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Common Reveals Hip Hop’s Lost Soul
The beautifully close cropped faces staring into the camera for Common’s latest video for Black America Again dare the viewer to look each subject directly in the eye. Their gaze is strong, inquisitive and evocative; you quickly get the sense that their gaze is knowingly somehow directed at you, challenging you to see them as complex individuals with unique stories,…
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Artist-Run Super PAC Challenges Power Politics
For Freedoms, the first artist-run Super PAC, was created earlier this year to offer an alternative perspective on concepts of power, voice and agency. By offering a platform for artists and scholars to explore the polemics of power, For Freedoms fuses art and activism through Town Halls, exhibitions and co-sponsored events with museums and local non-profit organizations. The…
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“And Now, the Rest of the Story”: Simone Leigh at the Hammer Museum
Last week my latest review of Simone Leigh’s exhibit was featured on Arts.Black.com. The piece takes a close look at two of the strong influences found in Leigh’s work, the Herero and the Cupboard. While reading though sources for this piece I came across the fascinating, tragic history of the Herero. This gave me a much…
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Do I Look Like a Lady? Mickalene Thomas at MOCA
“We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile…” ~Paul Lawrence Dunbar There’s something strangely familiar inside the dimly lit living room installation of Mickalene Thomas’s latest exhibition, “Do I Look Like a Lady?”…
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Hammer Projects: Simone Leigh
Happy Friday everyone! Today my review of Simone Leigh’s new show at the Hammer Museum is currently featured on Daily Serving. Be sure to check it out! ********* Colony Little explores Simone Leigh’s first West Coast solo exhibition at the Hammer in Los Angeles. Source: Hammer Projects: Simone Leigh
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Truth to Power: Sojourner Truth at BAMPFA
“I SELL THE SHADOW TO SUPPORT THE SUBSTANCE.” SOJOURNER TRUTH In 1864 Sojourner Truth, a former slave turned abolitionist, filed a copyright for her name, using photography and mass media as a strategic tool to fight slavery and the damaging propaganda used to perpetuate it. Her astute use of “cartes de visites”using her nom de plume was an economical…
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Time Travel with La Négresse
It is no coincidence that I experienced “La Négresse” by Jean Baptiste Carpeaux while at the Berkeley Art Museum last week. At the time I was reading “Kindred” by Octavia Butler, a pseudo science fiction novel (for lack of a better genre) set simultaneously in slavery and 1976. In the book a woman is transported…
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A Tribute to My Grandmother
Editor’s Note: Sometimes the important matters of life will creep onto this site. In all honesty, I have had a hard time focusing on art while dealing with the death of my beloved Grandmother on August 30th. I thought I’d share because she was so very special to me. I look forward to jumping back into…
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Stand on the Word: TGIF Edition
….and Disco begat breaks… While Larry Levan didn’t make this track, he made it known. TGIF! Go get your life.
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When Ignorance Isn’t Bliss: Youthful Indiscretions Don’t Always Remain in the Past
The theme for this week: “Youthful Indiscretions”. Our memories of the mistakes of our youth are sharply influenced by how we recount them over time. This week, a 32 year old swimmer at the Olympics got the benefit of an extension of his youth. Ryan Lochte was labeled a “kid” who was just having fun…
Colony Little, Culture Shock Art 