While watching the televised opening ceremonies for the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, I was stunned to hear the anchorman casually mention the fact that the stadium had been “built by Benito Mussolini,” a fact to which was attributed no historical context or significance. I found myself wondering if such a nonchalant attitude would have been taken had the stadium been…
The National Guard Association of the United States commissioned a life-sized portrait bust of President Bush from famed artist, Charles Parks, who for the last 50 years has created over 500 sculptures in the realist tradition. In a special February 9th ceremony at the National Guard Building in Washington DC, Park’s bronze statue memorializing Bush’s service in the Texas Air…
The Italian Futurists had an obsession with all things modern, the city, the automobile, the plane. They turned their backs on the past and set their sites on the technological future, hence their name. Their mania for speed, whether that of a fast moving car or a diving plane, was based upon a veneration of technology; they even came to…
The militant symbol of the clenched fist has been around since the early 1900’s, springing up in graphics from Mexico and the US, to Europe and Russia. Typically depicted as part of the human figure, holding tools or other symbols, or breaking through a barricade, the iconographic fist underwent a change at some point in the 1960’s; it became an…
No it’s not a law firm, but you might be asking, “what on earth do those names have in common?” On January 17th, Artnet Magazine reported that the “Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, has added three new trustees to its board, among them artist Ed Ruscha, whose work has been included in eight exhibitions at the museum over the…
[ Dozens of people packed Avenue 50 Studio for a slide show and lecture on the subject of art, religion, and politics ] It was a standing room only crowd at the Artist’s Forum on Art & Politics, held at L.A.’s Avenue 50 Studio. Part of its Don’t Talk About Religion or Politics exhibit, the event took place on January…
[ Opening night at Ave 50 Studio – “Don’t Talk About Religion or Politics” ] The January 7th Los Angeles opening of the Don’t Talk About Religion or Politics exhibit was a resounding success, with hundreds of interested people attending. Held at the much beloved Ave 50 Studio in the Highland Park area of L.A., the show attracted individuals from…
The federal government has decided to eliminate funding for the Museum of the Plains Indian in Browning, Montana. Opened to the public in 1941, the museum not only houses a major collection of historic artifacts from America’s plains tribes, it hosts frequent exhibitions by contemporary American Indian artists. The Daily Inter Lake of Montana reports that the museum’s annual budget…
