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One Thousand and One Nights
This photo shows a US occupation soldier standing near a painting by an anonymous Iraqi artist. The artwork was inspired by the tales of One Thousand and One Nights, the classic book of Arab literature. First compiled in Arabic during the 9th century, the stories have inspired untold thousands of artists. It is the only Arabic work to have become…
Nepotism & Scatological Postmodernisms
Trouble is brewing in the realm of the postmodern art world, one of its stars could take a big fall, and with any luck his plummet may indicate the entire postmodernist school could soon topple. Chris Ofili, the artist famous for incorporating elephant dung into his portrait of the Virgin Mary, is at the center of the controversy, which an…
Thanksgiving? No Thanks!
I created this cartoon of a turkey at his Thanksgiving feast when I was only 17 years old. My pen drawing titled, No Thanks!, served as the cover for the Southern California psychedelic “underground” newspaper, The Tribe. This particular edition of the pre-Watergate paper hit the streets on November 26th, 1971. Its anti-Nixon theme certainly didn’t win me any friends,…
Laura Bush Launches Arts Initiative
At a little heralded press conference held at the White House on Monday, September 25th, 2006, first lady Laura Bush announced the formation of the U.S. State Department’s “Global Cultural Initiative.” With world public opinion of the United States and the Bush administration slumping to dramatic record lows, the initiative is a scheme designed to improve America’s image abroad through…
LAist Interview: Mark Vallen
Andy Warhol’s statement that “every person will be world-famous for fifteen minutes,” was an amazing insight into a consumerist culture driven by media, but he hardly could have imagined that artists would someday be interviewed in virtual publications that exist in a place called cyberspace. Here’s my fifteen minutes of world fame, as the LAist website put questions to me…
Dorothea Lange: Artist/Observer
Throughout her long working life as a photographer, Dorothea Lange produced some of the most riveting photographic images in history. She documented the great depression in the US, the internment of Japanese Americans, strikes and workers on relief, the armies of unemployed and displaced farmers who left the dustbowl states for California. An extraordinary woman with enormous talent and a…