Opinion
Required Reading
This week… Ai Weiwei Easter egg, Picasso & Marie-Thérèse, camera obscura, LACMA acquisitions, John Berger's new book, thoughts on criticism and Mummers in Newfoundland.
Opinion
Opinion
Are Movies the Art of Our Time? The Verdict
A month ago, artists Michelle Vaughan and John Powers made a bar bet — I'm guessing it was a drunken one — over one of Powers's bombastic claims. He made the sweeping statement that "movies are the art of our time." Not one to step away from a challenge, Vaughan disagreed. Eventually Vaughan, who is
Opinion
Francis Bacon Describes His Painting Process
In this 1985 documentary on the artist, made while he was still very much alive, Francis Bacon talks through one of his most iconic works and explains how he makes paintings. The artist also slowly gets very drunk and discusses the beauty of the word “voluptuous.”
Opinion
Required Reading
This week's Required Reading has links to the garb needed to paint in the arctic, Jasper Johns and orgies, an interview with artist Sharon Hayes, a handwritten transcript by Diego Rivera, artist Cao Fei on the unsung factory workers of the Pearl River Delta and Japanese shut-ins.
Opinion
Unurth: "Art in the Streets" Is a Missed Opportunity
Sebastian Buck of Unurth, which is arguably the premiere street art photo blog, has a lot of visual goodies from LA MOCA's Art in the Streets show. He also has some very interesting thoughts on the show, which officially opens tomorrow:
Opinion
Political Performance in the US House
American politics has always been deeply connected to spectacle. Yesterday, Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) delivered a one-minute "speech" on the floor of the House of US Reps and it was pure art.
Opinion
A Helpful Guide to Fair Use
Fair use is a term we hear bandied about all the time nowadays (Shepard Fairey vs. AP, Patrick Cariou vs. Richard Prince, etc.), but what is it really? The library of the University of Minnesota wants to help you out.
Opinion
Robert Storr: Art Writers Are “Bottom Feeders”
In his final column for Frieze, writer, painter and star curator Robert Storr calls art writers (himself included) “bottom feeders,” and constructs an elaborate metaphor for writers as the “squid” of the art world — swimming in their own ink. This is the “cruel, Darwinian truth,” says Storr, yet the
Opinion
Water Gun Fight In a Museum!
Jason Eppink describes himself online as an "Urban Alchemist, Rapid Prototyper, Mischief Maker," so it should come as no surprise that he stirred things up during his February 24 lecture at the Museum of Arts and Design with a water gun fight.
Opinion
Graffiti Writers Start a Game of Tag with LA's MOCA
Raise your hand if you're not surprised that LA's Museum of Contemporary Art is getting tagged by a whole bunch of graffiti writers because of the upcoming Art in the Streets show? Well, Katsu is doing his part on the heels of an attention-grabbing faux MoMA/Nike ad series he pulled off in New York
Opinion
Voting on a Masterpiece Out of Context
A few years ago, I was invited by photographer and Flickr superuser Thomas Hawk to join his DMU (Deleteme Uncensored) Flickr group, which allows users to post photos for voting by fellow users. But someone played a trick and submitted a photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson as their own and the resulting c
Opinion
Visitors Draw Out Their MoMA Stories
Tamsin Nutter and Brigitta Bungard of the Museum of Modern Art have put together a project that exposes that other, non-curatorial, side of the museum world — the viewers' experiences. For a few days in February, they placed stations with pads of paper and pens in MoMA's galleries for guests to jot