Today the Associated Press reported that the U.S. Department of Defense confirmed the deaths of four U.S. soldiers in Iraq, bringing the American death toll to 4,000. When I posted my very first article on this blog in November of 2004, some 849 U.S. soldiers had been killed in Iraq. The four American soldiers who lost their lives today died…
To mark the 5th anniversary of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, Foreign Policy in Focus magazine asked me to write a review of Artists Against The War, an exhibition of antiwar art organized and presented by the New York-based Society of Illustrators. The following article was originally published in FPIF, March 18, 2008. ______________ On May 1, 2003, George…
The Whitney Biennial 2008 at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art is thought of by some as an important but frequently contentious survey of contemporary American art. It unveils the latest trends and directions in the U.S. art scene as well as plumbing the zeitgeist of the nation. If you accept that premise then you might conclude that the…
February, 2008 marked the 100th anniversary of “The Eight Independent Painters” exhibition at New York’s MacBeth Gallery. The event changed the face of American art and established the country’s very first avant-garde art movement. The Eight broke the rules of convention by painting the realities of New York’s working poor instead of the lives and accomplishments of the well-to-do class,…
There are few independent observers of the art world who have not commented on the role money has played in shaping and distorting the arts in recent years. That reality was probably best expressed, inadvertently, by Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s Worldwide Head of Contemporary Art and chief auctioneer, who in 2006 said, “The best art is the most expensive because the…
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…
Tables at the elite soirée cost $25,000 (silver), $50,000 (gold) or $100,000 (platinum). Guests included Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger and California’s first lady Maria Shriver, as well as Tom Cruise, Christina Aguilera and a bevy of Hollywood stars. And what was the occasion? – the ostentatious debut party for the Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM), which houses the modern art collection…
My painting, A People Under Command: USA Today, is included in the traveling exhibit, Fundamental, which opens at Espacio de Cultura LA BOCA in Madrid, Spain, Feb. 21, 2008. Exploring the sensitive subject of religious fundamentalism in the 21st century, the group show at the Madrid gallery runs until until March 2nd, 2008. LA BOCA is located in the Lavapiés…
