Category: black history
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Artist a Day Challenge 2016-17: Jefferson Pinder’s “Invisible Man”
“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.” Ralph Ellison All I am going to say in today’s post is, “press play.” INVISIBLE MAN from Jefferson Pinder on Vimeo. I will leave you with one more Ellison quote: “The understanding of art depends finally upon one’s willingness to extend one’s humanity and one’s…
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Artist a Day Challenge 2016-16: A Tale of Two Countries in Glenn Ligon’s “Double America”
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” As Dickens used literary parallelism in the opening sentence of “A Tale of Two Cities”, Glenn Ligon used a simple form visual parallelism that taps into today’s political discourse in a very profound way. “it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of…
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Artist a Day Challenge 2016-15: A Ruckus on the Runway: Black Models in Fashion
On November 28, 1973 America found itself officially placed on fashion’s map after the legendary Battle of Versailles runway show. This walk-off pitted American designers against French designers in an elaborately designed show that catapulted the U.S. to design prominence. The 5 American designers who showcased their work to an international crowd featured 10 black models- an unprecedented move in fashion. To…
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Artist a Day Challenge 2016-13-14: Malick Sidibé & Chris Ofili
Malick Sidibé’s work was prominent in the 1960’s and 1970’s when Mali gained its independence from the French and subsequently transitioned into and out of socialism. This cultural transformation became an underlying theme in Sidibé’s work. I love how his photography captures the exuberance of youth in Bamako-they are some of the most endearing photos…
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Artist a Day Challenge 2016-12: Lakwena
The Friday before a long weekend holds so much promise. I’m counting down the minutes until 5:00, so until then I am living for the work of Lakwena Maciver. Her work combines the bold, geometric lines found in Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings with the colorful graphics of 8 bit video games. Lakwena’s energetic paintings are punctuated with woodblock…
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Artist a Day Challenge 2016-11: Nick Cave
Nick Cave’s soundsuits are wondrously colorful, captivating, sculptural pieces that amplify the beauty of the human body in motion. In 1992 Cave created his first soundsuit out of twigs and discarded items found in a park and conceived the suit in response to police brutality after the Rodney King beatings in Los Angeles. That first soundsuit was a commentary on the detachment between the…
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Artist a Day Challenge 2016-10: Misty Copeland X Degas
The March issue of Bazaar hits newsstands on February 16h and today the magazine released stills of its photoshoot with American Ballet Theatre’s Principal Dancer Misty Copeland. The shoot is a Degas redux bringing some of the artist’s most famous work to life with Copeland wearing Alexander Mc Queen, Valentino, Roberto Cavalli, Alberta Ferretti and Oscar de la Renta. The re-creations…
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Artist a Day Challenge 2016-9: Brandan Odums & Noirlinians Usher in New Wave of Art in NOLA
Laissez le bon temps rouler! I’ve got New Orleans on my mind, so I thought I’d use today’s post to shine a light on the art that’s being made in the Crescent City today. Steeped in tradition, plagued by disaster and portrayed as a crown jewel of urban renewal, New Orleans is a multifaceted and deeply…
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Artist a Day Challenge 2016-8: Brenna Youngblood
Moody Mondays beg for a beautifully moody piece. Brenna Youngblood’s work combines expressionist and textural techniques with her formal background in photography. She takes found pieces of everyday objects like discarded paper bags, tree shaped car fresheners and photographs and applies them to canvas. Her paintings embody that point of collision between color field painting and abstraction. Youngblood’s 2015 Project 50 Series explored…
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Artist a Day Challenge 2016-7: Thornton Dial
Thornton Dial, “Stars of Everything”, 2004. Photo credit: Souls Grown Deep Today I’m highlighting an artist I wrote about for my second site TONDI. TONDI hosts digital exhibitions and explores broader social themes relating to contemporary art, music and design. I recently wrote a piece about Thornton Dial that was a commentary on how arts writers categorized him as an artist, but for…
Colony Little, Culture Shock Art 