While watching the televised opening ceremonies for the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, I was stunned to hear the anchorman casually mention the fact that the stadium had been “built by Benito Mussolini,” a fact to which was attributed no historical context or significance. I found myself wondering if such a nonchalant attitude would have been taken had the stadium been…
The Italian Futurists had an obsession with all things modern, the city, the automobile, the plane. They turned their backs on the past and set their sites on the technological future, hence their name. Their mania for speed, whether that of a fast moving car or a diving plane, was based upon a veneration of technology; they even came to…
The militant symbol of the clenched fist has been around since the early 1900’s, springing up in graphics from Mexico and the US, to Europe and Russia. Typically depicted as part of the human figure, holding tools or other symbols, or breaking through a barricade, the iconographic fist underwent a change at some point in the 1960’s; it became an…
[ Dozens of people packed Avenue 50 Studio for a slide show and lecture on the subject of art, religion, and politics ] It was a standing room only crowd at the Artist’s Forum on Art & Politics, held at L.A.’s Avenue 50 Studio. Part of its Don’t Talk About Religion or Politics exhibit, the event took place on January…
[ Opening night at Ave 50 Studio – “Don’t Talk About Religion or Politics” ] The January 7th Los Angeles opening of the Don’t Talk About Religion or Politics exhibit was a resounding success, with hundreds of interested people attending. Held at the much beloved Ave 50 Studio in the Highland Park area of L.A., the show attracted individuals from…
For those who still regard art as being above politics consider the following. The Central Intelligence Agency financed, organized, and assured the success of the American abstract expressionist movement, using artists like Jackson Pollock, Sam Francis, Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell, and Mark Rothko, as weapons in the struggle against the Soviet Union. Frances Stonor Saunders has presented…
RUSSIA! a massive exhibition covering 900 years of Russian history, is now running at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City until January 11th, 2006. While the show includes everything from 13th-century religious icons to the most current artistic expressions coming out of the country, what I personally find most interesting are those paintings and artistic expressions that were kept from…
I’m very excited to be curating an exhibition titled Don’t Talk About Religion or Politics. Scheduled to open in January 2006 at Avenue 50 Studio in Los Angeles, the show will present paintings by Sergio Hernandez, Gwyneth Leech, Poli Marichal, John Paul Thornton, and myself. I wrote the exhibit’s mission statement, which should give you a better idea of what…
