HOTTEST
Art
History#film
#videoMay 18, 2021
Grace Ebert
At the heart of Barry Jenkins’s extraordinarily moving new film is “the Black gaze; or the gaze distilled.” The Oscar-winning director shot the standalone project while filming the TV adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, which premiered on May 14. Notably titled The Gaze, the parallel project isn’t an episode of the series but rather a compelling collection of non-narrative portraits captured spontaneously alongside the show.
Early on in production, Jenkins says in a statement, “I looked across the set and realized I was looking at my ancestors, a group of people whose images have been largely lost to the historical record. Without thinking, we paused production on The Underground Railroad and instead harnessed our tools to capture portraits of… them.”Presented in the same order as the series which moves from Georgia to Indiana, the vignettes spotlight both principal and background actors who wear striking period costumes by Caroline Eselin—the designer also collaborated with Jenkins on his lauded films Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk. Each shot is an intimate and evocative portrayal of imagined kin. “We halted our filming many times for moments like these. Moments where… standing in the spaces our ancestors stood, we had the feeling of seeing them, truly seeing them and thus, we sought to capture and share that seeing with you,” the director says.
Jenkins writes that he was inspired by Kerry James Marshall’s “Scipio Moorhead, Portrait of Himself, 1776,” which is an earnest rendering of the African American artist who actively painted throughout the 1770s while he was enslaved. Marshall’s homage secures Moorhead’s legacy in an urgent and necessary act of visual documentation that Jenkins replicates:
We have sought to give embodiment to the souls of our ancestors frozen in the tactful but inadequate descriptor “enslaved,” a phrase that speaks only to what was done to them, not to who they were nor what they did… This is an act of seeing. Of seeing them. And maybe, in a soft-headed way, of opening a portal where THEY may see US, the benefactors of their efforts, of the lives they LIVED.
Jenkins notes that The Gaze contains only abstracted scenes so it won’t spoil The Underground Railroad. Watch the entire film above, and read the director’s essay describing the project on Vimeo. (via Kottke)#film
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Art
Craft
Design#glass
#Katie Stout
#lamps
#light
#sculpture
#steelJune 13, 2024
Grace Ebert More
All images courtesy of the artist and Fundación La Nave, shared with permission
Decadent Alfresco Feasts Serve as Reminders of Simple Pleasures in Pedro Pedro’s ‘Picnic’
September 3, 2025
ArtFood
Kate Mothes
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“I believe a picnic is a utopia,” says Pedro Pedro, whose new solo exhibition at Fundación La Nave Salinas takes its name from the titular activity. In Picnic, the Los Angeles-based artist celebrates togetherness, relaxation, and small daily luxuries as a means of maintaining balance and cheerfulness, even during challenging times.
Picnic highlights a total of 15 new canvases. “Beneath their exuberant surfaces lies a subtle homage to the 1950s, through the depiction of mid‐century furniture and aesthetic, a lens through which Pedro critiques the relentless pace of 2025,” the gallery says. “In an age defined by nonstop notifications and doom‐scroll headlines, Pedro invites us back to a time when people savored the present moment.”
Through a tinge of golden age thinking, paired with La Nave’s setting in Ibiza, Spain, where it perches over the Mediterannean, we’re invited to indulge in simpler pleasures like lounging on the beach and sampling from a seemingly endless array of treats.
Using textile paint on unprimed linen, Pedro begins each work with a digital design, which he then sketches onto the substrate using chalk and fills in with color. The closer one studies a painting, the more motifs appear to replicate, like flawless and nearly identical lilies, dollops of whipped cream, orange slices, or melons.
Just like his method, the relationship between how we read digital and “natural” imagery blurs. Half-peeled citrus, knives abandoned in pastries, and random garments suggest that whoever is enjoying the picnic has perhaps just run off to take a dip in the sea and will be back any moment.
Mirroring the artist’s interest in utopia, an ideal and perfect society, every element of his paintings is bright, juicy, and surreally, well, perfect. He draws inspiration from the joyously rotund forms of Colombian artist Fernando Botero and the Wayne Thiebaud’s decadent pies and cakes.
The show also taps into the ethos of memento mori, which translates from Latin to “remember you will die.” The concept was especially in vogue during the Dutch Golden Age, appearing in still life paintings in the form of motifs like wilting flowers and rotting fruit.
For Pedro, it’s not about remembering that life ends; it’s about consciously living it to its fullest. Thus, memento vivere, or “remember to live,” serves as a counterpoint to its weightier cousin. “Each lemon slice, half-eaten tart, or toppled wine glass is not a warning about mortality, but a luminous reminder to inhabit the present with curiosity, joy, and delight,” the gallery says.
Picnic continues through October 31 in Ibiza. Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.
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Art#Chicago
#paintingAugust 19, 2020
Grace Ebert“Join Me” (2020), oil, spray paint, and enamel on panel, 20 × 20 inches. All images © Max Sansing, shared with permission
Through a series of brightly hued paintings titled Lost & Found, Max Sansing examines the human desire for happiness and peace through a distinct sense of place. Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, the artist is known for vibrant murals, which you can explore on Instagram, and smaller-scale artworks (shown here) that are rooted in the culture that’s unique to the city.
Each of Sansing’s paintings focus on a single subject who is overlayed with a thick brushstroke or whispy feather. The artist tells Colossal that the central characters are in the midst of a revelation, having just experienced or realized a needed adjustment. “I think at some point in most Chicagoans’ lives, you come to a point where you need a change. Either Chicago does that for you, or you do it for yourself. Finding that and unlocking those new pathways is a huge part of life,” Sansing says.
Many of the works that are part of Lost & Found hearken back to the artist’s upbringing. “Rapture,” in particular, features Anita Baker in the background, a gesture toward the R&B singer’s tunes that would reverberate throughout the neighborhood Sansing grew up in during the 1980s. In the same piece, though, a bullet propels toward a young boy’s head. “The threat of gang violence in the early 90s was kind (of) like a wake-up call out of adolescence,” the artist says, and a reality for many Black boys and men in the United States.
Sansing isn’t without hope, though. The artist writes, “I think we all want that moment in life to finally have clarity, peace, happiness, and in the end, that’s what a lot of civil unrest is about. Folks just wanna live and be. And some want that for others who can’t have it due to hate and systemic roadblocks.” As a whole, Lost & Found embodies the revelations necessary to bring justice and allow communities to thrive. “To quote the show title,” Sansing says, “these things are lost for some, and we have to find it.” (via Supersonic Art)“Keygen”(2020), oil, spray paint, and enamel on panel, 30 × 30 inches
“Rapture (Same Ole Love)” (2020), oil, acrylic, spray paint, and enamel on canvas, 36 × 38 inches
“Feather Weight” (2020), oil, acrylic, spray paint, and enamel on panel, 33 × 24 inches
“Soldier On”(2020), oil, acrylic, spray paint, and enamel on panel, 12 × 12 inches
“Recovered” (2020), oil, acrylic, spray paint, and enamel on panel, 30 × 30 inches#Chicago
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Art#inflatable
#installation
#interactive
#light
#public art
#teamLabMarch 31, 2024
Jackie Andres More
