Category: Art
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Artist a Day Challenge 2016-2: Alma Thomas
The “Artist a Day Challenge” celebrates Black History Month by highlighting Black artists and diverse forms of cultural expression across the African diaspora.
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Artist a Day Challenge 2016-1: Frederic Douglass & the Power of Photography
In 2015 I embarked on a journey to highlight artists of color during Black History Month and I am happy to bring this important feature back to Culture Shock Art. Instead of the longer theoretical essays, I currently explore on TONDI, this February I will explore one artist, artistic medium or art movement each day during February. Both 2015…
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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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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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RIP Chris Burden
Chris Burden’s work has become a permanent fixture in the creative landscape of Los Angeles. While writing this blog over the years, Burden was revealed to me in many different forms. The most obvious was from his signature massive installation of Urban Light, a sea of 202 1920’s street lamps that he sourced and refurbished since 2000…
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Seeing Double at MOCA
Kahlil Joseph: Double Conscience It’s a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes 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 For me, a great litmus test for a good piece of…
Colony Little, Culture Shock Art 