News Art Blog

When Pablo Picasso and other early modernists appropriated elements of so-called “primitive” African art for Cubist and proto-Cubist works such as 1907’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon they perpetrated a kind of artistic colonialism similar to the economic colonialism that brought back African treasures to French museums and galleries in the first place. It was an exclusively European, almost exclusively male club that marginalized not just the African culture it emulated, but also the women that were often the subjects of their art. In Mickalene Thomas: Tête de Femme, African-American artist Mickalene Thomas breaks up the modernist boys club a century after its formation and takes aim at the lingering effects of its subtle misogyny and racism that continue in the visuals of our present-day culture. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "How Mickalene Thomas Breaks Up the Modernist Boys Club."

 
[Many thanks to Rizzoli USA for providing me with the image above and a review copy of the monograph Kehinde Wiley, by Thelma Golden, Sarah Lewis, Robert Hobbs, and Brian Keith Jackson. Many thanks also to Sean Kelly Gallery(whose exhibition Kehinde Wiley: An Economy of Grace runs through June 16, 2012) and to The Jewish Museum, New York (whose exhibition Kehinde Wiley/The World Stage: Israel runs through July 29, 2012) for press materials.]

New York taxis are known for lots of things, most of them bad. Thanks to a new advertising campaign, 500 Big Apple taxis will be known for something great—great art. Works by artists Chuck Close and Kehinde Wiley will grace the tops of 500 cabs for the rest of the month of January as part of an advertising campaign hoping to bring art to people in the streets. Their works will take up more than $100,000 worth of advertising space as part of a gift to the city. The next question will be whether pedestrians and fellow motorists will take note of these drive-by sightings or if the ads will blend into the great blur of life in the big city. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Drive-By Sightings."