Art
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History in Color
At Hyperallergic, Chris Cobb explores new photography exhibits featuring over 200 color photos from a recently rediscovered collection by Gordon Parks. The collection dates from 1956, when Parks was commissioned by LIFE magazine to capture the day-to-day of black families in segregated…
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Can Creativity Be Taught?
Is creativity something we are born with? Can it only be nurtured, or can it be taught? Scientist discuss this age-old question for PRI.
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The Art of the Prostitute
Joseph Nechvatal writes for Hyperallergic on the Musée d’Orsay’s “splendid but miserable” collection of art from around Paris’s Belle Époque, a collection that focuses specifically on the representation of prostitutes in the period’s cultural climate.
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Books as Beautiful Objects
Perhaps some buyers do judge books by their covers. A designer has been turning classic literature into beautiful objects. Coralie Bickford-Smith, a London-based book jacket designer for Penguin, convinced the publisher to begin a line of books with traditional cloth…
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Artists as Activists
I was recently asked by a young interviewer if writing, with all the time it takes and its use of paper (though I compose on a computer) is not antithetical to what is needed now, the speed that is, to…
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An Argument Against Spinelessness
Considering the other forces vying to demarcate our time, dividing it up between mass shootings and other traumas, to encounter a packed bookshelf, a library, or a bookstore with a breathtaking procession of spines and all the potential therein—it is…
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Art as a Tool for Action
Over at NPR, Molly Crabapple discusses her new memoir Drawing Blood, her involvement in Occupy Wall Street, and how she became a political artist: …for a long time I felt like going to protests was the same as—you know, when people…
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A Conversation with Ivan Vladislavić
Tristan Foster interviews South African writer Ivan Vladislavić on the importance of art in his writing, having a large body of work, and the appeal (or lack of appeal) of cities: Our love for cities is always unrequited. Johannesburg is not…
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Valuation Methods
In some of my fantasies, I make a pitch for art or for truth, defend them like commodities.
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Paris Forever
That’s not to say being informed isn’t important—of course it is—but I suddenly felt a more important calling. I remembered the words of Marlon Brando in the wake of 9/11: “This is exactly the time for poetry!” Over at Lit…
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A Figurative Recovery from War
In his review for Hyperallergic of a new MOMA exhibit, Thomas Micchelli writes about the work of artists during and immediately after their experiences in World War II. In the exhibit, Soldier, Spectre, Shaman: The Figure and the Second World…
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On Art and Writing
Trying to convey emotion in composition (plot) and not brushwork (emotional question) is misguided. Author Benjamin Percy has a quote that applies to this: “A-list movies are always about a B-list plot; B-list movies are always about an A-list plot.”Nineteenth-century…