Here’s a well deserved shout out for Mass MoCA. One of my all time favorite museums, this innovative, expansive and lively space is celebrating its 10 year anniversary. That’s no small feat. (A piece about its inception is posted on Slow Painting, excerpted from an article by Geoff Edgers in the Boston Globe.) Here are […]
Art
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Tracey, Say It Isn’t So
Tracy Emin at the White Cube Gallery (Oli Scarff/Getty Images) Tracey Emin has cordoned off sex and sexuality as a major trope of her oeuvre. She has been outrageous, flagrant, outspoken and nakedly raw in her expression of pure id-ness. So turning 50 changes all that? Come on Tracey, can’t you love ideas AND sex? […]
That Damned Underbelly
Portrait of Francis Bacon I have posted two separate reviews on Slow Painting of the Francis Bacon show at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, one by Jerry Saltz of New York Magazine, and one by Sebastian Smee of the Boston Globe. Both touch on Bacon’s deeply troubled personal life, in particular his experience of […]
Face Against the Glass
Arombell 1, 14 x 14″, mixed media on wood panel I’m heading into the final lap of this preparatory marathon. Postcards for my upcoming show go out this week, so my face is against the glass. (If you would like to be on my mailing list, send me an email with your snail mail address.) […]
Emin-ence
The Ladette, indeed Here’s another shout out for a great piece on Tracey Emin from the Times Online. Emin is having her first show in London in four years which, by design, should incite the usual contentiousness since it is an animation of a woman masturbating. Tracey is ready for the onslaught. “‘They’ll hate it!’ […]
Venus of Hohle Fels
The latest “venus figurine” find from the Hohle Fels cave in Germany is an extraordinary portrayal of the female form. Wow. This one is a knock out. So expressive, so wildly physical. What baffles me is the word used in much of the press coverage of this 35,000 year old sculpture: pornographic. Hello? Pornographic because […]
Lovin’ the Light
Collaborative group Lead Pencil’s “Arrival at 2 a.m.” For those of us with pioneer DNA, being lazy is tantamount to committing the worst criminal acts, like dealing drugs or murdering baby seals. So posting a shout out here instead of coining my own words is not, I repeat, not laziness. I’m getting ready for a […]
Seeing is an Inside Job
Rothko Chapel, Houston The truly great ones are fresh continuously, repeatedly. Like a painting you can sit in front of for hours and never fully grasp. When I was just beginning to study art, I asked my professor about Mark Rothko. He and de Kooning were the giants of the generation of artists who inspired […]
Bless The Mess
“I’m very uncomfortable with a clean, empty studio…usually, I only clean whatever area I need for a project.” –Bruce Nauman I feel you, Bruce. And your space looks fabulous compared to mine. I have to climb in these days, the rat’s nest having grown to larger than life dimensions. Maybe someday I’ll get back to […]
More on Ann Hamilton
Continuing from yesterday’s posting about the Guggenheim show, The Third Mind, here is Ann Hamilton discussing her installation, “human carriage” from an article by Scarlet Cheng in the Los Angeles Times: “You become aware of something through the culture and atmosphere you inhabit,” says Hamilton, who’s based in Ohio. “It’s an influence everywhere and nowhere […]