Artist Ray Lowry passed away this past October 14, 2008, at the age of 64. While touring America with The Clash in 1979, Lowry was nicknamed the “War Artist” by the band’s front man, Joe Strummer. The Clash had invited Lowry to tour with them as an official artist when the group made its first incursion into the land of…
An unavoidable political topic is on the lips of everyone in the art world these days, I am not speaking of the U.S. presidential election – but of an international economic meltdown the likes of which we have not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. No matter what “new” political circumstances we wake up to in the aftermath…
My silkscreen poster “Bombs Not Bread“, was directly influenced by the works of the great Mexican satirical printmaker, José Guadalupe Posada, as well as the Chicano arts movement of the late 60s and early 70s. Created in 1983 as a Day of the Dead poster, my artwork depicts a military “calaca” (Mexican-Chicano slang for skeleton), along with text that serves…
In 1925 the famed English author Aldous Huxley wrote “The Best Picture in the World,” an essay about a fresco mural by one of the great masters of the early Italian Renaissance, Piero della Francesca (1412-1492). Piero’s mural titled The Resurrection, is recognized as one of the finest religious paintings in all of Christendom. With careful examination it becomes clear that…
THE VIDEO: The War & Empire video is a documentary combining engaging visual imagery with commentary and interviews, this revealing 15 minute long video presents an overview of War & Empire, the groundbreaking 2008 exhibition at San Francisco’s Meridian Gallery. As a participating artist in the show, I guide the viewer through the powerful exhibit, where art and social reality…
In a major trial that challenged an artist’s right to free expression, the British artist Michael Dickinson, who lives in Turkey, was prosecuted by the Turkish government in 2006 for creating a photo-collage seen as “insulting the dignity of the prime minister.” Dickinson faced years in prison for his artwork, but on September 25, 2008, the judge in the case…
Art and China’s Revolution is the latest exhibition at the Asia Society Museum in New York City. Running until Jan. 11, 2009, the exhibit focuses on the propaganda art produced in China during the so-called Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution period of 1966-1976. The exhibit displays some 250 large-scale oil paintings, sculptures, woodblock prints, ink paintings, drawings, posters, and other art…
“One thing is certain. King Mob never wanted to find themselves here, in the house rag of cultural consumption, let alone locked away in Tate’s permanent collection. But these posters and magazines are just detritus, the record of past struggles. In the present day, the real action is elsewhere.” So writes author Hari Kunzru in The Mob Who Shouldn’t Really…
