Posts from the “Crave” Category

Yayoi Kusama: In Infinity

Posted on October 31, 2016

© Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/ Singapore; Victoria Miro Gallery, London; David Zwirner, New York, © Yayoi Kusama.

“I, Kusama, am the modern Alice in Wonderland,’ Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama declares. At the age of 87, Kusama is one of the most famous living artists on earth, becoming known the world over for her mindblowing installations of the infinite.

With the polka dot as the basis for her work, Kusama has taken the most finite form and rendered it limitless. She explains, “A polka-dot has the form of the sun, which is a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life, and also the form of the moon, which is calm. Round, soft, colourful, senseless and unknowing. Polka-dots can’t stay alone; like the communicative life of people, two or three polka-dots become movement… Polka-dots are a way to infinity.”

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Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Japan, Women

The Great Barrier Reef Teeters of the Brink of Death

Posted on October 31, 2016

Photo: This giant clam used to sit in a colourful field of corals before March 2016 – now she is alone on the reef slope. No Name reef (Lizard Island region), October 2016. Photo by Greg Torda

More than 25 million years old, the Great Barrier Reef is the earth’s largest living structure and the only one visible from space—and now, after more than 35 years of dire warnings, it has fallen victim to climate change, resulting in mass casualties throughout much of its spectacular ecosystem.

At 1,400 miles long, the Great Barrier Reef was a model of biodiversity at its finest, home to 2,900 individual coral reefs and 1,050 islands, harboring some 1,625 species of fish, 3,000 species of mollusk, 450 species of coral, 220 species of bird, and 30 species of whales and dolphins, as well the largest breeding ground of green turtles.

In Wednesday, October 26, 2016, scientists from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University in Queensland have announced that the dramatic underwater heatwave in 2015-16 has resulted in a massive death toll across the Great Barrier Reef.

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Categories: Crave

Edward Burtynsky: Essential Elements

Posted on October 30, 2016

Photo: Thjorsà River #1, Southern Region, Iceland, 2012. © Edward Burtynsky 2016. Courtesy Flowers Gallery, London / Metivier Gallery, Toronto

We have entered the Anthopocene Era, marked by the turning point when human activities began to make a significant global impact on the Earth’s geology and ecosystems. Many place the starting point with the Industrial Revolution, when mass production became the norm, and the machine rose to prominence as evidence of humankind’s ability to dominate nature—without thought or concern to the long term.

We’ve been riding this train for two centuries, quick to ignore evidence to the contrary, lest it cause us any intellectual or physical discomfort. The human impact on the planet is marginalized or excused while the changes to climate are carefully swept under the rug. The increase in extinctions and the decline in biodiversity go unremarked.

As Alduous Huxley observed in Vanity Fair in 1928, “”The colossal material expansion of recent years is destined, in all probability, to be a temporary and transient phenomenon. We are rich because we are living on our capital. The coal, the oil, the phosphates which we are so recklessly using can never be replaced. When the supplies are exhausted, men will have to do without…. It will be felt as a superlative catastrophe.”

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Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Crave, Exhibitions, Photography

The World Famous “Afghan Girl” Makes Headlines as Refugee Arrested in Pakistan

Posted on October 30, 2016

Photo: Fair use/NADRA

The “Afghan Girl” became a worldwide phenomenon when she appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic. Just 12 years old, she had searing green eyes that pierced the soul, speaking of knowledge and wisdom untold. Photographed by Steve McCurry in the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan, the girl was stripped of her name and her history, reduced to a symbol of propaganda in the Cold War.

The “Afghan Girl” became “the most recognized photograph” in the history of the magazine, catapulting McCurry to new heights of fame. Described as “The First World’s Third World Mona Lisa,” the portrait became emblematic of the West’s approach to the refugee crisis, using beauty and suffering to drive newsstand sales.

The identity of the “Afghan Girl’ was unknown until 2002, when a National Geographic team traveled to Afghanistan to locate her. She was found in a remote region of her native land after leaving a refugee camp in 1992, where she was identified as Sharbat Gula, then age 30. There she saw the photograph for the very first time.

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Categories: 1980s, Crave, Photography

Ai Wewei: #SafePassage

Posted on October 27, 2016

Photo: Incoming refugee boat, Lesbos, Greece. 17 February 2016 © Ai Weiwei Studio.

“My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression, a new way of communication. It is never about exhibiting in museums or about hanging it on the wall. Art should live in the heart of the people. Ordinary people should have the same ability to understand art as anybody else. I don’t think art is elite or mysterious. I don’t think anybody can separate art from politics. The intention to separate art from politics is itself a very political intention,” Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei (b. 1957) told Der Spiegel in 2011.

Ai Weiwei rose to global prominence in 2011 Chinese authorities arrested him at the Beijing Capital International Airport, although no official charges were ever filed. He was placed under 24-hour supervision, accompanied by two guards who never left his side, then released after 81 days. It was a very different outcome from that of his father, the poet Ai Qing, who spoke out against the government in 1957. The whole family was exiled to a labor camp when Ai Weiwei was just one year old, then transferred to the remote province of Xinjiang, where he was forced to perform five years of physically demanding work in his 60s.

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Categories: Art, Crave, Exhibitions

The Tragedy of Kaleif Browder has Taken His Mother’s Life

Posted on October 27, 2016

NEW YORK, NY – JANUARY 29: (L-R) Juju Chang, Nightline Co-Anchor, ABC News, Venida Browder mother of Kalief Browder and Paul V. Prestia, Esq., Civil Rights Attorney speak at the 2016 ‘Tina Brown Live Media’s American Justice Summit’ at Gerald W. Lynch Theatre on January 29, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Paul Zimmerman/WireImage)

Just days after Jay Z announced that he would be producing Time: The Kalief Browder Story, a six-part documentary series chronicling the tragic life and death of a teenage boy wrongfully imprisoned for three year at Riker’s Island, Browder’s mother, Venida, 63, died after a series of heart attacks on October 14, 2016.

Venida Browder was laid to rest on Saturday, October 22, leaving behind five children between the ages of 39 and 24. Kalief, her youngest, committed suicide in the family home last June at the age of 22.

Kalief Browder was only 16 years old when he was arrested, tortured by prisoners and guards alike, and kept in solitary confinement for nearly 300 days because he refused to plead guilty to a crime he did not commit. In a clear violation of his Sixth Amendment right to due process of the law, Browder remained incarcerated for three years because his family could not afford $3,000 in bail to bring him home.

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NEW YORK, NY – JANUARY 29: Venida Browder, mother of Kalief Browder attends the 2016 ‘Tina Brown Live Media’s American Justice Summit’ at Gerald W. Lynch Theatre on January 29, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images)

Categories: Crave

The Peter Tosh Museum Opens on the Legend’s 72nd Birthday

Posted on October 25, 2016

Photo: Peter Tosh © GAB Archive/Redferns.

Nearly thirty years after his tragic death, reggae legend Peter Tosh is being honored with a museum in his native Jamaica. The Peter Tosh Museum opened in Kingston on October 19, on what would have been his 72nd birthday, to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of his solo album Legalize It.

The museum features a collection of artifacts and memorabilia from Tosh, including his legendary custom-built guitar, which was shaped like an M16 assault rifle, and his beloved unicycle, which was his preferred means for transportation.

Born Winston Hubert McIntosh in the rural parish of Westmoreland, Jamaica, in 1944, Peter Tosh moved to the notorious slum Trench Town at the age of 16. He first picked up a guitar after watching a man play, memorizing everything his fingers were doing and playing it back to the man.

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peter-tosh-legalize-it-cover

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Art, Crave, Music

Standing Tall at Standing Rock

Posted on October 21, 2016

Photo: ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images.

Since the protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) at Standing Rock Sioux reservation, North Dakota, began in August, the United States government has taken the side of corporate interests that threaten the water supply of four states in the Midwest by allowing mercenaries to attack unarmed protestors, arresting journalists for covering the protest, and using extreme tactics to try to intimidate and stop the movement.

The protest first came to national attention on September 3, after destruction of sacred tribal lands began while a complaint filed by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe was pending decision. Construction crews began running bulldozers across the reservation, destroying sites of historic, religious, and cultural significance. Native Americans from more than 90 tribes had already been gathered on site, in an ongoing protest that began when complaint had first been filed on July 27— only to face mercenaries, pepper spray, and dogs set loose against them.

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Categories: Crave

Humanism + Dynamite = The Soviet Photomontages of Aleksandr Zhitomirsky

Posted on October 21, 2016

Aleksandr Zhitomirsky. On the Military Wavelength, 1968. Ne boltai! Collection. © Vladimir Zhitomirsky.

If only we could see ourselves the way others see us. Would we be able to tolerate it? The gap between self image and public perception can be quite a divide that becomes insurmountable when the ego feels threatened by anything less than flattering may come to the light. We may do everything in our power to deny what others see, including gaslight, discredit, and ad hominem attacks.

Nevertheless, self image is destined to reach an end; nothing lasts forever, including our most desperate dreams. It is here, in the passage of time, that a new vision emerges composed all those who have been paying attention all along. In the case of individuals, this usually has limited scope: most people fly under the radar and traces of their life vanish in death. But for nations, this is an entirely different affair. Despite best efforts to the contrary, dirty laundry continues to be aired.

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Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions

Azucar! The Life of Celia Cruz Comes to Netflix in an Epic Series

Posted on October 20, 2016

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The Queen of Salsa, the incomparable Celia Cruz (1925-2003) is now the subject of Celia, an epic television series now airing on Netflix showcasing the Cuban singer’s incredible life. Featuring 80 episodes, each 45 minutes in length, the series, which originally aired in 2015 in Colombia on RCN Television and in the United States on Telemundo, tells the story of Cruz’s rise to fame in Spanish, with English subtitles.

Celia stars Puerto Rican actress and Miami Beach resident Jeimy Osorio as the legendary entertainer with fellow Boricua actor Modesto Lacén cast as her husband, Pedro Knight. Directed by Victor Mallarino and Liliana Bocanegra, and scripted by Andrés Salgado, Celia tells the story of the singer’s rise to fame, beginning in pre-revolution Havana, when Salsa music was a white man’s game.

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celia-album

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Crave, Latin America, Music

Ruddy Roye: When Living is a Protest

Posted on October 19, 2016

Photo: Ruddy Roye. Blood, Sweat and Tears (Ryan), Morton Street, Newark, NJ, December 19, 2015 Archival pigment print on metallic paper, printed 2016, 35 x 35 in Edition of 10; Signed by photographer verso

From the top of the Lincoln Memorial, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke, delivering a sermon to the world, one that resonates in our mind’s ear whenever we hear the words, “I have a dream.” The timbre of his voice is permanently imprinted on our soul, his words among the most patriotic ever spoken. On the eighth anniversary of the brutal murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till, Dr. King’s testimony was centuries in the making, calling forth the ancestors of this country’s earliest days.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter,” Dr. King warned. There is an exquisite horror to the dying soul that lurks within the living body, feasting upon flesh and bone. It has been said that silence equals death; to speak against injustice and oppression is the essence of what it means to be American. These are the words that photographer Radcliffe “Ruddy” Roye carries within himself, revealing on his Instagram: “It is a creed I live by at whatever cost.”

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Categories: Art, Brooklyn, Crave, Exhibitions, Photography