30 Americans

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Xaviera Simmons, One Day & Back Then (Standing), 2007. Courtesy of Rubell Family Collection, Miami.

30 Americans is a wide-ranging survey of work by many of the most important African American artists of the last three decades. Selected from the Rubell Family Collection, the exhibition brings together seminal figures such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and David Hammons with younger and emerging artists such as Kehinde Wiley and Shinique Smith. Often provocative and challenging, 30 Americans focuses on issues of racial, sexual, and historical identity in contemporary culture. It explores how each artist reckons with the notion of black identity in America, navigating such concerns as the struggle for civil rights, popular culture, and media imagery. At the same time, it highlights artistic legacy and influence, tracing subject matter and formal strategies across generations. 30 Americans consists of 76 paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, and videos, and includes spectacular works of art such as Leonardo Drew’s massive cotton and wax sculpture Untitled #25, several of Nick Cave’s exuberant Soundsuits, and a large-scale silhouette by Kara Walker. On view October 1 to February 12, 2012 at the Corcoran Art Gallery in Washinton, DC.

Art Meets Rock

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RICHARD KERN, Nirvana, Courtney Love

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left: WILLIAM ENGLISH, Vivienne Westwood in Sex, 1975, courtesy of Maggs Brothers, London right: URS LÜTHI, Un'isola dell'aria, 1975, particolare, 28 fotografie, cm60x50 cad, Collezione Fabio e Virginia Gori

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IAIN FORSYTH & JANE POLLARD, A Rock'N'Roll Suicide, 1998, Live performance, Photo: David Cowlard courtesy Kate MacGarry, London

Museo Pecci di Prato in Florence, Italy presents an exhibition entiled LIVE! Art Meets Rock. The exhibition, curated by Luca Beatrice and Marco Bazzini, adopts a suggestive perspective to show how the history of contemporary art and of rock music have followed parallel paths to contribute to the construction of the cultural universe of the last forty years. Music and the visual arts have crossed and overlapped, over time, engendering a unified and consistent landscape; what draws them together is the performative dimension, articulated according to the specific occasion within an exhibition or a concert. LIVE!offers a parallel and original reading of historic events by exhibiting paintings, sculptures, installations, video clips, artworks, LPs, graphic works, photographs, magazines and films. Artists include Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, William English, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cindy Sherman, David LaChapelle and more. The exhibition will be accompanied by Live!, a book published by Rizzoli with contributions by Luca Beatrice and Marco Bazzini. LIVE! Art Meets Rock view at the Museo Pecci di Prato until September 16.