Facebook
Twitter
Google+
Email
Frieze Los Angeles got off to a roaring – if a bit damp – start on Thursday, serving as the anchor of a large slate of events and exhibitions throughout the city. Surely one of the buzziest openings was for Dreamweavers, the latest exhibition mounted by curator, consultant, and producer Nicola Vassell, now on view at the UTA Artists Space in Beverly Hills. Presented as something of a follow-up to her knockout exhibition Black Eye in New York in 2014, Dreamweavers revisits over 20 artists of what Vassell terms the “black renaissance.” With support and inspiration from hip-hop impresario and dedicated collector Kasseem “Swizz Beatz” Dean, in this new exhibition, Vassell brings together black artists as diverse as Charles White, Carrie Mae Weems, Kerry James Marshall, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Kehinde Wiley, and Nick Cave (and nearly two dozen more) to explore how these artists use elements of surrealism or dream-like states to contend with a post-Obama, Trump-era reality.
To set the mood for the exhibition Vassell, in partnership with Lyft, commissioned this gorgeous, surreal short film by acclaimed directors Sing J. Lee and Sylvia Zakhary.
