Ward Kimball – Art Afterpieces

In the early 1960s, American artist Ward Kimball (1914-2002) began to playfully alter reproductions of Old Master paintings; he painted directly on the mass-produced replicate masterworks, substantially altering the prints by inserting a number of incongruous images, or sometimes only slightly changing the facsimiles by inserting the tiniest of details. Kimball was a superb draftsman, caricaturist, and cartoonist employed by…

A Postmodern 4th of July

Recent circumstances dictate a reconsideration of the American Revolution of 1776. The revelations that the Obama administration is currently running a massive, all encompassing surveillance operation that spies on average Americans, is but another example of why the U.S. and its democracy are in dire straits. However, the crisis we face is much more than a “political” question, it is…

Big Brother Is Watching You

“I don’t want to live in a world where there’s no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.” – Edward Snowden. As of today, this web log will go on hiatus for an indefinite period as a silent protest against the colossal spying operation the Obama administration has unleashed upon the American people. On June 9, 2013,…

Echoes of Weimar

Barthel Gilles (1891-1977) was one of those artists overlooked by history, he was a fabulously talented painter who lived during the rise and fall of Germany’s Weimar Republic (1919-1933), not to mention the ascendancy and demise of the Nazi regime. An undeniably idealistic and passionate artist, he was not left unscathed by the terrible days he passed through; one could…

Artists Call: Teach at Gitmo!

The Joint Task Force U.S. military authorities at Guantánamo Bay have announced employment opportunities at the famed Guantánamo Bay detention and interrogation camp located inside the luxurious Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. The facility, commonly known as Gitmo (but called the “gulag of our times” by Amnesty International), is interested in contractors that can provide seminars in Art, Literacy, Science,…