As the Guest Blogger at ART:21 today, I take a look at a few artists who embody the pragmatism and ingenuity of the new Obama administration. “Artists who garner the most attention in any given time period are those whose work, explicitly or implicitly, reflects the deeper political sensibilities of […]
Writing
Peter Schjeldahl’s insouciance
In The New York Review of Books, Sanford Schwartz considers Peter Schjeldahl’s unique contribution to art criticism. “Schjeldahl addresses us in a conversational prose that moves from point to point with the speed and ease of some high-tech instrument. He is a writer whose colloquial approach masks both a rather […]
Laurie Fendrich: Preparing for a retrospective
Last spring Mary MacNaughton invited Laurie Fendrich, a professor of fine arts and the director of the Comparative Arts and Culture Graduate Program at Hofstra University, to mount a retrospective at Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery at Scripps College, in Claremont, CA. In Brainstorm, her weekly blog at The Chronicle Reveiw, […]
Micchelli: How art can effect political change
At Art:21 Blog, the Flash Points guest blogger series is focusing on art and politics this month. Today, Brooklyn Rail writer/editor Tom Micchelli, after seeing a performance of The Investigation, a 1966 documentary drama by Peter Weiss (1916-1982), considers how art can effect political change. “The question implies an integral, […]
Hello Wikipedia, it’s the blogosphere calling
If you have any experience contributing to Wikipedia, you’ll appreciate “Wikipedia Art,” an online project launched today by artists Scott Kildall and Nathanial Stern. Of course, by the time you read this, the whole project may have been deleted by the anonymous band of pedantic Wikipedia editors (see Update below). […]
Munch: Navigating the messiness of his own present
The Munch exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, curated by Jay A. Clarke, brings together approximately 150 works, including 75 paintings and 75 works on paper by Munch and his peers. It is organized around the following themes: loneliness and solitude, the street, anxiety, love and sexuality, death and […]
Flashback to the 1960s: The Park Place Group
In the February issue of Art in America, Frances Colpitt writes about the Blanton Museum’s show, “Reimagining Space,” which featured abstract paintings and sculptures created by the Park Place Group artists. Intrigued by the article, which featured several artists I’ve never heard of, and drawn to the installation images, particularly […]
“Not that the writer�s job was to write a lot, or to register the self with a splash, but to get his or her real experience down”
In the New Yorker Adam Gopnik’s piece about John Updike reminds me how much painting and writing have in common. “John Updike was a fine colleague, a beaming platform presence, a valued contributor, a welcome visitor to the office, a genial supporter of younger writers�just a freelance writer living in […]
Joan Banach: GeoAb with a shot of vulgarity please
When Tom Micchelli stopped by Small A Projects, he was puzzled by Joan Banach’s dark, virtually monochromatic hard-edged abstractions that looked like they belonged in MoMA, circa 1959. Until he recognized her delight in the vulgar. “Not that her work is crass�on the contrary, it is the last word in […]
Thanks, Hank Hoffman, for writing about my project in Hartford
Hank Hoffman at Connecticut Art Scene reviewed “Lost and Found,” a show at the Connecticut Commission for Culture that includes my recent project “The Search For Moby Dicks.” Here’s what he had to say about it. “I took in ‘Lost and Found,‘ a show featuring works created by artists who […]
