Category: Artist Profiles

  • Jake Blount: Exploring the Power of Music, Afrofuturism, and Social Change

    In a recent presentation that beautifully blended art, history, and activism, musician and scholar Jake Blount unveiled music’s profound capacity to envision a brighter future. With narrative and insight, Blount shared his creative process, underscoring the interplay between tradition and innovation, the transformative power of Afrofuturism, and the art of reimagining music for contemporary issues. […]

  • Walking on Poetry

    Kahnop is a Kumeyaay word meaning to tell a story. That’s exactly what the Stuart Collection at UC San Diego’s newest public art installation does. The 800-foot-long basalt stone pathway serves as a threshold from the new Blue Line trolley station to the campus. The sea of words beneath your feet is composed of 1,300 […]

  • Look Around – Art is Everywhere!

    The diverse cultural landscape that is the San Diego region – located on the U.S.-Mexico border and the Pacific Rim – offers residents and visitors alike a rich tapestry of language, history, food, and tradition unlike any place in the world. This richness is also apparent in a diverse art scene that spans large cultural […]

  • Indian Classical Music with Zakir Hussain, 2022 Kyoto Prize Winner

    Grammy award-winning tabla musician Zakir Hussain is the 2022 Kyoto Prize Laureate in Arts and Philosophy. Dr. Hussain has opened new possibilities beyond the framework of traditional Indian music in collaboration with artists of other diverse genres worldwide. His performance innovations include a unique method of creating melodies on the tabla, originally regarded as a […]

  • Artist William Wegman: Of Canine Muses and Scenic Overlooks

    In the early 1970s a young Los Angeles-based artist named William Wegman brought home the first of what would be many Weimaraners and named him Man Ray, after the Surrealist artist and filmmaker who was one of his formative influences. Wegman considered his dog a companion, but Man Ray aspired to be more. Wegman, an […]

  • A Fascination with Trees

    When Terry Allen left Lubbock, Texas to pursue his youthful ambitions it’s doubtful he could have foreseen his status nearly six decades later as a legendary painter, conceptual artist, composer, and musician. Terry’s work is unusually diverse but certain themes are common: the mysteries of love, surviving loss, and the consequences of violence are just […]

  • Pivotal Events

    In the early hours of April 20, 1989, 28-year-old jogger Trisha Meili was assaulted and left for dead in Central Park. The ensuing media frenzy instigated a public outcry for swift justice. Within days of the attack five African-American teenagers implicated themselves, after hours of psychological pressure and aggressive interrogation. The teens were tried as […]

  • The Dr. Seuss You Never Knew

    The 2019 edition of UC San Diego Geisel Library’s “Dinner in the Library” series celebrates new acquisitions from the estate of Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel, most of which have never before been exhibited publicly. The Library’s Special Collections already houses over 20,000 items related to Geisel, including sketches, paintings, cartoons, letters, and manuscripts, and these […]

  • The Trees are the Instruments

    “I’m profoundly influenced by the natural world and a strong sense of place…I hope to explore the territory of sonic geography–that region between place and culture…between environment and imagination.” – John Luther Adams John Luther Adams has been hailed by the New Yorker as “one of the most original musical thinkers of the new century.” […]