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“Compound is a new cultural complex in the heart of the Zaferia district of Long Beach. Compound is dedicated to the intersection of art, wellness and community engagement. It is a new space for culture and community to promote connectivity and belonging.”

compoundlb.com

 

I am fascinated by this organization and that it has a Policy of Belonging. Read it—it’s available in several languages:

Policy of Belonging
La Política de Pertenencia
នោលការណ៍ នន “ភាពជាកមមសិទធិ”
Ang Patakaran ng Pagiging Kabilang

Research

See: #BelongingProject: Compound’s Policy of Belonging

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a photo of a neon installation with the text, 'You belong here' in puruple script.' the neon is installed on a waterfront, so it reflects in the water. The photo was taken after sunset.
Tavares Strachan, You Belong Here, 2014, blocked out neon, 9.1 x 24.4 m, installation view, Prospect New Orleans’ triennial, Prospect, Mississippi River, New Orleans, USA // Source: PublicDelivery.org.

“Strachan’s project was a declarative statement and performance that was entitled You Belong Here. The installation featured a 100-foot neon art piece that would be transported from one location to another on a 140- foot barge on the Mississippi River. The barge that carried the neon piece was made visible from different regions and places throughout New Orleans. It was created to pass on a message to the residents of the city, encouraging the city dwellers to examine themselves and what the city of New Orleans means to them and their futures.”

From PublicDelivery.org
Research, Works

See: #BelongingProject: Tavares Strachan’s You Belong Here

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Grace Lau’s 21st Century Types

“Lau’s series of portraits 21st Century Types (2005) reflects the multiplicity of contemporary British society and comments on the Imperialist othering of ‘exotic’ Chinese people and culture. Lau constructed an opulent hybrid Chinese/English portrait studio in Hastings and over six weeks photographed hundreds of passers-by. The resulting images are a monument to place, race, people and the passing of time. The series also acts as a direct statement on the use of photography as unconscious bias, examining the politics of cultural representation and visual ‘archives’ through the genre of contemporary portraiture.”

Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (Manchester, UK), exhibition page for Multiplicites in Flux, October 15, 2020–January 31, 2021.
Still from Eelyn Lee’s Britishness

“Lee’s film Britishness (2019), 57 min, complicates the often indefinable notion of ‘Britishness’. Comprising spoken word poetry, interviews, and group discussions, the work follows young writers from Sheffield as they affirm, reject, and revise their visions of national identity and grapple with the consequences of Britain’s colonial history and their own personal experiences. The film posits ‘Britishness’ as a concept that is constantly in flux, moulded by ever-changing social, economic, political and historical narratives and carrying different significance for each individual. Through this lens, Lee invites viewers to question and re-evaluate their own definition of what it means to be British.”

Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (Manchester, UK), exhibition page for Multiplicites in Flux, October 15, 2020–January 31, 2021.

Research, Works

See: #BelongingProject: Grace Lau’s 21st Century Types and Eelyn Lee’s Britishness

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I loved this show! I love Maurice Sendak’s drawings, hand-lettering, and the whimsy, compassion, heart, and sensitivity in his work. This exhibit features Sendak’s sketches, watercolors, storyboards, and dioramas illustrating his designs for the theater. I really makes me want to draw more, and explore absurdism.

I can’t stop thinking about these sketches for costume designs. The first is from Where the Wild Things Are. The second is from A Love for Three Oranges.

Sendak-wild-things

Maurice Sendak (1928-2012), Study for Wild Things costume, with notes (Where the Wild Things Are), 1979, watercolor, pen and ink, and graphite pencil on paper. © The Maurice Sendak Foundation. The Morgan Library & Museum, Bequest of Maurice Sendak, 2013.103:19. // Source: TheMorgan.org.

Drawing of costume designs. Three figures. The two figures on the left show the front and back of the same person, "prince" in a body suit showing organs and bones. The third figure is a man a boat.

My photo of a page in the exhibition catalog, “Drawing the Curtain: Maurice Sendak’s Designs for Opera and Ballet.” // Find it in the Morgan shop.

There’s something just nice thinking about these drawings together. About bringing the inside out (your beastly feelings becoming a monstrous suit you wear and control), or making your outsides show your insides (the soft, vulnerable organs we’re all made of).

Through October 6
Drawing the Curtain: Maurice Sendak’s Designs for Opera and Ballet
Morgan Library & Museum

 

Also, if you’ve never listened to the Teri Gross’ interview with Maurice Sendak on Fresh Air, give it a listen. It will break your heart.

Sights

See: Maurice Sendak at the Morgan Library

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3 Flags by 3 artists

Revised US Flag by Maya Misra. Cunt Quilt by Coralina Rodriguez Meyer. Artist’s Arm by Jevijoe Vitug. // Source: ChristinaFreeman.net

While I like Creative Time’s Pledges of Allegiance artist-designed flag project, it seemed like a missed opportunity to not include more emerging artists. Air Rights, a project flying artist-designed flags curated by Christina Freeman at Flux Factory, is just the right antidote. The artists were less well-known. The flags were weirder. And it was in Queens.

Sights

See: Air Rights @ Flux Factory, Queens

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soldiers, rolling a cigarette, watchtowner, marching, reading an order

Panels from 442, written by Koji Steven Sakai and Phinny Kiyomura and illustrated by Rob Sato // Source: kojistevensakai.com

442 is a graphic novel following a regiment of Japanese Americans fighting in WWII even as their families were housed in concentration camps in the US. It was written by Koji Steven Sakai and Phinny Kiyomura, and the artwork is by Rob Sato.

You can read 442 by downloading the Stela app and subscribing.

Rob, a classmate from undergrad, posted about his grandfather’s and great-grandparents’ detention in a concentration camp in Rohwer, AR. He also wrote:

As fewer and fewer of those who experienced [Japanese American internment] firsthand remain in the world I hope their stories remain very alive, that this history can be as much a part of collective human knowledge as possible, and not for wallowing in pity but to arm minds against xenophobia and fear mongering. If there’s anything that should be taken away from the whole mess it’s these simple but somehow still bafflingly misunderstood facts—Japanese American Internment was not just “unfortunate” but wrong, it was unnecessary and protected no one, it was inarguably racist, it could happen to anyone, and actions like it will be tried again and again and again.

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See also:

Though “the court had finally overturned the 1944 decision that the United States government could force more than 120,000 people of Japanese descent into internment camps,” Japanese American internees “lamented that it came as part of the decision that upheld President Trump’s ban on travel into the United States by citizens of several predominantly Muslim countries.”

“‘This was absolutely the wrong case to include Korematsu in,’ said Alan Nishio, who was born in a California internment camp, Manzanar, in 1945…. ‘We are continuing to use the guise of national security to limit the civil rights of immigrants and people of color without really any basis.'”

—Jennifer Medina, “For Survivors of Japanese Internment Camps, Court’s Korematsu Ruling Is ‘Bittersweet,’” New York Times, June 28, 2018

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See also:

“These immigration policies are for people who conflated America with whiteness, and therefore a loss of white primacy becomes a loss of American identity.”

—Charles M. Blow, “White Extinction Anxiety,” New York Times, June 24, 2018

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#KeepFamiliesTogether

Families Belong Together MoveOn June 30 Day of Action

Citizenship, Works

See: 442

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Ryan Pierce, The Seal of Confluence, Flashe and ink on paper, 2017. 30 x 22.25 inches.

 

I love Ryan Pierce’s paintings. I’ve been a fan of the techniques, narrative coherence, Charles Burchfield-esque pulsing life, and the tension between hope and hopelessness in his paintings since we went to grad school together.

Ryan’s newest project, The River in the Cellar, sounds amazing. I love this combination of fiction, paintings, books, and geo-cached participation. It’s such a brilliant combination of Ryan’s interests in ecology and wilderness (as seen in his work co-founding Signal Fire, which helps artists and creative agitators engage with our remaining wildlands).

Ryan describes the project this way:

The River in the Cellar is a short fiction set in my painted world: a future of accelerated climate change and new forms of governance. The book includes eleven full-color archival inkjet prints corresponding to the storyline, and—here’s the participatory part—the prints will be cached throughout the Portland and Mt. Hood area, and it will be up to the reader to locate and assemble the illustrations while reading the book. The project is offered in a signed edition of 200.

There are a few ways to play: you can come to the reading event and buy the book and see the original paintings that comprise the color prints. You can order one from my website and assemble it another time. Lastly, you can skip the scavenger hunt and order the book with the complete accompanying print set for $50 here.

More info: RyanPierce.net

 

Works

See: Ryan Pierce: The River in the Cellar

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Ann Hamilton’s “Fly Together,” part of the Creative Time-led project, Pledge of Allegiance. // Source: creativetime.org // Photo: Guillaume Ziccarelli

On June 14 (Flag Day), Creative Time launched Pledge of Allegiance, a new project commissioning 16 artists to create flags fly simultaneously at 12 art institutions around the country.

I love the project—there are flags, new artists’ commissions, opportunities for artists to make topical political statements, opportunities for art organizations to self-organize and take risks.

Caveat: NYC’s public art programs can host some of the most exciting and ambitious art here, but it’d be nice to see them take more risks with emerging, non-blue-chip artists, especially with new and auxiliary programming.

Sights

See: Pledges of Allegiance

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