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UNDER THE RADAR

A spotlight for members.

Cindy Blakeslee

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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Recent Feature

The Educated Eye Part Two

The Educated Eye Part Two

I opened up an intriguing cauldron of worms when I asked a bevy of art writers (call them critics, journalists, or simply reviewers) on what it means to have an “eye.” Why did they consider their judgments superior to those of the average museumgoer or art lover? The...

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From the Vasari21 Archives

Artists Respond to the Pandemic Part 2

Here we are, now well into the third month of self-isolation, wearing our masks like good citizens if we go out at all, minding the headlines and the barrage of information, and perhaps generally adjusting to a global catastrophe whose true measure will not be known...

Ripe for Rediscovery: Pat Passlof

The last few years have witnessed a surge of interest in the women of Abstract Expressionism, a loosely affiliated group of artists who came of age in the shadow of the male titans of the movement—Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, et...

Crowd Funding Made Simple

It’s a good way to raise money for a project, for research, or for a publication like Vasari21 Crowd-sourcing has become a popular way for artists to fund specific projects, whether it’s a book or a body of work or a trip to do research. Two of the most popular...

Five Residencies off the Beaten Path: Part One

An artist's residency is a chance to get away from all the crazy distractions of modern life (iGadgets, family, openings, the news) and focus solely on your work. Some find their art growing from the experience, others value the contact with other creative souls, but...

Art Critics in the Time of Covid-19

What does an art critic do when the museums and galleries are closed? When classes are canceled (if you teach)? When your book spirals into limbo (if you have a publication in the works)? What does the future of art criticism look like as works migrate steadily to...

Total Immersion in Brooklyn

Deep in the heart of Bushwick, Michael David's residencies offer an intense experience that may take your art to new levels.  “A cross between Black Mountain and Project Runway” is the way Michael David sums up the residencies he’s been sponsoring about four times a...

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...

Another Opening, Another Show

The opening, duration, and end of a gallery or museum show can be cause for anxiety, depression, obsession, elation, relief, and any number of other emotional reactions that occur when you…

What Is a Drawing? Part Eight

In this, the eighth round-up of drawings from members of the site, I find myself running out of more to say about this oldest means of making an image. And yet even if I fall short on words, the artists never cease to amaze me with new ways to make a drawing....

“How did you decide to become an artist?”

My father asked me this question during the last months of his life. As a young man he had made the decision to not pursue a life as a concert pianist, choosing a career that was both more stable and also protected the privacy of his passion…

Archived Feature

Fantasy Curating: The Contemporary Portrait

Fantasy Curating: The Contemporary Portrait

By Kate Petley Contemporary portraiture is so diverse that creating a comprehensive list of artists is futile. I selected these particular works for their power, humor, cleverness, rawness, and beauty. Reflecting a broad interpretation of what qualifies as a portrait,...

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Archived Feature

Meghan Wilbar: The Long Road

Meghan Wilbar: The Long Road

It’s a brave artist who attempts to say something new about landscape. The genre has been around since ancient times, when frescoes of Arcadian vistas adorned the walls of upscale villas, and its popularity has waxed and waned according to the talents and interests of...

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Archived Feature

Portfolio: Bob Richardson

Portfolio: Bob Richardson

There were times, when he was younger, that Bob Richardson felt a pull toward art. As a teenager in South Orange, NJ, he attended the Art Students League in New York, where he took drawing classes with a painter named Tom Fogarty, who taught him that “line has...

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Archived Under the Radar

Jeannie Motherwell

Jeannie Motherwell

First off, let’s get the famous forebears out of the way. Yes, Jeannie Motherwell is the daughter of that Motherwell, Robert, one of the titans of mid-20th-century American art. And the stepdaughter of Helen Frankenthaler, no less famous in the annals of art history...

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Archived Under the Radar

Paul O’Connor

Paul O’Connor

Paul O’Connor first fell in love with photography when he joined the navy at the tender age of 17. “My dad gave me a camera, an Olympus, and I started taking pictures—especially of clouds out at sea," he recalls. Those big billowing skies would prove equally...

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 Archived Podcast