Shana Nys Dambrot, art historian and culture writer from Los Angeles, guides us through art movements in history to trace how we got here and where we are headed. We delve into the question of how environmental and climate activism intertwine with artistic expression.
Urban Art
Art created by an artist living, depicting, or experiencing city life and culture, about structures and modalities. Urban Art in its rawest form is graffiti, but also murals, human-imagined creation, displayed across the built environment.
Visionary Art of Lakota Sundance Chief Marvin Swallow
Marvin Swallow paints “images of time before and after the moment,” whispering sacred stories of the beauty and mystery of creation. What has emerged through his art is a unique and powerful contribution to the growing genre of Sacred Art.
Dancing Devils of Venezuela Challenge US Consumer Culture
An exhibition by artist Cristóbal Valecillos in Los Angeles invoked the Dancing Devils of Yare, a 400-year old Venezuelan tradition celebrating life, the triumph of good over evil, and renewal. His provocative interpretation of the diablo masks, hand-sculpted from repurposed waste materials, takes aim at culture and consumption in the US, a plea for overcoming.
Art of Collective Madness in Salvador Dalí’s ‘Impressions’
Salvador Dalí and filmmaker José Montes-Baquer, in honor of underappreciated Surrealist Poet Raymond Roussel, shot a fake documentary of an non-expedition to Mongolia in search of gigantic mythic hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Geo-Fauvism and Anthropocene: Altered Planet, Wild Literature
Welcome to the Anthropocene age, where humans have transmogrified the planet, its oceans and atmosphere, caused mass extinctions and wholesale contamination that will remain for millennia. Beyond the politicians and scientists, the way forward remains in the hands of writers, artists, and designers taking inspiration from wild earth in a movement called Geo-Fauvism.
Appropriating the Media Barrage with Negativland
Sound, video, and fury presented on the passing of Richard Lyons, also known as Pastor Dick, co-founder of culture-jamming avant garde music collective Negativland, the third member to die in the last year.
Postcommodity’s ‘Repellent Fence’ Land Art Spans the U.S. Border
Postcommodity is a collective of American Indian artists from different backgrounds and mediums, combining to create giant musical instrument installations, video, sound and sculpture. Their Repellent Fence installation floated Scare-Eye Bird Repellent balloons over the border between Arizona and Sonora.