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NATO, Han Solo, and the Death Star

When I first saw the bizarre dispatch from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that was circulating on the internet, I thought it was fake, so I checked the official NATO Twitter account. The communique was there, beaming with all the pride the military alliance could muster. The quirky missive read: “Ukraine is hosting one of the great epics of…

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Rage Against The War

I created the silkscreen print No Más Guerra (No More War) in 1983. It was a statement against the wars then raging in Central America and around the globe during the Cold War, including the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Later, in the 2000s, I distributed the poster at antiwar protests against the US war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now unbelievably,…

Not NOW Shahzia Sikander!
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Not NOW Shahzia Sikander!

On Jan. 14, 2023 a golden bronze statue of a “femalefigure” was installed on the rooftop of the Appellate Division Courthouse of New York State. Created by 53-year-old Pakistani-American artist Shahzia Sikander and titled NOW, it’s a tribute to, but not a portrait of, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her “fight for abortion rights.” It’s also…

Hunter Biden’s very first art investigation

On Oct. 14, 2021 Hunter Biden showed his stupefyingly expensive but unskilled artworks at Milk Studios in Hollywood, California. Soon after the show I wrote an unflattering review titled Hunter Biden’s very first art exhibit. Hunter’s art career has certainly garnered much attention since then, in large part due to the efforts of Georges Bergès, the Manhattan gallerist who represents…

Karl Bodmer: Faces from the Interior
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Karl Bodmer: Faces from the Interior

As an artist, I see Karl Bodmer’s artworks as key to understanding America. I discovered his works in the late 1960s and have studied them every since. He was an artist-adventurer in the mid-1800s who travelled the wilds of North America to document the lives of indigenous people with sketches, water colors, and elaborate oil paintings. I always found Bodmer’s…

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The Embrace Does Not Convey Greatness

The Embrace, a new sculpture dedicated to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King, has turned out to be contentious rather than unifying. Black conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas won the commission to create the monument now displayed in the Boston Common of Massachusetts. What Thomas came up with is a headless bronze structure—a jumble of…

A Cowboy at Rest with the Rough Riders
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A Cowboy at Rest with the Rough Riders

In December 2022 my wife Jeannine and I fled Lost Angeles, California to vacation in the wilds of Arizona. The following impressions and photos will describe our adventures in the Wild West of the Union’s 48th state. We first visited Prescott, the historic city in Yavapai County. The population of Prescott is around 45,800 souls, which is just about the…

A Christmas Carol, animated.

If you’re like me… you can’t stomach the computerized junk that passes for animation these days. It being Christmas and all, I have the perfect solution for you; a 1971 animated short that clocks in at 25 minutes that’s based on Charles Dickens’ 1843 tale, A Christmas Carol. It’s almost a perfect adaptation, even though it’s a bit short. My…