for Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company. During his tenure as art director and later as a public relations director he amassed a collection of over 200 works…
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Artist a Day Challenge (6): The Disrupters
Change is not always an organic process, sometimes it needs a little nudge. When it came to diverse cultural representation within Los Angeles museums in the 1960s, LACMA in particular needed a few nudges… and a good push toward progress. One late December evening on Wilshire Boulevard in 1968, a curious crowd formed around the Ahmanson’ building…
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Artist a Day Challenge (5) Beulah Ecton Woodard
In Los Angeles in the 1960’s many black artists including Charles White, Ruth Waddy and Samella Lewis fought for representation in local museums including LACMA. Little did I know that at least one artist had been given a solo show there decades prior. Beulah Ecton Woodard was an artist/sculptor born in Ohio in 1895 who grew up in Los Angeles.…
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Artist a Day Challenge (4) Charles White
Black artists that came of age in the 1940’s formed a tight network of trailblazers, visionaries, influencers and connectors. When I think of the legendary Charles White I see a connector. Nearly every black artist that created art between the 1940’s and 1980’s were influenced in some way by Charles White. His guidance and advocacy ignited the careers of many artists.…
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Artist a Day Challenge (3) Elizabeth Catlett
I hear Shakespeare’s “what’s past is prologue” on a regular basis these days. When we study history with the unique privledge of time and ideological distance, it’s too easy to criticize what we once considered unfathomable. The atrocities of the past would not dare repeat themselves in the present, because the scars and the pain remain fresh–they never…
Colony Little, Culture Shock Art 