Books
Three Different Styles of the Artist Monograph
Sometimes a gallery’s books are more interesting than the artwork they regularly exhibit, and you can peruse their best artists and exhibitions from the confines of a well-constructed catalogue.
Alissa Guzman
Books
An Artobiography That is Personal, But Not Universal
Boulder bookstore owner David Bolduc said of artist and graphic designer Tina Collen’s “artobiography,” titled Storm of the i (2009) and published by Art Review Press, “I've been in the book business for thirty years and have seen a lot of books. But I've never seen anything like Storm of the i.” I
Art
Patti Smith Turns 65
The last time I wrote about the artist, poet, musician and performance artist (i.e. woman of many trades) Patti Smith was to complain about the fact that I’d never heard of her. My rant had something to do with the fact that I spent five years at two different art schools and her name never came up
Art
Stumbling Upon India! While in Brazil
There is nothing quite like the feeling of being a tourist in a new country, and stumbling into a city or neighborhood there that makes you feel like a tourist in a completely different country. It's a bit like a person who visits New York City for the first time and wanders into Chinatown — that sm
Art
Colorful Street Art Gives Rio de Janeiro a Fresh Look
Graffiti in Rio de Janerio is some of the most festive, whimsical and lighthearted graffiti I’ve seen anywhere. Though the street art feels like it’s being taken seriously, the pervasive style is bold, playful, colorful, and full of bizarre scenes, stylized characters and undecipherable situations.
Art
Lost in Buenos Aires, Street Art Got Me Home
On a recent vacation to South America, I accidently became lost in the middle of Buenos Aires. Separated from my partner who had the maps, money, hotel name and address, not to mention a command of the native language, I panicked.
Art
Listening to the Voice of Diane Arbus
It’s not often that we get to be present for a posthumous lecture given by the deceased being honored. An Evening with Diane Arbus and Marvin Israel, presented at the School of Visual Arts in collaboration with the Aperture Foundation, was just that. Out of the pure darkness of a hushed theater came
Books
Vivid Words of a Cross-cultural Life
Poetry can be intimidating and difficult to “get.” It can evoke the same feelings many of us have toward contemporary art — we don’t always understand it, and it can make us feel shut out, like outsiders to an in-joke. Poetry as one of human nature’s more obtuse endeavors, can have the same effect.
Books
An Obsession with Art's Communicative Power
The latest monograph of the Contemporary Art Series covers the provocative Polish artist and trickster Pawel Althamer (b. 1967), discussing in minute detail his “sculptures, installations, and pubic interventions.” Without a doubt, Phaidon’s Pawel Althamer is the most substantial art book I’ve laid
Books
Oh, Knitta Puh-leze
Urban Knits, a small book of colorful photographs, explores a relatively new kind of graffiti called “urban knitting,” self-proclaimed to be the most “inoffensive” type of urban graffiti. Like most books of its kind, a collection compiled by theme, Urban Knits unintentionally shows the wide discrepa
Books
A Vampire Vincent Van Gogh in Corporate America
The author Penelope Przekop’s second novel, Centerpieces, is a novel that bravely tries to be a historical fiction about Van Gogh, art and the creative drive, but instead turns out to be a twisted narrative that describes a stifling world of corporate ladder-climbing.
Books
Too Many MFAs Spoil the Zine
Birdsong, the local Williamsburg zine now in its 15th issue, is a blend of short stories, poems, drawings, collages and photographs: it is primarily a literary magazine that features artwork woven between each written piece. Birdsong’s appeal can be summed up nicely by the resumes of the artists and