Shams (Arabic for “Sun”) is a popular female Kuwaiti singer who has just released a controversial song titled, Ahlan Ezayak (or “Hi! How are you!”) Accompanied by a slick MTV-like video that lambastes George W. Bush and his occupation of Iraq, the song has become all the rage in the Middle East. Shams croons in the Khaliji style, one of…
Dark Metropolis: Irving Norman’s Social Surrealism, is an extremely important exhibition of paintings that will be on view at the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art in Logan, Utah, starting June 5th, 2007. Until his death in 1989, Irving Norman had painted in California since the early 1940’s – and my having discovered the art works of the brilliant artist…
Fernando Botero’s suite of paintings and drawings depicting the torture of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of their American jailers in Abu Ghraib prison, will at last be exhibited in an American museum. An exhibit of 24 paintings and 23 drawings by the 74 year old Columbian master, will go on view at the Doe Library, located at the University…
Peace on Earth, Paz en la tierra, Paix sur terre, Frieden auf Masse, Мир на земле.
Back in early September of 2005 I received an e-mail from Columbia Pictures that expressed their desire to use one of my artworks in the film, The Pursuit of Happyness. The letter politely informed me that the studio was interested in my “Free South Africa poster and using it as background set dressing in the movie.” At the time the…
If there was ever an exhibition of historic artworks with more resonance in today’s world, I’m sure it couldn’t beat Glitter and Doom: German Portraits From the 1920’s at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rarely seen artworks by German Expressionist artists from the 20’s are on loan to the Met, and the works document German society stumbling along between…
Punk Portraits is the title I’ve given to an early body of my work documenting the original punk rock explosion in Los Angeles as it happened. Now that punk is fast approaching the 30th anniversary of its 1977 detonation, I’ve uploaded some additional artworks to my online gallery that serves as a portfolio of artworks from that period. These latest…
Forget “isms” – except eclecticism, was an October 1st, 2006, essay written for the Los Angeles Times by art critic Christopher Knight. He opened his article with the following statement: “Those discrete movements you studied in art history? They’re long gone. Today, it’s all about diversity – and quality, of course.” Knight moved out of the shadows and into the…
