As part of our ten-year anniversary celebrations, we’re considering the best of a decade of arts publishing. Today’s selection comes from senior editor Vivian Sming, who writes, “Author Catherine Wagley asks us to critically reflect upon the convergence of seduction and brutality in the works of Wangechi Mutu and Kara Walker. This review of Mutu and Walker’s concurrent exhibitions demonstrates the continued and ever-pressing need for[…..]

There are very few artists today who willingly take a direct political position in their work. Often artists neglect how powerful artwork can be as an instigator for social and political change. In many ways art and politics, or art and activism, have gone hand in hand throughout history, helping to over come social injustice. But, just as often, artwork has acted as a tool[…..]

L.A. Expanded: Notes from the West Coast A weekly column by Catherine Wagley A group called R.A.I.D. (Random Acts of Irreverent Dance) regularly performs at the Echoplex in Echo Park. They appeared at Bootie L.A., a monthly mash-up party, this past Saturday, wearing shimmering orange body-suits and making awkward movements that somehow still seemed organic. R.A.I.D. practitioners have all different sorts of bodies—beer bellies, jutting[…..]

In February 2010, Kenyan-born, New York-based artist Wangechi Mutu was named the Deutsche Bank’s “Artist of the Year.” Her accompanying exhibition, My Dirty Little Heaven will open later this month at the Deutsche Guggenheim Museum in Berlin. Recently, DailyServing’s Aimée Reed had a chance to catch up with Mutu at her studio in Brooklyn to discuss her upcoming show, as well as the con-current exhibition[…..]

Wangechi Mutu will never experience the heated backlash that Kara Walker experienced. No one will call Mutu the “patsy of the white art establishment,” accuse her of selling fellow black artists down the river, or launch a letter-writing campaign to keep her artwork from being shown. There are good reasons for this: unlike Walker, the Kenyan-born Mutu does not share the slavery lineage of African-American[…..]