SANTA MONICA, Calif. — As US–Cuba relations begin to thaw, a pop-up art show continues the decades-long work of cultural diplomacy by Cuban artists.
Abe Ahn
Abe is a writer based in Los Angeles.
Posted inArt
An LA Community Fights the “Discovery” of Its Neighborhood by Commercial Art Galleries
LOS ANGELES — A normally quiet and industrial stretch of Mission Road that abuts the Los Angeles River came to life on Saturday evening when a group of artists and activists put together a mobile art exhibit celebrating the working-class neighborhood of Boyle Heights.
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Working Toward an “Artist Survival Guide” for People of Color
LOS ANGELES — Over the summer, a group of artists invited the public to talk critically and humorously about race, art, and survival in a context where they could not only vent frustrations but also share resources and build community as people of color.
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When Our Bodies Become as Artificial as the Food We Consume
LOS ANGELES — We are what we eat, the saying goes, but do the artificial components of the modern diet make us something other than human?
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Good Art Comes in Small Packages at LA Gallery’s Miniature Show
LOS ANGELES — The Mini Show presented stamp-sized paintings and sculptures, offering a unique vantage for experiencing new work.
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Erasing the US–Mexico Border Fence
LOS ANGELES — “If a color cannot cure, can it at least incite hope?” writer Maggie Nelson asks in Bluets, a series of prose poems about the color blue.
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Forging Queer Identity with Abstraction
LOS ANGELES — Queerness is often expressed through figuration or performance, but Surface of Color, curated by artist Paul Pescador, challenges the notion that identity must be explicit by presenting works that elude easy definition.
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A Conversation with Curator Eric Nakamura on the Fourth Giant Robot Biennale
LOS ANGELES — While museum biennials can generally feel like lofty affairs, the Giant Robot Biennale 4 at the Japanese American National Museum takes a more populist approach to its roster of visual artists and illustrators, presenting sketchbooks and zines as well as paintings and sculptures.
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Crafting Alternative Histories Through Memory and Myth
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — When poet and activist Audre Lorde published her book Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, she called it “biomythography,” a blend of memoir, history, and myth.
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#RacistBruin Group Protests UCLA’s Failure to Address Racism, Sexual Violence, and Corporatization
LOS ANGELES — Last Monday, an anonymous group of students at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) took their protest into the latest edition of the Daily Bruin, or at least what resembled the school newspaper.
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At the LA Art Book Fair, a Missed Opportunity to Address Race
LOS ANGELES — In the days leading up to the LA Art Book Fair (LAABF), and during Thursday’s preview, members of the LA arts community criticized the organizers for their use of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) meme.
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White (Box) Supremacy
LOS ANGELES — Hours after news of the Ferguson grand jury decision swept the country, artists and audience members gathered at the volunteer-run space Human Resources to discuss the ways in which artists can intervene against structural racism, not just in the art world but the world at large.
