Work table in my studio (Photo: Martine Bisagni) John Yau has written a review of Ken Price*’s show at the Metropolitan on Hyperallergic, Ken Price’s Time. Yau made the point that he was not surprised that Price was on display at the Met rather than at any of the three major contemporary art institutions in […]
- Aesthetics
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The Experience, Not Pointing to it
The Graces, David Salle, 1991 (Photo: Christie’s) Journalists are their own category of beings. While I respect the ones who do their art and craft with skill, I’d rather wrestle with a big game hunter. In the words of Adam Kirsch, “Goodness, which we praise so highly in life, is infertile terrain for a writer, […]
- Art Making
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Single Harness
Blade, 6 x 7″, egg tempera on calfskin parchment by Altoon Sultan, an artist who is an exemplar of Deliberate Practice. I am a horse for single harness, not cut out for tandem or teamwork…Full well do I know that in order to attain any definite goal, it is imperative that one person should do […]
- Aesthetics
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Belzing Into a Better Place
Carl Belz, my kind of thinker (Photo: www.berkshirefinearts.com) How do we currently write current art’s history? How, given its elastic chronology and ever-widening geographic reach, its self-consciously elusive look, the multiple urges and identities and media it comprises? How, in the absence of a canon of artists around whom a history might be structured, its […]
More of “The Best is Next”
Note: This was originally posted on Slow Muse in March 2011. It came across my screen this morning quite unexpectedly and just seemed so timely. Again. Grand master for a lifetime: Henri Matisse, photographed by Man Ray The nature of art making over the lifetime has been a recurring theme for me these last few […]
- Aesthetics
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Going with Surprise
My daughter Kellin, clamming at Duxbury Some people are more certain of everything than I am of anything. —Robert Rubin, In an Uncertain World Susan Cain used this quote at the start of one of her chapters in the very engaging Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking. I am […]
Fragments, and a Coming Together
I have written about Mary Ruefle’s book of essays, Madness, Rack and Honey so many times here that I thought it would be apropos to share one of her poetic ventures as well. I keep my copy of the slight but beguiling A Little White Shadow nearby. It is a visual and poetic pleasure to […]
Wise Ones
George Saunders (Photo: The Guardian) Is it just my bias or is it truly hard to find an artist who is a gifted creator and also wise? Another personal bias (since we’re divulging these proclivities): It is my experience that wisdom comes from those who have figured out how to get out beyond the distracting […]
Solnitessence
Vascular bundle of a fern rhizome (Image from a fascinating website, Urbagram which addresses a set of interlinked concepts, models, speculations, probings, essays and artefacts based on urban systems.) I first encountered Rebecca Solnit quite by accident. About ten years ago I was making my usual pilgrimage to the lusciously overstuffed and highly iconic City […]
- Aesthetics
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Seeing as Making
David Esterly* studied philosophy at Harvard and Cambridge before the trajectory of his life changed and he became a professional limewood carver. In his book, The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making, Esterly describes a challenging year at Hampton Court where he had been hired—an American no less—to repair the fire-damaged wood […]