In the late 1700s the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) created a series of eighty etchings he titled Los Caprichos (The Caprices). An irrational thought or action can be a “caprice,” and Spanish society at the time provided Goya with myriad examples of ferocious caprices. For instance, Goya created paintings and prints that wryly scrutinized the Spanish…
Art and China’s Revolution is the latest exhibition at the Asia Society Museum in New York City. Running until Jan. 11, 2009, the exhibit focuses on the propaganda art produced in China during the so-called Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution period of 1966-1976. The exhibit displays some 250 large-scale oil paintings, sculptures, woodblock prints, ink paintings, drawings, posters, and other art…
When I wrote a critique of the March 25th Whither Arts Journalism in LA? public forum, I didn’t expect it to strike such a deep chord with people. My analysis of the event stirred dozens of working artists, gallery owners, curators, educators and art lovers to send me encouraging e-mails. Of the dozens who have wrote to me, none were…
On January 29, 2005, I wrote about Body Worlds being one of the most popular exhibits ever to have been presented at The California Science Center in Los Angeles’ Exposition Park. Body Worlds is hailed as art by some, and was conceived by Gunther von Hagens. His “artwork” consists of actual human bodies that have been injected with molten plastic…
A major exhibition of socially engaged artworks is presently on display at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts in Los Angeles. Art of Engagement presents works that address major world conflicts and conflagrations, from the Spanish Civil War, the Holocaust and Hiroshima, to the Vietnam war and the present debacle in Iraq. Some of the artists included in this amazing show include…
I could write about the catastrophic loss the nation has suffered with the destruction of historic architecture in Louisiana and Mississippi, or of the damage done to museums and cultural institutions. But for me, the one story that so far sums up the appalling cultural losses suffered by the nation (and the world), comes from a cultural task force set…
