A conversation with Sal Cosenza about how I feel, think, and get over it all. It’s about art.
Artist Conversation Series: Joan Waters
Undivided Attention – New work in welded steel and paint by Joan Waters, ©2011
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to chat with Joan Waters about her exhibit, “Undivided Attention: New Work in Welded Steel and Paint”, at the Chandler Center for the Arts. We spoke about being an artist and the people who played a role in her career. Here is a portion of what we talked about.
Video Interview
POTUS & FLOTUS ~44~ Portraits in San Francisco!
President & Mrs. Obama’s official portraits have been touring the United States and they will be at the de Young Museum, San Francisco starting June 18, 2022.
“From the moment of their unveiling at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., in February 2018, the official portraits of President Barack Obama and Mrs. Michelle Obama have become iconic.”
June 18 ~ August 14, 2022
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA
(Kehinde Wiley’s portrait of President Obama and Amy Sherald’s portrait of the former First Lady)
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Jean-Michel Basquiat
The work of American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (12/22/60 – 8/12/88), is on view in Chelsea.
“Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure…Featuring over 200 never before and rarely seen paintings, drawing, ephemera and artifacts, this celebration of Basquiat’s life opened on April 9, 2022 at the NYC Landmark Starrett-Lehigh Building.”
Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure
Starrett-Lehigh Building (Entrance on 27th Street)
601 West 26th Street,
New York, NY
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Judy Chicago at the S.F. De Young Museum
“Judy Chicago: A Retrospective pays homage to the pioneering feminist artist… whose lifelong fight against the suppression and erasure of women’s creativity has finally come full circle…The exhibition includes approximately 130 paintings, prints, drawings, and ceramic sculptures, in addition to ephemera, several films, and a documentary.”
Judy Chicago: A Retrospective
De Young Museum
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA
Ladies at the High ~ Women’s History Month!
March 1 – March 31, 2022 is set aside to acknowledge women’s accomplishments in all fields. However their art, on view in the permanent collection at the Atlanta High Museum, is showcased all year.
“Pioneers, Influencers, and Rising Voices: Women in the Collection”
“In observance of the 2020 centennial of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote, this installation is drawn from the High Museum’s collection and features artworks made exclusively by women.”
Included are “some of the most influential voices of the past fifty years, such as Kiki Smith, Lorna Simpson, and Shirin Neshat; midcareer artists such as Won Ju Lim and Chantal Joffe; emerging artists such as Jamian Juliano-Villani and Ella Kruglyanskaya; and Atlanta-based artists Annette Cone-Skelton and Rocío Rodríguez.”
“Pioneers, Influencers, and Rising Voices: Women in the Collection”
High Museum of Art
1280 Peachtree St NE
Atlanta, GA
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MoAD / San Francisco, CA ~ Is Now Open!
The Museum of African Diaspora / MoAD in San Francisco, CA has reopened. (The Museum has been closed since March 2020 due to Covid – 19.)
“Founded in 2005, MoAD is a self-described contemporary art museum that celebrates black culture. It’s one of the few prominent institutions in the country dedicated to black art”.
All visits, tours, and events had been postponed or canceled. But there was a successful online auction – “important to invest in the sustainability of the institution.”
Some of the participating artists:
Otis Kwame Kye Oquaicoe, Amoako Boafo, Manuel Mathieu, Ferrari Sheppard, Wangari Mathenge, Andrea Chung, Cassi Namoda, William Cordova, Purvis Young, Adia Millett, Lava Thomas, Didier William, Raelis Vasquez, Dewey Crumpler, Wesaam Al-Badry, Enrico Riley, Alexandria Smith, Tiffany Alfonseca, February James, Whitfield Lovell, Peter Uka, Kwame Brathwaite, Ludovic Nkoth, Jerrell Gibbs, Dominic Chambers, Clotilde Jiménez, Todd Gray, Rashaad
MoAD – The Museum of the African Diaspora
685 Mission Street San Francisco, CA
(Image: AMOAKO BOAFO, “untitled,” 2020 (oil on canvas)
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Go See The Oba At The MET!
Isn’t this beautiful!
This 16th century brass piece is the head of a West African “Oba”, or king. Many such examples of royal sculpture, from the Benin Kingdom of Nigeria, Edo Empire (it flourished from 1440 to the late 1800’s), are included in the Met’s “Arts of Oceania, and the Americas” permanent exhibits.
I am so grateful that some of this former kingdom’s art has been preserved. Art can be such a history lesson sometimes. So often it represents what is most important to a people during specific periods of their time.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
5th Ave and 86 Street, NYC
*Head of an Oba, 16th century (ca. 1550)
Nigeria; Edo, Court of Benin (Brass)
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Sir Sidney Poitier
Mr Sidney Poitier, whom I considered a national treasure, has left us, 1/7/22 at age 94, with great stories, great images and lots of pride and warm thoughts. He lived his life. He won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a Grammy. He had success as an actor, director, author and perhaps more importantly, as a man.
Born in 1927 in the Bahamas, Mr. Poitier went to New York as a teen, taught himself to read and catapulted himself into an acting career- a movie star. Not an easy road, but he did it with humor, grace, determination and a never wavering belief in him self.
He condensed some of the life lessons learned into books, not just about his journey, but also about how to conduct himself in an often difficult and complicated world.
Sir Poitier shared:
“The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography”, 2000
“Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter” 2005
“Those that stop their questioning at 75, 60, even 30, cut short their explorations and end up with permanently unfinished lives.” – From “Life Beyond Measure: Letter to My Great-Granddaughter”
Jacob Lawrence At The MET!
“Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle features the little-seen series of paintings—”Struggle: From the History of the American People” (1954–56)—by the iconic American modernist. The exhibition reunites the multi-paneled work for the first time in more than half a century.”
Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
5th Ave and 86 Street, NYC
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