by: Ellen C. Caldwell
for Riot Material
Given the current political climate in the U.S., it is no surprise that many artists here are choosing to overtly and directly address politics in their work. At Zevitas Marcus in Culver City, their summer group show Cosmic Traffic Jam does just that, welcoming a wide array of artists of color to use painting to explore politics.
Organized by artists Alex Jackson and Umar Rashid, as well as gallery co-founder Steven Zevitas, Cosmic Traffic Jam examines the ways in which painting can tap into a new and different understanding of our current administration. As the press release states, “[p]ainting offers a detour through and/or around language, where the picture may thwart our normative conception of knowing and understanding.” It continues, pointing out that “[i]t is within the slippage of language that we may begin to imagine a freedom decoupled from the notion of Freedom produced under the genocidal regime of the transatlantic slave trade.”
This exhibit is an explicit call for action, both from and for the art world. This group of painters brings together a range of diverse voices and aesthetics to contemplate and challenge the changing climate under the current administration…