Visual Arts
By Harvey Blume Though it does not originate in the Kuiper Belt, the Beijing summer Olympics (8/8/08-8/24/08) is bearing down upon us like an outsized asteroid, bringing China out of feudal/communist distance into full twenty-first century relief. Sports, at this point, remain secondary:before we get to ping-pong, swimming, the shot-put and gymnastics, Americans have unprecedented…
Read MoreBy Gary Schwartz In 1942, in fulfillment of an essay competition announced in 1936, the Teyler’s Second Society in Haarlem published the winning study on the spread of Dutch painting throughout the world: Horst Gerson, “Ausbreitung und Nachwirkung der holländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts” (The diffusion and after-effect of Dutch 17th-century painting). Written in German-occupied…
Read MoreBy Gary Schwartz I would not go as far as my travel companion and say that I am sorry that I ever saw the exhibition. But it comes close. In December, at the Sackler Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts, we went to “Gods in Color: Painted Sculpture of Classical Antiquity.” To shock and awe you unprepared,…
Read MoreBy 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…
Read MoreBy 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…
Read Moreby 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…
Read MoreBy 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…
Read Moreby 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…
Read MoreBy 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…
Read MoreJust 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…
Read More
Music Commentary: New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest versus French Quarter Fest