Roamings of a Leo

Friday, January 23, 2015

Cal. African American Museum

On Martin Luther King day, I visited the California African American Museum in Exposition Park. Although it was late afternoon, people were still enjoying the day with music and a MLK birthday cake. I visited two exhibits that I enjoyed. The first is called "Lookin' Back In Front Of Me: Selected works of Mark Steven Greenfield, 1974-2014. This is the first time I observed his creations. He was the Director of the Watts Towers Art Center and the L.A. Municipal Art Gallery. The printed program states that this exhibit displays a body of work that Greenfield described as unapologetically didactic based on his research on literature, cinema, history and visual arts. He has delved into the artistic renaissance of LA's Crenshaw community, gang culture, genealogy and African American stereotypes as well as the re-contextualization of American appropriations of African spiritual practices. Here are images of his work:

"Wholesale," 1974

"Gemini," 1974

The next two paintings are a sample of Greenfield portraits of musicians, performers, artists and others entitled "Crenshaw Consciousness" for an exhibit in 1986 in the William Grant Still Art Center and at the Fine Arts Gallery at Cal. State LA as part of his Master's thesis. They are inspired by those who lived and/or worked in the Crenshaw/Leimert Park area of LA near the artist's home. These are done with watercolor on paper mostly.

"Portrait of Artist's Great-Great Grandmother," 1997. The artist created a series on genealogy of family. This is very difficult if not impossible for African Americans because as ancestors who were slaves did not have birth records and only listed as property of slave owners.

"Oops! There it is," 2004
The artist depicts the demeaning of African Americans by Whites through media and The American Minstrel Show which featured white performers in blackface. This series of work is entitled "Blackatacha."

"Jaboobie," 2012

"Somebody Buy Me a Drink," 2013

Here are other examples of his work:

"Blue Loa," 1982

"Love against the Grain," 1981

"Cooties in the Cotton Patch," 2014

"The Pushkin Paradox," 2013

"Dance of Equinox," 1977

"Mystic," 1977

"Child's Play," 1977

"Tears of Stariost Children," 1977

The next exhibit I visited is called "Curvature: Lines & Shapes." The brochure states that this exhibit presents the expressive figurative illustrations of two emerging artists, Michael Kilgore and Anthony "Eve" Kemp. Their artistic styles include the influences of Fauvism, Expressionism and Cubism and celebrate elements of history, physical features and family connections associated with African Americans or in the lives of artists.

"Oriaku," 2014 by Michael Kilgore

"Black Bessie," 2013 by Michael Kilgore

"The Muse - Line of Scandinavia," 2010 by Anthony " Eve" Kemp

"Queen Elizabeth the Atom Bomb," 2007 by Anthony "Eve" Kemp

"Paloma," 2014 by Anthony "Eve" Kemp

Saturday, January 17, 2015

"Merry Widow" Met Live in HD

On Saturday morning I went to a live production of the Metropolitan Opera company of Franz "Lehar's "Merry Widow." The production in English stars Renee Fleming as the rich widow who gains all the attention of would be suitors in Paris. But it is her old boy friend from her youth, played by Nathan Gunn as Danilo who successfully woos her. Kelli O'Hara plays the ravishing Valencienne. The production and choreographer Susan Stroman in an art-nouveau setting that climaxes with singing and dancing at Maxim's. Sir Andrew Davis conducts.

I watched the production at the Regal at L.A. Live. Here are a few pictures from the press of the production:

Renee Fleming and Nathan Gunn

Renee Fleming as the Merry Widow putting on a party.

The finale at Maxims. Photos by Ken Howard and Sara Krulwich

Blithe Spirit at the Ahmanson Theater

On Thursday night I met some friends at the Music Center in Los Angeles to go the production of "Blithe Spirit" by Noel Coward. It was written in 1941 in six days and is currently a wonderful "medium" for 89 year-old Angela Lansbury. She won the Tony Award for this role as a "medium" who brings chaos to a man and his second wife by bringing back his first dead wife into their lives. Here are a few pictures of this delightful cast who must have a lot of fun in this play. These are from the Los Angles Times' photographer Lawrence K. Ho.

Madame Arcati, (Lansbury) is conducting a seance with Charles (Charles Edwards), his wife Ruth (Charlotte Parry) and their guests.

More connections made with the other world.

Charles is dealing with the dead first wife, Elvira (Jemima Rooper)

More conjuring leading to more trouble. By the way, Charles may look familiar as he played the disappeared lover of Lady Edith on Downton Abbey...so that is where he has been.

"The Culture Crash" at ALOUD at L.A. Public Library

On Tuesday night, January 13, I attended an ALOUD program at the central library in L.A. The topic was the new book "Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class," by Scott Timberg. His premise is that when artists and artisans can't make a living, we all pay the price. Artisans include booksellers, indie musicians, architects and graphic designers. Timberg, author and arts journalist, was joined in a panel with Barbara Bestor, architect and John McCrea, musician and founding member of Cake. The moderater was Sasha Anawalt, Director of USC Annenberg Arts Journalism Program.

Limberg stated that the 1% are clobbering the artists who can't make a living. In the 2008 crash, banks were saved but not newspapers, magazines, musicians and other artists. He interviewed over 100 people before writing the book. John McCrea said that there is little coming to musicians for selling songs. He said that artist need a collective voice. Barbara said that jobs have been shed in architecture, journalism and Hollywood musicians rates were cut in half. Eighty percent of the journalists covering the arts have lost their job since 2008. It was said that creativity has been crushed by Wall Street and Tech America like Google. Fortunately government does support creative spaces like the Library, but more are needed. Bookstores and record stores are closing due to on-line buying.

Artist must sell themselves and be social entrepreneurs...back slappers. This means we loose introverts and people who won't sell themselves and their wares. There is also contraction in middle management and non performing song writers. L.A. Times has cut half their staff. It was suggested we have more newspapers like The Guardian which is run by a non-profit trust.

From the left: Sandra Anawalt, Scott Timberg, Barbara Bestor, and John McCrea

Judy Baca and the Great Wall of Los Angeles

Judy Baca is a 68 year-old American Chicana artist who is a professor of Chicana/o Studies in the School of Social Science at U.C.L.A. She is the co-founder and artistic director of the Venice, California-based Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) a community arts center and creator of mural projects. She grew up on the Watts neighborhood of L.A. and remembers taking the Red Line street car by Watts Towers and watching the creator, Sam Rodia, at work. She then moved with her family to the Pacoima neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. She graduated from Cal. State Northridge with her B.A. and M.A. in Art. She decided she did not want to make art for galleries... "People in my family hadn't ever been in a gallery in their entire lives." She decided to study muralism at Taller Siqueiros in Cuernavaca, Mexico in the spirit of Diego Rivera.

After a brief job as a teacher in her former high school, she worked for the L.A. Parks and Recreation Dept. teaching art for a summer program in the public parks. She began working in Boyle Heights which had the most Mexican-Americans and the highest number of gangs in the country. She began using art to bridge the neighbor hood gangs though creating murals as a public voice and public consciousness. One mural is called Mi Abuelita, (My Grandmother) depicting a Mexican-American grandmother with her arms outstretched as if to give a hug. The community has loved this mural.

Her community organizing through murals continued and she was hired by the Army Corp of Engineers in 1974 to improve an area in the San Fernando Valley flood control channel called the Tujunga Wash. She engaged the community and hired youth from the delinquency programs to create a half mile long mural wall over several years. She met with the community to get ideas for the wall that would tell the stores of Los Angeles most unrecognized people. She then designed the wall with their assistance and began the process of transferring the designs to this giant wall. She had people from all ages and backgrounds working on the project. The mural depicts the history of California through several panels beginning with prehistory, colonialism, 19th and 20th centuries with histories of Native Americans and minorities. Baca has stated that the voices of disenfranchised communities need to be heard and the the preservation of a vital commons is critical to a health civil society.

Baca has created many other projects all over L.A., California and around the country. One of her projects is The World Wall: A Vision of the Future Without Fear, a painting that showed the world without violence. Various countries have contributed to this traveling exhibit including Russia, Israel/Palestine, Mexico and Canada. She created a mural showing Women Marathon runners painted on a wall along the 110 Freeway for the 1984 Olympics, "Our Land Has Memory for the Denver International Airport, Cesar Chavez Monument Plaza at San Jose State University, and the Robert F. Kennedy Learning Complex in L.A.

I strolled along the Tujunga Wash last Tuesday and enjoyed the Great Wall very much. You can find it by taking the Coldwater Avenue exit from the 101 Freeway, go North and once you cross Burbank Blvd. you will see a shaded walkway on the West side of the street where you can enjoy the creation of Judy Baca and hundreds of citizens of L.A. Since it is painted on the West side of the wash, it is best viewed before noon when the Sun is shining on it. But I enjoyed it in the afternoon as well.

Here are some photos of Judy Baca creations from the internet: