Jeffrey Deitch Resurrects his Seminal 'Post Human Exhibition After Three Decades

Photography Joshua White

Jeffrey Deitch's intriguing reprise of the 1992 Post Human exhibition explores the constant evolution dance between art and technology. The year 1992, was an interesting and important year. It was the year of the Los Angeles Uprising, Bill Clinton was elected the 42nd President, the Cold War ended, South Africa ended Apartheid, and Sharon Stone flashed us all in Basic Instinct unknowing, allegedly. The resurgence of Post Human, which was initially revolutionary in its investigation of our digitally mediated lives, acts a clever reminder that we're still struggling with what it means to be human, particularly in a time when your cell phone knows more about you than your friends.

Deitch along with Viola Angiolini, Senior Director, Research and Curatorial Projects curates a beautiful array of works that cleverly interrogate the boundaries of humanity and identity, while playfully nudging the role of the artist in our increasingly mechanized world. The updated installation buzzes with contemporary themes such as artificial intelligence and virtual realities, inviting viewers to reflect on the convergence of the human experience with the digital realm. It’s like a family gathering where the kinfolk are all wearing VR headsets, both familiar yet strange.

Featuring both original artists and fresh, audacious voices, this powerful conversation feels both nostalgic and futuristic. The reexamination of Post Human not only honors the original spirit, but also hysterically challenges us to confront our own post-human realities. Most importantly, in an era where our smart fridges might know us better than we know ourselves, who needs a therapist when you can just have an AI?

Post Human

September 12, 2024–January 18, 2025
925 N. Orange Drive, Los Angeles

Julian Lucas, is a photographer, a purveyor of books, and writer, but mostly a photographer. Don’t ever ask him to take photos of weddings or quinceaneras, because he will charge you a ton of money.

RECAP: Superchief Gallery Delivers a Politically Charged Exhibition Full of Defiance!

Have you ever dreamed of playing soccer with Trump’s head? Art activists, artists, weirdo artists, and radicals, punks and metal heads gathered this past weekend for FREEDOM KICK art Exhibition, hosted by INDECLINE and SUPERCHIEF. It was a night brimming with creativity and defiance, as teams kicked the oversized Trump head to score goooaals while a DJ spun old-school electro music, creating a vibrant atmosphere.

The Pomonan is the cultural structure, empowering visionaries to propel the global society to the future.

Superchief Gallery Los Angeles and Creepy Gals Land Delivers an Electrifying Exhibition!

Published 02/14/2024 | 8:15am PST

The night was Electrifying. Wait, that word is already in the title. The night was RIVETING!!! People from all walks came out to celebrate this beguiling exhibition. It was exhilaration and full of life! But, I will just let the photos speak for themselves!

Superchief Gallery Los Angeles
1965 Los Angeles St.
Los Angeles, CA
Wednesday - Saturaday 12:00p to 7pm

Altura Los Angeles: Artist Built, Artist Run

On the east side of the L.A. River in historic Lincoln Heights, a group of ambitious artists with complimenting art practices and a vision for the community founded Altura Los Angeles.

By Trina Calderón

Photo Courtesy of Adrian Huerta

Published May 11, 2023 9:00 AM PST

Just over a year old, friends Eduardo Gomez, Diego Guerrero, Adrian Huerta, and John Acevedo created the artist studio space and gallery, empowering a fresh art scene screaming with authenticity. As Los Angeles rides the big wave (it’s been twelve years since MoCA’s groundbreaking Art in the Streets exhibit changed everything), additions like Altura Los Angeles reveal the dynamic intentions inside the visual art cultural metropolis.

Located inside what once was the San Carlos Theater, the team designed and built out their space with movable walls and a small upstairs overlook. Gomez shared, “This is all DIY. We’re learning as we go and the first year flew by.” In their inaugural year, they exhibited exceptional artists and provided space for events with vendors and local businesses. Who is the team behind Altura Los Angeles? They have a strong connection to Long Beach, but for the last ten years they’ve had a presence in Lincoln Heights DJing a monthly cumbia night at local hotspot, The Office.

LBC native, Gomez studied art and earned his BFA from Cal State Long Beach and went to California College of the Arts in San Francisco for his MFA. In the mid ought’s, he assisted master printmaker Artemio Rodriguez at his studio La Mano press in Lincoln Heights. “After grad school, moving back, and burnt out of making art, I got into DJing. Prior to Covid, from 2011 through 2020, for those nine years I was more into DJing. It was new, exciting, fun and it paid. When Covid hit, I couldn’t DJ or do any of that stuff; it was time to go back making art,” he remembered. “I had a show, I did a book, like all this stuff was piling up around me at home. I knew it was time for me to get a studio and I looked around for studio spaces to see what I could find. For the price, the square feet, and after seeing other spaces opening like Tlaloc Studios, that inspired me. We could build our own space, we just got to find the right people to do it with.” Nectali “Sumohair” Diaz, a close friend Gomez grew up with in the LBC, had already began to establish himself as a multimedia artist working as a hairstylist, musician, and filmmaker in Los Angeles. When Gomez came back to southern California, Sumo introduced him to his network and plugged him into the action. After building out the space to reflect their different needs, the challenge became curating the shows, and dreaming up what kinds of events they could throw. Altura Los Angeles is not an art show every month kind of gallery, they alternate with events that compliment their interests and talents.

Photo courtesy of Adrian Huerta

Guerrerro is a county civil engineer, he knew how to build out space, and DJ’s and helps coordinate music at the events. His background works well with Gomez in organizing and installing shows. Huerta is an Emmy-winning videographer and producer who worked with the Dodgers and the Lakers shooting behind-the-scenes shows. He creates their social media content, records all the events for their Altura LA YT channel, produces the Altura LA Podcast, and manages their website. Acevedo studied fashion at the Academy of Art and is involved with the gallery install and curation. “I think that’s what makes it interesting too, the four of us have different backgrounds in what we study so all our networks come together. It’s all creative so you get a range of different people, personalities, and backgrounds,” Gomez shared. “A place for artists to gather, to share work, and connect, Altura LA is also a place for community events that bring the neighborhood and its creatives together,” he added. With their credibility on the line, their main desire was to be genuine to the community and choose the right people to work with.

Palindromo 12.11.21, their inaugural show in December 2021, was a group exhibition featuring selected works by L.A. based established and emerging artists Sandy Altmirano, Melissa Dueñas, Daniela Garcia, Elmer Guevara, Manuel López, El Oms, Ever Velasquez, The Perez Bros, Josh Vasquez, Bob Dominguez, Rochelle Gomez, and co-founder Huerta. “Getting the first one off our plate was nerve racking, I curated it. I went to school for art, that’s my lane, but still, I’ve never done it before. It’s a lot of work,” Gomez shared.

In March, they debuted Mariscos y Discos, their first daytime event featuring their favorite record vendors, DJ’s, and mariscos treats. In the gallery, they followed with FROM PHOENIX TO SAN ANTONIO, an exhibit and zine release from artists Valerie Bower and Melissa Dueñas documenting the American Southwest and exploring the ideas of Americana through a POC and female perspective. Acevedo and his partner Ricky Esparza brought their clothing brand PRENDAS to the gallery and hosted a new tee-shirt drop with a flea market. The first show I attended was El Album, a collection of colorful small and large-scale paintings by Tijuana-born Chicano artist El Oms. I had not read about this show anywhere, it was a tip from a couple artist friends when I was leaving another opening. Right when I walked in that night, I felt the community vibe, a warm authenticity that reminded me of the L.A. I grew up in, before so much gentrification took hold  and the artwork on the walls was fantastic.

Photo courtesy of Adrian Huerta

Photo Courtesy of Julian Mercado

Altura Founders | Photo courtesy of Fabiola Franco

Last summer, their friend Sumo passed away in an e-scooter accident in downtown Los Angeles. A huge loss to the guys and the art community, Altura Los Angeles endured. Celebrating his spirit, their last exhibition for the year was dedicated to their close friend. Gomez recalled, “The family came out and gave us their blessing. They let us go through his things and curate what we wanted to display. They were really happy with how everything turned out.” ¡Sumo Presente! was a beautiful tribute to his life and music, featuring an altar of many of his personal belongings and art. For their one-year anniversary, the closing reception included a Street Fighter II tournament event using Sumo’s tabletop arcade version of the game he loved playing.

2023 kicked off with their Cantina el Pachuco event featuring a pop-up with Pachuco Supply and original art by Steve Pineda. In honor of women’s history month, they opened SEEN Women Photographers Exhibit curated by artist Nalani Hernandez-Melo which showcased personal work by photographers Anna Azarov, Brittany Bravo, Lenne Chai, Priscilla Chavez Scott, Rebecca Grant, Amanda Lopez, Enkrypt Los Angeles, Naohmi Monroe, and Michelle Terris. This exhibit brought a new collaborator to the Altura Los Angeles team, with Hernandez-Melo joining forces to strengthen their marketing, fill in a void organizing shows, and add a female voice to their male echo Chamber.

Altura Los Angeles’ next event is their third installment of Mariscos y Discos, on Saturday, May 20th, 2023, in celebration of the grand opening of Correas Mariscos in Lincoln Heights. Featuring live DJ sets, local record shop vendors, and of course, delicious mariscos, the community event is about bringing people together and welcoming the new business to the neighborhood.

Gomez explained, “There’s people worried about it getting gentrified, so it was important for us to claim space there in the community and have a place for people to come and have a platform. And for us, having the studio that we do and sharing the space with others are important. It’s a big deal because we don’t want to be gatekeepers. We want to be inclusive; we want to have people come out and be able to have a place to show their work.

Building the community and getting the approval of your colleagues, contemporaries, and friends, to me, that’s where it starts. Because if you get their blessing, then everything else will come with time. If we’re doing a good job and people are supporting us, that’s probably the biggest compliment.”

Trina Calderón @trinaluz is a film & TV writer/producer and journalist from Los Angeles. She cut her teeth in reality/doc TV with Authentic Entertainment and Pie Town Productions. Her first feature film, Down For Life, premiered opening night at the The Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival in 2009. She's also known for G4tv's X-Play, BBCAmerica's The Nerdist TV show, the AWM Gracies Awards show, the Legend of the Cool "Disco" Dan documentary, the Wall Writers documentary, and co-writing a massive book about the history of the 9:30 Club.

Gajin Fujita Explores the True Colors of Los Angeles

In his sixth solo show, artist Gajin Fujita exhibits striking and emotional paintings he created during the pandemic. Though artists are prone to isolation, the unprecedented confinement inspired art making that not only expanded his creative techniques but also criticized the problematic societal situation. A graffiti artist and Los Angeles native, Fujita began his investigation of society at street level and his insights and experiences are well honed in his latest exhibit, True Colors.

By Trina Calderón

Forget Me Not (Chitose Fujita)

Published 8:00 Am PST

“I think what sticks with me is when my dad immigrated from Japan to L.A., he thought it was such a beautiful city, a city unlike any other in the world. It’s very unique. We got a lot of nature surrounding us, the mountains, the ocean, the valleys, and the desert. Maybe like an hour drive out of L.A. you’re in nature and I’m just super proud to be a native Angeleno. I love this place and I want to represent it right because when I look good, L.A. is going to look good, and when L.A. looks good, the world is going to look good,” he related it to his emotional ties to the city. Throughout the show, his paintings represent a hometown story with conflict and connection.

In his monumental Game of Drones (GOD), a vulnerable samurai is confronted by a large white dragon drawn to him through a portal in the sky. Next to the aristocratic warrior is his surrendered drone controller, a gadget he has used far too much, a symbol of his desire for power. This painting is a warning, an image about humanity getting ahead of itself. Set against the backdrop of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, painted in gold leaf to remind of the gold dug out for fortune, with corporate logos re-appropriated to show the impact of capitalism, and all covered with tags from many of Fujita’s close friends and fellow L.A. graffiti artists, it’s a story about twisted morality. The tags cross out the businesses, street symbols revolting against corporate greed in the community. In Japanese mythology, the dragon is summoned to answer one’s fate, here the creature scares the samurai, warning of his selfish behavior during a time the world needs empathy. “It can definitely be relative to what we had seen in our country during the pandemic, when our rulers weren’t doing their job, like they didn’t know what to do. The world turned upside down. Everybody was feeling it, but I think in our country we saw the true colors come out,” Fujita explained.

Game of Drones (GOD)

Home Field LA

In isolation, Fujita developed his ideas with new artistic techniques. Using transparent spray paint he added more depth to figures, and instead of using outlines as he had in the past, he let the effect add 3-dimensional qualities to edges. In Forget Me Not (Chitose Fujita), Fujita paints the silhouette of the city, with a checkered background and street view from his mother’s porch in Boyle Heights. Using silver leaf and platinum paint for the checkers, he deliberately reckons the risky, contrasting codes of his city. The sun sets on the next layer, with a perspective looking west, tagging again from his peers, and small Dumbo’s flying through. A portrait of Fujita’s mother is in the foreground, using shadows to give her figure depth. She’s wearing blue and holding a yellow-red hibiscus, a real-life moment Fujita captured in a photo when she was outside, visiting his studio. She wears a green ribbon on her shirt, for mental health awareness.

Fujita’s mother has Alzheimer’s and went missing in the summer of 2022, she had slipped out of her home unnoticed. While searching for her, Fujita sent the current photo of her to artist and close friend PRIME, who lives near her home and he drove around looking for her. Thankfully, she was found safe in less than an hour later, but the image now connects Fujita to the scary moment in time. Using symbols (Dumbo represents the only animal who never forgets) and new creative techniques, he brings his mother to life wandering out in the city, a bold story of memory told through his artistic language. 

True Colors is on view at LA Louver March 29th – May 6th, 2023.

Trina Calderón @trinaluz is a film & TV writer/producer and journalist from Los Angeles. She cut her teeth in reality/doc TV with Authentic Entertainment and Pie Town Productions. Her first feature film, Down For Life, premiered opening night at the The Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival in 2009. She's also known for G4tv's X-Play, BBCAmerica's The Nerdist TV show, the AWM Gracies Awards show, the Legend of the Cool "Disco" Dan documentary, the Wall Writers documentary, and co-writing a massive book about the history of the 9:30 Club.

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Painter Friedrich Kunath Feels His Way Home

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By Trina Calderón
Published 9:16 Am PST

The place we call home usually refers to where we lay our head every night to sleep, a permanent location used as a mailing address. But the idea of home can be vast and German painter Friedrich Kunath uses his feelings to find the connection in his new exhibit, I Don't Know The Place, But I Know How To Get There, showing at Blum & Poe, January 14th through February 25th, 2023.

Reckoning his coming-of-age experiences in Germany with living in America for almost eighteen years, he’s still finding his habitual presence. While it’s impossible for anywhere to be the same after COVID, and perhaps subconsciously this motivated him to relocate his family back to Germany last summer, he was nonetheless inspired to return “home” only to immediately find himself disparaged. He related, “I had a constant feeling I would do something, but I was forcing myself to go on walks, read poetry, and then I watched TV all day, went straight into depression and immediately found out I can never go back home, as they say.”

Courtesy of Blum & Poe

Coming back to Los Angeles didn’t feel like home either but Kunath went into the studio with these deflated ideas and got to work with questions. “Is my life in the panting? Is me working on these paintings somewhat of a house that I inhibit?” he wondered. Indeed, his paintings are a backdrop for these thoughts with imaginative influence from Russian, German Romantic, and Hudson River school landscapes. In his existential search for pure consciousness, he explains this state of creative life in an exhibition of large witty pastoral paintings and a bright installation that reveals the bones of his storytelling process.

In the release for the show, Kunath includes the beautiful poem “Abendlied” by German artist Hanns Dieter Hüsch, which begins:

Butterfly is coming home
Little bear is coming home
Kangaroo is coming home
The lights aglow, the day is done.

Courtesy of Blum & Poe

There is a fun and whimsical element to Kunath’s homecoming crisis. Found in the short phrases of text he writes in small details on top of a painting or the cartoon characters that inhabit other images, he’s able to find humor in the darkness, and even nostalgia in his negated notions of place. In Coming Home Was As Beautiful As Going Away, the view out of the window on a plane is a contemplative view we’ve all seen many times. A moment we’re just existing inside the puffy clouds in the sky, in transit, high above everything serious and real. Breaking through this familiarity, he’s written the title in cute, tiny letters drifting off the edge of the wing. The words are playful yet dangerous as they fly off into the distant sky. There’s an absurd comfort in appreciating this view.

This meditation persists throughout Kunath’s work. I Could Easily See Myself Spending A Whole Month This Way features a man floating faced down, with the title written on top of the pool of water. He appears both relaxed and drowning, with an eerie color scheme of pale off yellow green masquerading as blue water. Who doesn’t like the ease of floating freely, but it’s also just cold and dark enough to make you think of drowning this way. The idea brings his existential perspective into a simpler composition, yet romantic still in the feel of the water, the waves, and the texture on top of the paint that appears like ripples. It’s the soul of the show in many ways, using his well-honed techniques to create a mood that goes on forever.

Courtesy of Blum & Poe

I Know I Need A Small Vacation is a more abstract landscape concept, playing with a stable of German and American pop culture symbols like Smurfs, a Porsche, Disneyesque cartoon animals, and the magical surreal doorway to heaven. Here clouds take different shapes than in his other landscapes, rendered in outlines and primary colors. They’re vehicles in all his paintings, implying movement, ethereal travel, and even an environmental spiritualism. The leaf outlines feel like fallen leaves blowing in the wind of an imaginary trip somewhere, anywhere, as though all the fun characters need to go too. Goofy even has his suitcase on this journey for a cartoony home ground.

In the romantic spirit of feeling connected to a journey more than the destination, Kunath completes his exhibit with the large installation, All Your Fears Trapped Inside. Pulling together personal ephemera, fine art, and collected objects from 2019-2023, the audience peers inside a window to consider how he composes his paintings. “It’s a whole thing to look for stuff that I feel understands me. I’m drawn to it and sometimes I don’t know why. I like to surround myself with these things and after all these years, that shit in there marinates you and makes me do the work I do here. That’s one aspect, and the other is I was thinking a lot about Picasso’s last paintings when the artist is behind the glass and basically paints that in a weird way. It’s a version of them also, but the artist is behind something. For me, I don’t think of this as much as different than that,” Kunath explained.

Courtesy of Blum & Poe

The natural processes of the artworks carry a sense of merry enchantment to the notion of not knowing where home may be. Kunath is happiest creating in a state of half-knowing, with a spirited practice that is contrary to understanding everything. A song that always reminds me of these same kind of ideas of home is Talking Heads, This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody) which starts:

Home is where I want to be
Pick me up and turn me round
I feel numb, burn with a weak heart
I guess I must be having fun
The less we say about it the better
Make it up as we go along
Feet on the ground

Friedrich Kunath: I Don't Know The Place, But I Know How To Get There
Blum & Poe
January 14 – February 25, 2023

Trina Calderón @trinaluz is a film & TV writer/producer and journalist from Los Angeles. She cut her teeth in reality/doc TV with Authentic Entertainment and Pie Town Productions. Her first feature film, Down For Life, premiered opening night at the The Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival in 2009. She's also known for G4tv's X-Play, BBCAmerica's The Nerdist TV show, the AWM Gracies Awards show, the Legend of the Cool "Disco" Dan documentary, the Wall Writers documentary, and co-writing a massive book about the history of the 9:30 Club.

Jeffrey Deitch Gallery Los Angeles: George Clinton's 'The Rhythm of Vision' Recap

“Why must I feel like that? Why must I chase the cat? Nothing but the dog in me…”

Courtesy of Jeffrey Deitch Gallery
Photography Joshua White 2022

By Julian Lucas
Photography by Ozeylah Maral
Published December 8, 2022 9:30 Am PST

Jeffrey Deitch opened last month with The Rhythm of Vision by George Clinton in Los Angeles. The exhibition was created in parallel with the 40th anniversary of the release of Atomic Dog, Clinton’s #1 record that inspired much of the hip hop music of the 1980s and ‘90s.

George Clinton, singer-songwriter, producer, and bandleader of the 70’s Parliament-Funkadelic collective has been a creator, both musically and visually. Clinton's works of art depict the psychedelic worlds of his music, costumes, and stage sets. When the pandemic prevented him from touring, he began a new chapter in his visual art, combining sixty years of themes and characters.

Paying homage, George Clinton’s influenced Lauren Halsey’s artistic vision collaborated in the creation of a sculptural stage inspired by George Clinton’s music. The work is a homage to Clinton’s influence on her artistic vision.

George Clinton is renowned as one of the pioneers of funk music. His Afro-Futurist performances, his lyrical mythology, and his social commentary have profoundly influenced contemporary culture. Clinton has been creating a lexicon of funk which is visualized in his paintings.

The centerpiece of the exhibition will be Moia Dat (2022), a monumental painting featuring an image of Clinton’s Mothership, the fantasy space vehicle that would descend onto the stage during Parliament / Funkadelic performances from which Clinton’s alto ego, Dr. Funkenstein would emerge.

The Rhythm of Vision is George Clinton’s first art exhibition in Los Angeles. This is not Clinton’s first project in the 7000 Santa Monica Boulevard building, however. He recorded several of his songs in what is now the exhibition space when it was the home of the famous recording studio, Radio Recorders. Clinton lives and works in Tallahassee, FL

- Jeffrey Deitch Gallery

George Clinton: The Rhythm of Vision with a stage by Lauren Halsey is on view and runs through December 23, 2022.

Jeffrey Deitch Gallery is located at 7000 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA.


Julian Lucas, is a photographer, a purveyor of artists’ books, and writer in training, but mostly a photographer. Julian also works as a housing specialist which, includes linking unhoused veterans to housing.

Echo Parks' Sunset Blvd is Becoming a Mecca of Culture

‘Park on the Dance Floor’ is Shaping the Echo Park District of Los Angeles into Something Special.

By Julian Lucas
Published 6am PST

Echo Park — Last weekend was more than a cruise night, more than a usual exhibition on a Saturday evening, and much more than just a party. It was a celebration of culture and people coming together on their terms, without any influential interference. 

The setting - the streets and sidewalks of Sunset Blvd. The music came both directions, north Sunset, mostly the Cumbias blaring from Género Neutral, and south, you could hear either 80s Funk and even old school Banda. In either direction I found myself bobbing my head and even busting a small OG two-step to George Clinton’s ‘Atomic Dog’ and trying to spin to Banda Zeta’s ‘La Nina Fresa’. Either way, everyone participated in some type of body movement because it was just that perfect. 

The celebration was organized by Classico Tattoo in partnership with Paisa Boys, Género Neutral, low boy, Pure Beauty, 444, Liquid Death Mountain Water, Air Nandez, and California Cowboys Collective. All involved are trend-setting, offering a new fresh way of celebrating the way we socialize. 

PEEP THE RECAP - PHOTOGRAPHY BY JULIAN LUCAS...... EVEN THE BLURRY IMAGES

Nadia Lee Cohen ' Hello My Name Is’ Jeffrey Deitch Gallery Los Angeles

Courtesy of Jeffrey Deitch
Photography Charles White

By Julian Lucas
Published June 17, 2022 11:37 PST

Los Angeles— British photographer Nadia Lee Cohen opened her first major solo exhibition Hello, My Name Is in the United States.The exhibition was held at none other than Jeffrey Deitch Gallery. Where else, who else would showcase such an exhibition? It's an overview of works from both her monograph, Women (sold out) and her latest book of the same name, displayed with images, sculpture, and film.

Hello My Name Is, immerses you in photographic imagery and never-before-seen footage of the insular world of Cohen’s human subjects - characters  created and played either by Nadia or in collaboration with models who assume different identities.  In the meantime, a conveyor belt brings  a succession of these characters’ personal effects that rotate in and out of the room.

Elsewhere, in a darkened, theater-like area, Cohen takes on each of the character’s parts.  As skewed as her photographs and accompanying films are, Cohen’s hyper-more-than-real art ultimately encourages the viewer to build relationships with the very real persons we see on a daily basis.

HELLO, My Name Is
Jeffrey Deitch Gallery / Los Angeles
Now through August 13 2022

Jeffrey Deitch
925 N Orange Dr,
Los Angeles, CA 90038

Julian Lucas, is a photographer, creative strategist, and writer in training, but mostly a photographer. Julian also works as a housing specialist which, includes linking unhoused veterans to housing.

Celebrating The Life and Achievements of Dr. Samella Lewis

Photo: Scripps College.

“Art is not a luxury as many people think – it is a necessity. It documents history – it helps educate people and stores knowledge for generations to come.”  – Dr. Samella Lewis


By Julian Lucas
Published 6/2/2022 8:32am PST

Dr. Samella Lewis, who many refer to as ˜The Godmother of Black Art,’ died at 99 years old in Torrance, California.

Though her influence was international and national, those who knew her in this region associated her with the Southern California Black Art scene. A professor of art at various colleges across the country, including Cal States Long Beach and Dominguez Hills in California, she was the first black tenured professor at Scripps College, one of the Claremont Colleges, where she taught from 1969 until her retirement in 1984. Recently, in 2021, Samella Lewis was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the College Art Association.

In 2007, Scripps College launched the Samella Lewis Contemporary Art Collection in her honor with a focus on African American art, emphasizing woman artists. The collection features Lewis’ own works along with works by Alison Saar, Elizabeth Catlett, John Outterbridge, Faith Ringgold, Carrie Mae Weems among others. Lewis was instrumental in helping Scripps secure works by Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence for their permanent collection.

Born and raised in the Bayou region of Louisiana, in the small rural town of Ponchatoula, known for its strawberry fields some fifty miles from New Orleans, her mother left her and her three sisters when she was four. She said it was a lot for her father to contend with - particularly her, because she was always crying for her mother. However, she also said that she understood because her mother was a cosmopolitan woman and couldn’t live in such an isolated place.

As a child, she poured over comic books, and she studied the characters in her elder sister's romance novels. And as a teenager, she started spending time in the French quarters of New Orleans looking at the art people were making. It was a ‘red light’ district so, at her high school teacher’s urging, she always took along a male student to accompany her. One day, the two of them looked in a window and saw a black woman, who asked them in. The woman, Rosa, introduced them to the Italian portrait artist, Alfredo Gali, whom she was living with, and Gali ended up giving them both free art lessons for two years.  

Samella Lewis’ “Stimulant,” from 1941 — an early painting by the artist. (Gerard Vuilleumier / Louis Stern Fine Arts)

Art became a mechanism for her to deal with the realities of life for a Black person, the monotonous, menial work in the field, the police brutality against Black people and segregation.

In 2016, looking back on her past said, “I don’t want to be young again. A lot of things happened.” And, “there are experiences that I would rather have not had . .  . but I realized I was meant to have these experiences and I survived them because there was always someone around that loved me.” And: “We were chased out of a lot of places. It was still Jim Crow.”

She didn’t start out as an art student at Dillard University, a historically, all-black college in New Orleans, but she gravitated to it, mentored by the notable artists Elizabeth Catlett and Charles White. Catlett was her primary teacher and Catlett’s emphasis on everyday people, sharecroppers, migrant workers, domestic workers and such, rather than ‘important’ people influenced her. Catlett, even though she herself was middle class, focused on people who weren’t, and her focus on other Black issues - motherhood, justice, segregation, discrimination influenced Lewis

At Dillard, Catlett infused Lewis with the idea that they were making history, and she encouraged Lewis to collect the work of Black artists even as an undergraduate. Lewis says she has been collecting art since 1942 and by the end of her life, she managed to amass a major collection of Black Art. 

Lewis earned an undergraduate at Hampton Institute and a masters and teaching degree at Morgan College. At a fairly young age, she received two doctorate degrees in art history and visual arts. Lewis’ career was a series of firsts - she was the first Black American to get a PhD in art attending Ohio State.

Samella Lewis, 1947

Samella Lewis 1968 linocut, “Migrants,” was featured in the 2011 Hammer Museum exhibition “Now Dig This!: Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980.” (Gerard Vuilleumier / Louis Stern Fine Arts)

Samella Lewis Washer Woman, 1924

In the South, Lewis taught art at Morgan State University in Baltimore and  Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, where she was very active with the NAACP. Her anti-segregationist activism made her a target — and in the late 1950s, members of the Ku Klux Klan shot out the windows of the family’s home. Her husband said, “We had to get out of there.” 

In the process of bringing greater attention to Black artists, she encouraged people to look at artistic traditions beyond Europe. Two stints - one as a Fulbright Fellow in Taiwan in the 60s and as a visiting professor in Brazil in the 70s, broadened her expertise and outreach. 

In Taiwan, she described opening up crates of old Chinese artworks that Chiang Kai-shek had brought with him when he retreated from mainland China. In China, she became entranced with the Mugao Caves, a collection of nearly 500 caves that contain the largest depositary of historic documents along the Silk Roads. She carried back with her a scroll with 13 Buddhas - one black. All of the Buddhas had golden halos but the black one. When she asked people about this, the typical answer was that they had not noticed.

In Brazil, Lewis delivered lectures, learned Portuguese and said she would have liked to have lived there.

In 1968, Lewis was hired at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LACMA, as the education coordinator. While there, she hoped to increase exhibition opportunities for Black artists, but Lewis resigned in protest at the dearth of black representation in major museum collections and staff, saying, “We were not included in the art museum here.”

As a reaction to her experiences and to the lack of adequate resources at the time, Lewis wrote a textbook of African American art. She said, 

"I wanted to make a chronology of African American artists, and artists of African descent, to document our history. The historians weren't doing it. I felt it better the artists do it anyway, through pictorial and written information… It was really about the movement.”

And:

“Compiling those books about Black artists and writing the art history of African American art wasn’t done for career objectives—it was a necessity.”

She eventually moved on to publishing periodicals on Black Art, realizing that she wanted something affordable that people could pick up on a regular basis, even when they could not afford a book. Her family describes it as ‘a family operation’ - with everyone pitching in with compiling, mailing, shipping, etc. She also founded galleries and book stores, and in 1976, she established the Museum of African American Art in Los Angeles in 1976, and served as its primary curator until 1986.

Lewis’ own work focused on portraiture. She didn’t work from live models or photographs, but worked from her inner imagination to create works that reflected what she felt inside - remembrances of people she met that resonated with her emotionally. She would start with a blank canvas, and a character would slowly emerge for her to explore. In her studio, pulling out her own work, she would refer to these characters as ‘weak’ or ‘strong.’ She was documenting survivors.

Those who studied with her at Scripps remember her for her hands-on style of teaching. In the basement of the Claremont Colleges, she would place art objects from their collection in students' hands for them to examine for themselves. One former student remembers her pressing small Zuni fetish figures into their hands as she talked about their economy of form and their deep connection between the human and animal world.

Julian Lucas, is a photographer, creative strategist, and writer in training, but mostly a photographer. Julian also works as a housing specialist which, includes linking unhoused veterans to housing.

Fahey/Klein - REBELS by Janette Beckman Recap

Julian Lucas
Published 5/9/2022 8:00Am PST

On Thursday night on May 5th, 2022, the 70s, 80s, and 90s Hip Hop, Punk, and fashion enthusiasts alike went down memory lane to celebrate and enjoy the photographic works of British photographer Janette Beckman. Her Exhibition, Rebels, featured at Fahey/Klein Gallery (Los Angeles), took many of us back in time, to the beginning of history in the making. 

Rebels, which encompasses 40 years of photography, provides a magnificent glimpse of Janette's importance in the worlds of art, photojournalism, music, fashion, and popular culture. Janette Beckman has spent decades photographing larger-than-life rebels in music, fashion, and other fields. The impromptu and raw quality of each image is what gives her images their engaging appeal — similar to the spontaneous wildness of 1970s and 1980s subcultures themselves.

Janette Beckman’s work is in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery, London, the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture, the Museum of the City of New York, and the Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe.  Beckman’s commercial work includes assignments for clients such as Dior, Kangol, Levi’s, Schott, and Shinola.

Fahey/Klein Gallery
Janette Beckman
Rebels May 5 – June 18, 2022

Hours: 10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Tuesday through Saturday

Phone: (323) 934-2250
Fax: (323) 934-4243
Email: contact@faheykleingallery.com

Residency Art Gallery Presents Highways and Byways by 3B Collective

By Julian Lucas
Published October 27, 2021 7:10 Am PST

INGLEWOOD- Last Saturday evening, about 7:30ish, I, along with other art enthusiasts, attended “Highways and Byways” by 3B Collective featured at Residency Art Gallery. And what a compelling show it was!

The exhibition examines decades of gradual change within disenfranchised communities. "Highways and Byways" opens with an extraordinary installation in the foreground, dead center - a cluster of words that relate to the disparities of Los Angeles residents. Surrounding these words were vibrant and mesmerizing paintings. There was just enough history juxtaposed with the contemporary present to provide evidence that they were - we were - a part of a larger body of systemic problems. The work was a lot to process as I found myself walking back to gaze multiple times. This along with conversing with the artists and art attendees - it was a lot to take in.

For me, the work evoked a lot of feelings. Despite being optimistic about our current political climate, one would wonder about what the future holds, and if there is really any hope.

The 3B Collective is defines themselves as a group of six artists and designers. The collective create works of art and assist artists and institutions such as galleries. They also create large-scale, “site-specific installations and murals”

The ‘Highways and Byways’ will run to December 11, 2021 Residency Art Gallery Saturday 11am to 5pm. Residency Art Gallery is located at 310 Queen St. Inglewood, CA 90301.

@thepomonan

HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS3B COLLECTIVE RESIDENCY ART GALLERYINGLEWOOD, CA #3bcollective ##groupshow ##residencyartgallery ##in#glewood

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Julian Lucas, is fine art, documentary photographer, photojournalist, and creative strategist. Julian also works as a housing specialist which, includes linking homeless veterans to housing. Julian has lived in Chicago, Inglewood, Portland, and the suburbs of Los Angeles County including Pomona.

Eastern Projects Gallery Presents "The End of Silence" by ANTONIO TUROK

Text Julian Lucas
10/13/2021

Several things stood out at about the exhibition “The End of Silence” by Antonio Turock, featured at Eastern Projects Gallery. One of the best photographic exhibitions held there by far. In this exhibition the images were photographed decades ago, rather than in recent years. Which can be highly appreciated, because of the amount of documentary work completed decades ago, and because it wasn't just another art exhibition about coming out of a pandemic, yawn.

Nonetheless, the exhibition emphasized work through artistically through storytelling giving a raw deep glimpse into the politics, the culture and environment within countries such as Chiapas and Oaxaca's civil unrest, as well as wars in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, by juxtaposing photographs of impoverished, displaced, but humble individuals.

“The difference between a photojournalist and a documentary photographer is that while the former seeks to record the event, the latter wonders why it happened, he creates a script in his head about what he wants to convey. The documentary photographer must study what he is going to photograph, being a kind of anthropologist, sociologist, having a background in art history, it is the only way in which the photographer can become an integral part of that experience. He must be passionate about the story he will document.” – Antonio Turok


ABOUT THE ARTIST
Antonio Turok, born in Mexico City in 1955, is considered one of the most important documentary photographers of today, internationally recognized as one of the artists who have dedicated 40 years of his life to capturing the human condition or simply sharing a beautiful landscape. Turok and hisphotographic gaze are always where adrenaline and fear would drive almost everyone away, where, thanks to his instinct, the viewer can access images that stop the precise moment, the one that summarizes an entire historical moment between the four corners of the photograph , a defining feature of a society or a social conflict. 
 
BOOKS
Antonio Turok: La Fiesta y La Rebelión, Ediciones Era Mexico 2018, Chiapas: The End of Silence / El fin del silencio. Aperture Foundation, New York, and Ediciones Era, Mexico, 1998. Images of Nicaragua. House of Images, Mexico, 1988. 

PUBLICATIONS
Aperture, United States; Camera Work, United States; Chronicle, Mexico; DoubleTake, United States; Paris Match, France; Process, Mexico; Stern, Germany; Texas Monthly, United States; The Independent, Great Britain; Likewise, he has collaborated on several collective books such as: 160 Years of Photography in Mexico, Centro de la Imagen, Mexico. Indiens Chiapas-Mexico-Californie –Un monde fait de tous les mondes-. Du parc de la Villete, Paris. Memory - Presence of Guatemalan refugees in Mexico, Ministry of the Interior, Mexico. 
 
AWARDS
The FONCA -National System Award for Artists in Mexico, Medal of Photographic Merit 2018 , USA-Mexico Fund for Culture Rockefeller/Bancomer Award 1997. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (Latin America & Caribbean) 1996. Mother Jones International Fund for Documentary Photography 1994. Grant from the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, California for the documentary project : Our Neighbors, Two Sides of a Coin.  
 
MUSEUMS
Philadelphia Art Museum. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Los Angeles County Museum of Art - Photographic Collection, Los Angeles CA. Wittliff Gallery of Southwestern and Mexican Photography,Southwest Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas. Brooklyn Museum — Photographic Collection. Brooklyn, New York .; among others. Eastern Projects

RECAP

Antonio Turock
"The End of Silence"
October 9th - November 27th 2021
12p-6pm Tuesday to Saturday
Eastern Project Gallery
900 N Broadway #1090, Los Angeles, CA 90012

Julian Lucas, is fine art photographer, photojournalist, and creative strategist. Julian also works as a housing specialist which, includes linking homeless veterans to housing. Julian has lived in Chicago, Inglewood, Portland, and the suburbs of Los Angeles County including Pomona.

CGU 2nd Year MFA Exhibitions Opens with, "Can I Come in - Can I Touch it"

By Julian Lucas
Published on Oct 7, 2021 3:45pm PST

After a long hiatus due to the pandemic, Can I Come In? “Can I Touch It? is the annual second-year group exhibition comprising of CGU’s MFA candidates.

In the aftermath of the pandemic, well we all hope, the exhibition is a response to the isolation and lack of human interaction. The students invited the public and the student body to “Yes come in, but no do not touch. That would be unwise”

Highlights

Venice Heritage Museum Curated a Photography Exhibition Brought 400 People and Raised $20,000

Text & Photography Julian Lucas
Published September 28, 2021

It was a busy weekend in the city of Venice, CA. The Venice Heritage Museum curated a photographic exhibition held at VICE. It was not only a celebration of Venice culture built by generations of locals, but also a reunion of people who may have not seen each other in many years.

The exhibition illustrated the history of its famous Boardwalk from its founding to the current day and featured photographs by Henry Diltz, Estevan Oriol, Dotan Saguy, Josh “Bagel” Klassman, Pep Williams, Paulo Freire Lopez, and Gerry Beckley. The silent auction included large-format darkroom prints and digital images with the proceeds benefiting the Venice Heritage Museum. An acoustic performance by Chris Abbott (aka Kid Caviar) and spinning the dope vinyl was by DJ Buck rounded out the evening.

Recap

Julian Lucas, is fine art photographer, photojournalist, and creative strategist. Julian also works as a housing specialist which, includes linking homeless veterans to housing. Julian has lived in Chicago, Inglewood, Portland, and the suburbs of Los Angeles County including Pomona.

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"Shooters" Photography Exhibition Opens and Draws Over 300 People

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Text & Snapshots Julian Lucas

“Photography does not sell!” Well, that is an old myth that has lived within this region for far too long. And last weekend the exhibition titled “Shooters” headed by the young Marlon Del Rio known by his Instagram name @the.dirtbag killed that old-tired ass myth.

The exhibition held at the Enterprise Building in San Bernardino consisted of San Bernardino photographers, including photographers from the Pacific Northwest and the east coast. The photographic works on display featured an array of subject matter. From west coast car culture, portraits of beautiful people, images of the mundane, and my favorite subject protest images from the Northwest. “Shooters” drew a crowd of at least 300 or more photography enthusiasts, family, and friends.

Julian Lucas, is fine art photographer, photojournalist, and creative strategist. Julian also works as a housing specialist which, includes linking homeless veterans to housing. Julian has lived in Chicago, Inglewood, Portland, and the suburbs of Los Angeles County including Pomona.

Charlie James Gallery: NI DE AQUÍ, NI DE ALLÁ | RECAP

Ni de aquí, ni de allá, opened this past weekend at Charlie James Gallery. The group exhibition organizers included Charlie James and Ever Velasquez and featured works by 23 artists from LA, NY, Chicago, and the United Kingdom, and included Patrick Martinez, Narsiso Martinez, Shizu Saldamando, and Gabriella Sanchez.

“The show seeks to highlight work that explores the threshold spaces between cultures that exist largely unrepresented in broader cultural expression.”

NI DE AQUÍ, NI DE ALLÁ
by Charlie James and Ever Velasquez
August 28, September 20, 2021.

Julian Lucas, is fine art photographer, photojournalist, and creative strategist. Julian also works as a housing specialist which, includes linking homeless veterans to housing. Julian has lived in Chicago, Inglewood, Portland, and the suburbs of Los Angeles County including Pomona.

Fahey/Klein Gallery Ernest C. Withers Exhibition Recap

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Text and Event Photography Julian Lucas

It was a night filled with joy as family members and friends gathered at Fahey Klein Gallery to celebrate the lifelong works of the late great photographer Ernest C. Withers. And if you weren’t a part of the family, you were still welcomed with open arms to celebrate and enjoy the beautiful images alongside the family. For me, it brought back that sense of southern hospitality, being originally from Chicago, and, of course, my family being participants of the Great Migration to the north.

Withers not only captured the late 1940s and early 1960s Southern civil rights movement in a way that is relevant today, but he also recorded day-to-day life in the South during this critical era including all those Memphians who introduced Soul, Rock 'n' Roll, and the Blues to popular music. From the blues to baseball to football games and funerals and marches, and everyday and momentous events, Withers was there with his camera. Beale Street's juke clubs and journalistic assignments gave him the confidence and skills to record history as it occurred. It took courage for him to ‘take the shot’ in spite of intimidation by police and other formidable forces during the civil rights era.

“Photography is a collection of memories. One who is trained in photography knows that. Instinctively, people who have an occupation know what they ought to do. You call the fireman to put out the fire; you call the police to solve a police problem; and people who are news people and journalists are collectors and recorders of present evidence, which after a given length of time—days, months, years becomes history.” Ernest C. Withers

Dr. Ernest C. Withers, Sr. (1922 – 2007) a native Memphian, is an internationally acclaimed photojournalist. His photographs have been published extensively in the New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Life, Jet, and Ebony. His well-known images comprise an unequaled time capsule of the heartland of Mid-Century America. Withers’s images are in the permanent collection of The Smithsonian and other esteemed institutions.

Fahey Klein Gallery
Ernest C. Withers
I’ll Take You There
June 24 – September 4, 2021

THE FAHEY/KLEIN GALLERY IS LOCATED AT:
148 North La Brea, between 1st Street and Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles, CA 90036

Open to all visitors. Appointments are optional.

Hours: 10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Tuesday through Saturday

Phone: (323) 934-2250
Fax: (323) 934-4243
Email: contact@faheykleingallery.com

Julian Lucas, is fine art photographer, photojournalist, and creative strategist. Julian also works as a housing specialist which, includes linking homeless veterans to housing. Julian has lived in Chicago, Inglewood, Portland, and the suburbs of Los Angeles County including Pomona.

2 Live and Die in L.A. Review & Photo Essay

Reviewed by Julian Lucas

There were so many gallery openings this past weekend throughout the city of Los Angeles and even in the burbs. Usually when we think of exhibitions, we think of the westside or the center of L.A., but curator Frankie Orozco changed that way of thinking this past weekend with 2 Live and Die in L.A. The event was held at the now closed Juvenile Justice Center Court in South Central Los Angeles better known today as Chuco’s Justice Center where the organization Youth Justice Coalition offers a wide range of programs to assist individuals who were once incarcerated, reintegrate back into society. The JJC closed its doors about 8 years ago.

The event was a success 2 Live and Die in L.A. brought out over 2500 people and featured live performances from bands throughout Los Angeles -  Sin the Artists, Tunez 187, Migs Whiskey, Luicidal, Lil sodi, and Bella The Rapper. They played their sets perfectly against a colorful written wall, a perfect backdrop against the silhouette of tall skinny palm trees in the foreground and background. You definitely knew you were in L.A. 

Vendors from all over lined the parking lot including L.A. Originals Taco Truck. if you got hungry, you didn’t have to leave. You could continue to kick back, enjoy the surroundings, eat tacos and get punch-drunk from drinking bottles of Jarritos all day and night.

Successfully strategic - the location fit Orozco’s vision. The works of over 40 Los Angeles photographers were intelligently and uniquely displayed, covering the hallways, rooms, along with the cinder-block walls of small rooms with large windows including a stall-less toilet revealing characteristics of a holding tank. To many of us remembered what it was like to be within the confines of those thick brick walls waiting for punishment.

The photographic imagery that covered the walls were nostalgic for most of us who grew up in Southern California. The work included individuals who struggled with homelessness and addiction, humanizing portraits of those whose reality was survival, just doing what they knew best to do so. Other works were drenched with bright, candy-colored lowriders, a trademark of Los Angeles, the city where lowriding was born.

What is most powerful and important about the 2 Live and Die in L.A. opening is that artists, who may have been caught up in the system at some point, changed the narrative by recharging a facility that was once used to penalize people.

Review: Zhang Mengjiao Examines Beauty and Environmental Habitats

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Text and Photography Julian Lucas

Photography is often about the process. In her current exhibition, For the Sake of… the Artifice! Chinese artist Zhang Mengjiao expressed just that. The exhibition, curated by Yiwei Lu on display at the Kylin Gallery in Beverly Hills, includes two of Zhang's latest photography series, Flat Power, and We Don’t Speak the Same Language.

In her body of work entitled, Flat Power, Zhang successfully presents an in-depth probe of beauty among Chinese women and its permutations within Chinese social media. Her still images present a surreal movement as if within a performance art piece, but the work also activates the same senses as when one stares at and grasps every detail of a sculpture.


In We Don’t Speak the Same Language, Zhang explores and challenges what we think of as “man-made,” by revisiting the zoo but not having the same feelings as she did when visiting the zoo as a young child. Her work gives detailed attention to the mundane, artificial landscapes, while juxtaposing them against natural landscapes and such man-made artifacts as power lines and wallpaper pasted on the walls and doors of the animal exhibits.

For the Sake of…the Artifice! is on display at the Kylin Gallery and runs through July 3rd.
Visit the Kylin Gallery by appointment
8634 Wilshire Blvd,
Beverly Hills, CA 90211