Jasmine's DESMA Blog

The California African-American Arts museum is home to exhibits representing black artists from around the world. While at the museum there was an exhibit highlighting the work of Ernie Barnes, an American artist and former NFL football player. His work challenged the notion of sports being a place solely for competition and rather embodied sports as an art form of not just the mind but also the body. In 1984, Barnes was named the lead sports artist for the 1984 Olympic games in Los Angeles, the exhibit showcased a lot of the work that he had created for the games. Each exhibit in the museum was designed to showcase a different style and the story of an artist. I was extremely excited to see the work of one of my favorite young artists Kohshin Finley. Finley is originally from Los Angeles, and known for creating highly detailed portraits that use different elements of poetry and deep contrasts of color to depict emotion and intent.  In relation to this class the museum was s

Russian Propaganda via Giavonni Pallotta  Growing up my childhood dream was to be an astronomer. I always aspired to be able to look deep into space and see what truly was out there, and seemingly the questions that I have always had were not unique. The idea of space and the question of "is there more" has been engrained within American society. The Space Race brought about high levels of competition  amongst nations all over the world which in turn led to great technological advancements and progression in other industries as well, such as art. Through use of various styles of propaganda and media materials, leading governments were able to effectively use space as a means of infiltrating popular culture (Ngo).  While America and the Soviet Union battled through the Cold War, the Space Race was an instrumental piece of the battle. The Russians utilized propaganda in the same way as the Americans, as a tool to increase nationalist identity. The art work on the left dep