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A photo of “Solidarity art by mail,” A collection of Latin American mail art, organized by Fatima Brecht and Josely Carvalho

An Intergenerational Conversation About Activist Art & the Contemporary Experience with Curator Abigail Satinsky – Part 1

Contributing authors Angelina Chau, Tristan Phan, Maha Sidi, and Alice Vilenski are first-year students at Northeastern University in Boston. VoCA is pleased to present this blog post in conjunction with Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History, Gloria Sutton’s Spring 2022 Honors Seminar, The Art of Visual Intelligence at Northeastern University. This interdisciplinary course combines the… Read more »

An installation view of Sharon Lockhart at Gladstone Gallery, 2022

Awash in a steady stream of passing time: Sharon Lockhart at Gladstone

Returning writer Hannah Sage Kay studied modern and contemporary art at NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts and Bard College. Her writing has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Carla, and Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, among other publications.   Sharon Lockhart’s recent solo exhibition at Gladstone Gallery in New York, on view from January 13… Read more »

A story quilt by Faith Ringgold titled "Woman on a Bridge #1 of 5: Tar Beach", from 1988

Claiming New York in Faith Ringgold’s Tar Beach

Mark I. West is a professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he teaches courses in children’s and young adult literature.  He is especially interested urban children’s literature.    I recently visited Faith Ringgold: American People, the New Museum’s retrospective exhibit of Ringgold’s art. I was looking at Ringgold’s two… Read more »

A video still of Al Green

Faith, Suffering, and Beauty: An Exploration of Arthur Jafa and Faith Ringgold

Returning author Elaine Birnbaum is a third-year at Northeastern University studying Media Arts with a concentration in animation and Spanish.    In Fall of 2021, there was a two-week period where Glenstone’s exhibitions of work by Arthur Jafa and Faith Ringgold overlapped. The exhibits were housed in two different buildings located on opposite ends of… Read more »

A photo of De Wain Valentine standing behind one of his translucent resin sculptures

In Memory of De Wain Valentine (1936-2022)

A note from VoCA’s Executive Director, Lauren Shadford Today, I would like to take a moment to remember an incredible artist and VoCA supporter, De Wain Valentine, who passed away recently at the age of 86. I am truly saddened to think of a world without De Wain but I am grateful that VoCA had the pleasure to… Read more »

Still from Cut from Liquid to Snake, 2018

Thoughts on Leslie Thornton: Begin Again, Again

Asiya Rizvi is a fifth-year student at Northeastern University studying computer science and graphic design. She is interested in the marriage between technology, art, design, and human relationships.   “I am concerned with meaning, playing on the edge of it, finding an edge that is close to oblivion and can be transformative.” Leslie Thornton [i]… Read more »

An installation photo of Valkyrie Mumbet at MassArt Art Museum

Valkyrie Mumbet: A Room of Our Own

Shuyang Chen is an undergraduate student at Northeastern University pursuing a BA major in Art with a concentration in Visual Studies, and minor in Media and Screen studies. In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf writes, “There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”… Read more »

All Light, Everywhere

This week’s returning writer, Hannah Sage Kay, recently received her Masters degree from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, where her research focused on the intersection of art and politics with regard to media manipulation, misinformation, and the construction of fictionalized (or alternate) histories.   The manipulative power of framing, and the… Read more »

Flap board with uncovered front panels

Caring for Architecture and Design Fine Art Collections: Part 2

This week’s returning author, Caroline Gil Rodríguez, is a time-based media conservator and archivist from Puerto Rico. Caroline was previously an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her areas of interest include media art technologies, the circulation of time-based media art in Latin America… Read more »

Artifacts at the End of a Decade, an unbound artists’ book consisting of 44 unique pieces of photography, ceramics, fiber, print, clothing, painting, and drawing

Dangers Imagined and Real

This week’s contributing writer, Jessica Scott, is a 3rd year MFA candidate in Studio Arts at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where her research and multidisciplinary art practice focuses on feminisms, bodily autonomy, imaginative ecologies and public history.   In early Fall 2019, my co-curator Jill Hughes and I decided to show the artists’ book… Read more »

A photo of Yars' Revenge

Caring for Architecture and Design Fine Art Collections: Part 1

This week’s contributing author, Caroline Gil Rodríguez, is a time-based media conservator and archivist from Puerto Rico. Caroline was previously an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her areas of interest include media art technologies, the circulation of time-based media art in Latin America… Read more »

Felicia Rice with trade edition of Califas

The Califas Legacy Project

This week’s returning author, Betsy Andersen, is founding Executive Director of Museo Eduardo Carrillo (2000-present). During COVID she has returned to being a gardener with flourishing results.   The Califas Legacy Project, spearheaded by Museo Eduardo Carrillo, fills in a missing piece of American art history by focusing on the Chicano/a/x artists of the Central California… Read more »