Marcel Duchamp, Mona Lisa with Moustache, 1919.
5,752 words
I’m a recent transplant in this city. And as far as cities go, this one isn’t terrible. We live just over the hill from Erie, one of those giant inland seas carved from North America’s heartland, and it’s like having our own, muted stretch of coast for the quiet. (more…)
3,213 words
Andy Goldsworthy, Ice Ball
The English sculptor Andy Goldsworthy is a practitioner of Land art, a practice that seeks to create art from natural materials and settings. Other practitioners of Land art include Richard Long, Robert Smithson, and David Nash. Whilst there is this common element of setting art in (or creating it from) the landscape, there is also a particularly striking quality to Andy Goldsworthy’s work that sets him apart from other Land artists. In short, this particular quality of his work might be termed sacred or numinous. For this reason he is both lauded as a contemporary shaman and derided as a twee pastoralist. Neither extremity really reveals much about Goldsworthy’s art. (more…)
Los portadores de la antorcha (The Torch Bearers) (cast aluminum, University of Madrid, 1955)
2,069 words
Despite the triumph of modernism, a handful of American sculptors, including Anna Hyatt Huntington, creator of The Torch Bearers (1955), continued to work in the neoclassical mode prior to and after WWII. Huntington was highly regarded for her large-scale public commissions at a time when the preferred product of most women sculptors was the small bronze statuette. In the words of one art journalist, she “made a name for herself depicting fierce creatures, strong leaders, and legendary heroines.”
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1876 (more…)
155 words
H. P. Lovecraft is not just an inspiration to writers but also to visual artists who wish to translate his uncanny and sometimes elusive descriptions into visible realities. Harold Arthur McNeill is one of my favorite Lovecraftian artists. This portfolio of his paintings, drawings, sculptures, graphics, and book-bindings will show you why.
Mr. McNeill makes his living from his art, so if you like his work, please contact him at [email protected] to arrange a purchase or a commission. (more…)
Camille Paglia
595 words
On Wednesday, October 24, 2012, some friends and I met at Jupiter Pizza in Berkeley and then went to see Camille Paglia speaking on her latest book Glittering Images at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.
The auditorium was almost packed. Paglia spoke for about 90 minutes, answered one question for about 10 minutes more, then signed books for an hour or so. (more…)
Donald De Lue, Rocket Thrower, 1964
2,236 words
For nearly 50 years between 1940 and 1988, Donald De Lue (1897–1988) may have executed more monumental public commissions than any other sculptor of his generation. An iconoclastic figurative artist in an era dominated by apostles of ugliness in art, art criticism, and academia, De Lue’s monumental sculpture adorns such sites as Valley Forge, the Gettysburg Battlefield, Omaha Beach at Normandy, and the 1964 New York World’s Fair.
2,811 words
Camille Paglia
Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars
New York: Pantheon, 2012
Camille Paglia’s Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson
time: 11:01
155 words
H. P. Lovecraft is not just an inspiration to writers but also to visual artists who wish to translate his uncanny and sometimes elusive descriptions into visible realities. Harold Arthur McNeill is one of my favorite Lovecraftian artists. This portfolio of his paintings, drawings, sculptures, graphics, and book-bindings will show you why. (more…)
