Jean-Michel Basquiat : The Radiant Child

I heard a very inspiring interview on CBC's Q with Tamra Davis, the director of this film about 1980s artist Jean-Michael Basquiat. Inspiring, I guess, except that Jean-Michael died of a heroin overdose. A brilliant, trend-setting artist gone too soon.

Mami Wata - African Mermaids

An intriguing art show at the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/arts/design/03wata.html

Rio Yañez

Some great new Chicano art here: http://rioyanez.com/

Coop's Scoop

I love my Mom's art (with Irene as her co-creator and muse). You can see a photo collection of her creations here.

Amado and I took a look yesterday. He likes the spiral on pink the best. I like them all, but yesterday this "Desert Gal" (above) caught my eye.

How Writers and Artists Get Things Done

How Writers and Artists Get Things Done:

http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/daily_routines/

(h/t Guy Kawasaki)

Christina's World

This picture by Andrew Wyeth, who died today, has always reminded me of my Mom. Although the title, Christina's World, is close to my Mom's original name, I don't think that's the reason. It's something else I can't quite put my finger on. Something about her always having been an outlier, I think. (And that's a compliment, in case anybody wonders.)

This Makes Me Happy

Graciela Iturbide

There's a fascinating piece in the L.A. Times about an exhibit by Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide. Thanks to Tex(t)Mex for the tip. (Above, The Angel of Sonora, 1979.)

A student of photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo and perhaps most famous for a prodigious, alluring body of work made over six years in the remote village of Juchitán in Oaxaca, Iturbide, 65, has had a prolific career and has shown all over the world. This month, however, marks her first museum exhibition in Los Angeles. "Danza de la Cabrita (The Goat's Dance)" at the Getty Center contains nearly 140 pieces highlighting Iturbide's work in Mexico and the U.S. -- and the line in the sand that attempts to separate the overlapping lives she's found there. "The Mexican and the American Mexican," says Iturbide, "are marginal people -- on both sides of that line.

"Her work expresses "the culture between the culture," says author Luis Rodriguez, who has also been pulled to the worlds that call to Iturbide -- Oaxaca and of course the East L.A. gangs he became famous for writing about in his memoir "Always Running." "It's the way I think of Mexico when I'm in Mexico City. You feel all the layers -- the ancient, the indigenous, the modern all coming together. Her photographs are borderless. Everything comes streaming over it. No border, no wall will stop that."

The Astronaut's Wife

There's a great guest speaker column over at WonderCafe by Lorette C. Luzajic, author of The Astronaut’s Wife: Poems of Eros and Thanatos. The author tells the sad tale of her husband's death by crystal meth. She's a beautiful writer. The article is in the left column.

Above is her painting, The Astronaut's Wife, which is filled with symbols of her late husband. There are more samples of her painting and writing on her website, The Creativity Vault.

That's what fall is all about....

Pearblossom Highway

Speaking of P*Land, I came across this David Hockney piece, "Pearblossom Highway" which was taken a few miles west of Phelan, where I grew up in the 1970s. Yup, this is pretty much what it looked like.

Ida Floss

Ida Floss is one of my favourite found art sculptures of the many created by my Mom and Irene. Ida's a little wooden at times, and her curls are totally unmanagable, but she's still almost part of the family. Find out more about her at my Mom's blog, llpof.

Here's the link: http://cjgallegos-llpof.blogspot.com/

20,000 Mexicanos Desnudas

I never thought I would see even one Mexican nude in Mexico City's Zocalo. But here you go, today almost 20,000 stripped for the photographer Spencer Tunick. And right in front of the cathedral no less. ¡Que escandalo!

It's hard for me to see these photos and not think they were shot at some kind of mass human sacrifice or a genocide or something, but then again, I have a suspicious mind.

There's video here, and an article in English here.

By the way, according to some historians the Aztecs sacrificed 20,000 people a day for three days when the Temple Mayor, which stood at this very site, was dedicated around the year 1390.

Emerging Spirit

Not the Emerging Spirit I'm with, but fascinating nevertheless. This was auctioned off on eBay this week for US $7500. Here's the info on it:

Emerging Spirit
by ADEMOLA OLUGEBEFOLA (1941 - )

Mixed media and collage on heavy wove paper, 1970-71. 610x457 mm; 24x18 inches. Signed and dated ''69 in gouache, lower left.

Ademola''s work demonstrates the experimentation in collage and Afro-centric themes in painting in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The artist and jazz musician has a wide influence in the Harlem art scene with his graphic and illustrative arts in addition to his painting and drawing.

Provenance: Ex-collection the artist; Thomas Matthias, Grinnell Collection; Archibald Arts, New York.

Exhibited: Black Art: Ancestral Legacy, Dallas Museum of Arts, The Virginia Museum of Fine Art, High Museum of Atlanta, traveling exhibition, 1989-1990.

Illustrated: Black Art: Ancestral Legacy, Dallas Museum of Arts, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1989, p. 209.