Opinion
Required Reading
This week, a history of emoticons, Barocci in London, LA's architecture mess, the birth of the Garbage Pail Kids, William Eggleston and baseball, how China censors social media, and more.
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Opinion
Weekend Words: Plunder
This week we learned that the family of legendary gallery owner Paul Rosenberg, who was the exclusive representative of Matisse, Picasso and Braque, has claimed ownership of a Matisse that has been in the collection of Norway's Henie Onstad Arts Center for decades.
Art
Shock of the Old: The Pre-Raphaelites Go Back to the Future
In its first iteration in London, Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Art and Design, the survey now on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, bore the edgier title Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde. We may not customarily think of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) — founded in secret
Art
Who’s Afraid of Hot Pink, Canary Yellow, and Midnight Blue?
Color is frightening. From the color of one’s skin to the color of a painting, it can stir up unlikely obsessions: all kinds of irrational responses tend to explode without provocation. Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko have two things in common: wide expanses of color and the proclivity for people to
Art
Star Search: Heaven's Map for Getting Lost
"Billions and billions of stars.” Carl Sagan’s awestruck if indeterminate census of the universe became a comic catchphrase in the wake of his 1980s PBS series Cosmos. Johnny Carson would intone the line, exaggerating the astrophysicist’s sing-songish repetition of billions and we’d laugh. Not becau
Art
Single Point Perspective: Dürer’s Doomed Knight
Last week I wrote about several drawings and watercolors from the spectacular exhibition of works on paper by Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) at the National Gallery of Art, leaving aside the show’s phenomenal selection of prints. I would like to return, however, to one engraving in particular.
Art
Running the Gamut: Trudy Benson’s Flamboyant Restraint
Still in her twenties with three solos under her belt, Trudy Benson has been garnering a lot of attention, and it’s easy to see why. Her raucously impastoed paintings, as luscious as they are jarring, are abstraction as sheer ebullience — ambrosia for anyone open to the innate pleasures of color, te
Opinion
Mr. Brainwash's Brain-dead Copyright Defense
Warhol settled three times, and then played by the rules. Jeff Koons settled four times and then won. Sherry Levine avoids intellectual property pitfalls by agreeing not to sell. The Shep lost a big one to AP, but has otherwise ducked controversy. And Richard Prince currently rules the co-opting cad
Performance
The Emotive Musculature of Resurrection
Stephen Petronio has been a creative force in the dance world for nearly 30 years. The most compelling aspect of Petronio’s career, and most intriguing for me, is his desire to collaborate, inviting composers, musicians, and visual artists to take on an idea and expand it within and beyond the dance
Opinion
From the Inbox of a Mid-Level Journalist: Cheese
Being a mid-level journalist and blogger is a special kind of adventure. Every day, as you head to your computer to open your inbox, you ponder what emails await you there. One day, you may receive an email from an artist whose medium is cat hair! The next day, a press invitation to Art Basel! And t
Opinion
In Defense of the Artist Statement
As a writer who works with visual artists, I was inspired to address Iris Jaffe’s recent post, "The Anti-artist-statement Statement." “I hate artist statements,” Iris began. “As an artist, they are almost always awkward and painful to write, and as a viewer they are similarly painful and uninformati
Art
Singing for Shy People with Voice-Activated Instruments
As the Cat Stevens–loving Maude declared to a morose Harold in the 1971 film Harold and Maude, "If you want to sing out, sing out!" But for those of us who are too self-conscious or cursed by shrill tones and off-key octaves, having such belting confidence is hard. For such introverts, Ranjit Bhatna