Category: Art/Culture
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Decoding Sunshine-Glenn Ligon at the Broad
Glenn Ligon baffles me—the more I look at his work, the less I understand, and because it’s so layered, I learn something new with every attempt I make to decode a piece. It’s a challenge I gladly accept. In the Broad’s latest group show called “A Journey That Wasn’t” Ligon explores the fluidity of time, race,…
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Anonymous Was a Woman
During the last two months, I’ve been batting around the idea of starting a newsletter to share articles, exhibition announcements, some of my recent publications, etc. , but before I think too deeply about actually doing it, invariably another news crisis, deadline or other distraction ultimately shift my focus elsewhere. This week, two stories captured…
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What’s in a Name? Reflections from the Looking Glass
It happened without fail on the first day of school, always with such a predictable regularity that it became comical. In the first few minutes of a new class, a teacher would fastidiously take roll call, easily cruising through all the last names until they got to the “Ls”. That’s when the knot in my…
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Street Art In Shoreditch
Perched high on top of a street sign in the middle of a sidewalk near Shoreditch, a small bronze angel peers over the bustling street below. Its outstretched wings point to two very different sections of this East End borough: on one side of Sclater street, old 2-story, arched masonry buildings are adorned with tags…
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There ARE Black People in the Future
In a gentrifying neighborhood in Pittsburgh, a gridded black billboard with white lettering sits on top of a two-story building. The unassuming signage resembles a large scale version of those vintage letterboards that you may find in front of a school, church or coffee house. The Last Billboard is a public art project that…
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Same Ol’ MOCA
In 2009 MOCA had miraculously survived a financial crisis that left them vulnerable to bankruptcy and acquisition. After receiving an infusion of capital that required them to tighten their belts, the museum was anxious to move forward when they announced their new attitude under the guise of a turnaround campaign called “MOCA New”. When that…
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Artist a Day: Mark Bradford
Jack Whitten, Mark Bradford’s friend, and artistic inspiration loved jazz. When reflecting on his evolving improvisational process with paint, Whitten once commented to the Walker that “The person who got me trapped in all of this was John Coltrane.” Some of Whitten’s favorite albums included Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and John Coltrane’s Blue Train,…
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Artist a Day: Lorna Simpson
Lorna Simpson’s work body of multi-media work is so diverse it’s too hard to single out just one work for discussion, but I’m picking a piece she created in 2016 that I recently saw at the Tate Modern. Then and Now is an appropriated photo from the Detroit riots of 1967—a screen-printed tableau that’s split…
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Artist a Day: Njideka Akunyili Crosby
From the L.A. Times: “Njideka is an artist who has the capacity to really bring together worlds that may not stand in unison. Which is to say the continental African experience and that of black folks living in diaspora,” says Jamillah James, curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In 2015, when James…
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Artist a Day: Purvis Young
In light of the recent Town Halls and discussions taking place between our youth and our anemic leadership on gun control, I am inspired by this particular moment that they have seized. Their work taps into a long legacy of youth advocates selflessly serving as catalysts for change. While we applaud these current efforts to…
Colony Little, Culture Shock Art 