Category: Los Angeles
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Artist a Day Challenge 2016-28: Shinique Smith
When I started Culture Shock Art in 2010, my goal was to explore street art and graffiti in Los Angeles, after I stumbled upon street artist JR’s work completely by accident. The process of discovery through investigating the origins of one of his murals led me to his 2010 TED talk after which I purchased one of his lithographs. That…
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Artist a Day Challenge 2016-19: Noah Davis “The Imitation of Wealth”
Noah Davis’ storefront installation titled “Imitation of Wealth” is nearing the end of its 5 month run at MOCA Grand. If you haven’t seen it, you have 3 days left, it’s free and it’s a fascinating work. The installation is housed in a small vacant conference room space across from the museum’s gift shop and is…
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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 2016-8: 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 2016-3: Njideka Akunyili Crosby
“Ask the ‘Why’, it’s not enough to say ‘it’s beautiful.’ “~Njideka Akunyili Crosby “Beautiful” is exactly how I described Crosby’s show at the Hammer in November. There are so many layers to her work it’s hard to focus on one aspect of it. I now realize that in many ways that is the point. On the surface…
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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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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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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 