Opinion
Weekend Words was saddened this week by the news of the death of filmmaker Les Blank. While his best-known movie is probably Burden of Dreams (1982), a behind-the-scenes look at the epic struggles undertaken by visionary German director Werner Herzog in the making of Fitzcarraldo, for the most part
Opinion
Part of choosing to buy an aesthetic object, whether that’s a piece of art, a decorative sculpture, or a provocative furniture item, is committing to living with it. Sure, your Zaha Hadid desk looks amazing, but would you really want to do work on it every day? Into that conundrum comes British desi
Opinion
Although the US Postal Service is now being forced to scrap its plan to end Saturday mail delivery, it's still looking for ways to cut costs. Selling buildings is one option, and in February, the organization put forward a proposal to sell the Bronx General Post Office, a Depression-era building fro
Opinion
There is a growing uproar over the news, first reported in the New York Times yesterday, that the venerable Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) will be demolishing the 12-year-old former American Folk Art Museum designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien to integrate the site into its masterplan.
Opinion
A thief in a garish feathered hat runs out of a shopping mall store with a leather bag clutched in his hand. He jumps down the stairs and tries desperately to escape as ropes descend down the mall’s atrium. Guards emerge to catch the criminal — but they’re on horseback, dressed in brimmed caps, and
Opinion
Sometimes it’s not so much about who did something first, but who did it best. In the technology start-up world, it doesn’t matter that dozens of other companies were creating video upload sites before YouTube; YouTube just hit the right combination of community, buzz, and content. Art history is th
Opinion
If you live in the US, chances are you won't to make it to Manet: Portraying Life, a retrospective exhibition of the 19th-century painter's portraiture, on view at London's Royal Academy for just another four days. But you might be able to make it to your local movie theater tonight, where a kind of
Opinion
Traversing the virtual mirror of the real world created by Google Earth and Google Street View has become something of a global pastime, putting everywhere (as long as there’s a road, at least) within the reach of armchair explorers. Yet walking through the landscape step by step and mouse click by
Opinion
Patrick Cariou’s lawsuit against artist Richard Prince for wrongfully appropriating his photographs of Rastafarians into new artworks provided a benchmark for the role of copyright in contemporary art, though the case is still being debated in appeals. But how do those same issues impact the world o
Opinion
This week, the economic imperative for investing in art, dogs in pantyhose, the Renoir thief, sexism in architecture, street art in Palestine, GIF search engines, and more.
Opinion
The coverage of New York State Senator Malcolm A. Smith's pursuit of the New York City mayoralty revealed this detail, courtesy of Kenneth Lovett of the NY Daily News: In Queens, a sign at Smith's district office read, "Theme of the Week: Blessings Have No Restrictions." Following suit, Weekend Word
Opinion
Art museums are known to show and uphold some artists whose work continually incites controversy, among them Robert Mapplethorpe and Chris Ofili. But when does art become too controversial for a museum to openly support or display it? The artist Graham Ovenden, who became famous in the U.K. in the 1