Bob Duggan
Contributing Writer
Bob Duggan has Master’s Degrees in English Literature and Education and is not afraid to use them. Born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, he has always been fascinated by art and brings an informed amateur’s eye to the conversation.
Long before “The Situation” and his kind entered the zeitgeist, Andy Warhol filmed his own reality show featuring his personal constellation of “Superstars”—artists, musicians, poets, actors, models, and sometimes just […]
When you talk about Classical music, you often begin with the three Killer B’s: Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. If you talk about American photography, you need to begin with the […]
The state of the art of art in the United States and beyond in 2010 reflected the larger unrest of the world itself. I originally wanted to compartmentalize things into […]
2010 was a great year for art publishing, with many presses producing high quality works not only in terms of reproducing great art, but also in publishing important thinkers on […]
Like Satan, he is known by many names—Sinterklaas, Père Noël, Tomte—but we Americans call him Santa Claus. The long white beard, red outfit, reindeer, etc., all seem like givens to […]
What do you get for the child in your life? That’s the big question for so many people around this time of year. If I can make a suggestion for […]
After spending some tumultuous time together at the infamous “Yellow House” in Arles, Vincent van Gogh, no stranger to psychiatric help, thought that fellow artist and former roommate Paul Gauguin […]
When the decision-makers at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery decided to drop David Wojnarowicz’s 1987 video “A Fire in My Belly” from their exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American […]
It’s amazing what you can find in art when you really, really want to find it there. Italy’s National Committee for Cultural Heritage claims that they’ve found evidence of a […]
If you read as much about art as I do, things that seem unrelated on the surface tend to pool together in the eddies of my consciousness. Two unrelated concepts […]
According to Giorgio Vasari’s Lives, Domenico Ghirlandaio—whose frescoes graced the walls of the Sistine Chapel before those of his apprentice, Michelangelo—once called the art of mosaics as “vera pittura per […]
Like the banshee of Irish and Scottish legend, Scottish artist Susan Philipsz keens songs of lamentation and loss that haunt those within hearing of the “sound sculptures” centered on her […]
You can always count on the MoMA for two things: high-concept theme shows and high-concept theme shows that go in directions you didn’t expect. On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth […]
It’s human nature to try to understand something new by comparing it to something we already know. We always interpret the present based on past experience. But when we make […]
The signs of the holiday season are upon us: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, twinkling lights, overdecorated malls, and now, finally, the annual conservative cri de Coeur—The War on Christmas! This […]
Desperate times call for desperate measures. But what happens when desperate times strike cultural institutions such as museums? The International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (aka, Cimam) […]
If the The Noguchi Museum’s 25th anniversary exhibition were an episode of Friends, it would be titled “The One Where Isamu Became an Artist.” On Becoming an Artist: Isamu Noguchi […]
Aside from the almost comically anatomically incorrect shark, the aspect of John Singleton Copley’s 1778 painting Watson and the Sharkthat most catches my eye is the black seaman standing in […]
For the first time in its 217-year history, the Louvre, perhaps the greatest museum in the world, is asking the French public for financial help to purchase a painting. Even […]
When Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama, who works primarily in black and white, encountered a photograph by Mika Ninagawa of Technicolor flowers in close-up during a tour of a museum, he […]
“Telling the history of art without the history of gay people is like telling the history of slavery without mentioning black people,” says David C. Ward, curator of Hide/Seek: Difference […]
On November 7th, Pope Benedict XVIconsecratedAntoni Gaudí’s weirdly wonderful masterpiece of religious architecture, the Sagrada Família (shown above). The Catholic Church tends to distrust anything modern these days, so seeing it […]
“I’ll be your mirror,” The Velvet Underground sang in the song of the same name, “Reflect what you are, in case you don’t know.” In The Moment of Caravaggio, Michael […]
It’s a sad fact of human history that the leadership regime most obsessed with art belonged to that of the Nazis. From Adolf Hitler the frustrated painter to obsessive collectors […]
For most art history students, the days of Dadaism and Surrealism seem like ancient history—two “-isms” buried beneath the quick succession of newer and newer “-isms” reigning ever since. Illustrator […]
Apparently you can teach some old dogs new tricks. In a piece by Digital Planet producer Colin Grant, artist David Hockney discusses his love affair with his iPhone and iPad […]
When Daedalus crafted wings of feathers and wax for his son Icarus, he included the warning to not fly too close to the sun. As anyone who knows Greek mythology […]
Any list of the most photographed people in history certainly has to include Marilyn Monroe. Just when you think we’ve seen every possible image of the iconic starlet, a new […]
In late August 1893, painter Paul Gauguin returned to Paris after spending the previous few years in Tahiti, the Polynesian paradise that propelled his art to a whole new level. […]
FDR’s words about nothing to fear but fear itself proved anything but prophetic for comic book censors a decade later.