21 Days to 30 Americans

(born 1959)

Renée Green’s transfixing installations epitomize the Information Age because they are often built upon archival material, regardless of her chosen medium—film, text, photography, prints, sculpture, music, textiles, fabrics, and new media. Her prismatic art explores themes surrounding cultural and personal history and memory. In 2009 the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne, Switzerland, exhibited Ongoing Becoming, a retrospective of Green’s works, spanning from 1989 to 2009.

Learn more about the 30 Americans exhibition at http://arkansasartscenter.org/30-Americans.

photo: Milwaukee Art Museum, http://mam.org/

22 Days to 30 Americans

(born 1961)

The cyclical nature of life—decay and resurrection—plays a central, recurring role throughout Leonardo Drew’s elaborate and enthralling installations and multilayered sculptures, which are often composed of found objects, wood, and fabrics. As gripping as Drew’s large-scale works are, they can be enigmatic to the point of being hermetic, forcing some viewers to question the validity of their artistry. Others are captivated by the suggestiveness and mystery of the works.

Learn more about the 30 Americans exhibition at http://arkansasartscenter.org/30-Americans.

Learn more about Drew at http://www.art21.org/artists/leonardo-drew.

photo: www.artbusiness.com

(born 1983)

Richard Brautigan’s provocative 1968 novella In Watermelon Sugar provided the impetus for Noah Davis’s 2010 exhibition The Forgotten Works at Roberts & Tilton gallery in Los Angeles. The literary work centers around a post-apocalyptic commune that resides in a gathering house known as iDEATH. In the story, the sun constantly changes colors. One of the major characters, inBOIL, decides to leave the commune and live in a forbidden area called “The Forgotten Works,” which is built upon the ruins of a former civilization. Some of Davis’s thirteen large oil paintings correlate directly with Brautigan’s novel—particularly InBoil and Margaret, The Summer House, and What They Did to the Elephant in the Room.

Learn more about the 30 Americans exhibition at http://arkansasartscenter.org/30-Americans.

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photo: Noah Davis/ www.studiomuseum.org/

24 Days to 30 Americans 

(1925 – 2009)

Satire plays a huge role in Robert Colescott’s vibrant, at times claustrophobic, paintings. Colescott addressed issues surrounding history and racial stereotypes with wry, transgressive humor and keen observation. In 1975 he began creating a series of works that referenced classic Western art, but recast the central figures as black.

Learn more about the 30 Americans exhibition at http://arkansasartscenter.org/30-Americans.

photo: http://www.oregonlive.com

(born 1959)

While Nick Cave was finishing up his graduate degree at Kansas City Art Institute, he was also studying dance through an Alvin Ailey program in both Kansas City and in New York. Today, the performance artist, fabric sculptor, and dancer is best known for his elaborate, transformative “soundsuits.” When worn, these otherworldly garments give the wearer shaman-like characteristics, as they completely overwhelm conventional human physiology. Cave constructs these works from unlikely found material such as twigs, bottle caps, and wires. Through these soundsuits, which produce sound when dancers perform in them, Cave brings an interactive aspect to his work.

Learn more about the 30 Americans exhibition at http://arkansasartscenter.org/30-Americans.

To view Cave’s work visit http://nickcaveart.com/.

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photo: Xenobia Bailey

26 Days to 30 Americans 

(born 1966)

Iona Rozeal Brown often takes cues from her explorations as a DJ when juxtaposing elements of Japan’s ganguro culture and black American hip-hop and fashion. In such acclaimed works as Untitled I (Female) (2003), King Kata #3: Peel Out (After Yoshitoshi’s Incomparable Warriors: Women Han Gaku) (2009), and A Children’s Story (2009), she also draws upon Japanese Ukiyo-E woodblock prints and paintings.

Learn more about the 30 Americans exhibition at http://arkansasartscenter.org/30-Americans.

photo: Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

27 Days to 30 Americans 

(born 1961)

While growing up in Los Angeles, Mark Bradford used to make signs for his mother’s hair salon. In fact, at one time, he worked as a hairdresser in that salon. As he explained in an episode of PBS’s Art21, that upbringing instilled a joy and understanding with working with his hands and the art of making. “My art practice goes back to my childhood, but it’s not an art background. I’ve always been a creator. My mother was a creator; my grandmother was a creator,” Bradford explained. His initial works made use of hair salon products such as hair dyes, foil, and hair perm-wave papers, but eventually he began incorporating found objects such as street flyers, posters, newspapers, and billboard ads for evocative and textured large-scale works.

Learn more about the 30 Americans exhibition at http://arkansasartscenter.org/30-Americans.

Learn more about Bradford at http://www.art21.org/artists/mark-bradford.

photo: Milwaukee Art Museum, http://mam.org/

28 Days to 30 Americans 

(1960-1988)

Born in Brooklyn, Jean-Michel Basquiat began his career in art in the late 1970s as a teenage graffiti artist. Though his roots were in graffiti, Basquiat became a well-known Neo-Expressionist in the mid-1980s, famous for his creative use of everything from windowsills to football helmets. He received national recognition for his unique, aggressive, and vibrant style. In 1985 he appeared on the cover of the New York Times and was featured in the article “New Art, New Money: The Marketing of an American Artist.” Along with his great original pieces, Basquiat did a number of collaborations with Andy Warhol in the mid-1980s.

Learn more about the 30 Americans exhibition at http://arkansasartscenter.org/30-Americans.

Learn more about Basquiat at http://www.basquiat.com/.

photo: http://www.artfinding.com/