Peter Walsh

Visual Arts/Film Review: “Elliott Erwitt — Silence Sounds Good” — Far From Dull

September 2, 2020
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Aside from making generalities about “making good photographs” and “earning a living,” celebrated photographer Elliott Erwitt steadfastly refuses to be drawn out.

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Book Review: “Great Demon Kings” — A Comet Circling Gas Giants

July 30, 2020
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John Giorno was in the vanguard of what later became the herd: Ginsberg, Kerouac, Warhol, Buddhism, Burroughs, enlightenment, spiritual quests to India, unfettered sex, wild poetry, new technology, experimental forms of expression, queer politics, pot, speed, LSD —  all the household bric-a-brac of the counterculture.

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Visual Arts Review: The Art of Kara Walker — A Mix of Cozy Charm and Historic Horror

March 30, 2020
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How, as an African-American visual artist, do you represent something that no one wants to think about, much less look at? Kara Walker’s solution is ultimately an aesthetic one.

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Visual Arts Review: The National Academy of Design — Another New Chapter?

January 3, 2020
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This fascinating exhibition surveys the entire history of the National Academy membership and, almost incidentally, provides a potent cross-section of the history of American art and its discontents.

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Book Review: A Concise, Conscientious Guide to the Life and Work of Alfred Stieglitz

June 17, 2019
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The book will stand as a good first stop for anyone interested in Alfred Stieglitz, 20th-century photography, or American modern art.

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Book Review: “Exposed” — Between Two Incompatible Worlds

June 5, 2019
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Jean-Philppe Blondel’s books are especially praised by critics for their charm and smoothly-shaped prose.

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Book Review: “Little Dancer Aged Fourteen” — A Kind of Apotheosis

March 22, 2019
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In more pedantic hands, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen could easily have been a tedious and frustrating read. Instead, despite the dense and ultimately inconclusive source material, the book is continuously fascinating.

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Visual Arts Review: Surrealism — One of America’s Favorite Art “isms”

December 15, 2018
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Despite its serious treatment of surreal art, Monsters & Myths is a real delight.

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Visual Arts Review: “Life, Death & Revelry” at the Gardner Museum

August 8, 2018
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Life, Death & Revelry explores the aura of the Farnese Sarcophagus from several points of view, including those of the conservators who recently cleaned it of decades of accumulated grime.

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Visual Arts Review: “Frederic Church — A Painter’s Pilgrimage”

July 27, 2018
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To modern sensibilities, Frederic Edwin Church’s field sketches and early studies, with their virtuoso spontaneity and unmediated naturalism, may have more appeal than his epic paintings.

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