News Art Blog

When the Philadelphia Museum of Art purchased Henry Ossawa Tanner’s painting The Annunciation in 1899, they became the first American museum to acquire a work by an African-American artist. That purchase announced a new era of recognition of African-American art and artists just as much as the painting itself announced a new style of art moving away from stereotypical “black” scenes towards a freedom of aesthetic choice. Persons of color could express themselves in any way, even abstraction, but faced the new problem of remaining true to themselves at the same time. The new exhibition Represent: 200 Years of African American Art and accompanying catalogue show how these artists faced the challenges posed to them by art and society and provide all of us with a fascinating guide to facing African-American history—tragic, tenacious, transcendent—through its art. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Facing African-American History Through African-American Art."

If you know the sexually and racially charged art of Kara Walker, you know one thing—she’s not subtle. Walker’s artistic oeuvre to date makes the title of her newest work, which is also her first large-scale public project, all the funnier—A Subtlety. Subtitled the Marvelous Sugar Baby for the 35-foot-high, 75-foot-long, sugar sphinx “Mammy” (shown above) at the heart of the exhibition, Walker’s “subtlety” show both alludes to the absurdly elaborate desserts (also known as “entremets”) the nobility of the past would stage for their guests as well as the subtle, unseen ways that the sugar we use to sweeten our lives still comes as the cost of the embitterment of lives of those living in third world countries. Adding to the symbolism, A Subtlety appears in the Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY, which was once the largest sugar refinery in the United States but which is now destined for the wrecking ball. In what might be the most significant (if not the physically largest) artistic statement of the year, Kara Walker’s A Subtlety enacts sweet, not so subtle revenge on big sugar of yesterday and calls us to examine the cruelty mixed into every sweet spoonful today. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Kara Walker’s Sweet, Not So Subtle Revenge on Big Sugar."

Artist Charles Krafft’s enjoyed a dark, edgy, “don’t you see the irony” reputation for more than 20 years now. Krafft’s Nazi-inspired ceramics (such as his portrait bust of Adolf Hitler’s head turned into a teapot titled Hitler Idaho; shown above) appear in exhibitions and museums across America. Krafft craftily played with your gut reaction of repulsion from the vile dictator turned into a genteel tea time accessory. But more than a tempest in a teapot has been brewing in the wake of an interview in which Krafft denied the reality of the Holocaust in which the Nazis exterminated approximately 6 million Jews. Suddenly, the irony of works such as Hitler Idaho’s not just lost on some people, but apparently lost from the work itself. Did Krafft’s statements transform his work from farce to fetish?  Is Charles Krafft’s art ironic or not? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Is Charles Krafft’s Nazi-Inspired Art Ironic or Not?"

[Image: Charles Krafft. Hitler Idaho.]

“In my line of work, we often talk about the art of diplomacy as we try to make people’s lives a little better around the world,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton writes in the latest issue of Vanity Fair. “But, in fact, art is also a tool of diplomacy.” Since starting a visual arts program in 1953, the more than 200 U.S. Embassies and Consulates around the world have featured American artists on their walls. Clinton’s article, however, accompanies the first (biennial) awarding of U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts. Cai Guo-Qiang, Jeff Koons, Shahzia Sikander, Kiki Smith, and Carrie Mae Weemsreceived medals as representatives of the 4,000 American and International artists in the program whose art, as Clinton says, “reaches beyond governments, past the conference rooms and presidential palaces, to help us connect with more people in more places” and serves as “a universal language in our search for common ground, an expression of our shared humanity.” Those honorees range from the safe to the not so safe in terms of diplomacy both home and abroad. Undoubtedly, the question the more risky choices will raise is whether the U.S. State Department should be using art as a diplomatic tool. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Should the U.S. State Department Be Using Art Asa Diplomatic Tool?"

[Image: Kara Walker. The moral arc of history ideally bends towards justice but just as soon as not curves back around toward barbarism, sadism, and unrestrained chaos, 2010. Graphite and pastel on 6-by-9½-foot paper.]