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Looking at art leads to thinking about life
“Ain't got no rest in my slumbers/ Ain't got no feelings to bruise/ Ain't got no telephone numbers/ I ain't got nothing but the blues,” goes Jazz composer Duke Ellington’s 1945 song “Ain’t Got Nothing But the Blues.” Jazz wins credit as the only original American art form (and rightfully so), but ...
When painter and showman Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre burst onto the scene in 1839 with his Daguerreotype—one of the earliest forms of photography—“Daguerreotypemania” quickly ensued. The art world quickly took notice of the new kid on the block, both negatively and positively. Dominique de Font ...
“Humbug,” harrumphed Minimalist/Conceptual artist Carl Andre recently in response to a question about Conceptualism in art today. “I think it is humbug myself,” Andre announced, channeling his inner Ebeneezer. “That is my own private opinion… I just don’t believe in Joseph Kosuth’s slogan ‘art as ...
Earlier this month, the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, removed a small oak tree from its sculpture garden—a story of little to no note, right? But just as the mighty oak grows from a tiny acorn, from that oak sapling springs a tale of art controversy of massive consequences. The tree, the ...
Waiting in line to pay admission late last month at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in a sea of heavy-winter-coated humanity, I asked myself why this has become the standard art museum experience—big building, big collection, big name exhibits, big crowds, and big admission prices ...
“In my line of work, we often talk about the art of diplomacy as we try to make people’s lives a little better around the world,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton writes in the latest issue of Vanity Fair. “But, in fact, art is also a tool of diplomacy.” Since starting a visual arts program in ...
One of the most unforgettable spiritual and artistic experiences I’ve encountered in my life happened in the Sistine Chapel years ago. Straining my neck as fellow tourists did the same, I looked up at Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoes in awe—both at the wondrous expression of faith and at the sheer ...
When news came out recently that artist Damien Hirst had ended his long and lucrative relationship with dealer Larry Gagosian and his international chain of Gagosian Galleries, there was more than a presumptive little dancing on the grave of Hirst’s career. It seemed that the man famous for his ...
For many in my parents’ generation, the half century between now and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963 seems like the blink of an eye. The Kennedys and the “Camelot” myth surrounding them raise such powerful visual memories—the vital young leader with a beautiful ...
When composer Van Stiefel realized that he wanted to somehow set the paintings of Andrew Wyeth to music, he searched for the words to marry to his expressions in sound. Fortunately, he found David Livewell’s Woven Light: Poems and Photographs of Andrew Wyeth's Pennsylvania , a set of poetry about ...
Even if you’re not a royals watcher, you can’t avoid the saga of Will and Kate. Kate Middleton—wife of Prince William, current Duchess of Cambridge, possibly future Queen of England, and mother-to-be of future kings and/or queens—recently came face to face with a rite of passage for all royals—the ...
“A painter, a composer, and a poet went on a road trip,” begins one print advertisement for the MoMA’s new exhibition Inventing Abstraction: 1910-1925 . Although it sounds like the start of an artsy joke (“Two Abstract Expressionists walk into a bar…”), the punchline’s serious: “…and a new art form ...
The art equivalent of the old “if a tree falls in the forest…” question is, if nobody (or nearly nobody) can see a masterpiece, is it still a masterpiece? How influential is something (or someone) if only a few elite know of its existence or, perhaps even worse, know it only by name or in a grossly ...
For the third year running, here’s a very personal, very subjective, “I can’t read everything, so I probably left out something, so mention it in the comments, OK?” list of the best art books of 2012 in no particular order, along with links to my reviews: Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen ...
In 1951, musical composer and overall art theorist John Cage (shown above) stepped into an anechoic chamber at Harvard University. Touted as the quietest place on Earth, the anechoic chamber offered the chance for Cage finally to experience the silence he had been pursuing in his music. But rather ...