The Ladette, indeed Here’s another shout out for a great piece on Tracey Emin from the Times Online. Emin is having her first show in London in four years which, by design, should incite the usual contentiousness since it is an animation of a woman masturbating. Tracey is ready for the onslaught. “‘They’ll hate it!’ […]
Month: May 2009
You Tell ‘Em, Michelle
Michelle Obama spoke at the ribbon cutting for the opening of the new American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “First Guns” as some like to call our beautifully appendaged wife of the Prez, is as gracious in her remarks here as she is in so many other settings. Face it, during the last […]
Finding Your Audience
An essential tension exists in the making and the marketing of expression—be it books, plays, paintings, music, newspapers or blogs. Finding an audience is an essential step, but it is not as simple as the usual quantifying approach suggests. One of the big ideas in the Internet space over the last five years is Chris […]
That Was All That Happened
The Day of the Sun Arriving early at the limit of understanding, I managed to find a good seat, and settled in with the others, who were fanning away the heat with their programs full of blank pages. The orchestra was in place, and soon the show started. First, deep space rose high and flooded […]
Venus of Hohle Fels
The latest “venus figurine” find from the Hohle Fels cave in Germany is an extraordinary portrayal of the female form. Wow. This one is a knock out. So expressive, so wildly physical. What baffles me is the word used in much of the press coverage of this 35,000 year old sculpture: pornographic. Hello? Pornographic because […]
Art Czar Candidate: Whitmanesque Choice?
Finally, word from those on the inside track has it that Obama has picked someone to head up the National Endowment for the Arts: Rocco Landesman. Here’s the report from the Times in which Tony Kushner has a very memorable quote: “It’s potentially the best news the arts community in the United States has had […]
Frustration, Wrapped in an Enigma
More from my side of the room, where I’m having trouble speaking (and painting, to be honest) but so appreciate finding the words of others that hit on target. I’ve had a life long frustrating dance with the complications, transparencies and overt discrepancies around gender. It is one of those ambient weather systems that I […]
Rose Art Museum, from a Distance
I’ve been following the Rose Art Museum’s undoing here and on Slow Painting. Over the weekend London-based The Guardian ran an article about this unfortunate state of affairs as well. Reading about the Rose from that Eurocentric point of view brought on another layer of frustration for me. Funding crisis … Visitors tour the Rose […]
I’m Talkin To You
Jet Sometimes I wish I were still out on the back porch, drinking jet fuel with the boys, getting louder and louder as the empty cans drop out of our paws like booster rockets falling back to Earth and we soar up into the summer stars. Summer. The big sky river rushes overhead, bearing asteroids […]
Lovin’ the Light
Collaborative group Lead Pencil’s “Arrival at 2 a.m.” For those of us with pioneer DNA, being lazy is tantamount to committing the worst criminal acts, like dealing drugs or murdering baby seals. So posting a shout out here instead of coining my own words is not, I repeat, not laziness. I’m getting ready for a […]