Installation view from George Wingate’s one day exhibit, Up Stairs In Sight,* a show of unconventional but undeniable brilliance by an artist more people should know Artistic gatekeeping. The role of the critic. The mantle of authority. The new democratization of how any of us can find, read, look and listen. Two years ago Morley […]
Aesthetics
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Awesomeness is Good for You
Piero della Francesca (Tuscany 1412? – 1492, Tuscany),The Senigallia Madonna and Child with Two Angels Tempera and oil on wood. Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino. Image courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art Most of my artist friends can speak about the exhilarating and very personal experience of being deeply moved by a work of […]
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Where it Mingles and Blurs
The New York Times named five novels as the best of 2013. Amazingly, two of them—both written by women—are about art and art making: The Flamethrowers*, by Rachel Kushner, and The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt. I was enchanted by both. While Kushner’s novel takes place in the art world emerging around Soho in the 70’s […]
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Nozkowski: Art Objects are Gifts
Thomas Nozkowski, Untitled (7-107, LA III), 1998, oil on linen on panel, 22×28” (Photo: BOMB Magazine) [Note: Here is another post I have pulled up out of the Slow Muse archive from 2012. I am still a bit ham-handed from my surgery and typing is hard so I have been revisiting posts that speak to […]
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Gleeful and Outward Looking
Illustration for the essay, “Talent,” from Amy Leach’s “Things That Are.” (Pen-and-ink drawing by Nate Christopherson, courtesy of Milkweed Editions and the artist) I have been reading nonstop while my hand heals since there is really nothing I can do in the studio. The body does this part all on its own which, like a […]
Must See and Must Have
The latest book by the geologist turned photographer Bernhard Edmaier (whose previous books include Patterns of the Earth, Earth on Fire and Earthsong) is his most seductive yet. Published by Phaidon Press*, EarthArt: Colours of the Earth is a masterful melding of images, scale (this book is big) and exquisite book design. I can’t believe […]
- Aesthetics
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Abrams, Books and Artifacts
A page from “S” The concept of an artifact—material, touchable and therefore commodifiable—has been a controversial issue in art circles for a long time. For some practitioners, the highest and purist artistic expression is one that happens without a footprint or “residue.” The absence of a material object d’art speaks to a devotion to the […]
Up Stairs In Sight: George Wingate
Up Stairs In Sight: Installation by George Wingate As a painter, my work in the studio is all about thingfulness: I am bringing an intense focus to bear in an effort to rouse a flat white plane of canvas or wood into a state of aliveness. Beyond the boundaries of that surface and unseen to […]
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Refuge in the Not
Motoi Yamamoto (Photo: My Modern Met) Roberta Smith‘s response to the recent art auctions, Art Is Hard to See Through the Clutter of Dollar Signs, included a quote that has taken on a life of its own and is showing up everywhere online. After describing the spectacle of all time high prices and hedge fund […]
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The Innovation/Creativity Continuum
Innovation is constantly in the news. Corporations spend millions of dollars fostering, cultivating and encouraging it in work environments that often seem inhospitable to deflected and unexpected thinking. Interestingly, artists rarely use the word innovation to describe the methodology of their work. Creativity is the more common term. How are the two different? Drew Marshall […]