While the simple lines, wit, and humor of Rius, Feggo, and El Fisgón do not evoke the larger-than-life epics of the Batman, Spider-Man, and Superman universes, there is something heroic about the way that these cartoonists use their art to expose hidden truths about society, sometimes even risking their own lives.

 

No other haute-couture designer has been as closely associated with popular culture as Jean Paul Gaultier. Where contemporaries such as Alexander McQueen imbued his designs with a dark, 19th-century romanticism, and Miuccia Prada became known for marrying clean lines to an effortless, luxurious elegance, Gaultier has always been heavily influenced by the street. 

I was originally trained as an architect, but abandoned the career to pursue other interests. Architecture school, however, provided sound training in the fundamentals of drawing and design, which have served me well as I pursue an artistic career. Shunning the current tired artistic trend of re-tread conceptualism, I seek to simply create unique works of beauty. 

There’s a restlessness to Rian Dundon that defines much of his work. Sitting over coffee, the 31-year-old photographer checks his phone, then his watch. He looks past the window, capturing mental images of the world outside. Then he returns. It’s that same nervous energy -- a sort of daring uncertainty - that animates the subjects of his forthcoming book on the Chinese city of Changsha, a one-time stronghold for Mao Zedong’s incipient Communist Party. 

Xavier Viramontes is a nationally renowned printmaker whose prints impacted many political movements and social justice campaigns during the 1970s. His prints are also part of the revolutionary canon of Chicano art produced at Galeria de la Raza in San Francisco. His most famous print, “Boycott Grapes, Support the United Farm Workers Union” from 1973, which depicts an Aztec warrior smashing grapes with his fists as the grape juice and blood drip over the title, is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.  He spoke with Edgardo Cervano-Soto about his career and art.

“A Bigger Picture,” David Hockney’s sell-out exhibition, now in its final days at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, perfectly showcases the artist's multitude of styles. The more than 150 pieces on display, most of which date from the last decade, include oil paintings, charcoal drawings, films, photomontages, watercolors and Hockney’s famed iPad drawings.

In Santiago -- a sprawling metropolis that is home to well over a third of Chile’s population -- barrios like Patronato, Lastarria, Quinta Normal, Santa Isabel -- and especially the bohemian quarter of Bellavista -- are internationally recognized centers of street art.  An hour-and-a-half away, the gritty port city of Valparaíso is equally renowned for its graf culture, its crumbling walls and narrow alleyways home to a thriving community of artists and crews. 

Jean-Michel Basquiat, the Brooklyn-born painter who sold a piece for $14.6 million post-mortem started his career as a graffiti artist under the name, “SAMO.” This could be argued as the first modernistic conversion of basic graffiti into pop art, but is there even a significant difference? For more than 25 years, New York has been a hub for graffiti artists, so why is Los Angeles now declaring itself the street art capital of the world and, more importantly, why is no one challenging the claim?

Brooklyn-based artist Nicholas Forker has a rare talent, and it is one that is quickly earning him recognition in a city that is virtually filled to the brim with aspiring young artists.  In today’s art landscape, traditional skills like figurative drawing are not always as visible as they once were.  Benefiting as he does from undeniable technical ability, and a reverence for the way things used to be done, Forker creates masterful works in ballpoint, in some cases pouring hundreds of hours into a single work. What has caught his attention lately is the way that adventurers, and in his most recent work, astronauts in particular, can be used as a stand-in for American culture.  

Mike "Dream" Francisco's art brought together the worlds of art and activism. As the Manilatown Heritage Foundation displays his work through a commemorative gallery on display over the next several months in San Francisco, photographer Abe Menor reflects on Mike "Dream" Francisco's work and influence.