Jordan Riefe

Knowledge Bennett with his Obama Cowboy

KNOW Contemporary Brings Knowledge to the Arts District

Jordan Riefe
At first glance, it's easy to see Andy Warhol's impact on the work of artist Knowledge Bennett, who has made cultural iconography his subject matter and silkscreen his process. However, Bennett's most recent series, Orange Is the New Black, confronts race issues in ways that aren't likely to be mistaken for the work of the pop art icon....
Director Spike Lee

John David Washington Talks Powerful Lead Role in Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman

Jordan Riefe
Many have never heard of John David Washington, but they know his father, Denzel. The two appeared briefly together in Spike Lee's 1992 masterpiece Malcolm X, for which father was nominated for an Oscar and son was a mere boy of 8, playing a student in a Harlem classroom. Well, John David is all grown up now and has a Spike Lee movie of his own, BlacKkKlansman, based on Ron Stallworth’s memoir as a black cop who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado in the 1970s....
Dead Credit: Danny Clinch

Night of the Living Dead and Company

Jordan Riefe
Long, strange trip indeed as the Dead & Company hit Los Angeles this weekend for one date only, July 7, at Dodger Stadium. There’s never been a band like the Grateful Dead. Always touring, always jamming through the decades, they amassed a following unmatched in the history of rock music; fans who toured with the band, trading band-sanctioned bootleg tapes and making the Dead a way of life....
DabsMyla's work at "Beyond the Streets"; Credit: Jordan Riefe

"Beyond the Streets" Harkens to Graffiti's Roots in Diversity

Jordan Riefe
In the beginning there was tagging, the stylized writing of names on the New York City subway system that became a signifier for urban decay in the 1960s and '70s. Practitioners were mainly people of color. Today, most of the biggest names in street art are white men like Shepard Fairey, Banksy, Invader, Kenny Scharf — just a few of the 100-plus artists featured in "Beyond the Streets."...