Visual Arts
By Bill Marx “Boston is adrift in the brave new competition among big American cities vying for tourist dollars.” Maureen Dezell, WBUR Maureen made that charge back in July 2006 in an article that turned out to be one of the last posts on the late WBUR Arts Online. Now that the quote, along with…
By Gary Schwartz Israeli-Dutch Artist Joseph Semah’s Full Moon Project Five years ago next month I ran into a buddy of mine at Café Luxembourg in Amsterdam. The Israeli-Dutch artist Joseph Semah and I had been through challenging times together. In 2001 he had challenged me to come up with an adjunct to his performance…
by Bill Marx A recent study in Editor & Publisher delivers the lowdown; with its circulation down about 20% in four years, The Boston Globe is in free fall. Two major investors in The New York Times, which owns the Globe, are “challenging the company’s investment decisions, including its commitment to the struggling newspaper industry…
By Gary Schwartz The Rijksmuseum has published the first volume in a series of scholarly catalogues of its collection of Dutch paintings of the 17th century. The two books, one of text and comparative illustrations, the other of color plates, are not only a model of collection catalogues, they are also an unguarded kaleidoscopic self-portrait…
by Harvey Blume Marcel Duchamp famously tweaked art for being inferior to chess, saying: “From my close contact with artists and chess players I have come to the personal conclusion that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.” Duchamp backed this opinion up by abandoning art for years to pursue…
By Gary Schwartz Is there or is there not such a thing as “the Dutchman?” My fellow immigrant Princess Maxima thinks there is not, but since she dared express that opinion in public last September, she has been subjected to an ongoing barrage of reprimands. Indeed, since the brief era of Pim Fortuyn, public discourse…
Just over a month ago, conventional wisdom had it that the long-running Pollock Matter Affair, one of the most contentious art controversies in living memory (see past posts in Arts Fuse and Anonymous Sources), had finally ground to a halt. Oops. As predicted in The Arts Fuse in November, the debate has found some more…
Only months ago, developments in the Pollock Matter controversies made news around the world (See past Fuse Flash and Anonymous Sources). But the Nov. 28 International Foundation for Art Research [IFAR] symposium, “Are They Pollocks? What Science Tells Us About the Matter Paintings,” drew relatively scant media notice, even though it had been billed by…
The New York Sun’s Kate Taylor sheds more light on the Nov. 29 symposium, “Are They Pollocks? What Science Tells Us About the Matter Paintings,” sponsored by the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR). Perhaps less pressed by deadlines, Taylor’s Nov. 30 article provides a more complete summary of the event than reporter Randy Kennedy…
The New York Times broke nearly eight months of silence in its Nov. 29 issue to report on a symposium, “Are They Pollocks? What Science Tells Us About the Matter Paintings,” presented the previous night under the sponsorship of the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR). Abstract Expressionist painter Jackson Pollock doing his thing
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