This highly focused exhibition takes a look at one of the “most innovative, momentous and little studied periods in the long career of Matisse.” It begins when he left Morocco and returned to Paris in 1913 and ends when he left Paris for Nice in 1917. The works from these years are extremely reworked –abstraction [...]
I headed down to Louisville, Kentucky for the first time to check out the hotel/museum 21c owned by Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson. The red penguin, seen above in pajamas for their annual pajama party fundraiser, is the logo and mascot of the establishment. The 90-room property, which occupies five 19th-century brick buildings on West [...]
Art Basel 2010. Overall, some excellent works on view. There were fewer Americans visiting than in previous years but buying still seemed to be happening for smaller ticket items. I preferred Volta and Liste which had some really great works by artists I had not heard of before and some by better-known artists for “accessible” [...]
In a span of only eight short years, Jean-Michel Basquiat created about 1000 paintings and more than 2000 drawings– all before his death at the age of 27. In honor of what would have been his 50th birthday, Fondation Beyeler has a retrospective on view with over 150 paintings and works on paper from private [...]
Yinka Shonibare’s Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square is the first commission by a black British artist and also the first one that is specifically linked to the history of Trafalgar Square. It takes the notion of awe and childish wonder of a ship in a bottle to a monumental [...]
Throughout history charms and talismans made from natural materials were given spiritual power or were believed to transmit that power to their human owners. Artists in this exhibition make art from once living materials which act as reminders of death and decay and help us to create narratives about the world and our place in [...]
The Chinese artist, Xu Bing, currently has a work on view in the “Dead or Alive” exhibit at the Museum of Arts and Design. The acclaimed artist Xu Bing has worked in a variety of media throughout his career. His works are original and creative and often related to materials from the natural world. In [...]
Not at all what I was expecting, this show did not include a film but an installation-like experience with a couple of sculptures and a number of black and white watercolor works that left me breathless. With subjects of settings (both interior and exterior spaces) devoid of people, there is a haunting quality to the [...]
What a lovely two hours! I really enjoy Bradford’s work so looking at slides of a survey of his work currently on view at the Wexner Center for the Arts was great, but it was his energetic personality and down to earth take on life that was the pleasant surprise. Bor nin 1961, Bradford grew [...]
I never met the artist Louise Bourgeois but the stories I heard made me wish I had. Full of life and working up until her final days, I admired her feisty spirit and the love and emotion she poured into her creations. I was introduced to her work with the spider that filled the Turbine [...]