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Artist a Day: Frieze Edition
Art fairs are like glorified prom nights for collectors and as such, galleries are the poor chauffeurs, dress makers, and florists that have to cater to whims of giddy, hopeful, attendees– Frieze L.A. was no exception. For those of us who are outside both the blue chip collector class and the P&L engines that drive…
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Artist a Day: Kehinde Wiley
Over the last 2 months, every museum that I have visited has featured work by Kehinde Wiley, and this piece at Duke’s Nasher Museum of Art is probably one of my favorites purely because of its location. St. John the Baptist II is part of the Nasher’s permanent collection, and they chose to place the…
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Artist a Day: Charles White
I was recently in North Carolina and came across a painting by Charles White at the Nasher Museum of Art that had remained in a collector’s private possession since the work was originally sold in 1958. Seeing newly uncovered work is always a thrill, especially as Los Angeles is the latest host for White’s career…
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Artist a Day: Louis Draper
I’ve spent the better part of this rainy week devoting time in the Artist a Day series to the incredible black and white photography created by artists in the Kamoinge Workshop; one common thread among them is that many were represented by the now shuttered Steven Kasher Gallery in New York. Kasher wound down his…
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Artist a Day: Shawn Walker
“Any photographer that’s been out here in the world, you see 2 people in white, you follow them…” Shawn Walker, VMFA 2017. As one of the founding members of Kamoinge, Shawn Walker dedicated his life’s work to black and white photography. He counts Roy DeCarava as one of his strongest influences, and in his 2017…
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Artist a Day: Beuford Smith
Good storytelling, just like a good joke, lives and dies on timing. It comes as no surprise that photographer Beuford Smith knows a thing or two about timing. His black and white photography capturing the streets of New York all bear the same marker of sublime, serendipitous timing. Smith’s photographs are mementos of moments which…
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Artist a Day: Ming Smith
As a young model in New York, Ming Smith was drawn to photography and portraiture. Her friendship with photographer Anthony Barboza cultivated her artistic interests and she eventually became the first woman to join New York’s Kamoinge’s photography collective. In 1975 MoMA acquired one of her works making Smith the first Black woman photographer represented…
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Artist a Day: Tom Lloyd
Tom Lloyd’s light art holds a unique position in the history of the Studio Museum of Harlem. When the museum held its first exhibition in 1968, it chose Lloyd’s electronic sculptures in a show titled, Electronic Refractions. According to the museum the work defied expectations as a departure from figurative Black art showing even at its…
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Artist a Day: William T. Williams
I’ve been thinking about the traveling exhibition Soul of a Nation and the artists, particularly the abstract painters from this era and how they approached their work during the tumultuous societal and economic shifts that took place between the 1960s and 1970s in New York. One common thread among many of the artists in the Black Arts…
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Artist a Day: Barbara Jones-Hogu
Barbara Jones-Hogu was one of the 5 founding members of South Chicago’s AfriCOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists). The collective came together in 1968 to identify and cultivate a cohesive artistic voice around Black art that speaks to aesthetics, and more importantly to the viewer’s experience as Black Americans. Jones-Hogu’s contributions to AfriCOBRA…
Colony Little, Culture Shock Art 