Clean, neat, and unused are the words I think when I think of the new Mormon temple downtown. Pristine. It’s by the main library. I’m inside on a tour, and the walls are covered in photo-realistic, figurative depictions of piety, biblical scenes, scenes of a Sunday-school nature. It harkens back to simpler time when there was no doubt, in America at least, of who Jesus was ethnically speaking. Mormons, if nothing else, are unabashedly white, which gives me the odd feeling of relief.
Read MoreInspired by cultural icon Ulises Carrion and unwittingly ushered in by cultural icon Jeff Bezos, Ulises brings Philadelphia a much-needed art bookshop and a one-of-a-kind culture center to add to the rich mix of cultural spaces in North Philly. Welcome, Ulises.
Read MoreIn the cut and paste art world, perhaps the single most influential artist was the German Kurt Schwitters. Galerie Zlotowski, a small Rive Gauche gallery, has brought together 13 small collage and assemblage works, dating from 1918 through 1947, that offer a range of Schwitters’ poetic investigations.
Read MoreFor this week’s Reader Advisor, I was thinking a lot about creating and sharing space and content, and what it feels like for any marginalized group to see yourself represented and acknowledged within those contexts.
Read MoreAt 91, Lorrie Goulet’s dedication to the carver’s art is unwavering, even though she cannot wield the carver’s tools like she could as a young woman. Throughout a recent wide-ranging conversation I had with her at her home and studio in Chelsea, I was struck by Goulet’s deep commitment to the physical work of carving, its tools, techniques, and materials. Her eyes light up and her gestures become animated when talking about stone, its myriad types, colors, and textures. For Goulet, stone–her primary material–is alive, and each stone has its own personality. “I put my life with the stone’s life,” she told me, following up with “I don’t have many stones left.”
Read MoreOne question that emerges is the following: is competition the most progressive way of cultivating an artistic-intellectual community, one that focuses on the reception of artistic initiatives and activities that occur in a particular place?
Read MoreIt seems to me that NMAAHC has the opportunity, not yet fully realized, to bring to African American artists the attention and recognition they deserve, and to place them squarely in the cosmos of American art, and at the same time to “privilege the black voice.” Indeed, the museum brilliantly has accomplished that in its other Culture Galleries.
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