Ed Moses
The recent passing of Ed Moses reminded curator and critic David S. Rubin how 40 years ago Moses altered his grasp of West Coast art. More...
Having a Good Time?
The recent art world documentary "Blurred Lines," James Yood tells us, talks a lot about the art world, but no much about the art itself. More...
Two Novels for Artists
A one time English Lit teacher, Matthew Kangas combines that ongoing interest with his primary immersion in art writing here, with a pair of recommended 20th-century novels by Virginia Woolf and Robert Plunkett that will resonate with artists and art fans. More...
Art and Archetype at the Louvre Abu Dhabi
Jean Nouvel's design of the newly opened Louvre Abu Dhabi is simultaneously ancient in inspiration and space-age, low-slung and soaring, an inviting oasis of flowing water and rectilinear planes. More...
Refrigerated Art
Two installations, one by Mary Corse, another by Adrian Villar Rojas, employ refrigeration to interesting and divergent purpose. More than temperature, we get and enhanced sensory experience in Corse's "Cold Room"; and a vehicle for preservation of an epoch in Rojas' "Theater of disappearance. More...
“Annus Horribilis”
James Yood looks back as "a year of disaster or misfortune," the hopeful note for the art world being the current administration's indifference to it. A reproduction of Renoir's "Two Sisters" that Trump owns he refers to as an original serves as an apt metaphor. More...
Keeping an Eye Open
DeWitt Cheng introduces us to English essayist Julian Barnes' fluent, conversation commentary on art. More...
An Antidote for Our Woes
Yayoi Kusama's "Infinity Rooms" are among the finest, and certainly most popular examples of the genre of interactive or immersive installation. In them you experience what it feels like to be at the core of infinity while seeing a latticework of lines moving in all directions. More...
Reversing the Gender Mirror
The reverberations of aesthetically driven feminism are apparent in the current discussion surrounding sexual harassment. More...
Polychromed
This time the Legion of Honor gets it right. "Gods in Color: Polychromy in the Ancient World" takes down a long misconstrued cultural myth. More...
What Museum-goers Really Want: Ice Cream
A new study of public cultural habits revealed that art has, for a majority of Americans, become just another form of entertainment. And nothing has recently personified this more horrifically than the trés popular Museum of Ice Cream. More...
Seattle’s Best of 2017
Matthew Kangas revisits Seattle's top exhibitions of 2017, and discovers a scene currently in a state of exceptional flux. More...
The Greatest Rediscovery?
The rediscovered da Vinci portrait of Jesus goes up for auction, and a new biography's film rights promise a big 21st century moment. More...
Andrew Wyeth’s Darkness and Light
Painted primarily in opaque tempera or watercolor, Andrew Wyeth's landscapes, portraits, interiors, and still lifes are ethereally delicate, worthy of scrutiny. They make a strong case for the continuing relevance of unapologetic realism. More...
The Walking Cure
The heartlessness of much contemporary art, argues DeWitt Cheng, reflects the lack of an ethical center in American culture. More...
Moonlighting Movie Stars
Hollywood celebs like Brad Pitt or Jim Carrey tend to infuriate many artists by gaining undeserved attention for art that is half baked. Still, reminds Richard Speer, everyone is entitled to their own free expression. More...
Whose Kickstart Was This Anyway?
A Kickstarter campaign in support of Michael Rakowitz’s “Enemy Kithen” project seemed honorable enough until James Yood noticed it wasn’t exactly the artist who was doing the solicitation. More...
Robbie Conal's Political Art
In the current zeitgeist, there is a need for political activist artists. Robbie Conal meets and then exceeds this need. More...
Not “Good Muse”
San Francisco's Legion of Honor's latest effort to bring contemporary artwork into dialogue with its collection simply flops. More...
