Category: new york
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Artist a Day: Lorraine Hansberry
In 1957, a 27-year-old Lorraine Hansberry was busy writing a play when out of sheer exhaustion and frustration she threw the manuscript into the trash. Two years later that discarded text became a theatrical hit when a Raisin in the Sun premiered on Broadway in 1959 and paved the way for Hansberry’s highly decorated career as…
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Artist a Day: Kerry James Marshall
Happy Valentine’s Day! I’ve written about Marshall numerous times here, and today I thought I’d go simple and celebrate KJM’s love for love. All of these photos are from Mastry at MOCA last year and it’s a show that I still think of often. Kerry James Marshall’s Mastry Examines the Power of the Image…
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Artist a Day: Romare Bearden
Looking at Romare Bearden’s Sea Nymph reminded me of the underwater world created by Ellen Gallagher. Bearden’s collage works transports viewers to a vast array of worlds both real and supernatural. His work deserves a much larger post, but I invite you to get lost in the images found on the Romare Bearden…
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Artist a Day: Derrick Adams
Derrick Adams’ collage work reminds me of the elaborate mosaics of Romare Beardon. I get delightfully lost in them. The artist currently has a show running at the Museum of Arts and Design called Sanctuary, that draws inspiration from the Jim Crow era Green Books, which were essential travel guides for African-Americans traveling…
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Artist a Day: Hilton Als, Nothing Personal
“We have, it seems to me, a very curious sense of reality-or rather perhaps, I should say, a striking addiction to irreality.” James Baldwin, Nothing Personal, 1964. The book “Nothing Personal”, a collaboration between writer James Baldwin and photographer Richard Avedon, had an instrumental impact on a young Hilton Als growing up in Brooklyn.…
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Artist a Day: Melvin Edwards
“The Negro has been run over for 50 years, but it must stop now, and pistols and shotguns are the only weapons to stop a mob.”~ Eli Cooper As a farmer and an outspoken advocate for unionizing farm laborers, Eli Cooper was determined to fight for better wages from landowners, however his advocacy was met…
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Artist a Day: Samuel Levi Jones in Sidelined
This post is about as close as I’m going to get to the Superbowl this year. At Galerie Lelong in New York, artist Samuel Levi Jones has curated a group show called Sidelined that interrogates power, how it manifests itself in sports and specifically in sport-related protest. Inspired by the NFL protests during the national…
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Artist a Day: Jack Whitten
“There’s no destination, there’s only the journey.” Jack Whitten came of age in the South and was involved in the Civil Rights movement while he was a student at Tuskegee and Southern University. After a demonstration in Baton Rouge left an indelible mark on his psyche, Whitten left Louisiana to attend Cooper Union in New…
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Artist a Day 2018: Mapping Midpoints
It’s February and the Culture Shock Art Artist a Day challenge is back for its 4th year! I’m excited to bring you some incredible artists whose work I will share every day this month. Some posts will include narrative bios of the artists, while in other posts I will let the art speak for itself.…
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On Monuments and Men
Our recollection of history is malleable, and confronting this paradox takes us down a tricky path of potholes filled with denial and subjectivities. The debate over Civil War monuments could have been a shorter one if we collectively had a better understanding of our history and the presence of mind to challenge our understanding…
Colony Little, Culture Shock Art 