Seeing the debate over Confederate statues resurface has me thinking about Mark Bradford’s Pickett Charge piece at the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington DC. Continue reading Mark Bradford, Pickett’s Charge, and confronting the “Lost Cause” Narrative in Art.
Artists may experience loneliness more than anyone else. Making art is an inherently lonely endeavor. To succeed, you must spend hours alone in a studio, with just your own thoughts and frustrations. I’m well-acquainted with loneliness. Since childhood, I have never felt I fit in anywhere. I always seem to find myself among people unlike me, growing up in an affluent, conservative suburb, living abroad for … Continue reading What I’m Reading: Intersections of Art and Loneliness in The Lonely City
This weekend I had a chance to watch The 100 Years show, a short documentary streaming on Netflix about the minimalist painter Carmen Herrera. I highly recommend it to anyone, and not just to those interested in abstract art. This was a woman who followed her passion every day for decades, despite being resigned to anonymity due to her gender and also, perhaps, her Cuban-American heritage. There is something pure … Continue reading What if You Created Art for Decades and No One Cared?
Better late than never! This is my travelog about Ghent, Belgium where we saw The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, the most impressive work to come out of the Northern Renaissance. It was also Adolph Hitler’s most coveted work for his Führer Museum in Linz, Austria, which was never built. I learned all this reading The Monuments Men about the Allied military units who tracked down and saved … Continue reading The Ghent Altarpiece
Just a quick update this week. Took a little day trip over to Frankfurt Saturday where we finally got to see the Städel Museum, a small treasure trove of Renaissance, Flemish and later Impressionist and modernist work. The place is bejeweled with work by Vermeer, Hans Holbein, Hieronymous Bosch, Albrecht Dürer, and Botticelli. It still blows me away how every European city has a collection the … Continue reading What Makes a Great Painting?
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