Carl Belz

Carl Belz, 1937-2016 (Photo: Darryl Hughto) So many artists have warm and heartening stories to share about Carl Belz. He was, after all, a larger than life figure in the Boston area. Some studied or worked with him at Brandeis University when he was the director of the Rose Museum. Others were championed by him […]

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 […]

Art as Spiritual Remedy

Sandi Slone, Rasputin, 1984, oil and acrylic on canvas, 84 x 120 inches (Photo: Left Bank Art Blog) Carl Belz, Director Emeritus of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, has been posting his views on a variety of art topics for some time on Left Bank Art Blog. His most recent article, The Color […]

Up Close and Personal

Looking down from the top balcony onto the Sum of Days installation by Carlito Carvalhosa in the MOMA. It is just too big and sensual to not pay attention and be delighted at some level. I just returned from five days in New York and Philadelphia. This was a working and a viewing trip. Since […]

A Landscape of One’s Own

The landscape in Carson, New Mexico Landscape And Soul Though we should not speak about the soul, that is, about things we don’t know, I’m sure mine sleeps the day long, waiting to be jolted, even jilted awake, preferably by joy, but sadness also comes by surprise, and the soul sings its songs. And because […]

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 soirée 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 […]

Whither the Rose?

I’m still reeling from the news that Brandeis University has announced the closing of the Rose Art Museum. Once a bastion of painterly painting under Carl Belz’s visionary directorship, the Rose has been a cherished art destination for me for many years. The building, designed by Philip Johnson, is small and not one of Johnson’s […]