Speed of Life

Titus Kaphar Jerome II , 2014 Oil, gold leaf and tar on wood panel 7 × 10 ½ in. Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York ©Titus Kaphar As protests against police brutality continue across the United States in the wake of the deaths of Eric Garner in New York and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, contemporary  artists have joined the debate in artworks of extraordinary power and grace. From the Occupy Movement, to LGBT rights , to Black Lives Matter , to the issues surrounding “Je suis Charlie” , contemporary art, often of a representational bent, helps shed light on the complex nature of our times. Feroze Alam and Ravinder Padam Ferguson As a contemporary artist, I find it necessary to engage in the issue of social justice in my own artwork, and have found myself part of a disparate but powerful artistic community of painters and sculptors from Feroze Alam and Ravinder Padam in London, to Titus Kaphar, Kehinde Wiley and Joy Gar...

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, my fellow Americans: We are fifteen years into this new century. Fifteen years that dawned with terror touching our shores; that unfolded with a new generation fighting two long and costly wars; that saw a vicious recession spread across our nation and the world. It has been, and still is, a hard time for many. But tonight, we turn the page. Tonight, after a breakthrough year for America, our economy is growing and creating jobs at the fastest pace since 1999. Our unemployment rate is now lower than it was before the financial crisis. More of our kids are graduating than ever before; more of our people are insured than ever before; we are as free from the grip of foreign oil as we’ve been in almost 30 years. Tonight, for the first time since 9/11, our combat mission in Afghanistan is over. Six years ago, nearly 180,000 American troops served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, fewer than 15,000 remain. And we salute the courage...