Category: sculpture
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The Veiled Genius of Ruth Asawa
Ruth Asawa’s art celebrates diversity of style and technique. Drawing from illustration, painting, dance, basket weaving, music and pottery, her multi-disciplined approach to art was nurtured as a student at Black Mountain College in the late 40’s. Her introduction to art however, came to Asawa under less than auspicious circumstances. During WW II Asawa’s entire…
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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 2016-27: Ebony Patterson
Last year I took a class with the Sotheby’s Institute of Arts where a fellow student shared the work of Ebony Patterson, and I have not forgotten their work since. One particular piece stands out to me as one that honors the past while challenging the viewer to see the present. In Patterson’s 2014 performance…
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Artist a Day Challenge 2016-18: David Hammons
Most of David Hammons work is aligned with assemblage (the practice of incorporating found materials in art), so this particular piece departs from his traditional aesthetic. Despite this, the work remains contextually rooted in some of his earlier themes. In the 1980s Hammons created the “Basketball Hoops Series” to address the myth of sport as…
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Artist a Day Challenge 2016-11: Nick Cave
Nick Cave’s soundsuits are wondrously colorful, captivating, sculptural pieces that amplify the beauty of the human body in motion. In 1992 Cave created his first soundsuit out of twigs and discarded items found in a park and conceived the suit in response to police brutality after the Rodney King beatings in Los Angeles. That first soundsuit was a commentary on the detachment between the…
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An Uncomfortable Silence: Doris Salcedo
For as long as I’ve been writing Culture Shock Art one of my biggest challenges involves whether I should write about work I have not seen in person. In order to effectively write a piece about a specific piece of art you have to see it in person, otherwise you cannot bring a reader into the process…
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Artist a Day Challenge No. 20: Kehinde Wiley
Los Angeles born artist Kehinde Wiley has developed his career in New York as a portrait artist whose work is being celebrated in an exhibition that recently opened at the Brooklyn Museum. In “A New Republic” his work depicts men and women placed in traditional forms of portraiture fusing that history with a present day aesthetic. It is…
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Artist a Day Challenge No. 8 Terry Adkins
Terry Adkins passed away one year ago today. It was clear that during his diverse career he was a creative catalyst for many as a professor and multi-disciplinary artist. I like the way he turns his subjects and concepts on their end by highlighting a little known or under-appreciated aspect of them. In this way he…
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Artist a Day Challenge No.4: Elizabeth Catlett
In November I saw “Sharecropper” by Elizabeth Catlett at LACMA. I loved the depiction of the duality of strength and despair shown as byproducts of exploitation in this piece. As a graphic designer and sculptor in the 30’s and 40’s, much of Catlett’s art highlighted African-American and Mexican women as caretakers, patriarchs, workers and nurturers; her work was used as a platform…
Colony Little, Culture Shock Art 