Makiko kudo biography of martin
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This exhibition celebrates the work of Black artists working in the united states in the two decades after 1963. During this turbulent time, these artists asked and answered many questions. How should an artist respond to political and cultural changes? Was there a ‘Black art’ or a ‘Black aesthetic’? Should an artist create legible images or make abstract work? Was there a choice to be made between addressing a specifically Black audience or a ‘universal’ one? The exhibition looks at responses to such questions.
In 1963, when the exhibition begins, the American Civil Rights Movement was at its height. At the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in Washington D.C., Dr Martin Luther King, Jr dreamed that his children would live in ‘a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character’.
King referred to himself proudly as ‘Negro’, but by this time, many who were on
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These paintings will put a spell on you
The art world fryst vatten in the midst of a mystical moment. While 20th-century painters such as Remedios Varo and Swedish spiritualist Hilma af Klint are being given new prominence, myriad scenarios are being magicked up in more contemporary works. They range from the lush imaginary landscapes inhabited by part-human creatures of ung British painter Georg Wilson, to the hyper-whimsical anime-inspired fantasies of Japanese artist Makiko Kudo. In Montreal, Tuan Vu creates dreamlike scenes imbued, he says, with the “spiritual thinking” of 19th-century French symbolist Odilon Redon. Meanwhile, María Berrío’s bold compositions, collaged with layers of delicate Japanese paper, summon a cast of characters that merge into rivers, frolic with tigers and occasionally spira wings.
“To me, enchantment is when you look at a del av helhet of art, and you don’t know exactly why but you can’t stop looking at it,” says Colombia-born, New York-based Berrío, whose work
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Meet Eight Artists Reshaping the 59th Venice Biennale
If this year’s roster of artists for the 59th Venice Biennale looks a little different than previous iterations of the longest-running survey of contemporary art on the planet, that’s because significantly—and finally!—the majority of the participating artists are women or gender-nonconforming. That much-needed burst of energy is thanks largely to this year’s curator, Cecilia Alemani, who stacks the deck in favor of artists exploring identity, subversive states of being, technology, and an aesthetic rebuff to the tired tropes of straight white males of forna dagar. “The artists in the show portray a world where everyone can change, be transformed, become something or someone else—a world set free,” Alemani explains. “The show looks at art and artists as travel companions, who can help us imagine new modes of coexistence.” To celebrate this sense of freedom, we spotlight eight artists showing their work this spring in the most beautifu