Hasta La Gadget!

Although most of America may not be familiar with the name Awol Erizku, they likely know his work. Specifically, they know the photograph of Beyoncé Erizku took in February 2017, which she then posted on Instagram to announce her pregnancy. The dreamy image of Bey covered in a gauzy mint veil, bulging belly exposed, turned iconic in a matter of minutes, quickly becoming the most liked Instagram photo of all time. 

In his post-(Beyoncé’s)-baby glow, Erizku is turning his attention to a less glamorous but just as talked-about topic: the current state of American politics. The Los Angeles-based artist’s upcoming show ― titled “Make America Great Again” ― combines political symbology, urban iconography and ready-made objects with deep personal significance to conjure a potent appraisal of our uncertain times. 

The presence looming over the politically-charged show is, of course, President Donald Trump, whose “Make America Great Again” baseball cap Erizku updates by adding the Black Panther Party logo atop it. Erizku has never shied away from being direct, even obvious, in his imagery, showing how art does not have to be esoteric to be effective.

In another piece titled “How That Make You Feel?” the same panther image is printed on an American flag turned sideways. The image recalls Dred Scott’s “What is the Proper Way to Display a US Flag?” ― hinting at the extreme reaction it’s bound to elicit. 

“I’m putting it out there because I’m black and I’m Muslim and this is everything Trump has tried to stand against,” Erizku, who was born in Ethiopia and raised in the Bronx, told The New York Times. “I don’t think this show is anti-American, but it is definitely anti-Trump. All the people he’s hating on do make America great.”

Other works fold Erizku’s personal experience as a black man in America into an abstract, artistic language. For example, the piece “Wave Brake” features a slab of corrugated metal painted blue, the number “12” spray-painted over and over around it ― a slang term for the police.

“It’s a little Cy Twombly-ish, but if you go to any kid on the street they will know what it means,” he told The New York Times. Next to it rests a yellow, plastic bucket and mop, alluding to the artist’s father, who worked as a janitor.

Erizku, born in 1988, has been gaining momentum in the art world since before his brush with Beyoncé. His early works, made while a photography student at Yale, featured black subjects assuming the poses of art history’s iconic muses ― his sister, for example, was appointed a 21st-century “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” with golden heart hoops instead of the traditional pearl studs. The series highlighted the lack of black bodies represented in the art historical canon, yielding enchanting portraits with one foot in the past, the other in the present.

While his current work veers away from photography into the realms of painting and sculpture, Erizku remains focused on issues that confront black youth in America, ensuring they are not overlooked by an art scene that is often insular, elitist and out of touch. We’re sure Beyoncé would be proud. 

Awol Erizku’s “Make America Great Again” runs from April 20 until June 2 at Ben Brown Fine Arts in London. 

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Welcome to HuffPost’s Keeping It 100. From infusing our culture with data to figuring out how to reach Gen Z and cultivate niche distributed communities, we’ll give you an inside look at the hits and misses of HuffPost’s biggest bets. 

We live in a world of commoditized news. That’s not new. But during an election that took this to an extreme, standing out became an essential part of every publisher’s social distribution strategy. For HuffPost, this required an audience-first, rather than a content-first, approach: consciously crafting stories with angles our audience cares most about. 

That strategy paid off, and was nowhere more evident than with our most-read piece about President Donald Trump.  

When Trump signed a pro-abortion executive order in January, senior political reporter and politics managing editor Amanda Terkel initially co-bylined a straightforward news report. But an hour later, she decided to follow it up with another piece, zeroing in on how Trump was surrounded by white men when he signed the order. The government had legislated women’s bodies and choices without a single woman in sight, and it was important to drive that point home. 

“We knew that the Mexico City policy change was coming, so we made sure we had a piece ready to go that went into the background of the policy. It was very informative and we were able to get it up right away,” Terkel explained. “But when we were watching TV, we saw it was weird that Trump was surrounded by a bunch of men even though this was a policy that predominantly affected women and their bodies. We looked around and found a photo, someone made a GIF really quickly, and we felt that told the story better.” 

It worked: The story went viral with views peaking as high as 211,000 every 10 minutes. The story now has more than 9 million page views and counting, and is HuffPost’s top original piece from the entire election/post-election cycle. 

Eighty-five percent of the views came from social and almost 60 percent of the audience consisted of new visitors, meaning they had not visited HuffPost in the past 30 days. The organic reach of the post led to hundreds of thousands of social interactions, thanks to community groups on Facebook and Planned Parenthood on Twitter. Celebrities like Matt McGorry, of “Orange Is The New Black,” shared it too. 

The social success of the piece wasn’t a total surprise ― the photo and headline were the perfect pairing, and that packaging told the whole story in any feed. But the virality went beyond the article. HuffPost’s corresponding front page image (the “splash”) became a discussion topic unto itself. 

“Our splash was incredibly powerful,” Terkel said. “People on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook were screen-shotting and sharing it. It encapsulated a lot of fears about the Trump administration. This was one of the first things he did and people were anxious to share it.” 

Peter Finocchiaro, HuffPost’s front page managing editor, noted how striking the images from the Oval Office were that day. Terkel’s story set the framework for his team, and they chose the splash headline “Room Full Of Men Screws Women.” 

“At that point, the trick for the front page team was simply to condense the main idea down to a few words to drive home the point,” he said. “A lot of the time, we’ll try to use punny wordplay to grab the readers’ attention, but we really didn’t need that here, and honestly it would’ve just distracted from what readers could see on their own. Describing what was happening in a simple, forceful way was all that the story needed. The key was to let it speak for itself.” 

We’ve seen this success elsewhere on HuffPost with pointed headlines, thematic listicles and unique lifestyle takes. 

Ultimately, the age of distributed content means that most readers will see multiple outlets cover breaking news events in the same way. However, by showing a different side of the story and using pointed language along with an eye-catching visual to stand out on social, we were able to make a mark not only on that day’s page views, but also in the wider conversation.

TL;DR: Seize those moments that can set your brand and coverage apart. It’s worth it. 

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Olympic champ Simone Biles took us back to the year she was adopted for the “Most Memorable Year” week on “Dancing with the Stars.”

Biles, who’s been open about her experience with the foster care system throughout her journey to 2016 Summer Olympics, broke down in tears in a pre-show clip ahead of her performance on Monday night. 

“My most memorable year is the year 2000, when I was adopted,” the gold medalist shared. “Growing up, my biological mom was suffering from drug and alcohol abuse and she was in and out of jail. I never had mom to run to. I do remember always being hungry and afraid.”

At the age of 3, Biles and her younger sister, Adria, were adopted by their maternal grandparents, whom they now call their parents, after being in foster care.

“My parents saved me. They’ve set huge examples of how to treat other people and they’ve been there to support me since day one,” Biles continued. “There’s nothing I could say to them to thank them enough. Even though there’s no right words, maybe dance will say it for me.”

When Biles took the stage to perform the Viennese Waltz to Chris Tomlin’s song “Good Good Father” with her partner Sasha Farber, she was visibly moved. The 20-year-old was able to fight back the tears, however, delivering an impressive number that earned a score of 36 out of 40 from the judges. 

In the closing moments of the dance, Biles made her way over to her parents, who were sitting offstage and collapsed into their embrace with the whole family breaking down in tears. 

Watch her full performance below. 

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— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

When John and Tom D’Eri realized their autistic family member ― John’s son and Tom’s brother, Andrew ― would soon age out of the school system at 22 and have no job prospects, they decided to do something about it. Inspired by Andrew, the father-son duo founded Rising Tide Car Wash, a business that hires individuals across the autism spectrum and teaches them job skills to help put them on a path toward independent living ― and it’s making a world of difference in its Florida community.

Nearly 100 associates with autism are employed by Rising Tide. “People with autism are great at detail-oriented process-driven tasks. They excel at them,” Tom says. “In fact, they’re better than most.”

It’s a message that the D’Eri family is eager to spread.

“As a society, we look at autism as a disability that requires sympathy instead of a potentially really valuable diversity,” Tom says. “We decided we wanted to build something that could not only empower people with autism, but also could explain that message that people with autism are really capable [and] can be huge assets to a lot of different businesses.”

Rising Tide Car Wash, Tom continues, can employ about 50 percent of the autism spectrum. “There’s a wide range of people with autism that can be successful here,” he says.

As a society, we look at autism as a disability that requires sympathy instead of a potentially really valuable diversity.

Employees at the car wash undergo a structured training program before working on the vehicles, which Tom says has benefits beyond the individuals simply learning a process. “They open up. They want to learn new things. They want to talk to customers, which at first a lot of them are really skittish about,” he says. “[It] just opens our guys up and opens a whole world of opportunity up for them.”

With the combined unemployment or underemployment rate for young adults with autism hovering around 90 percent, the D’Eris hope to take their car wash model and teach others how to use it or adapt it to other businesses, like bakeries and laundry services. As a part of this vision, John and Tom are opening a second car wash location this fall, which will also include a classroom environment.

“We’ll hopefully really be able to bring a lot of other families from all over the country and maybe even all over the world, show them what we’ve done and help them do this in their communities,” Tom says.

Stories like this air each month on “The Hero Effect” on OWN. For more, sign up for the This Week on OWN Newsletter.

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