Perched high on top of a street sign in the middle of a sidewalk near Shoreditch, a small bronze angel peers over the bustling street below. Its outstretched wings point to two very different sections of this East End borough: on one side of Sclater street, old 2-story, arched masonry buildings are adorned with tags … Continue reading Street Art In Shoreditch
In a gentrifying neighborhood in Pittsburgh, a gridded black billboard with white lettering sits on top of a two-story building. The unassuming signage resembles a large scale version of those vintage letterboards that you may find in front of a school, church or coffee house. The Last Billboard is a public art project that … Continue reading There ARE Black People in the Future
Before Rap Squats became a meme, any musical artist coming out of the 1980’s had to have a perfect album cover pose, and Jamel Shabazz’s photography captured the look. His portraits not only gave us a contemplative look at Brooklyn in the 1980’s and 1990’s, his ability to connect to his … Continue reading Artist a Day: Jamel Shabazz
“Words work as release–well-oiled doors opening and closing between intention, gesture. A pulse in a neck, the shiftiness of the hands, an unconscious blink, the conversations you have with your eyes translate everything and nothing. What will be needed, what goes unfelt, unsaid-what has been duplicated, redacted here, redacted there, altered to hide or disguise—words … Continue reading Artist a Day: Alexandra Bell
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 … Continue reading Booths Without Borders at DesignerCon 2017
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 Continue reading A Culture Shock Art Gift Guide
The 2015 Netflix trailer for the Get Down gave us a glimpse of 1970’s New York and the birth of hip hop with the fire and drama you would expect from a Baz Luhrmann production. When the show launched August 12, they managed to deliver on lush cinematography, stunning style and familiar hip hop samples, but well after an … Continue reading The Let Down: Netflix’s Ambitious Take on the Birth of Hip Hop Falls Flat
Camilo Jose Vergara’s work takes a historical photographic look at the dramatic evolution and dissolution of New York’s neighborhoods over decades. I really love his early early 1970’s work. For me, the most captivating series is “Old New York”, a body of photos that exposed the neglected, desolated, apocalyptic cultural landscape existing in the South Bronx. In these pictures you … Continue reading Camilo Jose Vergara’s “Old New York”
When I think about disco in New York in the 1970’s I think of the lotus flower. You can get so lost in the complexitiy of its beauty that it’s easy to overlook the murky waters the flower emerged from. We are entranced by a mythoized notion of disco marked by flashing neon lights and ribald … Continue reading The Fire and the Lotus: Proto Disco in New York
After Rio’s shiny, spectacular Opening Ceremony on Friday I came across this sobering picture that quickly brought me back to reality and filtered my view of the Olympic games. Brazil’s honest portrayal of the slave trade and the upbeat, energetic favela portion of the ceremony obscured some of the horrific present day realities behind the historical and … Continue reading Behind the Walls: The Art of the Favelas
Culture Shock Art 