December 31, 2014

New 'Redskins' Diorama for Natural History?





















Diorama for a future Natural History Museum?  ('There once lived in this area a tribe that used racial epithets to name its sports franchises. They were known as the Whites Without Faces.’) 

(DCA, 12/25/14, Southwest Airlines gates)

December 12, 2014

time to take another look at Leon Golub


Interrogation I (1981) 

Interrogation II (1981) 


Interrogation III (1981) (detail)

White Squad (El Salvador) IV (1983)




www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4eLYXJIZfg

















February 14, 2014

Amazon: Gatekeeper of the art world?




 Dürer is selling his art on Amazon; Helen Frankenthaler too, but Hans Haacke 'did not match any products.'  The new 'gatekeepers' in the world of so-called fine art? Look at Amazon's new beta art site  and read George Packer's New Yorker article about Amazon (2/17/2014 issue). Who, in the future, will tell us whether a given artist/work of art is good? Will you buy an abstract painting from Amazon or Gagosian? Who will ship it free, tax free? Moreover, Bezos can hire even more art historians to talk the talk .... and, consumer reviews will surely be very instructive. "I looked at it twice and it stopped working."








Kennicott's blues

Sorry to see the otherwise admirable Philip Kennicott come down with art-critico-valetudinarianism: “… for art, if there is such a thing anymore." Yikes. There’s really nothing wrong with the art world that a good revolution wouldn’t fix (or maybe just a change in the tax code).