Art
Understanding the Building Blocks of Our Machine World with Art
In a time of uncertainty, artists may offer insights and navigational aids for an emerging reality overwhelmingly dominated by technology and machines.
Essays
Art
And you can send me dead flowers every morning…
It is the beginning of a new year and for some reason I have been thinking about flower paintings — perhaps prompted by the flower paintings that Edouard Manet made while he was dying.
Art
John Berger’s Rare Art Criticism
Berger's art criticism succeeds because of its tangibility — it is grounded in human experience, historical events, and the physical artworks.
Art
The Pursuit of Art, 2016
The first painting I saw in 2016 was “Cockman Always Rises Orange” (2015): we can’t say we weren’t warned.
Art
Seeking Solutions to My First-World Problems at Standing Rock
Feeling defeated by 2016, I went to Standing Rock seeking a post-Trump formula for resistance. What I found was far messier than what I expected, but no less practical.
Art
The Ghost Ship Fire and the Paradox of a "Creative City"
We can read into this tragedy the disastrous head-on collision of two conflicting obligations that the "creative city" imposes on itself and its residents.
Art
Aesthetic Interference: On Those Photos from Ankara
I don’t just see the images as documents of atrocity. I also see them as aesthetic, and that doesn’t sit easily. Indeed, it feels immoral. It feels wrong.
Art
Why We Still Need Thomas More's ‘Utopia’ in 2016
At least among the current neoliberal order’s dissidents, More’s imagination continue to inspire, 500 years after he shared it with the world.
Art
The Accidental Social Media Artist Who Can’t Stop Falling
Paige Ginn films herself not only in a state of collapse, but also while getting there.
Art
Art After Trump: An Email Exchange with a Texas Elector
A liberal journalist briefly converses with a red-state elector.
Art
Who Profits from Waste? A Tale of Two Bay Area Cities
In San Francisco, artists in residence at the city dump are valorized for their work. In West Oakland, homeless people who rely on independent recycling centers are criminalized.
Art
The Soft Power of Art
As Western Civilization, as we have known it, seems to be unraveling, what are artists to do?