Resting on Perception

Saul Bellow Art and meaning. Big topic, and one that just keeps morphing and moving through our relationship with art making in whatever form that takes. I’ve written on that complex topic a lot here, if only peripherally given its depth, but my interest in it is tireless. Leon Wieseltier’s New York Times review of […]

PEM Update

18th century lacquer work from Quianlong Garden Currently at the Peabody Essex Museum: The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City, on view through January 9 before it moves to the Metropolitan Museum in New York. This collection of artifacts, never before seen by the public, is taken from a sanctuary built in the […]

Irony and Meaning

Barnett Newman I’ve been having a lot of discussions lately about irony, particularly its role in art. Many of these are conversations I have been having with parts of myself, but some of them are with friends and cotravelers. This interest was piqued a few weeks ago when a good friend with an exceptionally developed […]

Abuses of Power

Frank Stella, Chocorua IV, 1966, Fluorescent alkyd and epoxy paints on canvas, 120 x 128 x 4 in., Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College Abuses of power and money, decisions made by self serving Philistines, the infuriatingly short sighted policies that have ramifications way beyond the bounds of the elite board room—nothing new in any […]

Judy Pfaff at Braunstein Quay

Lemongrass, by Judy Pfaff (Braunstein Quay Gallery) At a pre-opening soirĂ©e for Judy Pfaff’s show at the Braunstein Quay Gallery in San Francisco last week, Pfaff talked about how different—and personally satisfying—it has been to be working in her studio again. So much of her focus recently has been installation-centric: massive venues and complex sculptural […]