Postmodern art is ostensibly challenging and aggressively cerebral, but I find it mostly hollow, complacent and ultimately tied to centers of power. Many disagree with me, but this antagonism between camps was effusively illustrated in a Guardian article titled, Best of British? Art critic Jonathan Jones used his special brand of seething anti-populist rhetoric to heap scorn upon graffiti artist…
During the last few months in New York City, someone has taken to destroying the illicit stencil graffiti art and wheat-pasted posters of that city by splashing them with brightly colored daubs of paint. Nicknamed “the Splasher” by the media, the perpetrator has for the most part ignored the majority of street art, preferring instead to purposefully target and deface…
During the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon released to American troops a wanted list of Iraqi leaders that came in the form of a deck of cards. The playing cards featured photos and information about various government henchmen, and were designed to help U.S. troops identify and capture members of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Now, four years after the…
The Power of Art, an engrossing series that takes a close-up look at the life and times of eight master artists, begins its series premiere tonight on PBS (Monday, June 18th, 2007.) Created by fêted art historian and author, Simon Schama, the broadcasts focus on Mark Rothko, Jacques-Louis David, Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, Rembrandt van Rijn, Caravaggio, Vincent van Gogh, J.M.W….
To celebrate the 100th birthday of artist Frida Kahlo, which falls on July 6th, 2007, Mexico’s Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts) is exhibiting the largest body of Kahlo’s artworks ever to be put on public display anywhere in the world. Opening June 13th, 2007 and running until August 19th, 2007, the show is the first comprehensive exhibit…
Modernism: Designing A New World, 1914-1939, now showing at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., until July 29, 2007, was initially planned and exhibited by London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. At the time of its premiere in the U.K., I wrote a short article in praise of the exhibition, but now that the show has reached the U.S.,…
Sometimes an artist’s efforts to endure an indifferent society seems an unbearable, uphill battle. When on occasion I’m feeling disheartened, I find solace by reading about what other artists have had to put up with in the course of their careers. Such reading usually provides me with enough consolation to shake off my negative mind-set and enthusiastically return to my…
Corporate advertising art and design without a doubt makes up much of the modern urban environment we move through on a daily basis. It has become so omnipresent that people barely notice it, inciting major advertising corporations to dream up new schemes for attention getting in an ever escalating battle over shaping public opinion. As a result, more than a…
