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Maureen Mullarkey: Studio Matters

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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

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

Art the Destroyer

THIS PRESS RELEASE CAME IN THE MORNING MAIL. It is a shining example of academic/museum culture. An initial cue to the tenor of things is the windy title of John Russell’s untitled painting. [Scroll down.] If you see only two glowing suns, not three as announced, do not fret. The third will show up sooner or later in another replicate. It is an inkjet print—quite a huge one—on polyester. Russel exhibited the identical central image in a group show at the Royal Academy, London, in 2008.buy Continue Reading

American Qur’an

IT IS HARD, SOMETIMES, to know whether to cry or curse. Cursing satisfies the soul but a heart-felt expletive is better when it is blurted out loud. It just does not look right in print. A good curse deserves to be said in full, not weakened with bowdlerizing fig leaves: @#$!%!!  Besides, there really are not enough bodily orifices up which Sandow Birk should be advised to stow his Qur’an project. His head. And his promoters’ heads. So I cry instead. 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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