Lost Horizons: Edward Biberman

In August of 2014 the Social And Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) in Venice, California, presented a small but important exhibition titled Lost Horizons: Mural Dreams of Edward Biberman. The American realist painter Edward Biberman carved out a place for himself in mid-20th century Los Angeles, despite the ascendancy and domination of abstract expressionism. His figurative paintings examined social inequality, racial…

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“Murder in Mississippi”

On June 21, 1964, three young civil rights activists, a 21 year-old black man from Meridian, Mississippi named James Chaney, and two white Jewish youth from New York, Andrew Goodman (21), and Michael Schwerner (25), were kidnapped and savagely murdered in Neshoba County in Philadelphia, Mississippi. They had been working in the 1964 Freedom Summer campaign to register African-American voters…

The Agony of Ukraine
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The Agony of Ukraine

Momentous events in Ukraine from late 2013 to the present provide the backdrop to this article. The Maidan (Independence Square) in Ukraine’s capital of Kiev was center stage for the “revolution.” Because the protests at the Maidan demanded Ukraine’s integration into the European Union (EU), the revolt became known as the “Euromaidan.” President Yanukovych tried to suppress the movement, but…

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A National Historic Landmark?

On April 23, 2014, the US Secretary of the Interior, Sally Jewell, and the Director of the National Park Service (NPS), Jonathan B. Jarvis, announced four new “National Historic Landmarks” for the United States. The Detroit Industry murals painted by Diego Rivera at the Detroit Institute of the Arts (DIA) in Detroit, Michigan were among the new landmarks. Detroit Industry…