tagged w/ art and culture
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Photographs from Sydney, Australia on Wednesday, October 15, 2008.
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ST. PETERSBURG.- Two new exhibitions which opened at the Salvador Dalí Museum this fall highlight the diverse ways Western and non-Western mythology enlivened Surrealism. Wifredo Lam in North America is the first U.S. exhibit in over 30 years to feature works by Lam, the celebrated 20th century Cuban-born artist. This national traveling exhibition organized by the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University represents the major phases in Lam’s career, with examples spanning from 1927 through 1972. The exhibit focuses on Lam’s impact on the development of modern art in America, tracing the way in which he combined aspects of the European avant-garde with Afro-Cuban myths and art forms, leaving a legacy of intercultural dialogue that remains influential to this day. Over 50 paintings and drawings, together with photos and letters, are shown in the museum’s west galleries. In the east galleries, the Dalí exhibition, Myth in Dalí’s Art, features a selection of works from the museum’s permanent collection, which examine how Dalí used mythology to embody his fears and desires. Both exhibitions are on display through January 11, 2009.
About Wifredo Lam in North America
Wifredo Lam was born in Sagua la Grande, Cuba, in 1902. His parents were of Chinese, African, and Spanish ancestry. In 1923 Lam moved to Spain to study art at the Museo del Prado, Madrid (under a former teacher of Salvador Dalí) remaining in Spain another thirteen years. After being wounded fighting on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, Lam moved to Paris in 1938, where he met Picasso. Picasso introduced him to artists and writers living in Paris, including André Breton, leader of the Surrealists. It was in Europe at this time that Lam first saw the African sculpture that so informed his painting.
In 1941 Lam left Europe and returned to Cuba. After nearly twenty years abroad, he was shocked by the poverty of the Afro-Cuban population and impressed by the vitality of the popular, religious culture of their tradition of Santería. The impact of his return prompted a radical shift in Lam's style, representing an engagement with African-derived religion.
Lam’s work gained international recognition in the 1940s, with a series of one-person shows in London, Paris and New York. Between 1947 and 1952, Lam lived and worked in Havana, New York and Paris, where he eventually settled, continuing his career until his death in 1982. His work can be found in major museums throughout the world, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Tate Modern in London.
Lam contributed a non-European Afro-Cuban voice to Western art, synthesizing Cubism, Surrealism, “primitivism,” Négritude (Black Identity), Afro-Cuban history, and the African-derived Santería religion. “Over time competing interpretations of Lam's work have been offered. Initially he was presented as a Surrealist and Primitivist, his work seen as a fusion of non-Western and Western meanings into a kind of universal myth,” said William Jeffett, Dalí Museum Curator of Special Exhibitions. “More recently his mature work has been presented as challenging Western models of Modernism from the vantage point of post-colonialism and Afro-Cuban identity. It is now clear that Lam was intellectually engaged with contemporary anthropological analyses: whether those generated in Europe by figures such as his close friend Michel Leiris (Head of African Art at the Musée de l'Homme) or closer to home in Cuba, where Fernando Ortiz, Lydia Cabrera, Alejo Carpentier opened the critical discussion of Santería.”
The selected works were curated by Mr. Curtis Carter, Emeritus Director of the Haggerty in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. ****CONTINUESST. PETERSBURG.- Two new exhibitions which opened at the Salvador Dalí Museum... more
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The presidential candidates don't argue over whether it is right to bomb Muslim countries, but rather over whether they’ve chosen the right Muslim country to bomb. A special interest group commanded by Israeli ex-officials unloaded 28 million copies of an anti-Muslim hate film in swing states to titillate idle exurban imaginations. The hammer of the “war on terror” is wielded against an ever-expanding pool of people who conveniently appear as wayward nails.
As these ominous realities unfold before their eyes, some American Muslims appear resigned and fatalistic.
Wajahat Ali is not among them. The 27-year-old California-born Muslim with Pakistani roots takes an aggressive but level-headed approach to politics and the arena of ideas. An attorney, activist, writer, journalist, and playwright, Wajahat aspires to the dynamism and versatility of Muslim scholars and poets of past ages.
“There’s no rule that say you only have to be one thing,” he says, emphasizing the need for American Muslims to become valuable leaders within their own communities—and to make their own communities leading examples of Muslim values: tolerance, justice, and scholarship.
“Prophet Muhammad said, ‘Seek knowledge, even if you have to go as far as China.’ You want to be part of a renaissance, you want to be part of a cultural, spiritual, intellectual revolution, where you revive Islamic scholarship,” Wajahat says.
The Bay Area resident says he never sought out to take up that path; rather, the path sought him out.
“It was when I went to preschool and realized for the first time, like most minorities do, that you’re different,” he notes. Born into a traditional South Asian family and living with both his parents and grandparents, he spoke Urdu exclusively the first four years of his life, entering ESL in the first-grade.
“From elementary school, and even in high school, I ended up being the token Muslim guy” who teachers and classmates approached for knowledge about Islam, Wajahat explains. Sometimes, they also came for pranks: “Some of my friends would put bacon bits in my salad to see if I would go to hell,” he says in a bemused tone.
“It’s not that I wore religion on my sleeve…when you’re growing up as a minority, all you want to do is fit in like everyone else. You want the cutest girl to talk to you and you want to be one of the cool kids.”
But Wajahat quickly learned he could leverage his uniqueness. “You become an exotic…but you make a decision whether you’re going to be hermetic with your Otherness or whether you’re going to be proactive.”
Choosing the latter route, Wajahat wrote his debut American Muslim play, Domestic Crusaders, when he was 23. The play was produced by his writing teacher and Pulitzer-prize nominee Ishmael Reed.
Developing his repertoire through improvisational comedy (“I started doing jokes because I was a fat kid, and I saw that humor really worked”), he created the post-Sept.11th superhero “Captain Islam” and played an active role in the Muslim Student Association.
An associate editor of the publication AltMuslim.com—“it’s neither too apologetic nor too antagonistic”—Wajahat exhorts wealthier American Muslims to invest in their own future by creating think tanks and scholarships in art and media instead of collecting luxury cars. “We have to break out of our culturally isolated bubble,” he says.
Wajahat knows that Muslim mobilization will not immediately alter the political landscape—but he understands that the Muslim landscape must be altered by political mobilization.
“As the joke goes, the question is, ‘Who is going to kill us less?’,” he says of the candidates. “But [Obama] is the lesser of two evils. You have to be strategic. I’m a strong believer that Muslims have to engage.”The presidential candidates don't argue over whether it is right to bomb Muslim... more
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For centuries, art has been intended to inspire. The Sistine Chapel’s famous high ceiling was created to direct the viewer’s eye upward. The Elevate Film Festival, as the name implies, holds the same noble objective.
The first of its kind, Elevate combines a filmmaking competition with a mandate to produce socially conscious works in seven days of “guerilla” filmmaking.
Enthusiastic supporters and participants gathered on Monday in the plaza outside Nokia’s 7,000 seat theater. The entrance featured Elevate’s interpretation of the ‘red carpet’—an astroturf ‘green’ carpet. The festival premiered 20 short films by some of the industry’s burgeoning talents.
Arodhana Silvermoon, member of the hiphop/fusion band The Luminaries eagerly awaited the premiere of her band’s music video. The video was directed by Justin Thomas Ostensen, who was matched up with them a day before the competition. “We haven’t even seen it yet,” she excitedly said of the video that later won best editing.
The 20 shorts films fall within the categories of music video, narrative, short documentary, or commercial. Grammy winning blues artist Keb’ Mo’ won for Best Music Video for his soulful rendition of America the Beautiful, directed by Tommy Maddox Upshaw, offering a portrait of the eclectic make up of Americans.
Help Wanted, directed by Teo Guardino, which won for best narrative, is a story about finding appreciation for what you have.
Other entries explored the benefits of meditation, the unifying nature of sacred music, and the empowering work of Brother Ishmael Tete in Ghana.
The experience of watching uplifting and heartfelt film shorts was as exhilarating as biting into fresh mango after years of eating canned fruit cocktail, and confirmed my hangover from watching too many angst driven dark films that Hollywood often churns out.
Cofounder of Elevate, award winning filmmaker Mikki Willis, offered this observation of the seven stress-filled and sleepless nights leading up to the ceremony and presentation; although this was a competition, he witnessed participants supporting and helping each other with editing, resources, and whatever was needed, pointing out the original meaning of the word “compete” was “to strive together,” the essence of Elevate’s vision.For centuries, art has been intended to inspire. The Sistine Chapel’s famous... more
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An educator and DJ talks about music, activism and why Los Angeles is fresher than you think.
There are two subjects that Patrick Huang can talk about endlessly: soul music, and educational pedagogy. The 26-year-old, known universally as DJ Phatrick, has a foot planted firmly in both worlds.
He burst onto the national scene as the DJ and producer for Native Guns, a popular political hip-hop group. Still fresh out of college, Huang co-founded the Bay Unity Music Project (BUMP), a youth record label and development program that works with aspiring musicians in West Oakland. Three years later, he left, frustrated with institutional bureaucracies. He returned from a trip to Southeast Asia in 2007 and soon after started a bi-weekly soul music party called Devil's Pie.
Huang began DJing in his hometown of Sugarland, Texas, a Houston suburb. He grew up in an upper middle-class, Chinese-American family. He says he later realized how much suburbs work to "deaden differences." After his parents sent him to an exclusive Houston-area private school (where the movie Rushmore was filmed) he developed an admittedly uncritical "fuck whitey" complex. Later, as an ethnic studies major at the University of California, Berkeley, he finally found activism he could get down with. After earning a strong reputation in the Bay Area's hip-hop scene, Huang recently took his talents to Los Angeles.
Last spring, he released a mixtape called Asian American Hip-Hop for Dummies, which showcases a spectrum of politically infused Asian Pacific Islander (API) artists. While he fears being typecast as "that Asian American hip-hop DJ," the former Mohawk-sporting, James Brown-loving dude, with a tendency to geek out, is anything but typical.
Huang sat down to talk with us about music, activism and why Los Angeles is fresher than you might think.
**********INTERVIEW FOLLOWS AT LINK****************An educator and DJ talks about music, activism and why Los Angeles is fresher than you... more
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