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CicLAvia Reveals the “Heart of LA”
Over 6 miles of downtown streets were closed to traffic in the heart of Los Angeles for CicLAvia. Yesterday officially marked the 5 year anniversary of the event that celebrates physical activity, community engagement and alternative modes of transportation. During CicLAvia all non motorized modes of transportation are free to take over the blocked off streets of…
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Re-Post: “The Joyous Revolutionary: The Art of Corita Kent”
I thought I would share my latest post on TONDI featuring Corita Kent who was a nun/art director who harmonized social activism with punchy graphic, pop art. Her work was inspired by Andy Warhol and it is currently on view in an exhibition called “Someday Is Now” at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. For more on Sister…
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Virtual Exhibition: Burn Baby Burn!
TONDI’s first virtual exhibition Burn Baby Burn will take you into the work of Mark Bradford and Noah Purifoy who were each given large scale retrospectives at the Hammer and LACMA this summer. The virtual exhibition is anchored by two essays that probe into specific works found in each exhibit. In Scorched Earth we examine how…
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New Site! TONDI
My new site is officially up! I’m excited about trying something new and I invite you all to continue to follow my journey into contemporary art on TONDI. I truly value all of my followers on WordPress and have learned so much from this first blog. Cheers to a new beginning!
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On Sabbatical: Notes from the Rabbit Hole
The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice. `Who are YOU?’ said the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, `I–I hardly know, sir,…
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An Uncomfortable Silence: Doris Salcedo
For as long as I’ve been writing Culture Shock Art one of my biggest challenges involves whether I should write about work I have not seen in person. In order to effectively write a piece about a specific piece of art you have to see it in person, otherwise you cannot bring a reader into the process…
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Wandering: DTLA’s Arts District
Last year I went to a meeting at the CleanTech Incubator near the L.A. river and I was surprised to see how much development has gone into the Arts District. Over the last few months I’ve been getting acquainted to L.A.’s latest gentrified, “it” neighborhood. Here’s what I LOVE about it: The energy is phenomenal (I…
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Art Book Review: “A Harlem Family”, Gordon Parks
“I got fed up with hearing all these people, even Negroes, ask, “Why are those people rioting?” My personal project was to show them why. You have to know what they go through before you can understand why all the violence takes place…” ~ Gordon Parks I love to collect art books that feature prominent…
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Missing the Marc
In 2015, “Cultural Appropriation” has replaced 2013’s “micro-aggression” as journalistic code for bias and ignorance. Notice I didn’t say racism, because in many cases I don’t think that cultural appropriation is deliberately borne out of racism, but it is certainly symptomatic of it. This week’s lesson in cultural appropriation came to us via Black Twitter and…
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Superscript Speculation
In preparation for tomorrow’s 2015 Superscript conference on media and art criticism, the Walker Center has published a virtual interview series probing industry influencers to speculate on the future of arts journalism in an environment where access to and consumption of art has gone through a dynamic shift in the last 10 years. The key…
Colony Little, Culture Shock Art 