Art is no longer the mere status symbol it was in the age of Morgan. Instead, as Cohen’s exploits show, art has become an instrument for generating wealth and political influence in the interests of an audacious plutocracy. In this sense, we are indeed being ruled by art in a way we have not been before, and its price now comes at a direct social cost.Read the article here.
Some members of the University of Virginia community want a piece of art—a mural—censored, altered, or completely painted over because it depicts students and professors partying together.
The behaviors of the fictional characters in the painting would likely violate Title IX, said UVA music professor Bonnie Gordon, a vocal critic of the mural, in an interview with newsplex.com.Details here.
Nicole,So begins the email received by artist Nicole Touchet, an email "signed by a project coordinator with Property One Inc., the company that manages Gordon Square, the historic hotel-turned-office complex at the Jefferson-Vermilion intersection in the heart of Downtown. The UL Lafayette alumna had opened her eponymous gallery, Gallerie Touchet, in a small side space facing Vermilion Street 11 months before, hosting exhibitions of up-and-coming local artists including her own work."
You have to take down the nude pictures you have in your gallery. Part of the agreement to rent you the space was to not display nude pictures.
Lessee warrants and represents to Lessor that the Leased Premises exclusive of common area shall be continually used and occupied only for the purpose of general office use. Lessee shall conduct its business and control its agents, employees, invitees and visitors in such a manner as is lawful, reputable and will not cause any nuisance or otherwise interfere with, annoy or disturb any other tenant in its normal business operations or Lessor in its management of the Building. Lessee shall not commit or suffer to be committed, any waste on the Leased Premises, nor shall Lessee permit the Leased Premises to be used in any way which would, in the opinion of Lessor, be hazardous on account of fire or otherwise which would in any way increase or render void the fire insurance on the Leased Premises or Building.A lawyer might say that the lease says that the space will be "used and occupied only for the purpose of general office use," but then again, Touchet had used the space as a gallery for 11 months and Property One didn't complain.
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| "Pursuit"
by Teresa Oaxaca
Oil on canvas with artist-made frame
28"x28"
Oaxaca... and this is clear to the most casual observer, and even clearer to someone who has seen the works of thousands and thousands of painters, is an artist with formidable painting skills.
Her energetic brushwork and fearless attitude towards an aggressive employment of color should be the first chapter in the lesson book to anyone aspiring to pick up a brush and apply anything to a canvas. Look at the apple in "Pursuit." It's not the brilliance of the fruit that makes it sing with erotic gusto; in fact it is too shiny - it is like a waxed fruit, prepared to sensualize the first bite by first decorating the visual senses. It is not its stylized perfect shape, also designed to capture our human check points from the times that we shared the planet with Neanderthals and Denisovans. It is in fact, those two delicate touches of white paint on the fruit, and it is also the manner in which the cloth caresses the fruit. Oaxaca’s paintings and prints are at first sight a prism focusing the refracted colors back in time; or are they? To the fantasist, they could also be the work of an artist who has been traveling from a Victorian era to the present; or is it a future time traveler, bathing in the luxuries of the Baroque period, sending us her impressions from her latest voyage to the past? Whatever the answer, the DMV gets an expanded opportunity to see her work, as her second solo exhibit at The Art League in Alexandria, “Misfits”, will be on view April 6-May 1, 2016. According to The Art League’s news release, the show “explores the themes of clowns and dolls, human effigies, and painted faces, integrating human emotions and passions with allegorical storytelling. Oaxaca’s style has greatly grown and evolved since her first solo exhibit at The Art League in 2010. She’s interested in breaking the boundaries of traditional realism, and is succeeding through her choice of subject matter, compositional choices, and painterly style.” Since I’ve just discovered this painter, I have no idea what her first solo show was about, but I suspect that it was but a bridge to her most recent work. Make no mistake, this is an artist who is deeply embedded in the world that she depicts through her art; she lives in that world. “My work is about pleasing the eye. I paint light and the way it falls. Simple observation reveals beauty, which I often find in the unconventional. Because of this, I have learned to take particular delight in unusual pairings of subject matter,” she notes. In that previously discussed apple, there are hours of work, but it is the final two applications of white which seal the deal. |
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"Laughing Queen" by Teresa Oaxaca Oil on canvas with artist-made frame 60" x 40" |
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| Tim Vermeulen, J. Job Feels the Rod, Yet Blesses God. 2016, oil on panel, 19 x 23 inches framed |
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| "Ladybird" 2016 by Lauren Levato Coyne Colored pencil on blue toned paper 11" x 9" |
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| "Reds" Oil on Linen, 14,11 inches by Rory Coyne |
Following the high profile exhibition of his work at the Presidential Library and Museum in Texas in 2014:
Artfinder is delighted to announce that George W. Bush will join the site as an artist from 1 April 2016. To mark the occasion, George has released a new series of technicolor dog portraits, including a Scottish Terrier, in homage to his dog Barney, who sadly passed away in 2013. The portraits will be on sale from midnight GMT 31 March.George W. Bush comments:
“I wanted to make sure the last chapters of my life were full, and painting, it turns out, has helped occupy not only space but opened my mind.Dogs are a subject close to my heart, and frankly they make better subjects for portraits than politicians, who are all very much alike. I am delighted to have been accepted to join Artfinder’s vibrant community of 6,000 artists around the world.”Jonas Almgren, CEO of Artfinder comments:“We have long been admirers of George’s work and are delighted to see him join the site. Our mission is to create a world of art for everyone – and we anticipate George’s pieces being incredibly popular.”Artfinder is the largest global marketplace for original art, connecting over 500,000 subscribers worldwide with 180,000+ pieces of art from 6,000 artists.
Update: Artfinder actually has a pet portrait painter who has joined them - Arizona based Alicia VanNoy Call a.k.a Dawg Art - she is the one behind these canine portraits.
To view Bush’s Artfinder shop please visit: https://www.artfinder.com/george-bush
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| 18"x24"\ Graphite on Maple by Rory Payne |
Mark didn’t want to read Fitzgerald’s classic tale, even though he gathered 50 copies. Like many of us, he read it in high school. Rather, he wanted to shred the books, soak them in water, grind them into a gray slurry and turn that slurry into a large, rectangular piece of thick, deckle-edged handmade paper.
Academics say that black Cubans are failing to earn university degrees in proportion to their numbers--a situation to which Castro has alluded publicly. The upper echelons of the government remain disproportionately white, despite the emergence of several rising black stars. And while perceptions are difficult to quantify, much less prove true or false, many black Cubans are convinced that they are much less likely than whites to land good jobs--and much more likely to be hassled by police on the street, like Cano's husband, in a Cuban version of "racial profiling."But how about some Cubans inside Cuba discussing the subject?
In primary [Cuban] education, skin color is not mentioned," ... If we are still living in a society where white people have the power, and we don't mention color in education, we are in practice educating [Cuban] children to be white.A lot of hopes have been pinned by many people (who know little about Cuba and the repressive nature of its government) on President Obama's recent monumental decision to re-establish diplomatic relations with the unfortunate Caribbean island prison of Cuba; but first another Cuban quote:
Cuban history as we teach it is a disgrace, because it is predominantly white history, and explaining the role of black people and mulattoes in building this society and its culture is not given its due importance.
Esteban Morales
University of Havana
Centre for the Study of the Hemisphere and the United States
...to carry on "hiding" the issue [of racism in Cuba] would lead black people to think that "they belong to another country, and that there are two Cuba’s as there were in the 19th century, a black Cuba and a white one."And thus, it is curious to me that in re-establishing diplomatic ties, our socially conscious President (and his cadre of advisors) appear to know little or nothing about the way that Afro-Cuban citizens are treated in their own country.
Roberto Zurbano
Director
Casa de las Américas publishing house
Havana
“The images of the meetings, the agreements, they’re all shameful for many black Cubans — I’m including myself in this — because it’s difficult to feel represented.”
Most remittances from abroad — mainly the Miami area, the nerve center of the mostly white exile community — go to white Cubans. They tend to live in more upscale houses, which can easily be converted into restaurants or bed-and-breakfasts — the most common kind of private business in Cuba. Black Cubans have less property and money, and also have to contend with pervasive racism. Not long ago it was common for hotel managers, for example, to hire only white staff members, so as not to offend the supposed sensibilities of their European clientele.That "not long ago" is still the case, as anyone who has been to Cuba recently can testify to - it is very rare to see a black face in any of Havana's "tourist only" hotels and nearby beaches. Discussing those lucrative jobs, Yusimà RodrÃguez López, an Afro-Cuban independent journalist, said in a 2016 New York Times article that there were job listings on Revolico — sometimes called Cuba’s underground Craigslist — “where they say they only want whites.”
One would hope that our President's dealings with a nation with one of the world's worst human rights records, where Amnesty International has been denied access to (except to that bit of Cuba where the Guantanamo Naval Base is located); a nation where gay people were once given lobotomies to "cure" them; and where HIV+ Cubans were detained and segregated in guarded colonies away from the general public, could at least receive a little attention on the status of blacks in their nation.“They talk a lot here about discrimination against blacks in the United States. What about here?” said Manuel Valier Figueroa, 50, an actor, who was in the park on Monday. “If there’s a dance competition, they’re going to choose the woman who is fair-skinned with light, good hair. If there’s a tourism job, the same.”He added: “Why are there no blacks managing hotels? You don’t see any blacks working as chefs in hotels, but you see them as janitors and porters. They get the inferior jobs.”
General Antonio Maceo, known as "the Bronze Titan." He was the true warrior leader of the Cuban Wars of Liberation. His father was white of French ancestry; his mother was black, of Dominican ancestry. After the first Cuban Liberation War ended in a truce with Spain, some say that Maceo was so disillusioned with the realities of life in Cuba as a black man, that he left Cuba and lived in Panama, until he was called back to lead the Cuban rebels in a new rebellion in 1895. He returned to Cuba and was killed in battle against the Spanish Army in 1896.
"I think silence is worse. The longer nothing is said, the more the racism fermenting underground is rotting the entire nation..."While the Cuban constitution of the 1940s (since then abolished by the Communist government) outlawed segregation and racism, and the current Cuban Constitution guarantees black Cubans the right to stay in any hotel and be served at any public establishment, as it has been documented by many foreign journalists, black Cubans will tell you in private that those rights exist only on paper.
Gerardo Alfonso
singer/songwriter
Havana
Unfortunately, these things [disparities in the treatment of blacks and whites] are very common in Cuba.Do these Cuban voices from within Cuba itself sound like the subjects of a government whose murdering tyrants' atrocities should be dealt in silence?, especially in view of our nation's own racial history? Would we be silent in dealing today with the criminal government leaders of the apartheid South Africa of the 20th century?
Ricardo Alarcón Quesada
President of the National Assembly of People's Power
Cuban Parliament
We have practically apartheid in this country sometimes... racism is deeply rooted in Cuba's history and will not disappear overnight.Human rights and racism should be at the top of the agenda (if there's one) in our diplomatic discussions with the Havana tyrants.
Rogelio Polanco Fuentes
Director
Cuban Communist Party-owned Juventud Rebelde newspaper.
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| Selvedge Lauren Levato Coyne 22x18 inches, Pencil on Watercolor Paper, c. 2015 |
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| Turning Seven Rory Coyne 36x36 inches, Oil on canvas, c. 2013 |
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| Wall of Small Squares Lori Katz Ceramics, c. 2015 |
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| "Cuban by Ancestry, But American by the Grace of God." Charcoal and Conte and Embedded Video. 18x24 inches, circa 2016. |
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| "Cuban by Ancestry, But American by the Grace of God." Charcoal and Conte and Embedded Video. 18x24 inches, circa 2016. |
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| "Cuban by Ancestry, But American by the Grace of God." Charcoal and Conte and Embedded Video. 18x24 inches, circa 2016. |
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| "Cuban by Ancestry, But American by the Grace of God." Charcoal and Conte and Embedded Video. 18x24 inches, circa 2016. |
