Photos By Gail
Fashion has always been political, but sometimes it’s also pure celebration. Back in 2009, Nigerian-American designer Lola Faturoti found the perfect way to honor the historic election of President Barack Obama: she created a commemorative dress that was as vibrant and hopeful as the man himself.
Continue reading Eye On Design: Lola Faturoti’s Barack Obama Commemorative Dress
Barack Obama Action Figure Designed By Mike Leavitt (Image Source)
Today, June 14th, we celebrate Barack Obama Appreciation Day —a moment to honor the 44th President of the United States and reflect on his lasting legacy of hope, progress, and grace under pressure. Whether you admired his eloquence, his humor, his groundbreaking achievements, or simply the way he made decency feel presidential again, Barack Obama set a standard by which many still measure leadership.
Continue reading Celebrate Barack Obama Appreciation Day on June 14th!
Photo By Gail
Florencio Lennox Campello is a prolific American artist, critic and blogger. I’ve noticed his work at the NY edition of the Affordable Art Fair since it returned post-Covid, where he exhibits unique monochromatic works painted on shards of pottery. At the most recent fair, held in September, I was completely charmed by this fun depiction of President Barack Obama as “the Batman.” I’m sure it sold right away.
Photo By Gail
The unveiling of the portrait of President Barack Obama by Kehinde Wiley in 2018 was a historic moment. With the Obamas‘ selection of Wiley and Amy Sherald (who painted First Lady Michelle Obama’s portrait) to produce their official likenesses, these painters became the first black artist to receive the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s commission for portraits of a President or First Lady.
Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Portrait of President Barack Obama By Kehinde Wiley
The Situation Room (All Photos By Gail)
What we like best about artist Will Ryman is the fact that all of his projects look completely different to each other. Whether it is sculptures of Giant Roses, a big Bird made of nails, or a Golden scale replica of the Log Cabin where Abraham Lincoln was born, it is always fun to see what he is going to do next.
Right now, Paul Kasmin Gallery’s West 27th Street space is hosting Two Rooms, a solo exhibition featuring two of Ryman’s new sculptural installations. The Situation Room (2012–2014) is a life-size installation based on the iconic photograph that captured members of the Obama administration and U.S. military leaders watching in real time the Navy SEAL raid on Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011. Among those gathered in the White House Situation Room were President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Developed over the course of three years, the sculpture is composed of crushed black coal as a reference to industrial development and as a means to redact the specificity of the photograph, reducing the tableau to its elemental components. The Situation Room is a contemplation on war, power, propaganda, industrialization, and political theater. In its reductive monumentality, Ryman’s appropriation of the photograph becomes an anonymous fossilization of the timelessness of war.
Classroom presents 12 figures from the same cast, each made of a different natural resource or composite essential to various cultures and economies including cadmium, titanium, salt, iron, oil, chrome, copper, wood, and gold.
Arranged in four rows of three, the figures evoke traditional classroom settings, interchangeable workers in a factory’s assembly line, or soldiers in military formation.
Their youthful appearance references the practice of child labor so widespread in many countries. Corporations in developed countries often refer to their employees as their greatest “natural resource,” and in one interpretation of the installation, Ryman extends the metaphor to an inexorable conclusion: workers are a material to be mined and exploited in the service of industry. They are, to the extent possible, mechanized.
Will Ryman’s Two Rooms will be on Exhibit Through Oct 17th, 2015 at Paul Kasmin Gallery, Located at 515 West 27th Street in the Chelsea Gallery District.
