Art Education

Bye-Bye, Picture Books?

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
One Artist in Search of a Theory

A reader sent me this listing posted yesterday on Craigslist. It came with the simple word “Yikes!” That is about as eloquent as you can get over a post that is almost too forlorn for words. The listing appeared, appropriately enough, all in lower case. Diminished punctuation suits the pathos of the quest:
performance artist looking for an art theorist to coach me on understanding and articulating the intellectual underpinnings of my work. i am looking for someone who follows current art world trends, ideas, themes and artists, especially the recent interest in performance art.
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THIS IS A SOBERING LABOR DAY. We have seen the employment statistics. Somewhere under the rubble of numbers are artists—semi-employed, underemployed—supporting themselves with every imaginable odd job: a part-time adjunctcy here, another there; waiting tables; house painting; dog walking; carpentry—you name it. Yet institutions of so-called higher learning, keep turning out M.F.A. candidates on the false assumption that a faculty position awaits them. Exploiting popular delusion, Texas Tech University trumpets itself as the first to offer a doctorate in fine art.  Continue Reading
poster: what makes an artist

PRESENT AN ALIEN FROM OUTER SPACE with an illustrated time line of Western art—from, say, Theodoros of Samos to selected offerings from any museum of contemporary art. Ask the fellow if he can tell which end of the time line is the beginning. [It is not a trick question. We just do not know whether aliens read from left to right or the other way around.] If the frequencies along his optic nerves run as ours do, and if he has his wits about him, he will choose, with confidence, the contemporary stuff as the slime from which Theodore eventually emerged. Continue Reading
A Reader Asks . . .

IN RESPONSE TO THE EARLIER POST, Art & Money, an astute reader writes to ask:
Perhaps conscientious and knowledgeable critics should try to explain the supply side of this equation, how art is produced to play a role in the continuing cycle.  How does it happen that a woman with no more talent than any teenage girl who draws pictures of rock stars becomes famous, wealthy, and sought by collectors and museums?  Who accomplishes this, and to whose benefit?  Is it for money, or is it that, as O’Brien says in 1984, the purpose of power is power?
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