Edwina Leapman, Green Shade About 20 years ago, Wendy Beckett (AKA Sister Wendy) was busy bringing art history to the masses with her BBC shows and books. She’s not in the limelight these days but I still treasure my copy of her now out of print book from 1988, Contemporary Women Artists. Beckett was very […]
Art
Ample Room to Maneuver
In his essay “Light and Space and Darkness: Taking Painting Full Circle in the Wireless World” (published in Darren Waterston: Representing the Invisible) David Pagel had me at hello. He’s a stylist of the finest art writing order, and he brings the inchoate beauty of Waterson’s work as close to language as I can imagine […]
Architecture Crib Notes
Very cool find: A small book by Matthew Frederick, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School. Well designed (a raw slab of heavy cardboard for a cover which makes it feel handmade and intimate) and sized for easy portability, this book is full of thoughtful insights for architects as well as all of us architect […]
Sages of Silence and Fear
A painter and a poet. Martin and Stafford have been (and continue to be) elemental influences on me. *** Agnes Martin (Photo: Charles R. Rushton) To discover the conscious mind in a world where intellect is held to be valuable requires solitude, quite a lot of solitude. We have been very strenuously conditioned against solitude. […]
Steir et al in Providence
Pat Steir, The Austria Group, No 2 (Photo: risd Museum) Drawing Out of Line features 40 years of work by Pat Steir and is currently on view at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art. The range of expression captured in the show speaks to Steir’s fierce exploration through her force of nature […]
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A Beyond of Color
Rainer Maria Rilke More on the theme of poets and artists: Good friend Sally Reed steered me to a slender volume, Letters on Cézanne by the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. These letters were written mostly to his wife Clara while he was living in Paris in 1907, a time when he was spellbound by Cézanne’s […]
Willing
Simplicity and complexity: A piece hanging on the wall at sculptor Paula Castillo’s studio in Santa Fe. The two entries below, a poem by Moramarco and a quote by Tom Robbins, were included in two separate posts on my favorite random access wisdom source, Whiskey River. But when I landed on the site this morning […]
Chelsea Highlights
A few more highlights of Chelsea art viewing from New York City last week: At Sikkema Jenkins, Leonardo Drew’s exquisite wood constructs were spectacular: Photo courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins A few selected views: *** And at Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe Gallery, Oliver Arms paintings knocked me out. Here’s a florid (but satisfying) description from […]
El Anatsui
Installation views of El Anatsui at Jack Shainman Gallery It’s hard to not find El Anatsui’s work beguiling. The first piece I experienced was at the De Young Museum in San Francisco before El Anatsui’s break out into international fame at the last Venice Biennale. I was knocked out by the tactility of his tapestry […]
- Aesthetics
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One More Dance: The 2010 Whitney Biennial
Jeffrey Inaba’s installation warms the cold cement interior of the Whitney Museum lower level It is a ritual I have witnessed for over twenty years (and one I have participated in with variations in intensity): The Whitney Biennial Grouse. The cacophony of anger, outrage and “how could they?” that erupts around this show every two […]