Wednesday, February 24, 2021 at 5:00AM Here is the full talk I had the pleasure of doing with journalist and writer Lynell George for Queensfest 2020. We discuss her soulful new book on the everyday practices of literary icon Octavia E. Butler.
You can purchase this book online from Octavia's favorite bookstore Esowon Books or at any major book retailer.
Photo credit The Huntington Library and Museum FB
Monday, December 28, 2015 at 5:00AM My favorite and LA's most popular florist Bloom and Plume has debuted their first calendar Shades of Blackness Volume 1 ... get your 2016 #naturalopulence now! PS...i'm my favorite month June! Beginning of summer!!!
Monday, September 7, 2015 at 5:00AM Samuel Levi Jones is on view now at Pro Arts in Oakland, CA with his solo exhibition Talk To Me. He creates a large site-specific installation of deconstructed law books. These texts, usually found neatly organized in law firms or law school libraries, archive federal and state laws that are applied and interpreted by the courts. Talk to Me interrogates the limits of our legal system by rendering these books exposed and unbound. He will have an artist talk on September 12th, more about this exhibition HERE.
Monday, May 25, 2015 at 5:00AM Very honored to be the cover girl for issue 2 of Correspondence Magazine by Citizens of Culture...a site I have great respect for. You can find out where to buy a copy or order online HERE
Monday, April 6, 2015 at 5:00AM Pick up the April issue of Art In America magazine to read Samuel Levi Jones 4-pg feature!
Thursday, March 26, 2015 at 2:00AM Jones celebrated his first museum solo show last night when he debuted new ambitious works in his site specific installation Unbound big huge congratulations to Samuel and the great effort that went into this show!
Sunday, March 15, 2015 at 5:00AM Samuel Levi Jones opens at the Studio Museum in Harlem March 26th with a solo exhibition titled Unbound.
For Unbound, Jones presents four new works that are his largest yet, and utilize law textbooks disassembled into their structural components. Spines and covers form wall-to-wall painting-like works mounted on canvas or adhered directly to the wall (Unbound, Jaded and Don’t Feel Right), and pages are processed and molded into an assemblage (Reformation). In the three wall works, form and materiality are emphasized, while function and value are called into question—the books have been stripped of authoritative identity. These works engage recent criticism of the law and the justice system with respect to human rights and social welfare.
Reformation differs from the other works but displays a similar theme of destruction in service of newly imagined forms. Jones took pages from the books—literally, their content—and processed them in an industrial pulping machine. He then slowly dried the wet, shredded paper mixture in shipping crates, which transformed the pulpy gray matter into a large, solid mass. The weight, illegibility and presence of the installation suggest the metaphorical burden of the law, in which those not educated in legal procedure or jargon must face the impenetrability of the legal system. Jones points out the inaccessibility of some forms of knowledge, and strives to create an inclusive space by rendering indeterminate the authority that such knowledge appears to confer.
Samuel Levi Jones: Unbound is organized by Naima J. Keith, Associate Curator.
Detail of Jaded, 2015 mixed media on canvas 92in x 117.5in
Thursday, March 12, 2015 at 5:00AM Studio Squared is a series of informal art-making workshops aimed at making a wide range of studio practices accessible to adult audiences. Each workshop focuses on a particular theme and creative process inspired by our exhibitions, and explores methods of creative production through an experiential approach.
Exhibiting artist and ninth recipient of the Alexander Wein Artist Prize Samuel Levi Jones will lead a paper pulping and book(un)binding workshop to illustrate the tactile processes he employs in fabricating works for his site-specific project, Samuel Levi Jones: Unbound. In his practice, Jones reworks diverse source materials—from encyclopedias and law books to technical manuals—and literally deconstructs these widely published arbiters of authenticity to challenge the relevance and accuracy of certain historical records. Through this practice of omission and the fracturing of information, Jones is able to forge a more personal alliance with the materials. In this workshop, Jones will work with program participants to examine their own attachments to materials from their personal archives. No experience is necessary, however, please bring your own selection of paper source materials with you to the workshop.
Helping to facilitate the hands-on portion of this workshop will be a group of students from Urban Studio, a collective of artists based in the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Fine Arts Department that creates and nourishes professional development through emphasizing participation and collaboration. The students’ knowledge of book binding and paper making will help explore new layers of Jones’s process. They will also lend their own unique perspectives on the art of the book and introduce alternative techniques for consideration.
RSVP to programs@studiomuseum.org to pre-register.
- See more at: http://www.studiomuseum.org/event-calendar/event/studio-squared-2015-03-29#sthash.6nsUonhE.dpuf
Friday, July 11, 2014 at 5:00AM We're happy to be in the fall ART issue of Salon Magazine and included in their Art Radar 2014. If you're in Europe pick up a copy!!
"Papillion, located in the up and coming area of Leimert Park, has a strong programme for emerging artists and a stylish woman at its helm."
Thursday, July 3, 2014 at 5:00AM Kenturah is featured in the latest issue of art magazine FABRIK as one of eight emerging artist in LA to watch!
Friday, June 27, 2014 at 5:00AM Thrilled, excited and surprised to be in such great company in the July issue of Vogue Magazine, with Lupita Nyong'o on the cover. Elizabeth von Thurn und Taxis came to visit us on a recent west coast trip and wrote about it in her TNT coloumn of the magazine.
Here's a snippet:
"What I found most inspiring about L.A.;s art scene was the unexpected young female force it bears. I met a series of passionate and very noteworthy women - gallerists and artists alike. What a relief from art-world machismo! Take Michelle Joan Papillion, who, with a great eye for emerging talent, recently set up shop in Leimert Park, an area with few galleries. "I think of Leimert Park as a flower waiting to bloom," she told me. "Three years from now, this place will be the talk of the art-and-culture scene."
Tuesday, November 19, 2013 at 5:00AM LA based artist Zeal Harris has some very interesting series in the works, the most exciting of all is a graphic novel she recently started!
Zeal's artist statement:
When we humans experience aesthetic pleasure, we experience joy, and joy is the ecstasy of living. When humans do an activity that creates aesthetic pleasure, I understand this process and its outcomes to be art. My art is making painting, cooking, growing plants, nurturing relationships, and exchanging jokes and stories with people that I adore. This artistic statement begins in an autobiographical and self-ethnographical kind of way. I find it extremely difficult to separate my life from my art. In fact, as evidenced by my paintings, my life is my art.
http://www.zealsart.com
The series below is titled "Nice Legs"
Saturday, August 24, 2013 at 5:00AM
#SANDY is a book of iPhone Photos by acclaimed photographers who captured the tragic devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy in New York City, New Jersey, and Connecticut. #SANDY will be published by Daylight Books in 2014 but when you purchase now, you will get an early copy in October 2013!
100% of the royalties from the book will be donated to Occupy Sandy to support the rebuilding efforts in New York City and the Sandy Storyline project.
The book is only available for purchase through our IndieGogo campaign and you will receive it by the first year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy in Late October 2013. If we do not meet our funding goal, the book will not be published.
Featured photographers include Benjamin Lowy, Stephen Wilkes, Ed Kashi/Vll, Richard Renaldi, Hank Willis Thomas, Lyle Owerko, Wyatt Gallery, Ruddy Roye, Craig Wetherby, Andrew Quilty, 13th Witness, Michael Christopher Brown, Yosra El-Essawy, Erica Simone, Giles Clarke, Sam Horine, Stanley Lumax, Dylan Chandler, Brent Bartley, and Nicole Sweet.
This book is the first of it's kind to showcase the impact of the iPhone combined with Social Media to inspire others to make a difference while simultaneously reporting the news.
Photo by Ruddy Roye
Photo by Wyatt gallery
Photo by Benjamin Lowy
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 5:00AM Fashion illustrator icon Antonio Lopez.
There is a great book that recently came out about his work and his life, "Antonio: Fashion, Art, Sex & Disco" by Roger and Mauricio Padilha.
Friday, March 22, 2013 at 5:00AM A giant in the world of literature and humanity. Chinua Achebe achieved icon status as a writer for penning many best sellers depicting life and truths about his home country Nigeria. Two of my favorites and cannon classics Things Fall Apart and No Longer At Ease are still in my top 10 favorite reads of all time. He was a prolific man and may be rest in peace.
Chinua Achebe: November 30, 1960 Ogidi, Nigeria - March 21, 2013 Boston, USA
Read Things Fall Apart on Google Books
Monday, February 4, 2013 at 5:00AM Picked up some goodies at the Geffen's Printed Matter LA Art Book Fair! It was a fun time and they had the best food trucks out front...finally got to indulge in a sweet treat from Coolhaus LA (the first food truck inspired by amazing design and architecture and ice cream!) The weekend was a total success!
Tuesday, December 18, 2012 at 5:00AM A BRILLIANT ARTIST, A GENIUS MUSICIAN & AN AVANT GARDE DESIGNER
Monday, December 17, 2012 at 5:00AM BRUCE HIGH QUALITY FOUNDATION UNIVERSITY has just released their Spring 2013 curriculum. If your in NY go! Its free, high quality education in art! The schedule this semester is brillant! Open house January 13, 2013 from 2-4pm, meet the instructors and find out which each of the courses are about.
About BHQFU: Founded by former Cooper Union students they offer free classes about art, art practive and other world related topics in art. They describe themselves like this "BHQFU is a learning experiment where artists work together to manifest creative, productive, resistant, useless, and demanding interactions between art and the world."
