Category: new york
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Talking Heads: Jimmie Durham & Wangechi Mutu
I recently encountered two similar works of art, one in L.A. and the other online: the first is by an artist with a 40+ year career who has self selected out of the U.S. art scene for over 2 decades and the second is from a Kenyan born artist with a Brooklyn based practice…
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Artist a Day Challenge, 2017 Finale (28): Augusta Savage
As we close out Black History Month and usher in Women’s History Month, today’s post on Augusta Savage made sense for a number of reasons — the most important being that today is the artist’s birthday. Born on a leap year 125 years ago, Augusta Savage’s life story still resonates and her career exemplifies an unyielding determination to her art and a strong dedication to her…
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Artist a Day Challenge (24): Mark Bradford’s Homage to the Roxy
I have this mythologized view of New York that I have created entirely from the city’s nightclub scene between 1973 and 1987. The Loft, the Gallery, the Paradise Garage and the Roxy sit at the center of this utopia, with the music in these venues acting as the heartbeat of the city. Notice I didn’t mention Studio 54, because in my…
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Artist a Day Challenge (20): Dr. Lowery Stokes Sims
1999 was steeped in Y2K mania. Prince’s 1999 and R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World” made notable musical comebacks and served as the soundtrack for our collective psyche dealing with the pending certainty that the world was hurtling toward a computer programmed apocalypse. The turn of the century came and went without much as much of a blip but that didn’t…
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Artist a Day Challenge (18, 19): Sanford Biggers and Looking to the Past to Question the Present
The other day when I was looking through Jennie C. Jones’ paintings I came across a photo that seemed out of place in relation to her current body of work; what I didn’t realize was that the picture was an important point of departure for the creation of her subsequent work. Homage to an Unknown Suburban Black Girl circa 1969 features a young black woman…
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Artist a Day Challenge (15): James Baldwin
James Baldwin, 1945. Portrait by Richard Avedon. Photo Credit, National Portrait Gallery Yesterday’s post about Dawoud Bey took a close look at his 2013 Birmingham Project, a photographic examination of church bombings and deaths that took place in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963. Bey’s work was an attempt to reconcile the present through an examination…
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Artist a Day Challenge (12): DeCarava and Jazz
“In between that one-fifteenth of a second there is a thickness.” Roy DeCarava Roy DeCarava’s photos of jazz musicians are some of my favorites in his body of work. Photographers who are also musicians in their own right, capture what the rest of us don’t see in the moment. “Jazz I think approaches the visual experience…
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Artist a Day Challenge (11): Roy DeCarava
Photography has always been used as a powerful tool for social change. From Frederick Douglass’ early adoption of photography a medium for countering negative images, to Sojourner Truth’s use of Cartes de Visites, W.E.B DuBois’ curated images at the Paris Exhibition of 1900, to James Van Der Zee’s documenting of the black middle class during the Harlem…
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Ellis Island- 125 Years Later
I am not so blinded by my own history that I cannot see, appreciate or understand the complex journeys of others. What’s happening now was foreshadowed so very long ago but only now some have chosen to wake up. I know this realization doesn’t make today less hurtful, but I find myself wondering how and why the decisions…
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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
Colony Little, Culture Shock Art 