Thomas Nozkowski, Untitled (9-32), 2014. Oil on linen on panel, 22 x 28 inches. Courtesy of Pace Gallery, New York Many people hold Tom Nozkowski up as a rare exemplar of the artist who was uncompromisingly devoted to his work but was also able to achieve success in his career. He was an artist’s artist, […]
Art Making
However You Get There
Philip Guston, Painter III, 1963. Photo: Courtesy of Hauser and Wirth Robert Benchley‘s infamous statement, There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who divide the world into two groups, and those who don’t, also speaks to the human proclivity to figure things out and be right. We all strive to make sense […]
From What You Know to What You Don’t
Notched disk, at the Freer Museum, Washington DC. China, probably Shandong province, late Neolithic period, 2500 BCE. The purpose of this intriguing object has never been established. Not knowing, uncertainty, the pathless path, that which lives outside of language—these are themes that appear with determined insistence throughout the thousands of short essays I have posted […]
The Grid of One
George W. S. Trow (1943-2006) (Photo: Lynn Davis/Pantheon Books) George Trow‘s essay, Within the Context of No Context, occupied the entire issue of The New Yorker in November of 1980. It is a timeless piece of writing, as is the introduction he wrote for the book version several years later, Collapsing Dominant. I reread both […]
Eye Balling and Free Falling
“Portrait of the Artist Listening to Music,” by Howard Hodgkin (Photo: Miriam Perez) Note: Hodgkin passed away on March 9, 2017. I am just back from a week of art viewing in London—special museum exhibitions including Michelangelo, Robert Rauschenberg, Wolfgang Tillmans, David Hockney, Howard Hodgkins, Eduardo Paolozzi and Elton John‘s estimable collection of photographs, plus […]
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Benedictions
Sally Mann (Photo: Liz Liguori) Finding fully immersive distractions to defend against the relentlessly ugly political news has become a daily ritual. Like so many others, I go out each day in search of sustenance in a landscape that has been ravaged by the locusts of lies, hatred and distrust. Protecting the inner landscape and […]
Pfaffability
Judy Pfaff at Wheaton College Judy Pfaff is an artist’s artist. Perhaps I should be more specific and say she is my kind of artist’s artist. And “my kind of artist” is a much bigger category than me and my friends. Legions of us have followed her for years, and we keep being compelled, enthralled, […]
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When a Stack of Bowls is a Chord
Edmund de Waal installation currently on view at the Princeton Museum With the publication and international success of his family memoir, The Hare With Amber Eyes, Edmund de Waal became a literary sensation before many knew he was, first and foremost, an artist whose specialty is ceramics. Notoriety tends to spills over, and soon his […]
Time, Information Management and Art Making
Advertisement seen in China last year A few ideas have been perennially circulating in my thinking lately. One is that consensus reality is overrated. I am increasingly interested in connecting with what might be termed the invisible elements of life. The other is that the perpetual 24/7 news cycle that permeates our lives is more […]
Making Space
Early morning light, South Boston The ease of viewing contemporary work today is staggering. The steady flow of images on Facebook, Instagram and online art sites brings thousands of images from all over the globe into easy view every day. When I first started as an artist, new work came to me through two or three […]