Posts tagged "Metropolitan Museum of Art"
EFFECTIVE THIS MONTH, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has a new head of education. The New York City museum named Heidi Holder the Frederick P. and Sandra P. Rose Chair of Education. She previously served as director of education at the Queens Museum. News of Holder’s hiring was announced Sept. 18, alongside the appointment of...
HOWARDENA PINDELL, Detail of “Oval Memory Series II: Castle Dragon,” 1980-81. LAST YEAR, ANDREA BOWERS was in conversation with Martha Rosler at the Dia Art Foundation. The two artists discussed “If You Lived Here…,” a project about homelessness and real estate in New York City Rosler presented at the Dia in 1989. Invited to...
“HOW DO YOU PAINT YOUR SLAVE?” artist Julie Mehretu wonders. She is looking at “Juan de Pareja,” a 1650 oil on canvas by Spanish painter Velázquez (1599–1660). She describes it as portrait of a black man with copper skin and brown eyes. “He was one of his primary assistants and he was his slave… The...
FASCINATED BY HIS BLACK-AND-WHITE IMAGES of a man in a rumpled shirt emerging from the subway seemingly propelled by an angle of light and Billie Holiday captured in soft focus, photographer Dawoud Bey discusses the style and composition of photographer Roy DeCarava (1919-2009). Bey says DeCarava was the first African American artist working in...
HIGHLY REGARDED FOR HIS GRAND MURALS and monumental canvases, artist Aaron Douglas‘s work straddled the visual and literary arts during the Harlem Renaissance. While his depictions of African American history and culture referenced ancient Egyptian motifs and traditional African forms, his graphic style was decidedly modern. Recognized for his silhouetted figures, Douglas’s work was...
SINCE SHE WAS A TEENAGER, LaToya Ruby Frazier has been using a camera to document her family and community. Growing up in Braddock, Pa., where the steel mill was the chief employer, her photographic endeavor became a serious pursuit when the industry collapsed. The local economy failed and its citizens faced critical health challenges caused...
RECLINING IN THE NUDE or posed upright on sofas, Mickalene Thomas‘s female subjects are always surrounded by a dynamic mix of patterned textiles. Mixed-media paintings and photographs, her portraits of African American women are inspired in part by the practice of Malian photographer Seydou Keita (1921-2001), whose work is shown above. “I wasn’t trained...
RECOMMENDED FEATURES recently published content from around the web, recommendations from Culture Type worth taking the time to explore: “The Met Embraces Neglected Southern Artists” by Paige Williams | The New Yorker The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced the acquisition of dozens of works by African American self-taught artists from the South including Thornton Dial,...