“I just want a Picasso in my casa, no, my castle,” raps Jay Z in his appropriately titled song “Picasso Baby.” Jay Z’s song most certainly stirs up a desire to own some Picasso art bling, which is becoming increasingly important nowadays for the rich and famous. But is such a thing possible for someone who isn’t a wealthy rapper?
Alicia Eler
Alicia Eler is a cultural critic and arts reporter. She is the author of the book The Selfie Generation (Skyhorse Publishing), which has been reviewed in the New York Times, WIRED Magazine and the Chicago Tribune. A native of Chicago by way of L.A., Alicia's writing has also been published in Glamour, the Guardian, CNN, Hyperallergic, Art21 Magazine, LA Weekly, and Aperture. She is currently the visual art critic/arts reporter at the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Posted inNews
Creative Commons Goes More Global With Version 4.0
Creative Commons recently announced Version 4.0 of their licenses, which enables more anonymity, international translation options, and opportunities to regain rights if they’ve been inadvertently violated.
Posted inNews
Norman Rockwell’s Family Doesn’t Want You to Think He Was Gay
Former New York Times columnist Deborah Solomon’s new biography of Norman Rockwell, American Mirror, hints that America’s “most beloved artist” may have been a closeted gay man.
Posted inArt
Sculptural Remnants and Re-creations of Jimmy Page
CHICAGO — Led Zeppelin, man — they were so before my time. Arguably the inventors of heavy metal, the band reached their height of fame in the early 1970s with the song “Stairway to Heaven” on their untitled fourth album. Through the works of artist Karolina Gnatowski, now on view in the artist’s solo exhibition Lined Pages at Lloyd Dobler Gallery, contemporary viewers can experience forms and images of Led Zeppelin’s guitarist, Jimmy Page.
Posted inArt
Selfies as the Other Side of the Mirror
CHICAGO — What’s it like to be on the other side of the mirror? Selfies are contemporary self-portraits shot through the reverse-mirror effect available through smartphones and webcams.
Posted inOpinion
The ‘Grandmother’ of Performance on the Internet
CHICAGO — “You are the future, and you get love by video,” chants artist Jillian Mayer in “I Am Your Grandma,” a simple, catchy, one-minute video in which the artist ponders the idea that she will be a grandmother and her grandkids will find this video on YouTube.
Posted inBooks
From Lucky Magazine to Lyrical Sonnets
CHICAGO — Simone de Beauvoir once said, “Buying is a profound pleasure.” To shop, to consume, to purchase a new look even if it’s temporary — an air of satisfaction accompanies that moment of credit card swiping, or handing over that stack of Ben Franklins.
Posted inArt
The Feminist Politics of #Selfies
CHICAGO — The selfie is an aesthetic with radical potential for bringing visibility to people and bodies that are othered. This week we present to you a few instances of empowerment that we caught via the #feministselfie hashtag on Twitter, which began in response to a post on Jezebel that suggests all selfies are a cry for help.
Posted inArt
Paul D’Amato Documents America, or Chicago’s West Side
CHICAGO — Paul D’Amato’s large-scale photographs in his exhibition We Shall at the DePaul Art Museum offer a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people and urban landscapes on Chicago’s West Side.
Posted inArt
Theory of the Selfie
CHICAGO — OxfordDictionaries.com recently announced that ‘selfie’ is their new Word of the Year, moving it beyond sanctified slang in the Urban Dictionary.
Posted inArt
Dumb Racist Art Project: White Woman Sells Naked Oprah
Artist and fashion designer Peggy Noland’s four dresses of Oprah’s face Photoshopped onto variously sized black female bodies perpetuate American pop culture’s rampant racism. Modeled by a white woman, the dresses suggest that anyone can go ahead and “try on” a black woman’s body in sizes “petite, average, or obese,” all categories defined by white beauty standards.
Posted inArt
Flushing Nothing Down the Tubes
CHICAGO — If Jean Genet shit out the text from his book The Thief’s Journal, which he wrote on toilet paper while in prison, and cheerleaders barfed up blood and guts in high school, they might combined look like the conceptual results of Oakland-based Jason Benson’s PH://Dungeon_Mix_[vol.1]://The_Human_Cafe_[vol.1]_[2013]_Clone.Ed.x2013 at Queer Thoughts Gallery.
