Photos By Gail
At first glance, Happiness (1994–95) by Victor Estrada seems to promise exactly what its title suggests: something bright, buoyant, and easy to love. The sculpture greets viewers with a riot of color and a playful, almost cartoonish presence. But as is often the case with Estrada’s work, things get more complicated the longer you look. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Happiness by Victor Estrada
Photo By Gail
Kelly Akashi’s work often explores the impermanence of the natural world. In 2024‘s Monument (Regeneration), the artist draws inspiration from nature’s regenerative resilience. A delicately latticed borosilicate-glass sphere – balanced between fragility and strength – rests a top a weathered, steel plinth reminiscent of a tree trunk.
Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Kelly Akashi, Monument (Regeneration)
Photo By Gail
At first glance, Disco Bomb (1989) looks like a joke you might spot after midnight: a mirrored disco ball topped with a synthetic orange wig. But in the hands of German artist Martin Kippenberger (1953 – 1997) , that punchline becomes a pointed meditation on surface, identity, and cultural excess.
Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Martin Kippenberger, Disco Bomb
All Photos By Gail
Hank Willis Thomas frequently repurposes imagery from popular culture, especially as it pertains to race and representation. A Suspension of Hostilities (2019 ) faithfully replicate the iconic muscle car from the 1980’s hit TV show The Dukes of Hazzard. Named the General Lee after Robert E. Lee, the car was famous for its airborne leaps along the hilly Georgia back roads, with the characters of Bo and Luke Duke at the wheel, typically in flight from the local law.
Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Hank Willis Thomas, A Suspension of Hostilities
Photo By Gail
John Baeder’s Stardust Motel (1977), is a crisp, sunlit portrait of American roadside culture at its most iconic. Known for his photorealist paintings of diners, gas stations, and motels, Baeder treats the Stardust not as nostalgia-soaked ruin, but as a proud, functioning emblem of mid-century optimism. The signage is clean, declarative, and bold, the sky impossibly blue —everything rendered with the precision of a memory you’re not quite sure you actually lived.
Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: John Baeder, Stardust Motel