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New York Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Ben Shahn's Social Realist Art Feels Relevant Again in Landmark Survey
With some artists, there's one work that seems to capture their essential achievement. In the long-overdue retrospective now at the Jewish Museum in New York, the entire artistic project of the American painter Ben Shahn comes clear in a single fascinating painting from 1940 called 'Contemporary American Sculpture.' It depicts a gallery at the Whitney Museum hosting sculptures from that year's survey of the nation's artists — except that Shahn, left out of the Annual, reimagines the walls surrounding those stylized modern works as covered in his own realist paintings. Those show scenes of everyday life during the Great Depression — decrepit workers' housing; a farmer by his shack; poor Black women at a welfare hospital — depicted as though the Whitney's walls have been pierced to reveal the all-too-real world out beyond. It recalls how Renaissance murals pierced church walls to let in the more-real world of the Bible. 'Contemporary American Sculpture' captures what's at stake in the most potent works in 'Ben Shahn, On Nonconformity,' as this revelatory survey is called. Those works use the time-honored art of painting to make the modern world, and its signature troubles, as present as Shahn can manage. The effect is gripping, and feels utterly relevant for the troubled moment we are living in now. For a decade or so on either side of World War II, Shahn's achievements made him an art star, earning him a major show at the Museum of Modern Art and honors including a place in the American Pavilion of the 1954 Venice Biennale, shared with the Abstract Expressionist Willem de Kooning. But it was de Kooning and his ilk who went on to dominate the art world; as Cold War reaction took hold, Shahn, a dedicated leftist, saw a slow but unbroken decline in his critical fortunes. There has barely been an uptick since. The Jewish Museum show is Shahn's first notable survey in the United States since one at the same museum in 1976. Featuring 175 artworks and objects, photos by Shahn and his peers as well as illuminating ephemera, it was organized abroad, at the Reina Sofía museum in Madrid, where it was a big hit in 2023; the curator Laura Katzman had to work hard to find an American museum to take it. Shahn was raised in immigrant Brooklyn, where his family, who were Jewish, had landed in 1906, when he was 8. They were fleeing deprivation, antisemitism and oppression in their native Lithuania, then under Russian rule. Shahn's father, a socialist and anti-czarist, had been forced into exile in Siberia. In the United States, the Shahns still had such struggles that young Ben had to drop out of high school to help fund the household. He landed in a lithographer's workshop, where he mastered the fundamentals of visual art. But his career as an artist took a while to jell, as he attended various courses in various places — New York University, the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., the City College of New York. In the 1920s, Shahn, supported by a hard-working wife, Tillie Goldstein, was able to take in the high points of old master and modern art across Europe. (He arranged a meeting with Picasso but got cold feet and called it off.) By 1933, Shahn was back in New York, assisting the great Diego Rivera on his infamous mural for Rockefeller Center, soon hacked off the wall because of its portrait of Lenin. Unlike his mentor, Shahn never quite subscribed to communist doctrine, though he shared the movement's egalitarian aims. For a solo show at the prestigious Downtown Gallery in New York, in 1939, Shahn portrayed scenes from the saga of Tom Mooney, a labor leader falsely imprisoned for a 1916 bombing, who wasn't released until the year of Shahn's exhibition. If the images in the survey feel more like news than comment, that's partly because we can sense the press photos Shahn used as his sources. Though his paintings themselves aren't close to photorealistic — his technique can be potently slapdash — their subjects have the verve of seeming caught on the fly. His image of two perjurers who helped convict Mooney has the strange perspective of a wide-angle lens, as does its newspaper source, on view at the Jewish Museum alongside other documentation that gives insight into Shahn's art. The exhibition includes an earlier series on the controversial 1921 trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian immigrants executed for murder despite flimsy evidence. Shahn's painting of the two handcuffed men is cropped weirdly tight; we see that it echoes a source photo that had been cropped the same way, to save space on the printed page. Shahn borrows the feel of a photograph's direct observation to make his painted subjects seem more directly observed by us. In the mid-1930s, he took up the camera himself, as part of a New Deal project to document Depression hardships. His photographs in this show stand up fine against nearby ones by famous colleagues like Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans, but few of his shots were made public. Instead, Shahn used them as sources for the New Deal murals he was soon making — the show mostly includes them as studies — and then for many of his later paintings. The vast majority of photographs in Shahn's day were black-and-white and very small. They couldn't have the sheer presence of scenes at life scale, in full color. That had been the territory once staked out in the 'history paintings' of the European old masters; in the best works in the show, Shahn channels the potent 'reality effect' of those paintings, but uses it to capture distinctly modern subjects and social ills, and the modern look of a photographed world. That achievement comes especially clear in the colorful posters he made during World War II for the American Office of War Information, which show figures, at life size or larger, suffering under the Nazis and their partners. Those figures might as well be Christian martyrs on the walls of a Renaissance church. (Shahn reworked one poster about Nazi slave labor into a painting called '1943 AD,' in which a stretch of barbed wire becomes a crown of thorns on one of the enslaved.) Shahn's vision was too potent for the Office of War Information: It seems to have released only two of his posters. A bit later in the 1940s, working for the Congress of Industrial Organizations — a major confederation of unions — he created other posters that used the same effects to champion causes such as colorblind hiring and voting rights. Welders — one Black and one white — loom above us in this show, as if they were just the other side of the museum wall. Unfortunately, in the decade or so before his death in 1969, Shahn could seem more interested in modern aesthetics than in modern people and their plights. His pictures became palimpsests of allusive symbols, reheating modern styles from Paul Klee and Pablo Picasso. Toward the end of this show, we miss the immediacy of Shahn's earlier pictures, with their close ties to an observed world. Instead, we're offered illustrations of moral themes and spiritual subjects that can read like vaporous musings. What Shahn couldn't have realized, as he turned away from his potent visions of the 1930s and 40s, was that they would find new purchase almost a century later, when once again we face issues of racial injustice, and what our nation might do about it, and prosecutions that can seem to serve politics, not justice. Back in 1939, in an essay for Shahn's Downtown Gallery show, Rivera called his former assistant 'magnificent,' and said his paintings captured 'a complete portrait' of the reality Shahn had grown up in. At the Jewish Museum, a century later, they seem to offer a portrait of our reality, too.
Business Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Business Times
Wifredo Lam's surreal creatures haunt STPI
[SINGAPORE] At Singapore's first solo show of Wifredo Lam (1902–1982), the walls are alive with shape-shifting spirits. His hybrid creatures defy classification – they are part animal, part machine, part voodoo hallucination. Lam, a Cuban-Chinese-African artist, spent his life dismantling Western modernism from the inside out. Drawing on Afro-Caribbean religions such as Santeria and Palo Monte, as well as the hallucinatory energy of Surrealism, he created a visual language that was both rebellious and deeply spiritual. His prints are populated by beings with frog fingers, taloned feet and goat heads fused with torpedoes. In one striking work (Apostroph' Apocalypse Plate VIII, 1966), a skeletal winged horse appears locked in a cryptic embrace with a vampiric ox. Are they dancing? Mating? Fighting? Lam offers riddles, not answers. Wifredo Lam's Apostroph' Apocalypse Plate VIII (1966) depicts strange creatures mating or fighting. PHOTO: WILFREDO LAM ESTATE, PARIS Titled Outside In, this year's STPI Annual Special Exhibition may be its most unsettling yet. It challenges viewers to reconsider modernism – not as a clean narrative from Paris or New York, but as a tangled, many-headed force shaped by migration and myth. Echoing the ethos of the National Gallery Singapore's recent exhibitions, which have reframed modernism as a global movement born of cultural exchange, Outside In places Lam not on the periphery, but at the very centre of this complex story. The exhibition's more than 60 works on paper give a rare glimpse into the artist's late-career printmaking practice, developed in close collaboration with renowned Italian master printer Giorgio Upiglio between 1963 and 1982. Many were created alongside avant-garde poets such as Aime Cesaire and Gherasim Luca, reflecting Lam's belief that words – like images – could tap into the unconscious and conjure bizarre, new worlds. Wifredo Lam's Untitled (1980) limited-edition print is on sale for 4,000 euros at STPI. PHOTO: WILFREDO LAM ESTATE, PARIS Outside In opens ahead of Wifredo Lam: When I Don't Sleep, I Dream, the major retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art in November. There, the audiences will encounter the full sweep of Lam's spectral imagination. But here in Singapore, this quieter, more intimate exhibition offers a wonderful entry point into a lesser-known chapter of his practice. Wilfredo Lam: Outside In runs from now till Jul 13 at STPI
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Rainbow flag meaning: A brief history lesson on how the Pride flag came to be
Since its creation in 1978, the pride flag has become a universal symbol for the LGBTQ+ community. It represents visibility and hope and reflects the diversity within the LGBTQ+ community. While the flag is easily recognized, its history may not be as well-known to everyone. Did you know the current rainbow flag is an updated design of the original? Here is a history lesson on how the pride rainbow flag came to be and the meaning behind its colors. Each of the pride flag's six rainbow colors has a unique meaning: Red: Life Orange: Healing Yellow: Sunlight Green: Nature Blue: Serenity Purple: Spirit Trans flag colors: Learn what the blue, white and pink mean to the community In the 1970s, Harvey Milk – the first openly gay elected official in California – tasked activist Gilbert Baker to design a symbol of hope for the gay community. "Harvey Milk was a friend of mine, an important gay leader in San Francisco in the '70s, and he carried a really important message about how important it was to be visible," Baker said in an interview with the Museum of Modern Art in 2015. "A flag really fit that mission, because that's a way of proclaiming your visibility, or saying, 'This is who I am!'" The original Pride flag had eight stripes, each symbolizing: Hot pink: Sex Red: Life Orange: Healing Yellow: Sunlight Green: Nature Turquoise: Magic Indigo: Serenity Purple: Spirit Prior to the rainbow flag, the pink triangle was used as a symbol for the LGBTQ+ community, according to Baker. In Nazi Germany, people were forced to wear pink triangles. While the symbol was reclaimed, the community wanted a new symbol. "We needed something beautiful, something from us," Baker said in the MoMA interview. "The rainbow is so perfect because it really fits our diversity in terms of race, gender, ages, all of those things." The original pride flag was flown for the first time at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade celebration on June 25, 1978, the History Channel reports. What are the colors of the lesbian flag? Get to know variations of the Pride flag The original flag was made by hand, but as they started to be mass-produced, the hot pink stripe was removed due to manufacturing difficulties, the New York Times reports. Parade organizers also wanted the rainbow to have an even number of stripes so to split and line the street along parade routes. Baker then removed the turquoise stripe, replacing it for blue, the History Channel reports. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pride flag colors, explained: What's behind the rainbow symbol?
USA Today
23-05-2025
- General
- USA Today
Rainbow flag meaning: A brief history lesson on how the Pride flag came to be
Rainbow flag meaning: A brief history lesson on how the Pride flag came to be Show Caption Hide Caption Pride flag colors, explained: Meanings behind the rainbow colors The rainbow Pride flag has become a symbol for the LGBTQ+ community. Here's how the flag came to be and what its colors represent. Since its creation in 1978, the pride flag has become a universal symbol for the LGBTQ+ community. It represents visibility and hope and reflects the diversity within the LGBTQ+ community. While the flag is easily recognized, its history may not be as well-known to everyone. Did you know the current rainbow flag is an updated design of the original? Here is a history lesson on how the pride rainbow flag came to be and the meaning behind its colors. What do the colors of the Pride flag mean? Each of the pride flag's six rainbow colors has a unique meaning: Red: Life Orange: Healing Yellow: Sunlight Green: Nature Blue: Serenity Purple: Spirit Trans flag colors: Learn what the blue, white and pink mean to the community The history of the Gilbert Baker pride flag In the 1970s, Harvey Milk – the first openly gay elected official in California – tasked activist Gilbert Baker to design a symbol of hope for the gay community. "Harvey Milk was a friend of mine, an important gay leader in San Francisco in the '70s, and he carried a really important message about how important it was to be visible," Baker said in an interview with the Museum of Modern Art in 2015. "A flag really fit that mission, because that's a way of proclaiming your visibility, or saying, 'This is who I am!'" The original Pride flag had eight stripes, each symbolizing: Hot pink: Sex Red: Life Orange: Healing Yellow: Sunlight Green: Nature Turquoise: Magic Indigo: Serenity Purple: Spirit Prior to the rainbow flag, the pink triangle was used as a symbol for the LGBTQ+ community, according to Baker. In Nazi Germany, people were forced to wear pink triangles. While the symbol was reclaimed, the community wanted a new symbol. "We needed something beautiful, something from us," Baker said in the MoMA interview. "The rainbow is so perfect because it really fits our diversity in terms of race, gender, ages, all of those things." The original pride flag was flown for the first time at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade celebration on June 25, 1978, the History Channel reports. What are the colors of the lesbian flag? Get to know variations of the Pride flag How did the Pride flag come to be? The original flag was made by hand, but as they started to be mass-produced, the hot pink stripe was removed due to manufacturing difficulties, the New York Times reports. Parade organizers also wanted the rainbow to have an even number of stripes so to split and line the street along parade routes. Baker then removed the turquoise stripe, replacing it for blue, the History Channel reports.
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide wins Spain's Princess of Asturias Prize for the Arts
MADRID -- Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide was awarded Spain's 2025 Princess of Asturias Prize for the Arts for her images that for decades have captured "the social reality not only of Mexico, but also of many places,' prize organizers said Friday. Iturbide became famous internationally for her sparse, cinematic and mostly black-and-white photographs of Indigenous societies in Mexico, with a particular focus on the role of women in them. In 'Our Lady of the Iguanas,' one of Iturbide's best-known images published in 1979, an Indigenous Zapotec woman in southern Mexico carries live iguanas on her head that form the shape of a crown. The award's jury said that Iturbide's photographs have 'a documentary facet' that show 'a hypnotic world that seems to lie on the threshold between reality at its harshest and the grace of spontaneous magic.' Iturbide's work has been displayed in the world's leading art institutions, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and many more. Her work has been published in numerous books. The photographer, born in Mexico City in 1942, traveled throughout Latin America during her career, but also to India, Madagascar, Hungary, Germany, France the United States and elsewhere. The 50,000-euro ($57,000) Princess of Asturias Award is one of several annual prizes covering areas, including arts, literature, science and sports. The awards ceremony, presided over by Spain's King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, and accompanied by Princess Leonor, takes place each fall in the northern Spanish city of Oviedo.
