Imagine my shock and disappointment at not being placed on the list of artists to receive the National Medal of Arts from President Bush. I was also excluded from the list of those to receive the National Humanities Medal. I open my heart to the readership of this web log and confess that I’m crushed. Please believe me when I…
In 2023 the singer Mehdi Yarrahi was arrested in Iran for releasing a song inspiring women to take off their hijabs. In the Islamic Republic of Iran wearing a hijab is compulsory for women. Yarrahi spent a year in prison for his “crime.” On Mar. 6, 2025 he was given 74 lashes by his tormentors. On his X account (@yarrahimehdi)…
The Battle for Babylon is an article written by art critic Jerry Saltz. While his article focuses on the art scene in New York, his critique is applicable almost universally. He takes the position that “more artists, gallerists, and curators are taking matters into their own hands” in an effort to circumvent the current arrangement that “reduces art to its…
The group show American Beauties: Different Stories, opened on April 1, 2006 to an appreciative crowd who gathered at the Space On Spurgeon gallery in Santa Ana, California, to view the art and meet the artists. In his review for the OC Weekly, No Punches Pulled: American Beauties’ is life, unedited, Justin Edward Coffey wrote: “Before the heat of the…
The Power of Art, an engrossing series that takes a close-up look at the life and times of eight master artists, begins its series premiere tonight on PBS (Monday, June 18th, 2007.) Created by fêted art historian and author, Simon Schama, the broadcasts focus on Mark Rothko, Jacques-Louis David, Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, Rembrandt van Rijn, Caravaggio, Vincent van Gogh, J.M.W….
The following are excerpts from Obey Plagiarist Shepard Fairey, a critique I wrote about artist Shepard Fairey on the occasion of his solo exhibition, opening Dec.1, 2007, at the Merry Karnowsky Gallery in Los Angeles. The full, unedited critique contains thirteen illustrated examples of plagiarisms committed by Fairey, three of which are shown in this web post. To view the…
