A page from a letter written by Van Gogh The question, “What really matters?” is one I ask a lot more frequently these days. One reason is that getting older makes the need to vet more important. Life gets to be like a hard drive that is nearly filled, and decisions have to be made […]
drawing
The Small and the Quiet
James Siena At James Siena‘s show at Pace Gallery, the back room is bursting with drawings that have “leaky margins,” where the mark making steps out beyond the paper’s edge and onto the matt and the frame. I was so delighted to see these. They have a quiet and relentless defiance that feels almost subversive. […]
- Aesthetics
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Bento Reimagined
The pleasures of making marks In writing Bento’s Sketchbook: How does the impulse to draw something begin?, John Berger has fashioned a book that is a hybrid cobbling of many facets of the his persona—memoirist, philosopher, art historian, artist, political essayist, cultural critic. Berger has a long history as a writer and a well recognized […]
Visual Thinking
Ludwig Wittgenstein Two recently encountered passages have provoked my thoughts about the power—and what may be a slow decline in—visual thinking. Ray Monk‘s article in the New Statesman, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s passion for looking, not thinking, points to Ludwig Wittgenstein‘s unique visual orientation. (He is compared with his fellow philosopher Bertrand Russell who, much to his […]
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 […]
- 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 […]
- Aesthetics
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Hypo-Hope
Today is the last day of the show Drawn to Detail, at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln Massachusetts. From their description of the show: Drawn to Detail features a variety of contemporary drawings with a very particular focus. This exhibition displays the work of 26 American artists who explore extreme attention to detail, obsessive mark-making, […]