The Most Influential Southern Art School You Never Heard Of

At North Carolina’s Black Mountain College, Avant-Garde Artists Taught Students to Ignore Everything They Had Been Taught

“It must have been so much fun to be at Black Mountain,” a friend said the other day. She’d been up to Boston for the “Leap Before You Look” show at the Institute of Contemporary Art, the show now open at the UCLA Hammer Museum in L.A.

The exhibition documents the amazing achievements of students and teachers at a tiny experimental school called Black Mountain College, improbably functioning from 1933 to 1957 in the mountains of western North Carolina. Day by day, over years, innovators as diverse as Bauhaus-trained painter Josef …

By Martha King | March 7, 2016

Could Nanotechnology Spark Another ‘Silent Spring’?

A Biologist Investigates How the Booming Demand for Microscopic Materials Could Threaten Fragile Ecosystems

By Olivia Osborne | March 4, 2016

Nothing can compare to the first night in a rainforest. In Honduras, in 2007, I hung my hammock beneath a lavish tree canopy, closed my eyes, and let insect chirps, …

The Guggenheim and I Are Spirals in a World of Squares

I Can Trace My Life’s Twists and Turns in the Winding Halls of This Iconic Museum

By Kathryn Bold | March 1, 2016

When I go to an art museum, what I encounter there isn’t always in the brochure. Sure, I enjoy the changing exhibitions. But I’ve discovered museums don’t just offer a …

Stay Artsy, San Diego

America’s Finest City Is a Hotbed for Creativity—but It Needs More Media Coverage of the Arts, Financial Support, and a High-Profile International Event

By Joe Mathews | February 22, 2016

San Diego is rich in the arts but, to become richer, it needs to take steps such as knitting together existing arts institutions and advancing arts education, said panelists at …

How Do You Make a City Hungry for Art?

If San Diego's Vibrant Arts Scene Wants to Be World-Class, It Needs to Be More Accessible, More Diverse, and Better Funded

February 19, 2016

In 2011, the San Diego Performing Arts League was in trouble. Once one of the Southern California city’s leading arts organizations, the Performing Arts League, a nonprofit that provides marketing …

Rain’s Drumbeat Sets Poetry in Motion

Dreary Weather Gives Verse Rhythm and Flow

By Emily Setina | February 2, 2016

Living in a desert city like Las Vegas, you can forget about rain—not as in “give up hoping for,” though sometimes that, too, but actually forget. Your umbrella gets buried …

For College Prep Charter Schools Serving Underprivileged Communities, High School Graduation Is Just the Beginning

With a Majority of Students From South L.A., USC Hybrid High School Rejected Teaching to the Test to Focus on Getting 90 Percent of Graduates Through College

Pioneering, Influential, yet Rife With Inequality, Can the PTA’s History Point Us Forward?

As We Navigate Today’s Educational Crisis, the Parent-Teacher Association Offers a Model of How Caregivers, Teachers, and Communities Work Better United

How Universities Migrated into Cities and Democratized Higher Education

Colleges Once Thought the Countryside Bred Character. Now They Use Cities for "Hands-On Learning"

How South L.A.’s Santee Education Complex’s Graduation Rate Jumped Nearly 60 Percent in 11 Years

Two Assistant Principals Learned Their High School Didn’t Need a Special Status to Be Academically Rigorous and Locally Respected

Get More Zócalo