Some years ago I took this photograph at a place of honor and history, Copp’s Hill Burying Ground in North Boston, Massachusetts… established in 1659.
To the kids, moms, and dads of Melrose, Massachusetts, where Halloween has been canceled in public schools in order to promote “inclusivity.” Do not be afraid of those goblins and ghosts, just look ‘em in the eye and say… BOO!
It took Israeli director Ari Folman four years to create Waltz with Bashir, an unusual autobiographical animated film now in limited engagement across the U.S. that warns of the nightmares that follow in the wake of war. The movie opens with an unsettling vision, a pack of rabid dogs – twenty six to be exact, racing along wet streets under…
Starting April 1. 2006, I’ll be exhibiting several paintings at American Beauties: Different Stories, a group show at SpaceOnSpurgeon gallery in Santa Ana, California. Two of my latest oil paintings, The Red Dress and La Muerta (The Dead Woman), will be on view for the first time – in fact they were both painted especially for this exhibit. I wrote…
In Berlin Germany, the Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art opened a major exhibition on January 29th, 2005 – Regarding Terror: The RAF Exhibition. Through the works of some 40 contemporary artists working in various media, the exhibit focuses on Germany’s infamous terrorist organization, Red Army Faction (RAF). In the 1970’s and 80’s, the communist urban guerilla group conducted a violent…
Here’s a perfect example of why “news” distributed by mainstream sources should always be taken with a grain of salt. The Press Association, “the UK leader in news and sports information,” distributed a news release on Feb. 22nd that was picked up by a number of news websites, like the Manchester Evening News. The story concerns a painting of singer…
On January 29, 2005, I wrote an article titled Body Worlds: The Art of Plastic Corpses?, in which I criticized the popular traveling exhibitions of plasticized human bodies that have garnered so much national attention in the United States. On March 4, 2005, I wrote a follow-up article, Body Worlds Corpse Factory, which took a closer look at Gunther von…
Admirers and detractors of this blog may of late be wondering about the dearth of newly posted visuals and essays from me. Fear not intrepid readers, I suffer no lack of enthusiasm for writing about the political follies and foibles of the art world. So why the lack of posts? Has the muse left Vallen? Is he stuck in the…
