Similar Posts
“Malcolm X Speaks for Us”
If he had not been struck down by assassins on Friday, May 19th, 1965 – Malcolm X would be celebrating his 81st birthday with us today. [ Malcolm X Speaks for Us – Linoleum cut by Elizabeth Catlett, 1969. ] In 1969 African-American painter, printmaker and sculptor, Elizabeth Catlett, paid tribute to the slain freedom fighter with her linoleum cut,…
The Architecture of Submission
Cultural democracy is part of the structure of any truly democratic society, and like political democracy, it derives its strength solely from the people. The creation, propagation, and accessibility of the arts not only helps to promote democratic values – it is vital to them. However, participatory and community based cultural democracy is never a given, it is something we…
Turquoise Mountain, Duchamp, & the USAID.
Some years ago under the auspices of the Turquoise Mountain Foundation in Afghanistan, an art teacher from the UK lectured bewildered Afghan women on a conceptual artwork by Marcel Duchamp… a porcelain urinal he titled “Fountain.” The foundation was funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The scene was captured in “Bitter Lake,” a documentary film about Afghanistan…
Neoism: “X” me out
What is Neoism? Just another permutation of postmodern entropy. An incomprehensible and pointless muddle posturing as the latest avant-garde art movement. Best summed up by its founder, Istvan Kantor, when he stated, “We are the Neoists, do not listen to us.” German police arrested Kantor last November on charges of property damage. He had splashed a container of his own…
My Country Right or Wrong
African American artist, Cliff Joseph, was the co-founder of the 1960’s Black Emergency Cultural Coalition in New York, an artist’s group involved in creating socially conscious artworks. Joseph’s oil on canvas painting, titled My Country Right or Wrong was created in 1968 at the height of America’s war on Vietnam. The artwork derided the blind patriotism that made the war…
The Builders & The Destroyers
Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) was one of America’s greatest African American artists – but you could just as easily say that he was one of the preeminent artists of the 20th Century. There’s no doubt that his narrative style, a blend of social realism and flattened abstract picture planes, was to influence legions of artists – myself being one of them….