Visuals for XXXTentacion’s hit song “Sad!” was posthumously released today and the video is autobiographical and shockingly foreboding. The rapper was gunned down in Deerfield, Florida last week and the video’s death-centric theme only adds to the clairvoyant lore that surrounds the deceased emcee. Written and creatively directed by X himself, the shows him attending his own funeral–presumably a funeral …
Linden Hopwood Channels Kip Omolade: Coincidence or Plagiarism?
With the news of Donald Glover’s hit “This is America” possibly being a product of plagiarization, I coincidentally discovered the same scenario in the arts. For those who aren’t aware, Glover is being accused of ripping off a song, “American Pharoah”, by the lesser known rapper named Jase Harley. When you listen to both songs, there is an uncanny similarity …
Musing on the Impossible: The Holographic Worlds of M.C. Escher at Industry City, Brooklyn NY
Yesterday my brain melted. At ESCHER. The Exhibition & Experience, one of New York’s 2018 must-see exhibitions, the Dutch artist’s perspective-mangling worlds sent my mind spinning. Because of my passion for Op and Kinetic art, I was a kid in a candy store. Thanks to the clever, interactive installations that pepper a flawlessly curated selection of Escher’s works, I got …
A Shade of Pale Curated by Carrie Scott @ The Store X, London, Review by Edward Lucie Smith
180 Strand is one of those betwixt and between spaces, found in big cities such as London, that from time to time play host to interesting art shows. It is a former office block, in classic Brutalist style, which seems to be always perpetually in a state of restoration and renovation. It is centrally located, very close to Somerset House, …
Klavdia Balampanidou. | Hand to Mouth.
Currently based in Cyprus, Klavdia Balampanidou is yet another perfect example of a creative finding therapy in the work. Balampandiou newest series, From Hand to Mouth, draws from an autobiographical well anxiety, depression, fragility and instability. The series takes its name from a 1967 Bruce Nauman sculpture. Akeem K. Duncan.Akeem is our founder. A writer, poet, curator and profuse sweater, …
How to Make an NYC “Bedroom” Work for You
I recently moved back into Manhattan after living in Astoria, Queens for two years. I won’t say anything bad about Astoria but I will repeat what a deli owner summed the spot up with: “Astoria is worldly… but not cultured.” Now, I’m no snob- what I missed most about the city was its dirt, its soot-stained streets that looked like …
When Your Gravity Fails and Negativity Don’t Pull You Through, or, Good Medicine for Bad Vibes
Ever walk into an art gallery and felt harmony, serenity, and the presence of a strong force for good? At Paradigm Gallery, artists Dennis McNett and Alex Yanes, with their allegorical totems and spiritual adumbrations, hope to envelop viewers in the warmth of their mellow vibes, through the medium of the collective unconscious. A number of the pieces are in fact …
The Death of XXXTentacion: An Open Letter to Those Who Thinks He Got What He Deserved.
On June 18 2018, rising music star XXXTentacion, born Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy, was gunned down while leaving a motorcycle dealership in Deerfield Beach, Florida. Two men approached X shortly before 4 p.m. After a very brief exchange one of the two men opened fire on his black BMW and then fled in what appeared to be an attempted robbery. The …
New Music. | ‘Streams of Thought, Vol. 1’ | Black Thought X 9th Wonder.
Black Thought is Art. The acclaimed creator keeps cultivating his unique perspective. Life invested into rhyme, The Roots, has showcased some of the adept MC’s most brilliant work. With the sublime combination of 9th Wonder and Black Thought, an amazing EP, Streams of Thought Vol. 1 has come to fruition. The five-track endeavor displays demonstrations of dope. Rapsody, Styles P, …
Defining The Demiurge With Artist Justin Orvis Steimer
Almost a decade ago, in my earliest days living in New York City proper (I’m a Long Island boy), I met a tall, quiet, slightly shy, longhaired artist at the coolest annual improvisational jazz-meets-blues jam on the Upper East Side. This was Justin Orvis Steimer. The party, thrown every year on jazz legend “Duke” Ellington’s birthday (April 29th), took place …
Summer 1993-The Timelessness of Loss
Memory is unreliable, facts are not. Summer 1993 takes us back to a time when AIDS was a death sentence and children whose parent died of AIDS-related illnesses were orphans and bore the stigmata of a disease that was sexually transmitted. Feelings like memories are not visible yet both palpable and ephemeral. We think we remember how we felt, how …
Window Dressing: Artist Elliott De Cesare at Bergdorf Goodman.
The other day, while walking from the Quiet Lunch offices on Fifth Avenue and 27th Street to a meeting further up Fifth by The Plaza Hotel, we couldn’t help but stop and stare at the magnificent window display at Bergdorf Goodman, the world’s premier fashion retailer. Not being Christmas, it’s rare our eyes spot something in the windows to temporarily …
The Color Association’s Emily Mann Forecasts 2018-2019’s Color Trends for Interiors | Interior Design
Have you ever wondered why Dior chose shades of raspberry and wine for their 2018 limited edition nail polish line? Or why Nate Berkus’ Target collection teems with sandy tones and warm neutrals? Well, you can look to The Color Association of The United States (CAUS) and its color council for your answer. CAUS formed after the Industrial Revolution to …
Won’t You Be My Neighbor– I’m sorry, I just can’t but you should
I can’t do it. I just can’t bring myself to see Won’t You Be My Neighbor. the documentary about Fred Rogers and his children’s show, “Mister Rogers’, Neighborhood.” The film is totally legit. It has Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville (20 Feet from Stardom) directing a documentary about a subject audiences think they know everything about but evidently, do not. The …
When You Were Little You Used to Color Opening Exhibition (Photo Recap).
Last week was the first truly Spring-like week in New York City, so the Thursday Art Walk was sure to excite art enthusiasts and buyers alike. The homie and longtime friend to Quiet Lunch, Gregory Siff, homecoming exhibition When You Were Little You Used To Color at 4AM Gallery. I was so amazed to see Gregory’s style and canvas evolve and …
To A More Perfect Union: U.S. V. Windsor – Another Year, Another Decision
From the moment you decide to have a wedding and not elope it can be a shit show of details. The wedding industrial complex includes shelves devoted to magazines at newsstands, television shows like, Say Yes to the Dress, themed weddings, destination weddings, religious, civil and skydiving ceremonies, and an entire jewelry racket to navigate. Weddings rank right up there …
Anthony Bourdain Was a Friend of Mine
Anthony Bourdain was not a friend of mine. In fact, some of those who know me well thought of him as my bête noir. I thought of him as my bête noir. But I didn’t know the man. I had read his piece, “Don’t Eat Before Reading This”, in the New Yorker in 1999, and it had resonated with me …
J. Lo Switches Track in Her Assurance of “Love Don’t Cost A Thing” to Yo Quiero “Dinero”
While the early 00s might have been a far more concrete example of a time when the U.S. was clinging as best as it could to the excesses it enjoyed in the 80s and 90s, Jennifer Lopez chose to go the “Can’t Buy Me Love” route of The Beatles’ pre-antiwar driven 60s with the repackaged sentiment, “Love Don’t Cost A …
Leah Guadagnoli Just Wants To See You Underwater
Someone once wrote that New York City was a place that could destroy you by simply ignoring you (okay it was me). But being ignored is not an option when one produces work for public consumption, so artists allow themselves, nay, insist upon, the public and private flaying that often accompanies their entrée into the New York art scene. But …
When You Were Little You Used to Color. | Gregory Siff at 4AM Gallery
Mercedes-Benz, Tao Group and Casa Noble Tequila are proud to announce the latest collection of work by the evocative American artist Gregory Siff. The exhibition is a homecoming for Gregory, who was born in Brooklyn and raised in Rockaway Beach, Queens. It is here that his murals in the Rockaway Beach Surf Club bathrooms were included in the MoMA PS1’s show …
Transplants: Greek Diaspora Artists
Currently on view at The Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery at the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice is Transplants: Greek Diaspora Artists. Curated by Dr. Thalia Vrachopoulos, this culturally energetic show sets out to explore “the unique nature of diasporic art by Greek and Greek-American artists in the age of globalism.” Expertly installed within …
Adam Stennett Proves A Humble Master With His Water Paintings
How does or how should someone approach Adam Stennett’s Water Paintings (also the title of his current solo show at Gallery Poulsen in Copenhagen, Denmark)? Where does one begin? In the womb, figuratively and metaphorically, of course, or maybe. The title seems to ask for an open mind. But what does that even mean anymore? In 2018, “Open mind,” as …
Coming to My Senses- Transforming Limitations into Possibilities
Aaron Baker was barely out of diapers when he learned how to ride a motorcycle at the age of three. At the age of 20, he was no longer able to feed himself after a crash, breaking C4-5,6 vertebrae, rendering him a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the chin down. Aaron who had been highly capable could no longer do anything for …
Master of None’s Eric Wareheim is a Master of Wine
Eric Wareheim is a funny fucking guy. His gangly, goofy looks have propelled his comic adventures into SpaceX territory on groundbreaking shows like “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!”, while his endearing kookiness has helped make season two of “Master of None”, Aziz Ansari’s Netflix hit, an absurdist journey of deranged sanity and brolicious indulgence. Wareheim is truly silly, …
Last Chance: Emilio Cavallini’s Objectual Abstractions in Washington D.C
It was an early summer day in Washington D.C. and the air was perfumed with the sweet scent emitted from globes of white, fragrant flowers popping out on the branches, trees, and balconies of Georgetown’s grand homes. Yet another variety of abstract, flower-like wall sculptures were “blooming” and filling the Capital with colors and kinetic energy: Emilio Cavallini’s dynamic works, …
Unknown Horizon, The Art of Kelly Berg, Craig Krull Gallery
Kelly Berg creates dense textural compositions while playing with the dichotomies of flat vs sculptural space. The extreme energy embodied in her work gives the viewer the sense that her paintings emerge from both internal and external forces that lie just beyond the artist’s own conscious control. Kelly Berg’s current solo show, called Unknown Horizon, at Craig Krull Gallery Santa …
Music Video. | “Pay Up” | Rapsody.
he art of gold-digging is explored on, “Pay Up,” the latest release from, Rapsody. This lyrical dissertation probes the juxtaposition of male and female parasitic partners. Within the Brian Petchers-directed visual, an effortless representation of Jamla Records is on display. Sultry vocals from Heather Victoria, only adds to the emphatic Ka$h Don’t Make Beats / Khrysis production. Rap, a 9th Wonder protégée and a Roc Nation ambassador, is …
Jean Pierre Roy: The Art of Corralling Perception or The Artist as the Original Neuroscientist
Warning: by reading this article you will expand your vocabulary and learn about neuroscience -I know I did when I wrote it! Should you find yourself in doubt when reading, please check the links. Enjoy! “There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.” –Aldous Huxley It’s a chilly mid-April afternoon in …
POSEN’S THREADS – A Process of Drawing
“Think of Stephen Posen as Theseus paying out his line, traversing his labyrinth knowing and not knowing what awaits him. Perhaps Posen shares Paul Klee’s ambition of 1908 “to note experiences which could translate themselves into line even in absolute darkness.” The tacit question is: can a line still be fictive – that is to say, imaginative – in a …
Andy Mister Ascends With “New Dawn Fades” At TURN GALLERY
There’s nothing overtly didactic about 39-year-old artist Andy Mister’s solo show at TURN Gallery, New Dawn Fades. There are, however, 11 painstaking works on display featuring roughly the same number of representational images, each deftly rendered in incredible detail on monochrome paper using carbon pencil, charcoal and acrylic. The recent passing of Tom Wolfe, an at times controversial literary giant, …
Summer Group Show @ Francis M. Naumann Fine Art
Francis M. Naumann is one of the top Duchamp scholars in the world and he keeps an exhibition space on the 3rd floor of “The Gallery Building” at 24 West 57th Street in New York. A selection of works by Mike Bidlo – Rafael Leonardo Black – Robert Brinker – Brice Brown – Katherine S. Dreier – TR Ericsson – …
Christina Aguilera’s Latest, “Fall In Line,” Builds on Themes of Stripped’s “Beautiful” & “Can’t Hold Us Down”
For over a decade now, Christina Aguilera has essentially coasted on the “artistic merit” of 2002’s “Beautiful” (as there is nothing of the kind to be found in being a judge on a reality show), immortalized in Mean Girls by Damian’s (Daniel Franzese) talent show performance. As one of her most “serious” singles (even garnering the honors of GLAAD), the …
Caveat Brings “Intelligent Nightlife” To The Lower East Side
The still somewhat quaint, Callery pear tree-lined Clinton Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side has served as an ongoing case study in urban advancement since the early nineties when it transformed from a drug-swirling hotbed to niche culinary destination. Molecular gastronomy pioneer Wylie Dufresne’s wd-50 led the gentrifying charge in many ways, but it was the restaurant’s late 2014 closing …
Sex and the City Isn’t As Irrelevant As Its Current Detractors (Sarah Jessica Parker Included) Are Making It Out to Be
As even Sarah Jessica Parker cowers to the juggernaut of gender fluidity and racial inclusivity that has rendered all pop culture offerings of the past utterly obsolete, one can’t deny that there are still many beacons of truth contained within the show that made daft white girls everywhere want to move to New York. And yes, Carrie Bradshaw (Parker) was the …
New Music. | “SSP” | Dice SoHo Ft. Ty Dolla $ign X Desiigner.
epping Houston, Dice SoHo, is tasked with establishing lyrical longevity. Earning the respect of sonic savant, Mike Dean, Dice has teamed up with Dean’s label, M.W.A. Perhaps this cunning move in creativity will help to launch SoHo’s burgeoning career in rhyme. Following the success of his risque single, “Giraffe,” the recent release of “SSP,” continues to thrust Dice SoHo into the limelight. An …
Rita Ora’s “Girls” Is Neither A Fitting Homage to “Lady Marmalade” Nor Genuine In Its Fair-weather Bisexuality
Long ago, during a time when George W. Bush was coming to the twilight of his presidency and presumably thinking about, well, not much of anything at all, Katy Perry was rattling conservative cages with something that was somehow still too salacious for mainstream consumption: two women kissing. Later, when we would find out that the narrative was inspired by Miley …
Music Video. | “Proud” | 2 Chainz Ft. YG x Offset.
lthough, The Play Don’t Care Who Makes It, dropped back in February, of the four-track EP, “Proud,” remains a stand-out. The incomparable 2 Chainz teamed up with both YG and Offset for this self-directed visual. What’s a better way to celebrate Mother’s Day? To bolster the matter-of-fact lyricism from these accomplished artists, respective cameos from their mothers heightens the overall ocular experience. Keep ya head on a swivel, as later …
Sara Driver: For Real
Sara Driver is one of the most relevant and underappreciated filmmakers of a generation. Take Boom For Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat, her documentary piecing together the life of an artist and friend before he became famous. Driver who has witnessed decay and regrowth in New York City since being a grad student at NYU circa Jim …
The Disgust One Feels Over Grimes’ Concession to Dating Elon Musk
Grimes (Christian name Claire Boucher) has never been known for folding to the what one would call the pressures of dating a douchebag once you become something of a pop star. Though she began as an under the radar MySpace musician starting in 2007, the level to which Vancouver’s own has ascended from lo-fi urchin to electronic powerhouse has been …
Liu Bolin X Ruinart at Frieze New York
Known as the Invisible Man, Chinese artist Liu Bolin is the latest contemporary artist to be commissioned by the House of Ruinart to collaborate on a creative project for the art world’s favorite champagne. Featured at art fairs around the world, Ruinart has a long history of working with artists and designers in residence to annually create a project that …
This is America is Social Dissonance You Can Dance To
Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free. (America never was America to me.) This is how Langston Hughes begins his poem Let America Be America Again. I teach this poem at least twice a year in my …
The FRIEZE Phenomenon New York 2018
One arrives at the North or South entrance to FRIEZE, and once past security has the immediate sensation of light-soaked space in airy white tents, where walls sparely installed with wonderful artworks are high planes that seem to stand without support. While this spacial euphoria may be lost fairly quickly when one begins to circumambulate the color-coded divisions of the …
Art New York 2018 at Pier 94 (100-Photo Recap)
I swung by Art New York located by the Piers on the west side of New York City this past weekend to see if it would stand up to its sister fair in Miami. Its known as the affordable art fair so I figure I go act like a window shopper and I am glad I did. Check out some …
Dangerous Rhythms, Latin Jazz, and TJ English’s The Corporation
Best-selling author TJ English’s epic new Cuban true-crime thriller, The Corporation, is about to be made into a Leonardo DiCaprio-produced, Benicio Del Toro-starring Hollywood feature film. A frenzied bidding war produced a rumored seven-figure deal that was reached based on a 100-page proposal before the book was even written. TJ is celebrated for his studies of the Irish mob, including …
East End Collected4
On Saturday, March 31 the Southampton Arts Center opened its fourth East End Collected exhibition (East End Collected4). Artist Paton Miller has curated the exhibit since its inception six years ago. Mr. Miller, who had been approached by then-mayor Mark Epley, suggested showcasing the work of East End artists, borrowed from collectors. As a prelude to reopening the space that …