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…
Slash magazine was the premiere publication of the Los Angeles punk movement. First published on May Day of 1977, the monthly periodical assaulted conformity until its final edition in the Summer of 1980. Come Back To Haunt You, the drawing I created as the cover art for that very last issue, now appears as the graphic avatar for the 2011…
The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement describes contemporary U.S. society as being under the domination of the “one percent”, those super-wealthy individuals and corporations that control everything from the media to the halls of Congress. While the primary focus of OWS has been aimed at the home foreclosures, unemployment, and social inequality fostered by the greed of rapacious banks and…
Occupy Wall Street protesters held a boisterous demonstration in front of Sotheby’s New York headquarters on the evening of Nov. 9, 2011 as the auction house conducted its biggest sale of contemporary art in three years. More than 100 protesters chanting “Art for the masses, not the ruling classes!” and “They say cut back, we say fight back”, confronted well-to-do…
I took the following photos at the 12th annual Dia de los Muertos-Day of the Dead festival at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, October 22, 2011. The cemetery, founded in 1889, is the only one in the United States that opens its gates to the public for traditional observances of Dia de los Muertos. Upwards of 10,000 people attended what is probably…
My 1980 silkscreen print, Whatever Happened To The Future!, is included in Under the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974-1981, at the Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles. My print was created at the height of the Cold War when nuclear war with the Soviet Union seemed a distinct possibility. Originally conceived as a street…
