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UNDER THE RADAR

A spotlight for members.

Cindy Blakeslee

Recent Feature

The Immortal Mona Lisa

The Immortal Mona Lisa

A new novel recalls a famous heist. I’ve just finished reading Jonathan Santlofer’s hugely entertaining thriller The Last Mona Lisa, a lively yarn that taps into our present-day fascination with all things Leonardo and takes the reader into the sometimes violent...

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Recent Feature

My Blockhead Adventures with Blockchain Art, Part Four

My Blockhead Adventures with Blockchain Art, Part Four

Many say it’s all a bubble. I don’t agree because the world is sick producing extremes of weather and behavior, people are struggling and if creators can find a way to express themselves or promote a worthy cause AND make money then It is not going away anytime soon

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From the Vasari21 Archives

The Immortal Mona Lisa

A new novel recalls a famous heist. I’ve just finished reading Jonathan Santlofer’s hugely entertaining thriller The Last Mona Lisa, a lively yarn that taps into our present-day fascination with all things Leonardo and takes the reader into the sometimes violent...

Open Studios: Part Two

Make it a social event “I went through a depressing period when I thought I was all alone in my part of the world,” says Diane Di Bernardino Sanborn, who lives in Scottsdale, AZ, and makes largely abstract work. “There are no galleries in my area for contemporary art....

How are you? No, I mean, really, how are you?

Artists talk about altered states during the pandemic We are now about seven months into a worldwide catastrophe that has affected nearly every fiber and facet of our being. Many of us have been sheltering in place, limiting our contacts with the outside world,...

Golden Artist Programs

Nice Work if You Can Get It When I noticed that several painters who are Vasari21 members had certification from Golden Artist Colors—a company that specializes in acrylic paints, mediums, and grounds and has officially been around since 1950—I was curious about what...

The Death of the Gallery? Part One

Hey, not so fast! But first the bad news…. In the last year or so, there have been several alarming reports about the demise of the mid-level, or mid-tier, gallery—those stalwart spaces that show new art and support artists who may never achieve superstar status but...

Writing into the Gap

How to get a grip when a work of art leaves you almost speechless By Millicent Young It happened again. Within seconds: scalp tingling, forearms in goose bumps, the held breath released and then tears. I am in a gallery seeing Ursula von Rydingsvard’s work on a...

Painting with Big Mama

By Phillis Ideal I still see Big Mama leaning over her garden to pick a zinnia to put in her still life. Her old pink slip hung diagonally, a foot below her hiked-up stained dress, half-covered by her paint smock, which matched her white faux-fur bedroom slippers,...

In the Beginning (Nonbiblical Version)

By Ed Haddaway In many ways my lifetime has been spent in what was our backyard. Far from being chained like our first collie, Lassie (in the1950s there was no other possible dog anyone, anywhere, could have), I have roamed freely for these past 68 years. In fact,...

My Blockhead Adventures with Blockchain Art, Part Two: “Your Move”

The Lady Bishop (detail) from Filippucci's "Chess Series" YOUR MOVE After getting acquainted with the basic elements of NFTs (see PART ONE), my next move was to purchase some Ethereum cryptocurrency to pay for the “gas” fees to have each “minted” and put up for...

Say It with Flowers: Part One

Blooms, posies, blossom, and gardens will never go out of style About a year ago, somewhere on social media, I made the rather stupid observation that I thought flowers had become nonstarters as subjects for artists since the heyday of Georgia O’Keeffe. Elisabeth...

Archived Feature

Ripe for Rediscovery: Maria Lassnig

Ripe for Rediscovery: Maria Lassnig

No doubt there are those who are familiar with the paintings of Maria Lassnig, the Austrian-born artist who kicked off Kate Petley’s round of fantasy curating on the site two weeks ago. But I had never heard of her before and was beguiled by Lassnig’s You or Me...

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Archived Feature

Fantasy Curating: Beyond the Book

Fantasy Curating: Beyond the Book

By Iain Machell Think of a book and you usually have a specific image in mind, probably a codex form (pages bound in the center) with some combination of text and images, meant to be read from left to right. But when you list the components of a book, pick apart that...

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Archived Feature

Conversations with Friends

Conversations with Friends

If you could talk to any artist, dead or alive, whom would you choose? What would you ask? I know from hard-won experience that artists can be maddeningly difficult to talk to. While some—Frank Stella and Jim Dine are two who come to mind—are on good terms with the...

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Archived Under the Radar

Robert Parker

Robert Parker

By the time he was twelve, Robert Parker had discovered his twin passions in life. Having read about Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, and other master builders as a kid, he determined on architecture as a career. But he was drawn to the visual arts as well and...

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Archived Under the Radar

Peri Schwartz

Peri Schwartz

Peri Schwartz’s affinity for the subjects that have preoccupied her for decades started when she was growing up in Far Rockaway, a seaside neighborhood in Queens, NY. She would set up objects to draw when her parents went out on a Saturday night so they could see...

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 Archived Podcast

Liliana Bloch: Texas Strong

Liliana Bloch: Texas Strong

Gallerist Liliana Bloch has had one of the more unusual routes for an art dealer. In 1999, she fled war-torn El Salvador to forge a new life for herself in Dallas, TX…

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