I started 2012 by taking in four exhibits in the Los Angeles area; Art Along the Hyphen: The Mexican-American Generation and The Colt Revolver in the American West at the Autry National Center, as well as Places of Validation, Art & Progression and The African Diaspora in the Art of Miguel Covarrubias: Driven by color, shaped by Cultures at the…
Strange Notes and Nervous Breakdowns is a screening of punk films at the Geffen Contemporary MOCA of Los Angeles; part of the museum’s Under the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974-1981 exhibition. The film program explores the late 70s L.A. punk scene through films and videos like Gidget Goes to Hell, featuring the Suburban Lawns. Director, producer, and cinematographer Jonathan…
January 11, 2011 marks the 10th anniversary of the U.S. detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The prison was authorized by former president George W. Bush as part of his “war on terror”. In 2005 Amnesty International called Guantánamo the “Gulag of our time“. While running for the presidency, Senator Obama said during a CNN televised debate broadcast on 6-03-07;…
American columnist and author William Vaughn once wrote, “An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.” I do not count myself amongst those who always expect the worst, but this year even the Associated Press titled its New Year’s celebration coverage, “Bid Adieu to a…
My humble holiday offering to the world… a brilliant satiric radio play from American comedian Stan Freberg. While his Green Chri$tma$ was produced in 1958, it is perhaps more pertinent today than ever before. Freberg’s scathing indictment of capitalism run amok during the Christmas season was promptly banned by commercial radio and attacked by advertisers and advertising trade magazines; an…
December 8, 2011 marks the 125th birthday of the Mexican Muralist, Diego Rivera (Dec. 8, 1886 – Nov. 24, 1957). Few artists have had as much influence on me as Rivera, an artist I discovered as a pre-teen while thumbing through art books. Of course in the 1960s Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros (Dec. 29, 1896 – Jan. 6, 1974) and…
On November 27, 2011, Bloomberg Magazine published an explosive report that revealed the U.S. Federal Reserve had secretly loaned trillions of dollars to ailing banks without informing Congress or the American people. According to the exposé the Fed “had committed $7.77 trillion as of March 2009 to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of everything produced in…
In August of this year I announced that a number of my early graphic works would be included in the museum exhibition, Peace Press Graphics 1967-1987: Art in the Pursuit of Social Change, at the University Art Museum at California State University Long Beach (CSULB). The exhibit is an important showing of over 100 historic posters and flyers published by…
