The 1960s Black Arts Movement ignited an important cultural event among its participants. Visual artists addressed themes of Black pride, self-determination, and culture. Preceding it was the Harlem Renaissance (1920–29) with aesthetic architect, Alain Locke, the...
In a planet crowded with polarizing paradigms, is it possible to contribute aesthetically to larger conversations about culture and existence? Life by Design, a group show currently at the Gresham Gallery at San Bernardino Valley College (SBVC), masterfully...
Dear Reader, I had the unexpected pleasure of spending four hours at Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum with my 93-year-old mother-in-law recently. Not that visiting the Fogg is unusual—we’ve done it for years, practically every summer. But this time we spent four hours...
We observe this unfolding in Packer’s paintings: intimate, cozy scenes of home life turn into majestic statements of Blackness, power, and vulnerability. There is something political about how dynamic these paintings are and how they challenge the conventions of portraiture painting. The paintings actively diverge from the authority and rigidness associated with classical portraiture.
Mari Evans’ poem, “I am a Black Woman” was resurrected through the “Passion Power Prayer” exhibition at Band of Vices, featuring abstract paintings by Lisa Diane Wedgeworth. With a singular vision her works extend an invitation, as in The Matrix (1999): to take the...
Eponymous Black is a stout, surly fellow with bad breath and a death drive that rivals Ophelia. His only friends are the pigeons in Central Park, and even they have their reservations, as often he’s deliberately stingy with the dissemination of the most coveted heels...
Black Art: In the Absence of Light, is a most timely and info-packed HBO documentary, briskly propelled by terrific interviews with artists, curators and educators. It opens by introducing us to a landmark exhibition, “Two Centuries of Black American Art,” that opened...
When I talk with Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe, his smiling face lights up the video conference window as he speaks of joy. He hopes to bring joy to the subjects of his portraits, and to those that view them. Picking up the range of tonality in Blackness, his portraits...
The last time I was bowled over by an artist’s installation was Damien Hirst’s Theories, Models, Methods, Approaches, Assumptions, Results and Findings at Gagosian, New York in 2000. I have just seen and felt the bar raised again. The artist doesn’t live in New York...
African painter Amoako Boafo is bringing a fresh and unique perspective to portraiture and figurative painting. Based in Vienna since about 2014, the young Ghanaian is now showing a series of new works titled “Black Diaspora” that cast a subtle, but probing look at...
"Spotlight—Selections from Kehinde Wiley’s The World Stage: Israel" is small, but splendid. The exhibit attracts through its display of exuberant colors, masterful artistic skill, and political relevance. It consists of two large-scale paintings from Wiley’s “World...
LOS ANGELES: A FAIR DESTINATION This winter The Other Art Fair (March 15–18) tested its feet in LA waters—launched by Saatchi Art, the online art gallery, the fair is billed as “An Art Fair for a New Generation of Art Buyers.” On the weekend the crowds came in droves...
It’s been a tumultuous week in Los Angeles; and for a change, we can’t blame it entirely on the Putin-wannabe currently installed in The White House or his cronies and GOP enablers – notwithstanding the fact that he happened to blow into town this same week to pick a...
The experience of art in Los Angeles is always both very specific to its localized encounter and acutely conscious of its engagement with the world. As political forces outside California moved to further isolate us in 2017, that dialogue and artists’ sensitivity to...
Kerry James Marshall’s current retrospective at MoCA is less a ‘Pick-of-the-Week’ than a Must of the Year. Regardless of the particulars of each individual’s experience, it is a show that compels serious reevaluation of the historical canon of Western painting (and...
Injecting one or more inane Star Wars puns into a discussion of George Lucas’ proposed museum would be de rigueur; but I’ll abstain. It is time to take Lucas’ idea seriously. Suspend the adulation. Cut the skepticism of commercial pictures’ merit. A 275,000...
It’s cold. He looks even larger in his winter coat. He is a large man. Tall and broad-shouldered. In football, he might be a tight end; I’ve stood next to several players for the Bears. He would not seem out of place among such large men except that the hair on his...
This article originally appeared in our November/December 2008 issue on Everyday Politics: In a text written for this show and displayed on one of the gallery walls, Kerry James Marshall says “I am working on paintings that address the theme of LOVE.” “Love” is...
Subscribe to our weekly Gallery Rounds Newsletter for new Reviews, Art opps, Art Events, & More every week!