An Array of Utopian Flowers
-
The Underworld, Rebirth and Renewal with Ceres and Proserpina
Posted on June 29, 2018 | No Comments -
Cinematic Cultural Change in West Africa with Idrissa Ouédraogo
Posted on June 3, 2018 | No Comments -
Mild Satire, Outrage and Hostility, with Philip Roth
Posted on June 2, 2018 | No Comments -
Big Noise from Big Band Drummer Gene Krupa
Posted on April 10, 2018 | No Comments -
Loose Nuts: Edison Reveals Huge Gap in Safety at San Onofre
Posted on April 9, 2018 | No Comments
-
Upcoming Events
Urban Art Archive
Dancing Devils of Venezuela Challenge US Consumer Culture
Posted on November 8, 2017 | No CommentsAn exhibition by artist Cristóbal Valecillos in Los Angeles invoked the Dancing Devils of Yare, a 400-year old Venezuelan tradition celebrating life, the triumph of good over evil, and renewal. His provocative interpretation of the diablo masks, hand-sculpted from repurposed waste materials, takes aim at culture and consumption in the US, a plea for overcoming.
Art of Collective Madness in Salvador Dalí’s ‘Impressions’
Posted on September 27, 2016 | 2 CommentsSalvador Dalí and filmmaker José Montes-Baquer, in honor of underappreciated Surrealist Poet Raymond Roussel, shot a fake documentary of an non-expedition to Mongolia in search of gigantic mythic hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Geo-Fauvism and Anthropocene: Altered Planet, Wild Literature
Posted on June 4, 2016 | 2 CommentsWelcome to the Anthropocene age, where humans have transmogrified the planet, its oceans and atmosphere, caused mass extinctions and wholesale contamination that will remain for millennia. Beyond the politicians and scientists, the way forward remains in the hands of writers, artists, and designers taking inspiration from wild earth in a movement called Geo-Fauvism.
Appropriating the Media Barrage with Negativland
Posted on April 22, 2016 | 1 CommentSound, video, and fury presented on the passing of Richard Lyons, also known as Pastor Dick, co-founder of culture-jamming avant garde music collective Negativland, the third member to die in the last year.
Postcommodity’s ‘Repellent Fence’ Land Art Spans the U.S. Border
Posted on February 20, 2016 | 3 CommentsPostcommodity is a collective of American Indian artists from different backgrounds and mediums, combining to create giant musical instrument installations, video, sound and sculpture. Their Repellent Fence installation floated Scare-Eye Bird Repellent balloons over the border between Arizona and Sonora.
Vision LA Climate Action Arts Fest: The Road Through Paris
Posted on November 25, 2015 | 1 CommentLos Angeles comes alive this November and December, sponsored by SoCal 350 Climate Action, in calling for global climate agreements at the upcoming UN conference in Paris. This includes the Global Climate March (Nov 29) at L.A. City Hall, the Vision L.A. Climate Action Arts Festival (Nov 30 to Dec 11), the California Nurses Association Climate Convergence (Dec 3) at Pershing Square and Building Blocks Against Climate Change (Dec 12) along Wilshire Blvd.
Geo-Fauvism: Waking to the Wild Earth Through Visual Art
Posted on June 5, 2015 | 7 CommentsThis is the first post in a series where I present the case for Geo-Fauvism, a growing movement of wild earth inspiration in art, literature, music and design. Taking off from the early 20th Century French art "Fauvists" or "Wild Beasts," these cross-disciplinary creations respond to and react against the collapse of global environmental systems, the destruction of indigenous earth-based societies, and a narrowing of cultural opportunities in the mainstream corporatized media. Geo-Fauvists create to reconnect with the wild and heal humanity's rift with the landscape, building a new community based on integration with the ecosystem.
Art of Black Flag: Angst and Rebellion Symbolized
Posted on September 9, 2014 | 2 CommentsPunk Rock: the thrashing, slamming, moshing...and the art. First you smash all the institutions, but then find the institutions have enshrined you. Here is a history of Black Flag told through the mesmerizing and beyond-satirical art of Raymond Pettibon.
Video Art: The Groovy Waves of Planed Wood
Posted on July 8, 2014 | No CommentsWaves of Grain is a two minute strata-cut animation by filmmaker Keith Skretch who planed a block of wood in tiny increments, taking photographs along the way. The final video reveals a repetitive flowing sense of motion as the camera moves effortlessly through the block revealing sinuous curves of wood grain appearing to ripple like water.
Paul Gauguin: Nature and Primitivism as Mythical Notions
Posted on April 14, 2014 | 4 CommentsPaul Gauguin, the bourgeois-turned-bohemian artist who left France for Tahiti, reveals a darker, almost menacing mythological vision, in contrast to his exploitative picture-postcard fantasy-native Polynesian paintings for which he is known. The exhibition continues at MoMA in New York until June.
Banksy: Satirical Outlaw, Graffiti Bomber, Mockumentarian
Posted on February 10, 2014 | 2 CommentsHiding in the back alleys and behind a hoodie, he stencils freehand Gorillas in Pink Masks. An international art sensation makes a film about making a film about a guy who wants to become an international art sensation. The pseudonymous street artist Banksy has turned his well-marketed cultural irreverence into a boom time in the discontent industry.
Francis Bacon About Town: Surrealist Painter, Worth Multi-Millions
Posted on December 2, 2013 | 3 CommentsFrancis Bacon, Irish born British painter, whose work recently auctioned for a record $142 million, in his own words in a 1985 documentary for British television, gambling, drinking, and talking about his influences.
Diane Arbus: A Privileged Voyeur of Life on the Margins
Posted on June 17, 2013 | 1 CommentIt's been 42 years since the troubled US photographer took her own life, but her images continue to reveal the camera's predatory nature. Watch a documentary made in 1972 that examines her photography and her methods.
Visionary Art of Lakota Sundance Chief Marvin Swallow
Posted on June 10, 2013 | 2 CommentsMarvin Swallow paints "images of time before and after the moment," whispering sacred stories of the beauty and mystery of creation. What has emerged through his art is a unique and powerful contribution to the growing genre of Sacred Art.
The Art of Bill Ohrmann: Montana Rancher, Voice for the Wild
Posted on April 13, 2013 | 4 CommentsDrive into the wide open landscape beyond Drummond, Montana, set on an old cattle farm amid a twelve-foot polar bear and wooly mammoth sculptures, you’ll find Bill Ohrmann’s museum and gallery—and a lifetime’s worth of commentary captured in his paintings.
Austria: Operatic Spectacles Rise from the Lake at the Bregenz Festival
Posted on September 10, 2012 | No CommentsThe Seebühne, a floating opera stage of bewildering proportions rises every summer from Austria's Lake Constance, the centerpiece of the annual Bregenzer Festspiele (Bregenz Festival). It has staged productions such as Verdi's "Aida," Giordano's "André Chénier," Bernstein's "West Side Story," and next year will be Mozart's "The Magic Flute."
Singapore: Gardens By The Bay Sprout Supertrees and Horticultural Conservatories
Posted on July 25, 2012 | No CommentsGigantic steel, concrete and wire trees rise from manicured serpentine gardens, human-blessed symmetry reaching skyward. At the bay’s edge, two sustainably-designed domes invite visitors to explore world biomes and horticultural paradises. A public amusement park, ecological urbanism designed to invite the populace to rediscover the earth, a visit to Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay evokes a green wonderland, human-designed, artistically crafted, growing "wild" and sort-of-natural.
Diego Rivera and the Fall and Rise of Detroit
Posted on September 12, 2011 | 4 CommentsViewed today, Rivera's "Detroit Industry" murals might have prefigured Detroit's downfall, but also envision a renaissance. It harkens to the earth, the races living and working in harmony, where much of the city has been cleared of slums and allowed to regrow with food crops, grasses and trees.
Alan Kirby: Technology and Consumer Fanaticism Killed Postmodernism
Posted on August 16, 2011 | 2 CommentsAlan Kirby says postmodernism is dead and buried. Sophisticated technology, globalized market economics, consumer fanaticism, fatalistic anxiety, and conformism have created a new paradigm he calls pseudo-modernism.
Day of the Dead Ofrendas: Calavera Fashion Show and Walking Altars
Posted on November 9, 2010 | 3 CommentsShort poems, anecdotes, mocking or reverent tributes, called calaveras or “skulls,” are given to celebrate public or private figures. In Los Angeles, for the last seven years Tropico de Nopal Gallery has taken the custom into the realm of performance art-fashion show-walking altar display.
Detroit Heidelberg Project – Renaissance Through Urban Art
Posted on September 23, 2010 | 7 CommentsAn urban conceptual art installation called The Heidelberg Project, named after its street location in the formerly central core of Detroit, Michigan, transforms a neighborhood first devastated by the 1967 riots, plagued by unemployment, poverty, financial redlining, racial segregation, then abandoned, burned, and largely demolished but for a few homes set among open grassy fields.
