[contextly_auto_sidebar] RECENTLY I got to spend a little time with the Los Angeles-born, Bay Area-dwelling photographer Judy Dater, whose work goes back to the 1960s. Dater's been experiencing a bit of a career revival lately, with a recent show at San Francisco's de Young Museum, which has now come to Loyola Marymount University's art gallery, and a beautiful, career-spanning book of her … [Read more...]
Visit to the High Museum of Art
[contextly_auto_sidebar] Over the weekend I made my first visit to Atlanta’s High Museum of Art. I didn’t have time to check out the entire museum, and I missed an exhibit dedicated to the Hapsburg Empire. But I did see most of what the place – a 1983 Richard Meier building with a 2005 Renzo Piano expansion – has to offer. I spent the majority of my time on the skylight level, which includes … [Read more...]
The Creative Class Thrives in Ancient Greece
[contextly_auto_sidebar] The second of my histories of the creative class just went up on the website for Radio Silence, the Bay Area journal dedicated to music and literature. Here's a passage from it: Greece saw a kind of civic society of music and dance. Every class from king to serf took part; the children of citizens were educated to sing and play the lyre; and guests at a drinking party … [Read more...]
The “Junk Dada” of Noah Purifoy
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="HXcsgRY1unTSSqSHfianPWxQXh7bVS8E"] RECENTLY I visited the LACMA and saw a number of shows, including the exhibit devoted to Noah Purifoy's work. Purifoy, who art critic Christopher Knight recently said "may be the least well-known pivotal American artist of the last 50 years," was a black Southerner who became a crucial part of the art movement that rose after the … [Read more...]
Art For the Rich — Only
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="CSqzCJ4xE7EHbdXINKB6lexVqcruUcQp"] GOOD news! Queens has gotten an enormous art space in Long Island City. Says the New York Times The modern-looking facility, built from the ground up at a cost of $70 million, is set to span 280,000 square feet when an adjacent building opens this spring. The complex will be packed with thousands of works of art, from old masters … [Read more...]
What Is a “Subversive” Artist, Anyway?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="L8uqg7ERM237iPSVXdaL6TdXt2SjQlsL"] AFTER a while, I get tired of all the jive around certain terms. "Disruption" is one; "empowerment," another. ("Innovate" seems to be headed for corporate sponsorship.) The latest infuriating one is the way the word "subversive" has been turned into a marketing strategy and a straight-faced description of Lady Gaga and Jeff Koons. … [Read more...]
The Artist in the 21st Century
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="PVd8mrLaWjsXaMaGJ86HIjTmHjDjQjiA"] WHAT has art -- and the artist as its maker -- come to mean after postmodernism and four decades after Warhol's emergence? That's a question Sarah Thornton -- a very sharp British sociologist with an interest in visual art -- asks in her newish book 33 Artists in 3 Acts. I'm only partway through Thornton's book, which is full of … [Read more...]
The Plutocrat’s Art Club
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="jyFHuTfymBp4zjqhRnelFYWTSaIQFC3g"] The Germans may have a word for it -- things that seem inevitable but are stomach-turning nonetheless. That's the way I feel about the fact that the very rich are amassing lavish art collections and finding tax shelters for them. They call these tax shelters "museums," but don't let the rest of us in. It's the latest in the strategy … [Read more...]
Science, Religion and the Arts
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="QenFCLTcJKBApjGPuMk4yTYCy8otpnpB"] ARE there subjects science, metrics, Big Data, and rational thought can't entirely address? I sometimes thinks that these issues are the ones arts and culture are about, but I'm coming to realize that there's another lineage that engages with them as well: Religion. To many, this will sound obvious, but the relationship between … [Read more...]
Nature Painting and Weimar Film at LACMA
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="6xLprSnZT28agTDtPzklXpRf7UUnEW1W"] SOME days all the planets line up and a visit to a museum really can offer "fun for the whole family." That's what happened at the LACMA a few days ago, where the ups and downs of exhibit schedules meant a show of samurai armor, another of Hudson River school 19th c. painting, and another of German Expressionist Cinema. I spent … [Read more...]