Art & Cultural History

Art News: The Americas (7/16)

Cultured Muse | The Americas | July 16, 2015

THE AMERICAS

Featured Art

Sharon Hubbard

“Sea Stars” by Canadian Artist Sharon Hubbard

Art & Culture Fascinators

“Letters Found in Cereal Box Show Rare Look at German POWs After WW2”

By Susanna Kim via “ABC News”

Photo of German POW Letters

“Letters found in a Corn Flakes cereal box reveal intimate relationships between German prisoners of war and the Tennessee locals who lived and worked among them. Curtis Peters of Tennessee said his sister-in-law in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, found some 400 letters in the home of her great-aunt when she passed away in the late 1980s. The letters, written by German men who lived in a prison camp near Tennessee’s southern border after World War II, are “social history, about their lives, their families, the hardships they suffered,” said historian Tim Johnson. . .”

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“ANIME EXPO 2015: COSPLAY BLOWOUT”

By Chris Carle via “IGN”

Photo of Cosplay Participant

“Each year, Anime Expo proves to be one of the marquee destinations for cosplay in the US, and 2015 is no exception. AX attendees showed once again that they are some of the most skilled and dedicated cosplayers around.

With diverse cosplay from anime, video games, movies and TV shows, AX 2015 had a little something for everyone. In addition to anime cosplay galore, we saw Sly Cooper, Solid Snake, a Big Sister, Harley Quinn, Yoshimitsu, Servbot, a handful of War Boys, groups of roaming Borderlands vault hunters… even a guy dressed as the wireframe Little Mac from the arcade Punchout. . . .”

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Artist’s Before-And-After Drawings

By Todd Van Luling via “Huffington Post”

Artist's Work

“Noah Bradley is a 26-year-old artist finally surpassing the 10,000 hours mark for working his craft to perfection. Over the weekend his collection of drawings showing his progress from a 14-year-old with a dream to a master artist went viral, which as Bradley told The Huffington Post, has led to many aspiring artists reaching out to him about their own paths to “pursuing art.”
“Learning that my story served as some amount of inspiration for people to pick up a pencil just warms my heart,” Bradley told HuffPost. “I couldn’t be happier.”
Bradley transitioned from someone who wanted to be an artist to someone who fulfilled his dream.. . .”

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 An Introduction to the Booming World of Latin American Digital Arts

By Thea Pitman via “The Conversation”

Artist's Work

“The idea of “digital arts” may not immediately call Latin America to mind. Silicon Valley maybe, Old Street roundabout maybe; probably not Buenos Aires. But this is exactly where the most recent E-Poetry Festival, “renowned biennial international artistic gathering”, took place earlier this month. I attended, and the gallery space on the opening night was positively buzzing with internet artists, digital performance artists and sound, video and code poets.
This is the first time the festival has been held in Latin America in its 14-year history – previous events have been held in. . .”

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Panmela Castro Exhibition Continues in Rio de Janeiro

By Chesney Hearst via “The Rio Times”

Artist's Work

““Eva – O corpo feminino como tabu e ponte para a transgressão” (Eva – The female body as taboo and bridge for transgression), an exhibition of the works of Rio de Janeiro street artist and women’s rights activist Panmela Castro opened on July 8th in Galeria Scenarium and will continue through August 19th. The free to the public exhibition features over seventy works by Castro that explore the archetype of Eve, gender, and the female body. Curated by Priscilla Duarte, the displayed works include twenty paintings, twenty-two drawings, fifteen watercolors, three sculptures, fifteen photos and a video installation, created through a collaboration with Krank of the well-known Rio de Janeiro graffiti collective, FleshBeckCrew. . . .”

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“Art for a cause: photo exhibit documents Chilean dictatorship”

By Jeremiah Rodriguez via “The Hamilton Spectator”

Photo of Cosplay Participant

“A powerful set of photos and artwork will serve as stark reminders of Chile’s 17 years of violence at the hands of a brutal dictatorship.
The Pearl Company is hosting an art exhibit July 3 to 5 that chronicles the human rights violations under Augusto Pinochet from 1973 to 1990.
The official opening with music Friday night will feature guest speaker and human rights activist Carmen Gloria Quintana, who survived the Chilean military’s attempt to burn her alive in 1986.
In an email, translated from Spanish, she wrote why she is speaking at this exhibit. . . .”

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Canada’s largest public art project documented in new book Art for War and Peace

By On the Coast via “CBC News”

Artist's Work

“Most Canadians would remember seeing them in schools, libraries, and banks — prints of paintings that featured Canadian landscapes and alpine lakes made famous by the likes of Emily Carr and members of the Group of Seven.
In fact, the public art installations were part of the Sampson-Matthews silkscreen project, one of the largest art programs in Canada’s history.
The project, which was spearheaded by Group of Seven painter A.Y. Jackson, began as wartime propaganda during the Second World War.The Toronto graphic-arts company Sampson-Matthews Ltd. produced tens of thousands of prints that got installed in barracks in Allied countries. Afterwards, the images were made popular in Canadian schools, libraries, public offices and banks. . . .”

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“Mexican designers emerge from the shadow of the US”

By Alex Gorton via “FT.Com”

Photo of Cosplay Participant

“With its proximity to the US, fragmented infrastructure and cultural insecurity, Mexico’s design industry has long been overshadowed by its dominant northern neighbour. And yet, with increased economic growth, an emerging pride in its own skills and talent and a desire to look as much to the east and west as it does to the north, Mexico is an increasingly interesting player in global design.
By tapping into the country’s rich cultural heritage, artistic traditions and craft-based skills, Mexican designers are carving out their own niche by taking elements of traditional culture and updating them with a contemporary, global aesthetic.
“We are in a process of defining what Mexican design really is,” says Héctor Esrawe, one of the country’s leading designers. “It is not a consolidated movement and we have a lot to work on.”. . . .”

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Traditional Uruguayan Folk Dance

UNESCO’s newest World Heritage Sites

“UNESCO’s newest World Heritage Sites”

by Katia Hetter via “CNN News

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has added 24 new spots and 3 significant extensions to the UNESCO World Heritage List and three spots to its List of World Heritage in Danger. Click through the gallery to see some new members of both lists, including the only U.S. site added in 2015 (shown here).

There’s the site where Jesus was believed to have been baptized by John the Baptist. And then there are the spots where French Champagne and Burgundy were born. And you remember the Alamo, part of the San Antonio Missions of Texas?

They are among the 27 newest members of the exclusive UNESCO World Heritage List.

Since Friday, the United Nations’ cultural body has named natural, cultural and combination sites around the world to its prestigious preservation list. The World Heritage List now includes 1,031 natural and cultural wonders that are considered to be places of “outstanding universal value.”

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee had been considering new sites at a meeting in Bonn, Germany, that started June 28.

San Antonio Missions site gets World Heritage status

The inscribed sites of “outstanding universal value” must also meet one or more of 10 criteriasuch as “representing a masterpiece of human creative genius,” containing “exceptional natural beauty” or being an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement.

UNESCO has been adding sites to the World Heritage List since 1978. Nations often spend years developing pitches for inclusion on the list because of its significant cultural cachet and the fame and resources it can attract to sites in need of restoration and protection. They must convince the UNESCO committee that they will protect their sites and support them financially.  . . .

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Coming Exhibition: Bharti Kher~ Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Bharti Kher:

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Who:  

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

When: July 1, 2015 – January 31, 2016 (Hours Vary)

Where: 

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
25 Evans Way
Boston, MA 02115

More Information: Here.

Bharti Kher is the sixth artist-in-residence invited to create a temporary site-specific work for the Museum’s façade. Kher’s project reflects on maritime travel, highlighted by her interest in mapping and typography and references the migration of people in Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Kher uses bindis, a popular forehead decoration worn by women in India, and a signature element in her work, to map demographic movement in an abstract way.

Bharti Kher’s (b. 1969, England) is an art of dislocation and transience, reflecting her own, largely itinerant life. Born and raised in England, the artist moved to New Delhi in the early 1990s after her formal training in the field. Consequently, the concept of home as the location of identity and culture is constantly challenged in her body of work. In addition to an autobiographical examination of identity, Kher’s unique perspective also facilitates an outsider’s ethnographic observation of contemporary life, class and consumerism in urban India.

Presently, Kher uses the bindi, a dot indicative of the third eye worn by the Indian women on their foreheads, as a central motif in her work. Bharti Kher often refers to her mixed media works with bindis, the mass-produced, yet traditional ornaments, as “action paintings.” Painstakingly placed on the surface one-by-one to form a design, the multi-colored bindis represent custom, often inflexible, as well as the dynamic ways in which it is produced and consumed today. The artist is also known for her collection of wild and unusual resin-cast sculptures and her digital photography.

Some of World’s Best Art Is Made in Cuba

Some of World’s Best Art Is Made in Cuba”

by Miles Mogulescu via “Huffington Post

2015-07-08-1436377643-9188006-Cuba2015Canon099.JPG

Cuban artists are creating some of the most exciting and innovative contemporary art in the world. The best Cuban art can stack up against the best contemporary art being created in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, London or other world art centers, while still maintaining an essential Cuban spirit.

That’s my observation after returning from the 12th Havana Art Biennial in June and spending a week visiting with some of Cuba’s leading artists in their homes and studios.

The trip coincided with a tipping point in US-Cuban relations. A week after our return, the US and Cuban governments announced that after a 54-year schism, they are reopening embassies in each others’ Capitals on July 20th, even though the US embargo of trade with Cuba remains in place and may only be lifted by an act of Congress.

“Cuba probably has more artists per capita than any country in the world,” says Sandra Levinson, Executive Director of the Center for Cuban Studies and Curator of the Cuban Art Space, one of the few places where US citizens can purchase first-rate Cuban art without personally travelling to Cuba.

“I think Cubans are dreamers and poets from birth and put their dreams and their poetry into music and art,” adds Levinson, who has been leading people-to-people visits to Cuba for decades. (She accompanied Jack Nicholson on a 2-hour visit with Fidel Castro.)

And I think Cuba as a nation recognizes the importance of art because Cubans are artists from birth, in the way they live, in the way they produce, in the way they construct their lives. They are not the most practical people in the world — practical people don’t make revolutions — but they are super smart, and they relate to one another. That’s allowed them to build a real community, and if you live in a real community you can accomplish miracles.

In addition, the multiple dualities in Cuban reality engender a creative tension which can lead to unique forms of artistic expression, found in few other countries in the world.

Cuba has been somewhat isolated from its nearest neighbor due to the 54-year-old US economic blockade; but at the same time, Cuban artists are highly educated, sophisticated and aware of what’s going on the rest of the world in general and the art world in particular.

Cuban artists are still driven more by their own creative muses than by the dictates of the commercial art market. They often depict the creative tension between consumerism and Cuba’s shortage of consumer goods. And their work often slyly, and not so slyly, critiques social conditions in Cuba. A lot of Cuban art includes strikingly contemporary takes on gender identity, race and sexuality.

As Levinson told me, “the arts, including visual arts, music and poetry may be Cuba’s greatest exports.” . . . .

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