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.
Pablo Picasso
Opinion
Watch Picasso Paint
When I was 13, I got my entrance into modern art through a book that explored the development of modernism artist by artist and piece by piece. My favorite artist from that book? Pablo Picasso, of course. That early art-viewing experience still makes it inspiring to watch the artist paint in this vi
Opinion
Five Awesome Artist Studios
Until an artist version of Cribs is invented, the best way we can get inside an artist's life and work is to get inside their studios. Photographs of artists in their studios are kind of like snapshots of an artistic career, a whole body of work compressed into a single room. A working and living sp
Opinion
Five NYC Museum Shows to Look Forward to in 2011
It's the New Year all over again, and aside from going out and partying, there's not much in the New Year to look forward to yet. I'm finding myself starting at empty calendar and wondering what to fill it up with. Why not schedule in some art? It's never to early to start that exhibition calendar g
Opinion
Picasso’s eBay Period
The Bygone Bureau's Jimmy Chen imagines what it would be like if Picasso had used eBay [http://bygonebureau.com/2010/12/15/picassos-ebay-period/]. Hilarity ensues. Great line, "bitch i’m trying to make a living. check out my new painting."
Opinion
Picasso Biographer Weighs In On Le Guennec Picassos
John Richardson, the art historian who has written (and is still writing) the definitive Picasso biography, has published his thought on Vanity Fair's website on the recently discovered Picassos in the possession of Pierre Le Guennec, Picasso's electrician. He writes, "Picasso would never, in my opi
News
Picasso's Electrician Claims to Own Hundreds of Works
France's Libération newspaper is reporting that the former electrician of Pablo Picasso claims to have hundreds of works by the modern master from his most important periods (1900-1931). See a slideshow of works here [http://next.liberation.fr/arts/11011160-picasso-un-tresor-redecouvert]. But the BB
Opinion
Gagosian, Basquiat…Get Shout Out From Kanye & Jay-Z
And art continues its march into mainstream pop culture … with the newly released/leaked (who can tell anymore) Kanye West track featuring Jay-Z, “That's My Bitch," which includes the following artful references to Basquiat, Picasso, Mona Lisa, and Larry Gagosian.
Opinion
Picasso Would Be 129 Today
Picasso would have turned 129 today, if the polymath artist, sculptor and co-inventor of cubism hadn't died in 1973 at the age of 92. Born in 1881, the artist rapidly commenced almost a full century of being awesome. So today we will put this Jonathan Richman song [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZW
News
Raiders of the Lost Art
Reuters reports [http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69H3NN20101018] that, "A new online database recording more than 20,000 works of art looted by the Nazis from Jews in France and Belgium during World War Two shows that at least half have yet to be returned to their original owners." To view the
Art
When Modernism Ruled Europe
Between World War I and II, there was a strong gust of classicism that swept through the Western European avant-garde. Artists from across the continent embraced the language of the ancients as a way to reflect their own time and culture. This taste for antique forms can be interpreted in many diffe
Art
At Prague's Veletrzni Palac
Prague itself is like a museum, where contemporary architectural gems are situated next to old landmarks. It’s an embarrassment of riches. One day we walked through Prague’s 10th century castle district, then went down the hill a couple of blocks to find a Frank Gehry-designed office complex, and co