In his most recent piece for New York magazine, Jerry Saltz comments on the American Museum of Folk Art and its ongoing challenges. (As Jerry points out, the art is interesting but the space is a nightmare for viewing.) But this line was a particular keeper: I love the museum because it’s committed to showing […]
Aesthetics
Whole Body Seeing
Brooklyn Workshop Gallery: Paintings by Deborah Barlow and sculpture by Rina Peleg Beautiful imperfection: real beauty is rooted in reality. Give up the pursuit of perfection—visual perfection can be cold and unforgiving. Things yield their value at different rates. Enjoy things that aren’t obviously beautiful, or even a little clumsy, if they engage the senses […]
Enabling Through Limits
Icicle propagation on a building facade in Pittsburgh: Living with constraints A few months back I posted a quote from the artist Carroll Dunham that has a great deal of meaning for me: The most basic thing to say about painting: it’s a limiting condition within which absolutely anything goes. But it’s a negative premise. […]
We Are What We See
Gordon Waters is an artist, teacher and good friend who now lives in Sydney. I’m a big fan of his work (you can see more of it here) and of the way he thinks about seeing and looking. When he shared this recent essay with me, I thought it would be an inspiring guest post. […]
More Advocacy Like This, Please
Dutch architects MVRDV’s design for a cantilevered holiday home in Suffolk, UK. We all admire heroic acts, but this is one I hadn’t expected. Author Alain de Botton (Consolations of Philosophy, The Art of Travel, among others) is commissioning architects to build purposefully experimental homes that he will make available for holiday rentals on a […]
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Outside the Lines
Siva drinking World Poison, Nandalal Bose (Photo: National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi) I have been participating in an ongoing conversation with my friend Supratik Bose about the nature of creativity. Over dinner a while ago he told me he didn’t believe something could be deemed creative unless it demonstrated market value. Bose, trained […]
Left Coast Report
Back from California, visiting with both the Northern and Southern tribes. As always, the eye gets fed, and sometimes the finds are a surprise and unexpected. San Francisco Richard Diebenkorn: A gallery show at Paul Thiebaud Gallery consists of works that belongs to the late artist’s son Christopher. (In strange symmetry: Paul Thiebaud is artist […]
Wisdom from the Art Tribe
Connecting—in the dark, in space, in time Some of you are part of the Jerry Saltz Facebook Tribe. And what a tribe it is, nearly 4600 strong and growing daily. For those of you who are not, here’s my take on what Jerry is doing on Facebook: By operating as more of an art advocate […]
The Evanescent, the Mysterious and the Intuitive
Stadia II, by Julie Mehretu (Photo credit: Richard Stoner, Copyright 2007 Julie Mehretu) I’m just coming out of what feels like a deep sleep. It was in fact not a sleep at all but a protracted and extremely focused period of time working in my studio. Making: it’s a strange state of mind, hard to […]
- Aesthetics
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Painting is Dead, Long Live Painting
Roberta Smith keep the dialogue about contemporary painting current and vital. Regarding that old saw, “painting is dead,” Smith is consistent in her refusal to buy in. In today’s New York Times Arts section (I refuse to call that part of the paper by its full title, Arts & Leisure since it is irritatingly effete, […]