Category Archives: art criticism
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Nalini Malani at the National Gallery London “My Reality is Different”
Nalini Malani’s immersive animated installation at the National Gallery London plunges us into a world of bizarre figures, creatures, and energy waves that swirl and constantly change shape as they invade the complacency of the people in famous European paintings, bit by bit . Nalini Malini (That’s a clip from the installation. […]
This entry was posted on May 27, 2023 and is filed under Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Feminism, Uncategorized. -
Humaira Abid: Confronting Women’s Oppressions
Women’s rights are front and center as Iran erupts in anger at its oppressive extremely conservative government after Mahsa Amini a young woman died from being beaten by the so-called morality police. Two 16 year old girls Sarina Esmailzadeh and Nika Shakrami, have also died in the protests. In this country, the repeal of Roe […]
This entry was posted on October 17, 2022 and is filed under Art and Politics Now, Feminism, Iran, Iranian protests, Iranian Women, Uncategorized. -
Embodied Change: South Asian Art Across Time at the Asian Art Museum
Natalia Di Pietranto, the new Assistant Curator of South Asian Art at the Seattle Art Museum explains her first exhibition “Embodied Change, Asian Art Across Time” as follows “I wanted to . . . explore how the body is a site of both personal intimacy and possibility for change. . . I hope that […]
This entry was posted on March 26, 2022 and is filed under Art and Activism, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Feminism, Uncategorized. -
Michelle Kumata
this article originally appeared in a shorter version here http://www.artaccess.com/articles/12634620 Bonfire Gallery “Michelle Kumata: Regeneration” to March 26 We are compelled to enter “Regeneration,” Michelle Kumata’s exhibition at the Bonfire Gallery by the banners in the gallery windows. In the exhibition, Kumata is addressing the difficult subject of the long term […]
This entry was posted on March 8, 2022 and is filed under Art and Activism, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Art in War, Contemporary Asian American Art, Uncategorized. -
Kenjiro Nomura American Modernist
“Kenjiro Nomura American Modernist, An Issei Artist’s Journey” (Cascadia Art Museum, Edmonds, to February 20) Kenjiro Nomura (1896 – 1956) came from Japan to Tacoma at the age of ten in 1907. while living in Tacoma as a child, he attended a Japanese Language school where he was fortunate to have a skilled teacher who […]
This entry was posted on February 1, 2022 and is filed under American Art, art criticism, Uncategorized. -
Ghost of a Dream and Elizabeth ‘Mumbet’ Freeman
Ghost of a Dream and Elizabeth Mumbet Freedom at the new MassArtArt Museum
This entry was posted on November 11, 2021 and is filed under Art and Activism, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Contemporary Art, Feminism, Uncategorized. -
Defusing Radical Alice Neel
Observe these two portraits On the right is the feature image of the Metropolitan Museum of Art current exhibition of the work of Alice Neel “People Come First” It is identified as a portrait of “Elenka”1936, about which there is no information except that she “presumably numbered among the several bohemians with […]
This entry was posted on August 24, 2021 and is filed under Art and Activism, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Contemporary Art, Feminism, Uncategorized. -
Grief and Grievance at the New Museum in New York
Grief and Grievance at the New Museum demonstrates the many ways that artist can address grief while collectively suggesting grievance, the resistance to injustice.
This entry was posted on July 8, 2021 and is filed under Art and Activism, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Contemporary Art, Uncategorized. -
Breathe! at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art and several provocative new shows at the Henry Art Gallery
Provocative artists in several shows at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art and the Henry Art Gallery
This entry was posted on April 14, 2021 and is filed under Art and Activism, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Contemporary Art, ecology, Feminism, Uncategorized. -
Port Townsend marks its history with Indigenous groups
Port Townsend reveals its Indigenous History
This entry was posted on April 6, 2021 and is filed under Art and Ecology, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, ecology, Indigenous History, Uncategorized. -
Selma Waldman More Important Than Ever in 2021
“Lust for power and territory is the same lust that kills man, women, children and the land itself” Selma Waldman 2002 What would Seattle’s deeply political artist Selma Waldman think of our current catastrophes? On a bitter winter day in January 2008, I accompanied Selma Waldman to the last demonstration that she attended […]
This entry was posted on February 26, 2021 and is filed under Art and Activism, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Contemporary Art, Uncategorized. -
Women’s Suffrage and Women’s Suffering
The Center on Contemporary Art (COCA) WHAT STORY WOULD THE UNINTENDED BENEFICIARIES TELL (WSWUBT), which closes in two days, is a wonderful small selection of artists addressing the suffrage amendment and who was left out. The artists include Carletta Carrington Wilson with a selection from her incredible Letter to a Laundress series that I have […]
This entry was posted on October 22, 2020 and is filed under African American history, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Black Art, Carletta Carrington Wilson, Feminism, Uncategorized. -
South African superstar photographer Zanele Muholi at the Seattle Art Museum
Somnyama Ngonyama: Hail the Dark Lioness South African superstar artist Zanele Muholi bursts out of the Jacob Lawrence and Gwen Knight corner gallery at the Seattle Art Museum: “I’m reclaiming my blackness.” Their exhibition “Somnyama Ngonyama: Hail the Dark Lioness,” spills into four adjoining spaces. First, we see the huge signature self-portrait […]
This entry was posted on September 23, 2019 and is filed under Art and Activism, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Contemporary Art, Feminism, Uncategorized. -
Carletta Carrington Wilson’s “letter to a laundress”
Carletta Carrington Wilson addresses her “letter to a laundress” to her great great grandmother, but her profound photo/poem installation currently on view at the Kittredge Gallery in Tacoma (only until September 29) honors the work of all those who, in her words, “took in wash.” She found photographs of anonymous […]
This entry was posted on September 7, 2018 and is filed under African American fiction, African American history, American Art, Arican American history, Art and Activism, Art and Ecology, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Civil War, ecology, Uncategorized. -
“In the Fields of Empty Days: Intersections of Past and Present in Iranian Art,”
“In the Fields of Empty Days: The Intersection of Past and Present in Iranian Art” at The Los Angeles County Museum is a show on a crucial topic. Although much of the work is contemporary, note that the title does not say that. Tirafkan’s image speaks volumes of the intersection of past and present that […]
This entry was posted on June 25, 2018 and is filed under Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Contemporary Art, Iran, Iranian protests, Iranian Women, Uncategorized. -
Anniversary of Russian Revolution Part III: Pussy Riot
Pussy Riot protest conditions of oppression in Russia and elsewhere.
This entry was posted on December 15, 2017 and is filed under Art and Activism, Art and Politics Now, Feminism, Russian Performance Art, Uncategorized. -
Zhi LIN: In Search of the Lost History of Chinese Migrants and the Transcontinental Railroads
“Zhi LIN In Search of the Lost History of Chinese Migrants and the Transcontinental Railroads” at the Tacoma Art Museum is a tour de force of research, aesthetics, history, tragedy, and beauty.
This entry was posted on July 7, 2017 and is filed under Art and Activism, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Uncategorized, Western History. -
Kerry James Marshall Maestro and Shaman
Kerry James Marshall Retrospective glories in the humanity and history of African Americans, and confronts the prejudices of the white eye, the white museum, the white art history
This entry was posted on March 1, 2017 and is filed under African American history, American Art, Art and Activism, art criticism, Art of Democracy, Black Art, Black Panthers, Ethnicity, Uncategorized. -
The Spirit of Standing Rock
Art inspired by the Standing Rock resistance is appearing everywhere and in all media
This entry was posted on February 14, 2017 and is filed under Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Contemporary Art, Contemporary Indigenous Art, Culture and Human rights, Deborah Lawrence, Standing Rock, Uncategorized. -
Maria De Los Angeles: Artist, Activist, Undocumented
DACA Delayed Action for Childhood Arrivals a program that provides temporary status to young people brought here as children may be cancelled any day. Maria De Los Angeles, a DACA who is not afraid to speak out, addresses the tensions and anxieties of immigrant families in her drawings and performances.
This entry was posted on January 24, 2017 and is filed under art criticism, Art of Democracy, Feminism, Immigration, Uncategorized. -
The Artnauts: A Global Collective of Artists for Peace
The Artnauts, an art collective, travel to places of conflict and collaborate with artists in places such as Palestine, Guatemala, Bosnia, the Amazon, even China.
This entry was posted on December 3, 2016 and is filed under Art and Activism, Art and Ecology, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Uncategorized. -
Constellations (Asterismos) on Amorgos in the Cyclades
Constellations, (Asterismos) a multimedia arts festival on the remote Cycladic Island of Amorgos is run entirely by volunteers with creative performers donating their time. Now in its fourth year, it gets better every year.
This entry was posted on July 31, 2016 and is filed under Amorgos Greece, Art and Activism, Art and Ecology, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Uncategorized. -
Montmartre!
Montmartre has a radical history in politics and art. It still retains an independent spirit and atmosphere.
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Mona Hatoum at the Tate Modern
Mona Hatoum overtly expresses violence in her early performance works, then through metaphor with minimal materials she brings that sense of threat into our own bodies and lives.
This entry was posted on July 12, 2016 and is filed under Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Art in Beirut, Art in War, Contemporary Art, Feminism, Palestine, Uncategorized, Women Artists. -
Walid Raad Scratching on Things I Could Disavow
Walid Raad Scratching on Things I Disavow at the Museum of Modern Art probes the interconnections of art, money, history, in the Middle East, focusing on Saadiyat (Happiness) Island in Dubai.
This entry was posted on February 23, 2016 and is filed under Art and Activism, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Art in Beirut, Art in War, Contemporary Art, Uncategorized.
