This all didn’t just happen over night of course, it took years to develope and you can’t just single out certain artists or people to blame. We must except the fact that we don’t have time for the deep shit anymore,we just want to be entertained and we are willing to except sub-standard talent and admire risk taking as an badge of honor with a dab of idol making.

This past weekend an exhibition of some of Keith’s sculptures opened at Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton,New Jersey and will be on view until September.I can’t wait to visit the exhibition I remember seeing the maquettes for some of them in his New York studio back in 1987 when I use to visit him.

for information about the exhibition visit www.groundsforsculpture.org

2010 Character Approved Awards honoree Kehinde Wiley
“What a sensational honor to have this artist and his statement be documented for all to hear and see,and to bare witness to what it feels like being African American in this world.He has given us a true visual gift and a much needed makeover as far as self-image that speaks volumes of which I do not need to explain,he does it quite exquisitly and poignatly illustrating the sentiment every African American visitor to a museum  or gallery must feel. These visual facts must cross the minds of other people who attend these same institutions or, is that the art that they are gazing apon have such a power that you’re to overlook this antropological oversight? Simply and visually stateting that African Americans shouldn’t exsist or be recognized for positive influence and image? Kinda makes you Humm!

Yoshitomo Nara + KaMo drawing on mini Munny.

Yoshitomo Nara +KaMo collaboration

An unexpected collaboration occured between two artists who live on opposite sides of the world from each other and their lives couldn’t be any more contrasting by one artist being born in Japan and the other in Trenton New jersey.

This unlikely work in progress was self-imposed by me during an artist talk last week at Princeton University’s McCormick Hall where the Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara gave a presentation of his work as part of a lecture series titled ‘ Too Cute’ a discussion about the new trends  in Japan, addressing pop culture, consumerism, and the artist role in product developement from fine art, fashion,mass media and designer toys.

I had the pleasure to meet the painter and although he didn’t speak english I managed to give him a 4″ mini Munny by Kidrobot and a black Sharpie pen and he emediately began to draw a character on the surface of the object (shown here) after first giving me a pleasent look of surprize,I think.

I then went home very excited and began to add my own lines to the figure to  complete the character that Mr.Nara was generous enough to start for me. This is still a work in progress and I’ll post the results to this website and my flickr photo page for everyone to see when it is finished.

Pink Race Riot 1963

The year was 1963 just four months before the author (I) was born and something was happening of great importance in our country besides my own birth.
In Birmingham Alabama a peaceful civil rights demonstration was brutally interrupted by local police with fire hoses and German Sheppard attack dogs on people who just wanted to be treated like human beings.
This incident illustrated how resistant the United States Government was towards the movement lead by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and I think seeing these paintings were really the first time I became aware the problems I would face growing up in America because I didn’t know how to read obviously being born in the same year.
I didn’t see these paintings until 1968 when the media was focusing on the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as well as the attempted murder of Andy Warhol in his factory studio in New York that same year and I find the paintings and the events closely related because both men were of a non violent nature and were extremely religious in their own right.
During my research of the Race Riot paintings I found know one critic or journalist willing to associate the two men in the same context and probably because of Andy Warhol’s seemingly deadpan non emotional public approach that didn’t show any emotion and the visual art community’s effort to never mix the two subjects for fear of exposing their own short commings on racial equality.
Obviously he cared enough to create these controversial works for everybody to see there own history and remember that violence doesn’t solve anybody’s problems it reflects it. Andy knew what was right and he’s still  teaching us lessons to this day. He died February 22, 1987 on a Sunday.

Although Jean-Michel did enjoy some success it was brief and filled with self doubt throughout his entire career which was only seven years. I personally feel that if he had other contemporary artists that were African American around him and to support him he wouldn’t have been so lonely in an enviorment that usually consist of predominatly caucasian males who dominate the visual art world and
don’t have to worry about having people to relate to and share their feelings with.
This point is never examined when you try to figure out why he self medicated himself to a point of self-destruction and it is a shame that the impossibilities weigh so heavy on a person that they’ll try anything to fit into this American diaspora only to be exploited and then discarded like day old trash when no longer useful.
If the focus were on a collective group of artists then no one person would be at the center of attention and the pressure wouldn’t seem so great to be the leader of the pack,and,at best, it would develope a heathy competition amongst peers and one wouldn’t have to feel that they had to speak for an entire race of people.

How does one get past the artistic talent of Jean-Michel Basquiat and realize that there are a whole lot more artists out there who have just as much talent, if not more,with the same desire and passion to be a collective part of the visual arts world.I know they’re wondering when are the gates going to open up and give them a chance to express themselves.

“The feeling of loneliness and being unwanted is the most terrible of poverty.