All posts tagged: Historys

Street Artist Jimmy Mirikitani Rises from Art History’s Margins

Street Artist Jimmy Mirikitani Rises from Art History’s Margins

After decades on the margins of art history, Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani—a collagist of singular, inimitable vision—is finally having his story told, though not in any linear fashion.  The late artist is currently the subject of a solo exhibition on view through June at the Spencer Museum of Art in Kansas City—among the first serious institutional examinations of his practice. Co-curators Maki Kaneko and Kris Imants Ercums have organized the exhibition thematically rather than chronologically, echoing Mirikitani’s collage-like life: an accumulation of pivotal events in which the past continually presses upon the present, from the atomic bombing of his hometown, Hiroshima, to his incarceration at Tule Lake following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and finally to his arrival in mid-1950s New York, on the cusp of a changing art world; multiculturalism was gaining currency and street art would soon enter the city’s galleries.  Related Articles For much of her curatorial career, Kaneko has focused on researching art made during World War II, with an eye toward Japanese artists. “But Jimmy’s art told me something I had never heard,” she said. “The way he narrated his …

History’s biggest census: Why India’s new population count is controversial | Politics News

History’s biggest census: Why India’s new population count is controversial | Politics News

India has begun counting its population in the world’s largest census, which will include caste enumeration for the first time in nearly a century. This year’s census is a $1.24bn exercise during which more than three million Indian officials will spend a year surveying about 1.4 billion Indians about their household composition, living conditions and access to basic amenities. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list The last census was conducted in 2011. Another one was due in 2021, but it was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving India’s data on such things as its demographics, housing conditions and welfare amenities outdated. How will the gargantuan task of counting more than a billion people spread out across a vast country be carried out, and why is the latest census being watched particularly closely? Here’s what we know: How will India’s census take place? According to the Press Information Bureau, India’s first modern census was conducted from 1865 to 1872 during the British colonial period, but it did not happen simultaneously across all regions of …

François-Xavier Gbré Uses His Photography to Fill in History’s Gaps

François-Xavier Gbré Uses His Photography to Fill in History’s Gaps

“What I try to do with my work is to fill the many gaps in history, and to tell history in different ways,” said artist François-Xavier Gbré, speaking via a video call. It was fitting that Gbré spoke these words, since so much information is still transmitted orally from older to younger generations in Africa. Born in France to French and Ivorian parents, Gbré uses his art to keep alive “the memory of the continent.” He added, “This story needs to be written. And it could be written with words, but also with pictures.” Related Articles A few days later after his interview with ARTnews, in late January, Gbré’s “Radio Ballast” made its US debut in a duo exhibition with fellow Ivorian Nuits Balnéaires at the International Center of Photography (ICP), in a show curated by David Campany. This body of work is about the railroad system built in Côte d’Ivoire over a century ago by French colonizers to transport extracted natural minerals in the country to the port of Abidjan. It is a poignant …

Rare self-portrait by Artemisia Gentileschi as ‘one of history’s most courageous women’ up for auction

Rare self-portrait by Artemisia Gentileschi as ‘one of history’s most courageous women’ up for auction

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter A rare self-portrait by Italian Old Master painter Artemisia Gentileschi, completed when she was just 20 years old, will be auctioned next month and could fetch up to $3.5m (£2.6m). One of the most notable figures in the history of art, Gentileschi’s life has been the subject of as much fascination as her work, as she rose to fame across Europe in the 17th century at a time where few women artists were formally recognised. Trained in Rome with her father, the painter Orazio Gentileschi, she lived a secluded life while rapidly developing her talent and skills, working contemporaneously to Caravaggio. In the self-portrait being auctioned by Christie’s in February, she represents herself as the fourth-century martyr saint Catherine of Alexandria – a depiction she would repeat in another painting a year or two later, which currently hangs in the National …

What We Can Learn from History’s Demagogues

What We Can Learn from History’s Demagogues

Both Plato and Cicero argued that the best orator is a philosopher, or, at least, a good person or person of virtue. If you were not a philosopher or a good person, you were not an orator but merely a sophist or demagogue. Against this, we have to contend with the fact that even a wretch like Hitler was able to move crowds—and quite powerfully and world-historically at that. Everything about Hitler was warped, his character (ethos), the arguments he used (logos), and the emotions that he sought to instil (pathos), but, still, people followed him in their droves because they themselves were wretched and warped. A lesson from Aristotle Plato’s long-time student Aristotle, who lived some twenty-four centuries ago, was perhaps the first to understand that the bedrock of democracy is an affluent, educated middle class. In the Politics, Aristotle says that, compared to states with a large middle class, states of the rich and poor tend to strict oligarchy (“rule by a few”) or rampant democracy, and, ultimately, to tyranny. Unfortunately, few states …