RSS

Maureen Mullarkey: Studio Matters

Cropped tableau courbet header

Art & The Morning After

WITH THE ELECTION RETURNS LARGELY IN, this seems a good time to revisit “The Art of Obama Worship,” by Michael J. Lewis. Published in Commentary, September, 2009, the essay took off from Shepard Fairey’s iconic, Warhol-like poster of Obama in red, white and blue:
From the beginning, the Obama campaign invested much thought in its visual strategy. To portray him as a radically transformative deliverer, a figure of redemptive promise, was a natural course of action, his appearance comfortably matching his rhetoric.
Continue Reading

Degas On The Phone

FINALLY, THE HUMBLE PHONE BOOK is getting its due. Ammon Shea is quite likely the only person on the planet to take an interest in the one text we all rely on without ever giving it a second’s thought. He has just published The Phone Book: The Curious History of the Book That Everyone Uses But No One Reads. In the great scheme of things, it is a small subject. But not as small as first thought would have it. At the end of the road from the first telephone directory is Facebook. Continue Reading

Ron Milewicz at Elizabeth Harris

RON MILEWICZ HAS BECOME A FORMIDABLE PRESENCE among painters of the urban landscape. This, his second exhibition at Elizabeth Harris Gallery, establishes his place as a painter to be reckoned with. No small part of his achievement derives from his understanding of architecture as a vital part of the tissue of our lives. His interest is less in particular structures than in the way those structures reveal something about the tenor of the city which houses them. The distinction of Milewicz’s work affirms John Ruskin’s assertion that “Architecture is an art for all men to learn because all men are concerned with it.” Continue Reading

Welfare for Art?

NPR’S FIRING OF JUAN WILLIAMS has reignited examination of the larger issue of taxpaper funding for the arts. It was John Sloan, I believe, who welcomed public money, official award committees and the whole apparatus of state largess on the grounds that, by following the money, artists would know who their enemies are. With the country over $13 trillion—trillion—in debt, suddenly talk of defunding the arts does not seem like the mean-spirited, philistine, conservative plot it has traditionally been considered. Both the artists’ listserve to which I belong and AICA, the critic’s association to which I belong, howl at the thought. Continue Reading

Anish Kapoor in Jerusalem

By Heddy Breuer Abramowitz Having outgrown the starter apartment of its youth, the Israel Museum has re-opened after a three year makeover.  The vision of Teddy Kollek, Jerusalem’s legendary mayor, it was built in 1965 before there was a collection to house. Teddy’s own “Field of Dreams” proved true, he built it and they came. So many works of art, archaeological finds from the world over, Judaic artifacts,  bequests and visitors jammed the galleries and storerooms of the museum that it simply overran itself.  Continue Reading
  • Contact
  • Recent Posts
Subscribe To The Newsletter

Subscribe To The Newsletter

Join the Studio Matters mailing list for an occasional heads-up. Thank you.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Premade image 14

Subscribe To The Newsletter

Join the Studio Matters mailing list for an occasional heads-up. Thank you.