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                                Re: Mike Bidlo: "Erased de Kooning Drawings," Francis M. Naumann Fine Art, 22 East 80th St., to Nov. 11, 2005 Once, not too long ago, I was in charge of a project that involved several artists, each making a separate installation. One of the artists -- who was, by the way, a joy to work with -- asked me to … [Read more...]

                                    Anonymous: 9/11 Shrineat Ground Zero, 2001. (Photo: J.Perreault) Where Were You? Artist responses to 9/11 are, I suspect,as varied as lay responses. Defiance, withdrawal, denial, bewilderment. And good, old-fashioned anger. But somehow we expect artists to express their feelings in … [Read more...]

                                       Robert Smithson: Floating Island... Dead Man's Float Thirty-five years in the making, Robert Smithson's Floating Island to Travel Around Manhattan Island is being tugged along the Manhattan through next weekend (to Sunday, Sept. 25). Smithson, as we know, died in a … [Read more...]

The Past Is Another Place I could tell it was going to be one of those adventures. Sylvia Sleigh, a painter I've known for many years, phoned me about going to the opera this fall. Sylvia at 89 goes to the opera a lot. Her late husband, the art critic Lawrence Alloway, had hated opera, so she is making up for lost time. I hated opera queens more than I hated opera. I simply could not get interested in the eternal question of who is greater, Callas or Tebaldi? I think Schwarzkopf is greater than … [Read more...]

Nuka Kiva, Marquesas Islands On the Billows of the Wide-Rolling Pacific Six months at sea! Yes, reader, as I live, six months out of sight of land; cruising after the sperm-whale beneath the scorching sun of the Line, tossed on the billows of the wide-rolling Pacific -- the sky above, the sea round, and nothing else!                                          -- Herman Melville, Typee, Chapter One Last month, after exiting the Matisse exhibition, from across Fifth Avenue yours truly spotted one of … [Read more...]

Still Life with Blue Tablecloth, 1909 Matisse at Work As Matisse became less fauve and more the artist we love, he began to depict fabrics that joyously overwhelm all other subject matter. He painted images of : tablecloths, exotic costumes worn by otherwise depersonalized women, wall hangings. And, by shifting slightly to see that it was not the cloth itself that interested him but the patterns, then wallpaper too is a subject. Because we suddenly have access to the fabrics that the artist … [Read more...]

Robert Smithson (1938-1973), c. 1968         Once you have approached the mountains of cases in order to mine the books from them and bring them to the light of day---or rather of night---what memories crowd in uponyou!                      -- "Unpacking My Library" in Illuminations, Walter Benjamin By The Book To my mind, the most interesting aspect of the … [Read more...]

        "I am a Modern artist dying of Modernism." Robert Smithson, 1961            (in a letter quoted by Thomas Crow) Robert Smithson: Spiral Jetty, 1970                    Developing the Negatives The death of Robert Smithson in a plane crash in 1973 was not only the loss of an important artist (and the art he … [Read more...]

      Touring Chelsea: Chelsea High Line Railroad, courtesy Friends of the High Line                 Why We Still Go to Galleries As I become more and more a denizen of the internet, the digital ether, I get nervous. Transformations are traumatic. And so I cling to past modes of perception. Is it my imagination, or is it really the case that the longer I am online, the stronger my need to experience … [Read more...]