Editor’s Note
Immersive van Gogh
Show Biz with an Art Pedigree? On my last real vacation, about 12 years ago, I took a seven-day riverboat cruise along the Seine with eight other passengers aboard a boat intended for 42. It was one of the best trips ever, both for the company, a surprisingly...
Woody and Pablo: Crimes or Misdemeanors?
I fell down the rabbit hole with Woody Allen last week. Blame it on Google and Kate Winslet. I am often, in the wee hours, trolling something on the Big G called “stories to read” (well, what else are they for? They’re online; you can’t use them to line the litter...
A Modest Proposal for Recycling Monuments
One by one the old, bad monuments come tumbling down. In the wake of the brutal murder of George Floyd, protesters removed statues deemed racist and offensive, focusing first on heroes of the Confederacy like Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis. But...
Life Drawing via Zoom
Drawing from the live, nude model has been the mainstay of artists at least since the Renaissance, and the tradition has been kept alive in academies that still value the kind of eye-hand coordination that can only come from careful study of the complicated apparatus...
The Last of Marty (a Christmas Memory)
It’s a question people habitually ask in a place like Taos: How did you wind up (or, alternatively, end up) here? The connotations of that inquiry always feel to me somewhat negative, as though you’ve hit rock bottom and are staying at the YWCA in downtown Newark. But...
How to Talk to a Reporter
How to Talk to a Reporter Yes, believe it or not, it can happen to you—or maybe it already has. A writer from a local newspaper, an arts magazine, or perhaps, one day, even The New York Times will give a call or send an email, saying she wants to talk to you for a...
Savage Studio Visits
Be careful whom you invite As readers know from my adventures with a material called Dura-Lar and “Confessions of a Closet Painter,” I spend about ten hours a week in a corner of my friend TJ Mabrey’s studio, messing around with paint and affixing bits of the...
Where Is the Me in #MeToo?
Searching for a younger self When all the evidence of men misbehaving (Weinstein, Rose, Lauer, Close, and countless others) began spilling into the press last year, sexual harassment and sexual assault became a prime topic of discussion among women friends. I listened...
A Progress Report
Where are we, what are we doing, where are we going? I can remember when and where I first conceived the idea for Vasari21. I was staying in my friend Barbara Rachko’s apartment over the holidays in December 2015, while she was traveling in South America, and though...
How to Be an Art Star
Some cynical, perplexed, and possibly spot-on observations “Art star.” It’s a deplorable term, I know, but it’s out there as a label to describe those who have achieved a shining spot in the galaxy, commanding huge sums at auction, getting the nod from major critics,...
Further Thoughts on Collecting
Some unsolicited advice from a rank amateur I recently read online an excerpt from The Orange Balloon Dog: Bubbles, Turmoil and Avarice in the Contemporary Art Market, the latest book from economist and art market commentator Don Thompson, which will be available in...
The Biennial Brouhaha
Protests at the Whitney raise questions about race, politics, and bad painting In case you missed it, the big art-world kerfuffle of the week, possibly of the season, happened following the launch of the 2017 Whitney Biennial last week when several artists took...