With virtually every arts organization and commercial gallery closed for the duration of the pandemic, I asked all of our critics to pick one work of art anywhere in the world and tell our readers why it’s important. The results vary wildly; our younger writers tended to look at older works of art, while the […]
Archive for April, 2020
Another Online Visit: Rembrandt’s “Portrait of a Man Rising from his Chair” at the Taft Museum of Art
April 25th, 2020 | by Jonathan Kamholtz | published in *
The High Renaissance portrait sought to depict dignity—the sense of worthiness that was, typically, an even more valuable quality in a portrait than likeness—in repose. The great 16th century portraits tried to capture what was least changing about their subjects. Though the period knew, of course, that human beings were subject to time, they assumed […]
A Salome Like No Other: Reflecting on Gustave Moreau’s Salome (Salome Dancing Before Herod)
April 25th, 2020 | by Cynthia Kukla | published in *
Damn. I should take drugs when I paint. Look at French painter Gustav Moreau. He must have taken something to make these mind-bending paintings in the 1800’s. I know contemporary painter Peter Doig takes drugs because he admitted so, figures; his paintings are breathtakingly hypnotic, mystical, irrationally emotional and compelling. But Moreau? He’s dead. We […]
Exploring the Transmutative Power of Food and Painting in Leonora Carrington's Spellbinding "Kitchen Garden on the Eyot"
April 25th, 2020 | by Annabel Osberg | published in *
During this time of quarantine, it’s enjoyable to get lost in The Kitchen Garden on the Eyot (1946) by Leonora Carrington (1917-2011). Delicately limned in egg tempera on a small panel, the scene is easy to enter online, and its cryptic serenity casts a rosy glow over one’s feelings of confinement. A sense of mystery […]
Summoning the Ghost in R. A. Blakelock’s “Moonlit Lake”
April 25th, 2020 | by Steve Kemple | published in *, April 2020
“These capricious vagabonds fly somewhat in the manner of bats,” Camille Flammarion wrote in 1872[1], “which seem to dive at the turrets, and suddenly turn back, describing a parabola, to vanish in an unexpected direction.” Although the French astronomer was describing the movement of comets through the cosmos, he may as well have been describing […]
ALL THINGS ARE DELICATELY INTERCONNECTED: Jenny Holzer // Wanda Orme Earth Day and COVID-19
April 25th, 2020 | by Megan Bickel | published in *, April 2020
There are / were a lot of holidays effected by COVID-19 measures this spring; Ramadan, Passover, and Easter to name the heavyweights. For me what stood with a heavier weight than normal was Earth Day. Every year on April 22, we celebrate the beginning of what is now known as the official beginning of the […]
What Does a Registrar Do?
April 25th, 2020 | by Laura Hobson | published in April 2020
There are a number of roles behind the scenes at a museum that make the place run. One such job is that of a registrar. This article details the life of a registrar at the Cincinnati Museum Center, the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Taft Museum of Art. A museum registrar manages an art collection, […]
Fotofolio: Andreas Rentsch
April 25th, 2020 | by Kent Krugh | published in April 2020
“The Chair”, 2019 Andreas’ statement and bio: My photographic work of late possesses a close aesthetic relationship to performance art, drawing and painting. Process has become more and more important in my art practice. My aim has consistently remained within the parameters of the photographic medium in order to discover new ways to articulate my […]
Abstraction and Reality: Documenting Art in Virtual Museums
April 25th, 2020 | by Josh Beckelhimer | published in April 2020
Predictably, I’ve been lamenting my inability to go out, visit museums, see films or generally have a good time in public. I often write on photography, visual art and technology but I try to avoid taking in art electronically. Aside from watching films on my TV, I generally want the intimacy of standing a few […]
CampSITE
April 25th, 2020 | by Hannah Leow | published in April 2020
The places you can go these days are few and far between. With the outdoors our now fondest of friends, CampSITE is a hand worth holding, or beholding from a safe distance. Located in the neighborhood of Camp Washington, the sculpture park is a landmark for the creative community and beyond. It’s natural setting being […]
The New Fashion Industry
April 25th, 2020 | by Jenny Perusek | published in April 2020
It seems just a short time since fashion industry insiders gathered together to watch the Fall 2020 collections walk the runway in early winter. So much has changed in the past few months and many of those same industry leaders have stepped into action to help. LVMH, the luxury goods company that owns global brands […]
“Deacon King Kong” by James McBride
April 25th, 2020 | by Daniel Brown | published in April 2020
One of the side benefits of this period when we’re mostly all at home, for me, has been that I’m reading even more than I usually do. I’ve polished off fifteen novels since we were asked to stay inside; the best of these, to date, is James McBride’s wonderfully toned “Deacon King Kong”. The novel […]
“Abigail” by Magda Szabo
April 25th, 2020 | by Daniel Brown | published in April 2020
Virtually every important literary critic has been raving about Magda Szabo’s novel “Abigail”, published in the l970 in her home country of Hungary, but recently translated and published internationally. The novel is as wonderful as the hype would have it. Gina is a teenaged girl living in Budapest with her widowed father and her French […]
