Virtuosity

Painting at Lascaux After writing Sunday’s post I kept being nagged by this additional passage from Denis Dutton‘s New York Times op ed piece: One trait of the ancestral personality persists in our aesthetic cravings: the pleasure we take in admiring skilled performances. From Lascaux to the Louvre to Carnegie Hall — where now and […]

Sagacity

Thomas Nozkowski, Untitled 7-95, 1997, oil on linen on panel, 16×20”. (Image courtesy of Max Protetch Gallery) My two major sage sources over the last few months have been Philip Guston and Thomas Nozkowski. Both artists are recognized for being extremely intelligent and cerebral; yet the power of their work is visceral and immediate. For […]

Energizing the Space

Detail view of David’s Death of Marat. Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Arts. The background was intentionally unfinished. In the preface to a book of poetry by Dylan Thomas, the poet said he was going to publish this group of poems so he would have to quit futzing with them. Once in print, he would […]

Letter to a Young Artist

Thomas Nozkowski, Untitled (7-72), 1995, Oil on linen on panel, 40.6 x 50.8 cm, Max Protecht Collection, © Thomas Nozkowski / Courtesy PaceWildenstein, New York. Some people have moderation built in, like a personality module fully loaded from birth. Those are the lucky souls who can sit in front of a bowl of chocolate covered […]

The Micchelli Litmus Test

William Powhida, “A Guide to the Market Oligopoly System” (Photo courtesy of Felix Salmon) The artisphere has been awash these last few weeks with opinions about art fairs, the brazen commercialization of fine art, changes in powerbrokering, and what’s hot. These topics are perennials that come and go like the cold virus that takes up […]

The Machinery at Hand

Donna Summer, RIP Donna Summer is gone. The queen of disco will never be forgotten by anybody who was alive in the 70’s. Come on. Admit it. We all danced wildly to her music. And it was fun. Disco doesn’t make it onto any of my playlists these days. But Summer is the sine qua […]