Bridget Riley Bridget Riley describes her mother thus: “She was always pointing out colours: in the sea; the sparkle of dew: changes of colour when the dew was brushed away. If she arranged anything on the table like a bowl of fruit […] she would point out the colours. ‘Look it’s almost got a blue […]
Adrift
The road to the Salts’ house, Fairfax County Everyone along the eastern seaboard has their own Saturday storm story, and I’m no different. I went to Washington DC to see my it’s-been-too-long nieces and nephews on Friday. I ended up having to wait until Sunday afternoon to finally make it to the Salt house. Our […]
Responses to Jung’s Red Book
Rubin Museum of Art chief curator, Martin Brauen, left, and Felix Walder, great-grandson to Carl Jung, inspect Carl Jung’s “The Red Book” (Photo: Rubin Museum) The Rubin Museum exhibit (and accompanying lecture series) that features The Red Book by Carl Jung has been on my mind since I first saw the show a few months […]
More on Museum Expansion
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston I just found a spunky rebuttal to the much-discussed article by the Times’ Robin Pogrebin about the recent era of museum overbuilding. Pogrebin’s article is referenced in yesterday’s post, and anyone who has read her piece should also read through Lee Rosenbaum’s article on CultureGrrl, Not Dead Yet: Museum Building […]
Smorgasbord
I suddenly found myself with a basketful of things to share, so here is a potpourri of links to explore in more depth: The great Jerry Saltz, who has been a tireless champion for gender equality in the visual arts, has done his best with the 2010 Whitney Biennial: 52 percent women! Regina Hackett at […]
Cracking the Nut
Ert, by Tomma Abts, 2003. 48cm x 38cm. Boros Collection, Berlin Timing can be a bitch. One of the most poignant examples for me is the 2008 publication, Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton. The “sociologist of culture” (self-titled perhaps?) spent five years assembling her book about the red hot, way cool, […]
All That is Other and Beyond Us
Oaks tree in Cumbria Alain de Botton writes both fiction and nonfiction. His books are engaging, clever and just downright fun. Although I’ve never read any of his three novels (not sure why that is) I have every one of his nonfiction publications. His titles make picking up his books irresistible (IMHO), with names like […]
Books About Color
For anyone who is susceptible to the energetics of color (my hand is up), reading about it can also be intoxicating. Here are a few great books for those who revel in this inexplicably mysterious and lush bennie of life on this planet: *** Written by a journalist who travels the world exploring the original […]
Life as a Foreign Language
How is it that one day life is orderly and you are content, a little cynical perhaps but on the whole just so, and then without warning you find the solid floor is a trapdoor and you are now in another place whose geography is uncertain and whose customs are strange? Travelers at least have […]
We Are What We Eat (Hear, See, Learn)
Bill McKibben has been a longstanding writer about the environment and sustainability. His first book, The End of Nature, was published in the late 80’s. That was followed by The Age of Missing Information, published in 1992. Missing Information explores the differences in the quality of the experience of 24 hours spent watching television versus […]