Forgive my Absence

For the past year and I half I have taken a break from blogging to focus on on my now completed graduate studies as well as starting  research on a future publication. I'll be returning this fall with new thoughts and reflections, and perhaps, even introduce you to my new research project.
- KM

A Little Background
     
Inspiration for this blog was drawn from a quote in Woody Allen's delightful 2011 film, Midnight in Paris. Artists throughout time have wrestled with the meaning of our existence.  Their ability to  conceptualize their thoughts, fears, ideologies or joys and make them tangible resonates with a power recognized by all. It is the reason their works continue to generate visceral emotive responses centuries later, and most importantly, why art continues to endure since its earliest beginnings  with our Neolithic ancestors.

The Artist's Job will analyse cultural production from both the Western and Non-western world, from ancient artefacts to up to the mid-late 20th century. Indeed, many of the pieces that will be discussed are extraordinary from a purely aesthetic perspective and will be acknowledged as such through a formal analysis. Nonetheless, analysed works will be more thoroughly examined for their religious and/or socio-political  contexts. 
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Enjoy & Join the Discussion.
The Artist's Job
The artist's job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence 
-Midnight in Paris                   

Featured Exhibition:​


William Blake
Tate London
11 September 2019 - 2 February 2020
​Experience Blake’s visionary art in his largest show in a generation​.

William Blake was a painter, printmaker and poet who created some of the most iconic images in British art.

Radical and rebellious, he is an inspiration to visual artists, musicians, poets and performers worldwide. His personal struggles in a period of political terror and oppression, his technical innovation, his vision and political commitment, have perhaps never been more pertinent.

Inside the exhibition will be an immersive recreation of the small domestic room in which Blake showed his art in 1809. You will be able to experience for yourself the impact these works had when they were shown for the first time. In another room, Blake’s dream of showing his works at enormous scale will be made reality using digital technology.

With over 300 original works, including his watercolours, paintings and prints, this is the largest show of Blake’s work for almost 20 years. It will
rediscover him as a visual artist for the 21st
century.
Coming Soon:

SOUL OF A NATION: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963-1983
deYoung Museum
9 November 2019 - 15 March 2020 
This November, the de Young Museum welcomes the internationally acclaimed exhibition, Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, 1963–1983, organized by the Tate Modern in London. This powerful and provocative presentation focuses on art made in the pivotal decades between 1963 and 1983, when issues of race and identity dominated and defined both public and private discourse. Rarely has an historical exhibition proved to be so timely—and to provoke so much meaningful discussion among its numerous viewers.

The works in Soul of a Nation were forged in a crucible of institutionalized racism and codified prejudice that had pervaded the entire American nation for centuries. Galvanized to take action, and inspired by the Civil Rights struggle for equality and justice, African American artists determined to use art and culture as catalysts for self-definition, self-empowerment, and self-determination.


The artists represented in Soul of a Nation worked in numerous cities across the United States and in multiple media. The de Young’s presentation of Soul of a Nation will include an expanded group of works by artists who worked in the Bay Area. Their paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, collages, assemblages, and custom clothing contributed to the Black Power movement by promoting personal and cultural pride, collective solidarity and empowerment, political and social activism, and pan-African nationalism.  Long marginalized, these revelatory works and the enduring relevance of their messages are now understood to be central to the complex histories of American culture.
Picture
Benny Andrews, 'Did the Bear Sit Under a Tree?,' 1969. Oil on Canvas with painted fabric collage and zipper. 50 x 61 3/4 x 2 1/4 inches. Estate of Benny Andrews.
Picture
Archibald Motley, 'The First One Hundred Years: He Amongst You Who Is Without Sin Shall Cast the First Stone: Forgive Them Father For They Know Not What They Do,' ca. 1963–1972. Oil on canvas. Private Collection.