Category: Photography
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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: Deborah Roberts
Thrown, in this way, into the binding conviction that only a miracle could relieve her, she would never know her beauty. She would only see what there was to see: the eyes of other people. Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye Art history, fashion and pop culture have maintained an unrelenting hold onto euro-centric ideas of…
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Artist a Day: Gary Simmons
I first saw Gary Simmons’s work in the magnificent lobby of CAAM last year. The mural titled, Fade to Black is an homage to classic silent films that featured all-black casts. These films were necessary representations that were created to counter the racist depictions of African-Americans in propaganda films like Birth of a…
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New Orleans Unfolds as the Canvas for Prospect.4
Prospect.4 officially kicked off Saturday, November 18 and the roster of international artists in the city-wide triennial is chock full of familiar and new talent whose work I’ve long admired. I was able to get a digital copy of the event’s catalog and after sampling the work from some of the artists chosen for the…
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Booths Without Borders at DesignerCon 2017
For pop culture enthusiasts, there’s an unlimited number of conventions where you can connect with your tribe. There are gamer cons, comic cons, anime cons, dragon cons, quilt cons and even a con that celebrates inclusion. I love spaces where art and kitsch collide and for the past 10 years, DesignerCon has become one of…
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National Pink Day, Through Art
So today is National Pink Day and everyone is busy sharing pictures of their best selves donning pink clothes and drinking frosé (I had no idea frozen rosé was a thing until last week). But for me, the first thing I thought of was James Turrell’s Breathing Light which just wrapped its legendary 5 year…
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A Word on Juneteenth
Today’s Instagram Post on @cultureshockart “Juneteenth is a day of mixed emotions for me. A wise, dear friend says this is a reminder of how close joy and grief are often connected. The joy comes from thinking of the beautiful history of my family today and the grief is tied to the complexities in knowing…
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Holding a Mirror to Ourselves: Genevieve Gaignard in The Powder Room
“We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay – and rise!” ~Dr. Maya Angelou We are arguably our most vulnerable when we are alone with a mirror. It’s…
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New Definitions (and Questions) of Power Emerge in a Show Featuring Black Women Artists
For 3 years I have dedicated the month of February to daily posts that celebrate black artists. It was a personal writing challenge as much as it was an artistic one because I wanted to expand my knowledge of black contemporary artists that were underrepresented in traditional arts publications. The artists I featured have greatly influenced the work that…
Colony Little, Culture Shock Art 