The Baayfalls

The mural The Baayfalls on the High Line is a double portrait of a sister and brother that the artist, Jordan Casteel, painted while at an artist residency at The Studio Museum in Harlem. Casteel, known for her vibrant portraiture, painted Fallou, who designs and sells hats, and her brother, Baaye Demba Sow. The title is a references to Baye Fall, a sect of the Sufi brotherhood Mouride, which Fallou’s brother belongs to, and the hand gesture Fallou is making signifies Allah among members of Baye Fall. With her portraiture, Casteel “adds deeply nuanced expressions of human experience to the expanding collection of images we see every day.” Which is just what we need in these trying times.

Museum of the Dog

In honor of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show this week, and, you know, because dogs are just so wonderful, we visited the recently opened American Kennel Club Museum of the Dog on Park Avenue near Grand Central Station. This museum features over 200 pieces in their collection including incredible paintings, sculptures, and photographs, all celebrating “the human-canine relationship.” Highlights (apart from the adorable doggies above) include a 30-million-year-old dog fossil, a terracotta paw print from a Roman archaeological dig, and a Victorian-era dog cart for children. There is also a digital exhibit that will snap a picture and tell you what dog breed you most resemble. I got Doberman Pinscher—loyal, fearless, and alert. Sounds about right.

Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power

American People Series #18: The Flag is Bleeding by Faith Ringgold

Brooklyn Museum’s exhibit, Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, features the work of over sixty black artists from 1963 to 1983, “one of the most politically, socially, and aesthetically revolutionary periods in American history.” Over 150 artworks in the exhibition address the unjust social conditions facing black Americans. These include Faith Ringgold’s painting of a “bleeding” flag (above). Ringgold, who was inspired by Amiri Baraka, one of the key leaders of the Black Arts Movement, developed a style that she called “super realism” to accurately depict the “oppression faced by Black people as viscerally as possible.” The exhibition is at the Brooklyn Museum through February 3, 2019.