June 27th, 2020 | by Ekin Erkan | published in *, June 2020
Recently, given the fomenting protests following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery (amongst countless others), much discussion has erupted amongst contemporary artist-activists about the proper place for art and the aestheticization of politics. This is, of course, by no means a novel conversation. Historically, the aestheticization of politics has been disparaged […]
June 27th, 2020 | by Jonathan Kamholtz | published in *, June 2020
James VanDerZee (1886-1983) produced somewhere between 75,000 and 100,000 photographs in his creative lifetime, maybe even more, almost all of them of African Americans who lived in or were passing through Harlem. He had a fraught relationship to street photography and worked predominantly out of his studio. At the height of his career in the […]
June 27th, 2020 | by Cynthia Kukla | published in *, June 2020
What to write about Mark Bradford? His ascent into the art world seems to border on the magical. His story makes for a perfect Hollywood movie if Hollywood was inclined to turn its lens to artists more often, which it does not. Mark Bradford is African-American, born and raised in South Los Angeles, in the same […]
June 27th, 2020 | by Susan Byrnes | published in *, June 2020
Can’t you see it Can’t you feel it It’s all in the air I can’t stand the pressure much longer Somebody say a prayer Alabama’s gotten me so upset Tennessee made me lose my rest And everybody knows about Mississippi goddam -Nina Simone In 1963, Nina Simone wrote this song in protest of the atrocities […]
June 27th, 2020 | by Steve Kemple | published in *, June 2020
![Kahlil Robert Irving “Ground Water From Screen Falls [(Collaged Media + Midwest STREET)]” at the Contemporary Arts Center](http://aeqai.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/DSC8949-1-150x150.jpg)
Engaging with Kahlil Robert Irvings’s installation requires action. Its scale requires moving one’s body, viewing it first from afar and then up close. From a distance, such as viewed from outside standing on 6th street, it’s a frenetic tableau of screenshots. There are memes and browser tabs, overlapping digital prints filling the lobby’s central wall. […]
June 27th, 2020 | by Saad Ghosn | published in June 2020
In the late 1980’s, visiting Chicago on the occasion of one of his exhibits at an art gallery of the city, Thom Shaw witnessed a gang fight, the members of which were wearing T shirts depicting the late Malcolm X. He found the association intriguing, Malcolm X in his mind being a promoter of unity […]
June 27th, 2020 | by Megan Bickel | published in June 2020
The study of aesthetic materialism–visually studying raw material for its own ability to be ‘beautiful’–has often had some problematic connotations for me. The ability to strictly utilize specific materials because of their aesthetic power sometimes feels like a superpower: a skill in rationalizing pulling yourself out of the trauma of human history in order to […]
June 27th, 2020 | by Jane Durrell | published in June 2020
Artist and native Cincinnatian Cedric Cox considers his work “A spiritual testimony to the visual experiences that arouse my senses and my synapses, as I examine and interpret the world around me, quietly and loudly.” Artists in any field would be the first to understand how something could be both quiet and loud; my own […]
June 27th, 2020 | by Josh Beckelhimer | published in June 2020
Last semester an English comp student of mine used to stay after class to have further conversations with me. We typically talked about music and capitalism as his work was intensely focused on hip-hop and social justice. His final paper was about the work of a New York based Haitian rapper named Mach Hommy. Mach […]
June 27th, 2020 | by Tim Brinkhof | published in June 2020
Near my parents’ house in western Georgia is a mountain made of stone. Aptly called Stone Mountain, this site features various hiking trails which the citizens of Atlanta use to escape the hustle-and-bustle of their city. At its peak, persistent climbers are rewarded with a view of untouched treetops stretching on as far as the […]
June 27th, 2020 | by Marlene Steele | published in June 2020
I first became aware of the watercolor art of Dean Mitchell several years back when his images garnered recognition in regional and national watercolor shows. I found his figurative and architectural pieces thought provoking, well drawn and possibly not from photographs. In 2019, Mitchell was the Gold Medal Recipient at the Portrait Society of America […]
June 27th, 2020 | by Jenny Perusek | published in June 2020
This column has often focused on the haute couture area of the fashion design landscape. Maybe it’s because the handcrafted construction required of these designs naturally align more with the sentiment that fashion is an artform – one to be worn and lived in, but an art nonetheless. Maybe it’s because the collections and fashion […]
June 27th, 2020 | by Tim Brinkhof | published in June 2020
Francisco Goya’s The Third of May 1808 (fig. A) depicts the gruesome aftermath of a Madrilenian uprising against the Grande Armée who, under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, had invaded their country two months prior. Words like “raw” and “visceral” often surface in discussions of this painting, and it’s easy to see why, for it […]
June 27th, 2020 | by Daniel Brown | published in June 2020
Kate Elizabeth Russell’s debut novel, “My Dark Vanessa” is both the most important and the most compelling novel to date of 2020. It adds nuance and ambiguity to the sometimes frightening excesses of The Me Too movement, which perhaps fiction can do far better than journalism. Deeply researched, the novel concerns a fifteen year old […]
June 27th, 2020 | by Daniel Brown | published in June 2020
Megha Majumdar’s debut novel “A Burning” happened to appear during the height of the recent protests which began with the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. The novel couldn’t be more timely or topical, and it’s a splendid novel, to boot. A Muslim young woman finds herself, accidentally, in the wrong place at […]
