Artist Dewey Crumpler Opposes Destroying 'Life of Washington' Mural For Very Good Reasons

/

Artist Dewey Crumpler Opposes Destroying 'Life of Washington' Mural For Very Good Reasons

The firestorm over destroying the California New Deal-era George Washington Mural by Victor Arnautoff has hit Politico today. I've shared 2-3 earlier updates on AOC. For a refresher, Politico summarized the situation:

"The San Francisco Board of Education voted unanimously last month to paint over all 13 panels of the 1600 sq. ft. mural “Life of Washington,’’ a historic work commissioned during the New Deal that depicts George Washington as a slave owner. The move came after several vocal protesters demanded the move at a public meeting, saying their children were “traumatized” by depictions of the nation’s first president standing over the images of dead Native Americans."

Well, California Dems are so angry at the San Francisco school board that they sent out an emergency email alert seeking support for an effort to back a voter’s ballot measure to save the murals.

Dubbed the Coalition to Protect Public Art, the initiative aims to protect this art, “and perhaps other New Deal art in San Francisco’’ which may also be targeted.

At New Orleans Museum of Art, Lina Iris Viktor Explores Blackness As A Source Of Energy and Creation

/

New York artist Lina Iris Viktor

At New Orleans Museum of Art, Lina Iris Viktor Explores Blackness As A Source Of Energy and Creation

“Usually I am more about trying to bridge divides of thought where people think things are in very defined spaces,” artist Lina Iris Viktor tells Harper’s Bazaar Arabia from her studio in New York. “I am all about making bridges.” The painter and conceptual artist is preparing new work for her first solo museum exhibition now open at the New Orleans Museum of Art entitled Lina Iris Viktor: A Haven. A Hell. A Dream Deferred.

Known for large-scale black and gold works on paper and canvas, the sculptural surfaces of Viktor’s pieces shimmer opulently with densely patterned iconography. There is something searingly original and contemporary about her almost cosmic composition of hieroglyphic elements that recall myriad forms, from Aboriginal Dreamtime paintings to West African textiles.

Born to Liberian parents, Lina Iris Viktor lives in London and Johannesburg, travelling and studying widely. The artist is not inspired by a specific location. Rather “It’s about experience and worldliness and understanding that there is no centre.”

Lena Waithe Covers Vanity Fair April 2018, Expanding White Culture's Exposure To Black Brilliance

/

Lena Waithe Covers Vanity Fair April 2018, Expanding White Culture's Exposure To Black Brilliance

Emmy Award-winner Lena Waithe takes the cover of  American Vanity Fair‘s April 2018 edition captured by fashion and celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz, with styling from Jessica Diehl. Waithe is the first black woman to win a Primetime Emmy award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for 'Master of None'.

After garnering accolades for her work on 'The Chi' as well, and appearing in Steven Spielberg's new film 'Ready Player One', Lena Waithe talks to Jacqueline Woodson about her influences from the Harlem Renaissance to 'Time's Up'. Talking in the world of current 'Black Panther' and 'A Wrinkle In Time's' success, Lena Waithe is anchored in the world of Black Brilliance. Not only has this moment arrived in Hollywood, writes Woodson, it "has not come to play."

Meeting her at the Four Seasons restaurant in Beverly Hills, Woodson begins to see Lena "as a woman coming at the world from many different places, quick-moving and fast-talking yet soft-spoken and thoughtful, cursing a mile a minute while bringing a new vibrancy to language. . . . On the butch side of queer but with delicate edges. Star power with kindness. "

Michelle Obama Artist Amy Sherald Joins Hauser & Wirth Global Gallery

/

Michelle Obama Artist Amy Sherald Joins Hauser & Wirth Global Gallery

Amy Sherald, the painter behind the official portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama, has joined Hauser & Wirth, a mega-gallery with worldwide outposts. 

The announcement comes days after Sherald unveiled her official portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. In May, Sherald will debut her first solo museum exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. 2018 has been quite a year for Amy Sherald, who had her first solo gallery show in 2016. 

To date, Sherald has rejected the tendency of star artists to overproduce. ArtNews writes that her output is only 30 portraits, 10 to 12 paintings a year. As of December 2017, the waiting list for her paintings had grown to about 50 people. 

Eye: South African Artist Tony Gum's 'Ode to She' Wins 2017 Miami Beach Pulse Prize

/

South African Artist Tony Gum's 'Ode to She' Wins 2017 Miami Beach Pulse Prize

South African artist Tony Gum is the recipient of the 2017 Miami Beach Pulse Prize. Gum's gallery Christopher Moller Gallery mounted a solo show for Gum, who is barely 22 years old. 

Gum's presentation 'Ode to She' is inspired by her own experiences and reflections as a Xhosa woman. Her work is rooted in the tradition of 'intonjane', an Xhosa rite of passage into womanhood practiced in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. The ritual in which a girl is secluded at her homestead after her first period, is symbolic of her sexual maturity and ability to bear children.

AOC has previously written about the talented Tony Gum. See end of article. 

London Artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye's Brings Vibrant Paintings Of Black Experience To New York's New Museum

/

'To Douse the Devil for a Ducat', 2015, oil on canvasCourtesy of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, and Corvi-Mora, London

Vogue.com profiles London artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, whose work will be shown from May 3-2017 thru September 9-2017 at New York's New Museum. The museum's artistic director, Massimiliano Gioni, who featured her work in his 2013 Venice Biennale, says that her work has a particular urgency. 

 “In a moment of racial tension like the one America has been living through, Lynette’s characters take on a completely different weight and presence,” he says. “It’s hard not to feel implicated as a viewer—I can’t help thinking that her imagined characters are engaging with me.”

These powerful paintings of black women and men -- all of them fictional -- are increasingly influential in contemporary culture. Yiadom-Boakye was shortlisted for the 2013 Turner Prize and comes to New York after solo exhibitions at the Serpentine Gallery in London, the Haus der Kunst in Munich, and the Kunsthalle in Basel.

The artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, photographed in her London studio, paints fast, timeless portraits in oils. Her solo show at the New Museum in New York opens this May.Photographed by Anton Corbijn, Vogue, April 2017

One wonders if Lynette Yiadom-Boakye can offer insights into the current intellectual chaos whirling around Dana Schutz' 'Open Casket' painting of Emmett Till, part of the Whitney Bienniale