Category: writing
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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 (10): W.E.B Du Bois, Writer, Scholar, Artist?
“It’s a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eye of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.” W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk In yesterday’s post we placed a spotlight on Theaster Gates…
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Artist a Day Challenge (9): Theaster Gates at Regen Projects
Theaster Gates puts viewers to work when they experience his art, and this is precisely what drew me to a particular group of paintings at his current show Regen Projects in L.A. The exhibition titled But to Be a Poor Race is an homage to W.E.B. Du Bois’ 1903 book, The Souls of Black Folk, the seminal series of essays…
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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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“So Be It, See To It.”
Yesterday’s post on Radio Imagination at the Armory Center for the Arts focused on one artist’s creative interpretation of Octavia Butler’s famous novels, Kindred. The show also featured digital snapshots of Butler’s papers currently cataloged at the Huntington Library in Pasadena. Manuscripts, character sketches, childhood stories, and journal entries all provide us with an expositive look into Butler’s creative process including…
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Octavia Butler’s Radio Imagination
One of the best books I read in 2016 was Kindred by Octavia Butler and one of the most powerful essays I read in 2016 was “Broken Defaced and Unseen: the Hidden Black Female Figures of Western Art”, by Robin Coste Lewis. One work explored time travel, slavery and the black female body while the other takes the…
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Artist a Day Challenge 2016-5: Emory Douglas on Creating a Culture of Resistance
The graphics were bold, the symbolism was strong and the messages were provocative. Emory Douglas’ graphic design work became the visual voice of movement dedicated to the fight for civil rights and social justice. As the “Minister of Culture” for the Black Panther Party, Emory Douglas used punchy printmaking to tell captivatingly strong stories that depicted the…
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New Site! TONDI
My new site is officially up! I’m excited about trying something new and I invite you all to continue to follow my journey into contemporary art on TONDI. I truly value all of my followers on WordPress and have learned so much from this first blog. Cheers to a new beginning!
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Superscript Speculation
In preparation for tomorrow’s 2015 Superscript conference on media and art criticism, the Walker Center has published a virtual interview series probing industry influencers to speculate on the future of arts journalism in an environment where access to and consumption of art has gone through a dynamic shift in the last 10 years. The key…
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Today’s Google Doodle: February 1, 2015
Today is Langston Hughes’ 113 birthday, and Google has posted a beautiful doodle in tribute to the writer. I am smitten with the animation by doodler Katy Wu and how the illustration captures the vibrancy of the jazz age and the beautiful message in his poetry. Hughes deftly recognized our stark, painful realities while artistically transcending the pain…
Colony Little, Culture Shock Art 