Charles “Teenie” Harris, Woman using a Kodak Brownie 8mm movie camera, 1957 Copyright © Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. In a career spanning 40 years as a photojournalist for the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the nation’s leading Black newspapers, Charles “Teenie” Harris amassed an unrivaled photographic archive. The Smithsonian credits him with creating “one of …
Alice Coltrane, ca. 1978 Courtesy of the John & Alice Coltrane Home. The breathtaking music of Alice Coltrane has the power to stop listeners in their tracks and guide them to another realm of consciousness as she masterfully traverses genres of jazz, gospel, bebop, and classical Indian music, collapsing them together in ethereal, harmonic compositions …
Who Was Alice Coltrane? A New Exhibition Honors an Icon Read More »
Juan Gris, Still Life, 1917, oil on panel, 28 3/4 x 36 3/16 inches. Minneapolis Institute of Art. Most people have heard of Cubism and probably even have a fair idea of what a Cubist painting looks like. And they are certainly familiar with Cubism’s most famous figure, Pablo Picasso—an artist who, despite his misogyny, …
Jan Matejko, Stańczyk during a ball at the court of Queen Bona in the face of the loss of Smolensk, 1862. Photo Piotr Ligier/National Museum in Warsaw In one of its most ambitious recent exhibitions, the Louvre in Paris looks at how the depiction of the fool—and by extension the perception of madness—has evolved from …
The Louvre Presents a Mind-Blowing Exhibition about the ‘Figure of the Fool’ Read More »
Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, c. 1503–19, oil on wood panel, 30 x 20 7/8 inches. Louvre, Paris “Yo, Mona Lisa, could I get a date on Friday?” sang Wyclef Jean on the Fugees’ debut album, in 1994. Around half a century earlier, Nat King Cole had crooned about Mona Lisa as the lady with …
A still image from American Artist’s two-channel video work, “The Monophobic Response,” in which a group of scholars, artists, and engineers play “Earthseeders,” from Octavia Butler’s “The Parable of the Sower” and reenact a rocket test. Courtesy of American Artist and Pioneer Works Editor’s Note: This story is part of Newsmakers, an ARTnews series where we interview the movers …
David Lynch at the opening of a 2009 gallery show. WireImage It’s silly to try to explain David Lynch’s films, since they are designed to induce confusion, but that hasn’t stopped people from seeking answers. Keenly aware that viewers wanted clarity, Lynch once wrote a list of 10 “clues” to accompany the DVD release of …
David Lynch’s Art Is the Key to Understanding His Cryptic Films Read More »
Jesse Krimes. Photo Eileen Travell/©The Metropolitan Museum of Art Jesse Krimes vividly recalls the moment he chose to identify as an artist. During a year in solitary confinement, awaiting sentencing for non-violent drug-related charges, he had a life-defining realization: he would be an artist, no matter what. “I decided very early on that I was …
Artist Jesse Krimes Lets His Materials Take Center Stage Read More »
Vincent Valdez, So Long, Mary Ann, 2019. Photo Paul Salveson/Private Collection Vincent Valdez’s studio in East Los Angeles is packed with large canvases, some still in progress. There’s a painting titled Supreme of the Supreme Court with portions unpainted and sketched on the canvas. On the same canvas, there are glimpses of the Rockefellers and …
Jaime Muñoz. Photo Eduardo Medrano Jr. Jaime Muñoz is a keen cultural observer. A conversation with him veers from art history, the commercialization of contemporary art, and Mesoamerican symbology to Los Angeles car culture, science fiction, and literature. All of these references and more filter their way into Muñoz’s art, which is steeped with the …
