Art & Design
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New York artist, Danny Cortes, has gained massive acclaim for depicting striking scenes from Hip-Hop & popular culture in miniature form.
For Danny Cortes, his artwork is an homage to the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn that he grew up in and all of the nostalgia that’s associated with it. The miniature collectibles he crafts by hand are a look at “the little things that we pass by every day” from the recreation of the nearby Chinese takeout restaurant Ho May Kitchen to one of his first creations – a white commercial ice box that’s often seen outside delis and bodegas in the city right down to the graffiti on its sides.
“If we take the time to notice we are surrounded by inspiration,” he says on his website.
Other works also include odes to The Notorious B.I.G. and the Wu-Tang Clan. For the 42-year-old artist, what began as a hobby from his childhood became more as the COVID-19 pandemic began to take hold in New York City and the rest of the country.
“We are adults, but we never stopped being kids,” Cortes said. “Who doesn’t like toys? Who doesn’t like miniatures?” He began to post his work on social media, which garnered him a lot of attention. That led to a commission by Mass Appeal, the artistic label that has partnered with Hip-Hop legend Nas.
That connection led to Cortes doing a model of a classic boombox radio for the cover of DJ Premier’s EP, Hip Hop 50: Vol. 1. In March of this year, four of his works were sold at a special Sotheby’s auction of Hip-Hop related items with one item selling for $2,200. The aforementioned restaurant replica? It was purchased by Joel Ortiz, for a price of over $10,000 dollars.
“He has really captured the grimy, gritty atmosphere that was the birthplace for a lot of the ’90s style of hip-hop music,” said Monica Lynch, the former head of Tommy Boy Records and a consultant on the Sotheby’s auction.
Cortes is pressing on with his art, aiming to document his beloved Bushwick where “there is a lot of change” occurring. As the neighborhood’s reputation as an artistic haven grows, so do concerns about gentrification having a serious impact. But he sees the changes as a good step. “I think it’s good, I think it’s safer, even though Bushwick is always gonna be Bushwick,” he said. “There are more opportunities.”
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A new exhibit featuring rarely-seen artwork from the symbolic Black artist Ernie Barnes is set to open in Los Angeles, California next year.
As the Los Angeles edition of the Frieze art festival is set to take place in February, one gallery has announced an exhibit featuring the iconic work of Barnes that focuses on his viewpoint of music. The exhibit, titled Ernie Barnes: Where Music and Soul Live, will be hosted by UTA Artist Space and contain 30 of his vibrant paintings that showcase Black musicians and dancers in nightclubs and other street scenes.
This exhibit will mark the first time many of these paintings, which have been in private collections, will be seen by the public. Barnes’ work, which highlights Black bodies swaying and curving with a stirring magnetism in various scenes of work and play, gained mainstream appeal after appearing on the sitcom Good Times. “He was an artist of the people,” UTA Artist Space director Zuzanna Ciolek said in a statement. “The general public was aware of his work and excited about his work before the art world was, and I think that’s something that’s really exciting for us.”
The exhibit will also feature a specially designed interior from the creative agency PLAYLAB. Various DJs will periodically play live music throughout the galleries which will evoke the same aesthetic often seen in Barnes’ paintings. This includes “The Sugar Shack”, the iconic 1976 painting featured on Good Times which was also featured as the cover of Marvin Gaye’s hit album I Want You. That painting made headlines again as it was purchased for $13.5 million at an art sale by Christie’s by film producer Bill Perkins.
Barnes, a former lineman with the NFL’s Denver Broncos and San Diego Chargers among other teams, pursued his love of art after retiring in 1964. “I paint when ideas come and I see a vision of what I want from our common humanity,” he said in an interview with the Oakland Tribune in 2002, seven years before he passed away. “This whole show is about what he saw, musically, because he painted from his own experiences,” said Luz Rodriguez, the manager of the artist’s estate.
Ernie Barnes: Where Music and Soul Live will run from February 15th, 2023 to April 1st, 2023.
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