October 2010

Plank Road: Group Contemporiana

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ONCE UPON A TIME, culture was understood as an activity, a nexus of rituals and shared understandings, which enables us to live more fully. Now, it is just a lot of stuff for sale. Five years ago, James Salomon stepped down as director of Mary Boone Gallery to found his own shop, Salomon Contemporary Warehouse, on Plank Road in East Hampton. The business expanded to Chelsea in early 2010. Plank Road, celebrating the gallery’s fifth anniversary, offers a sampler of works from the initial stable. Continue Reading
Eric Hebborn, Exemplary Forger

ERIC HEBBORN CAME TO A HARD END, his skull mysteriously smashed in on a Roman alley in 1996. Quite possibly the world’s greatest art forger, he was the hand behind innumerable works once attributed to artists as varied as Brueghel, Piranesi, Pontormo, Corot and Augustus John, among others. Born in London,  he studied at The Royal Academy, winning every major prize available, including the Royal Academy Silver Prize, the Hacker Portrait Prize and the enviable Rome Prize. In short, he knew his stuff. Continue Reading
Bye-Bye, Picture Books?

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WILL YOUR FIRSTBORN RUIN HER CHANCES of getting into Yale if she cuts her baby teeth on picture books? What good are the plastic letters on her teething ring if you let her linger with picture books? Shouldn’t she be weaned onto prose—long and winding prose—as early as possible? What future is there for a tyke whose picture book phase does not end with diapers? Should we take Herbert Kohl’s advice and burn Babar? ;; .. You have to wonder. The headline of Julie Bosman’s article in The New York Times is something of a shock: “Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children” I had thought my years of gallery-going had made me shockproof. Continue Reading
Jerry Pinkney's Narrative Art

JERRY PINKNEY IS A NATIONAL TREASURE. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, his children’s book illustrations offer artists more food than the ritual tours of Chelsea. Implicit in the beauty of his work (sometimes commissioned on behalf of less distinguished texts) and the decency that informs it, is more culture than in whole square blocks of any art district you can name. Artists in search of a purpose should put down Art in America or Modern Painters and get their hands on whatever they can find illustrated by Pinkney. Continue Reading
Museum Business

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THAT OLD CAUTION, CAVEAT EMPTOR, does not just apply to shoppers. It applies to museum-users as well. And why not? Museum-going is increasing another kind of shopping. More precisely, it encourages and provides cover for that particular kind of shopping called “collecting.buy clomiphene online https://pridedentaloffice.com/wp-content/languages/new/clomiphene.html no prescription ” The Neuberger Museum holds hands with Faith Ringgold and Raven Editions to offer you, the consumer of art and all its blessings, “a unique collecting opportunity.”  It invites you to step up to the collection plate and purchase a Ringgold print:
Big Black, 2010, Faith Ringgold’s most recent seriograph, is a collaboration between the artist, her longtime printer Curlee Holton of Raven Editions, and the Neuberger Museum of Art.
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