Amy Sherald

Milwaukee Art Museum

Milwaukee Art Museum

Posted by Thomas Alix Johnston in Blog, 2 comments
EMERGENCE – D

EMERGENCE – D

…its traditions, beauty, and our expectations of Democracy.

When, about a month after we had our second vaccination shot, and the country was beginning to see advances in defeating the pandemic, we ventured out, first, to La Conner, Wa. which was in the early stages of emerging from a year of isolation. We went north to see a show by Louise Kikuchi in nearby  Edison; in addition to her beautiful Sumi-e paintings she was showing a group of traditional Kokeshi dolls she painted to reflect events of January 6, 2021. The Kokeshi wore masks and the pedestals were arranged following social distancing guidelines.

In June we cautiously took a flight, masked, to visit family in Chicago. We arrived just Continue reading →

Posted by Thomas Alix Johnston in Blog, 1 comment
NYC – 2019

NYC – 2019

When I was in NYC recently, I saw a lot of great shows, including the Whitney Biennial, which I was able to visit a couple times in the final days it was on view.

Many of the 75 artists in the Biennial were new to me; among those whose work I was already familiar with, I was especially looking forward to seeing Jeffrey Gibson’s and Nicholas Galanin’s work. I saw an in-depth survey of Gibson’s work in Like A Hammer last winter at Seattle Art Museum, which I wrote about here. As for Galanin, I first became aware of his work in a show curated by Lara Evans some ten+ years ago. Among the many powerful works in the exhibition I thought his tapestry, White Noise, American Prayer Rug, worked extremely well on many levels. For a good review of the Biennial see Zachary Small’s review at Hyperallergic. Continue reading →

Posted by Thomas Alix Johnston in Blog, Words, 2 comments