Books

Books

The Artist’s Soul: The Sorrows of Young Werther

Contributed by Laurie Fendrich / Two Coats of Paint Press recently published a limited edition of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s semi-autobiographical, epistolary novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774). I discovered the book when I was in my early thirties and ever since it’s lived in my brain. It’s among the first books to probe the inchoate longings of artists, and a powerful exploration of the subjective side of the artistic personality. I’ve met very few artists who have heard of it, let alone read it, so it surprised me to learn that a fellow artist had recently discovered it and published a special edition with a dedication reading, “To all the artists who have ever lived and worked in New York City.” Despite having been written more than two-and-a-half centuries ago, Werther raises provocative questions for artists working today. 

Books Writing

Susanna Coffey: One of the last artists standing

Last Artist Standing, Sharon Louden’s compelling new anthology, features essays by a selection of artists who have managed to pass 50 and still make art. Such persistence and durability are especially impressive considering that many of their art school pals have given up the studio and resigned themselves to “real jobs” as building contractors, real estate agents, lawyers, psychotherapists, librarians, and more…,

Art Fairs Books

The enigmatic art market

Contributed by David Carrier / We art critics are utterly dependent on the art market. Without the labors of curators, the well-dressed servants of the collector class, we would have nothing to review. I was trained as an academic philosopher, and in my home discipline money was not much of a concern. But when I made my way into the art world, I became aware of its importance. The first time I was paid for art writing, I hurried to cash the check…

Books Solo Shows

Fergus Feehily: The Horse and The Rider                      

Contributed by Joe Fyfe / Fergus Feehily, who is from Ireland but has lived in Berlin for years, is an unusual contemporary visual artist by virtue of his very careful degree of quiet obliquity. One almost hesitates to approach writing about him and, in this case, writing about his writing. It might be best to get the disclaimers over with: we share gallery representation in Köln, from Galerie Christian Lethert. He recommended me to the gallery, though at the time, long ago, I had never heard of him nor his work. I have since met him a few times. Once we had breakfast at Balthazar in New York and I remember how thoroughly he buttered and spread preserves on two sizable croissants. Feehily is somehow obscure but in plain sight, admired among an informed coterie of artists and collectors and an avid sharer. He does a lot of communicating. He posts on Instagram often, mostly very different kinds of artworks, though he appears to have something of a penchant for religious art. On his website are long year-end lists, an annī of enthusiasms for what he has read and listened to and looked at, whom he has met and spoken with.

Books

The formidable women who shaped MoMA: Untold stories

Contributed by Laurie Fendrich / I didn’t expect to particularly like MoMA’s Inventing the Modern: Untold Stories of the Women Who Shaped the Museum of Modern Art, but merely to learn from it. Turns out I loved all fourteen essays – each by a contemporary female writer, and each about a woman who worked at or for MoMA during the first decades after its founding in 1929. Many are beautifully written. While all are about formidable, pathbreaking women, none are hagiographic.

Books

Ethan Ham’s circle game

Ethan Ham, a sculptor and installation artist who often uses kinetics, electronics, and computers in his artwork, has curated Camera/Chimera, a new project inspired by Telephone, […]