Category: Museums
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“So Be It, See To It.”
Yesterday’s post on Radio Imagination at the Armory Center for the Arts focused on one artist’s creative interpretation of Octavia Butler’s famous novels, Kindred. The show also featured digital snapshots of Butler’s papers currently cataloged at the Huntington Library in Pasadena. Manuscripts, character sketches, childhood stories, and journal entries all provide us with an expositive look into Butler’s creative process including…
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A Culture Shock Art Gift Guide
Let’s be honest. It’s really my wish list…Champagne wishes on a beer budget. Cheers! ~ C Links to Featured Designers/Artists/Writers: Chloe´ Joe Purse Building Block Coin Dumpling, Bucket Bag Marni Blinky Wallet La Californienne Vintage Black Glamour Ricky Powell John McLaughlin, images from LACMA Ellsworth Kelly
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Do I Look Like a Lady? Mickalene Thomas at MOCA
“We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile…” ~Paul Lawrence Dunbar There’s something strangely familiar inside the dimly lit living room installation of Mickalene Thomas’s latest exhibition, “Do I Look Like a Lady?”…
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Truth to Power: Sojourner Truth at BAMPFA
“I SELL THE SHADOW TO SUPPORT THE SUBSTANCE.” SOJOURNER TRUTH In 1864 Sojourner Truth, a former slave turned abolitionist, filed a copyright for her name, using photography and mass media as a strategic tool to fight slavery and the damaging propaganda used to perpetuate it. Her astute use of “cartes de visites”using her nom de plume was an economical…
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The Santa Monica Museum of Art Heads East
Last spring, in a strategic move that I related to on a very personal level, the Santa Monica Museum of Art decided to pull up stakes on its Bergamot Station location to re-evaluate its mission in a self-reflective, revitalization effort called SMMoA Unbound. Today the museum announced that it would be relocating from Santa Monica…
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SFMOMA in 3: Part 3
Recognizing that 3 posts about SFMOMA may have been overkill, I would be remiss if I didn’t share some observations on the functional space and the technology in addition to a couple of warnings that may save you from some awkward museum moments. Everything about the new building orchestrates visitors to the Fisher collection, which…
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SF MOMA in 3: Part 2
Now that we got the essentials out of the way in yesterday’s post, it’s time to see some art! As I previously warned, I don’t suggest you try to see everything in 1 day. There are 7 floors of art, so I suggest that you pick 3 and spend some quality time with the collections.…
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SFMOMA in 3
Seasoned arts professionals who visited San Francisco last Thursday for a press preview of the magnificent new Museum of Modern Art also ambitiously popped over to the new Gagosian space, the Wattis Institute or Minnesota St Projects all in the same day. I am far from seasoned. After my day at SFMOMA I stumbled into the bar at 111…
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Art + Practice Re-Visits “Bad” Painting
“Not Bad Meaning Bad, but Bad Meaning Good.”-Peter Piper, Run DMC In 1978 the New Museum opened “Bad” Painting, an exhibition featuring artists that eschewed conventional artistic practices to create work that challenged precepts of high culture and countered Minimalist/Conceptualist art. “It is figurative work that defies, either deliberately or by virtue of disinterest, the classic…
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The Ghost in the Machine: Mark Bradford & Robert Glasper Combine Creative Forces
Art and music collide in a beautifully explosive Steinway & Sons collaboration that showcases the Spirio piano in a new light. The Steinway Commission pairs visual artists with Steinway musicians to create unique works of art that reflect their collaborative vision and process. This three year project makes its debut with a Steinway Spirio piano that…
Colony Little, Culture Shock Art 