Here’s a perfect example of why “news” distributed by mainstream sources should always be taken with a grain of salt. The Press Association, “the UK leader in news and sports information,” distributed a news release on Feb. 22nd that was picked up by a number of news websites, like the Manchester Evening News. The story concerns a painting of singer…
Pioneering American architect Philip Johnson died on Tuesday, January 25th, 2005, he was 98 years old. His controversial designs encompassed everything from magnificent corporate headquarters to the Crystal Cathedral in Los Angeles. Johnson coined the architectural term international style and invented the role of museum architecture curator at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in 1931. Terrence Riley, the…
In Berlin Germany, the Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art opened a major exhibition on January 29th, 2005 – Regarding Terror: The RAF Exhibition. Through the works of some 40 contemporary artists working in various media, the exhibit focuses on Germany’s infamous terrorist organization, Red Army Faction (RAF). In the 1970’s and 80’s, the communist urban guerilla group conducted a violent…
In 2004 the California Science Center in the Exposition Park of Los Angeles, presented Body Worlds: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies. In the words of the museum, “Thanks to the breakthrough process of plastination, more than 200 real human specimens are displayed to reveal an extraordinary new look inside the human body.” As a realist artist I naturally…
The Coronation of Napoleon and Josephine (detail) Jacques-Louis David 1805-7.
Starting this January 6th, the Stephen Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles is holding an exhibit of photos by Tseng Kwong Chi, and reading from the press release the show presents “tongue-in-cheek images of the artist posing as a Chinese Communist dignitary or ‘Ambiguous Ambassador’ in a world utterly alien to his persona, complete with the classic Mao suit, dark glasses…
What is Neoism? Just another permutation of postmodern entropy. An incomprehensible and pointless muddle posturing as the latest avant-garde art movement. Best summed up by its founder, Istvan Kantor, when he stated, “We are the Neoists, do not listen to us.” German police arrested Kantor last November on charges of property damage. He had splashed a container of his own…
This photo shows a US occupation soldier standing near a painting by an anonymous Iraqi artist. The artwork was inspired by the tales of One Thousand and One Nights, the classic book of Arab literature. First compiled in Arabic during the 9th century, the stories have inspired untold thousands of artists. It is the only Arabic work to have become…
