by Bob Martin | Sep 5, 2009 | Art, Artist, Culture, Exhibits, Galleries
Raices Taller 222 Art Gallery and Workshop is looking for all of our Associate Members and friends to be part of our “Comadres y Compadres” exhibition opening on September 19, 2009!
If you are a current Associate Member or a friend of the gallery and want to participate, email us at raicestaller222@aol.com
or call 881-5335 for more information.
Exhibition Dates: September 19 – October 24, 2009
Regular gallery hours: Friday and Saturday 1:00 – 5:00 PM or by appointment
Raices Taller 222 Art Gallery & Workshop
218 E. 6th Street
(1/2 block east of 6th St. & 6th Ave.)
Tucson, AZ 85705
(520) 881-5335
www.RaicesTaller222.org
Raices Taller 222 Art Gallery and Workshop is Tucson’s only Latino based nonprofit cooperative contemporary art gallery located in the Downtown Historic Warehouse District
by Sandy | Aug 18, 2009 | Blogroll, Books, Culture
Do you ever get the feeling that westerners do not understand Africa at all? Even after so many years of interference, Europeans still don’t have a clue about the people they colonized. They, along with we Americans, black or white, don’t really understand how a continent beset by such poverty, misery, cruelty and waste can still produce men and women who keep on going. Putting one foot in front of the other, bringing children into their world and expecting good things to happen – somewhere/sometime.
English correspondent Richard Dowden attempts to explain it in his new book, Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles. He proposes that the African has a different approach and reaction to life, a different appreciation:
“Terrible times produce strength. Grief enhances joy. Death invigorates living…Africa lives with death and suffering and grief every day, but to be alive is to talk and laugh, eat and drink – dance”.
Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles, by Richard Dowden
Btw: The author also thinks that “only Africans can develop Africa.” (Hmmmm.)
by Sandy | Aug 14, 2009 | Actors, Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Books, Film, Movies
Whether he is acting in a film of serious social commentary, “Traffic” and “Crash” or fun stuff, the “Ocean’s” films – (11, 12 and 13), Mr. Cheadle always stands out.
Whether crying with him in “Hotel Rwanda” or laughing with him as he “attitudes” his way thru “Talk to Me”, a story about 60’s/70’s activist, and Washington, DC, disk jockey Ralph “Petey” Greene directed by Kasi Lemmons, he just elevates it all to another level.
Also a stage actor, he appeared in Lori Parks Pulitzer Prize winning play, “Top Dog/Under Dog”, on Broadway to much acclaim. But, Don Cheadle also has an activist streak. While filming “Hotel Rwanda”, he learned the plight of people in the Sudan and after visiting Darfur in 2005, he’s made a committed effort to bring the horrors and violence of the region to the attention of the American people. He wrote a book with John Prendergast called, “Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond”. An accompanying documentary was released in 2007.
Don Cheadle is outstanding.
by Sandy | Aug 13, 2009 | Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Creativity, Culture, Film, Movies
“I Bring What I Love” – is a documentary film about Youssou N’Dour, the pop music superstar from Senegal, West Africa.
N’Dour is revered for his “remarkable range and poise and for his prodigious musical intelligence as a writer, bandleader and producer. He absorbs the entire Senegalese musical spectrum in his work, often filtering it through the lens of genre-defying rock or pop music from outside his culture. N’Dour has made “mbalax”—a blend of Senegal‘s traditional griot percussion and praise-singing with Afro-Cuban music—famous throughout the world during more than 20 years of recording and touring outside of Senegal with his band, The Super Étoile”.
The director of “I Bring What I Love”, Elizabeth Chai Vasahelyi, followed the singer for 2 years throughout Africa, Europe and the U.S. to bring us a picture of this super talented and complex man who spread the music and rhythms of his homeland worldwide.
Youssou N’Dour * “I Bring What I Love“
by Sandy | Aug 7, 2009 | Art, Blogroll, Culture, Exhibits, Museums
Until October 11, the deYoung Museum of San Francisco will have on display over 50 masks and sculptures from 4 Central African cultures, Luba, Chokwe, Songye (fetish figures) and Luluwa. Even though the 4 groups are different, they did share common beliefs. The pieces, fashioned mostly of wood with brass and bead touches, were made to appease the spirits and were thought to have the power to protect an individual from harm.
According to the museum catalog, the exhibit “examines the artistic traditions of the heart of Africa within the context of historical change, thus countering the commonly held perception of African art as an art without history. “
“Art and Power in the Central African Savanna” thru 10/11/09
de Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA
by Sandy | Aug 4, 2009 | Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Books, Culture, Fashion
In 1968 she was on the cover of Ladies Home Journal. Amazing enough that an African- American woman was on the cover, but this woman was my color – Mahogany!
She was a first and paved the way, beginning in the 70’s, for the influx of models, in an assortment of colors, that started to parade the runway and appear on magazine covers in both Europe and the U.S. The mind set determining who was pretty and who wasn’t started to change.
Naomi Sims was smart, beautiful, elegant and black – thank you. 1948 – 2009 *R.I.P.
or call 881-5335 for more information.