Category: inside art

• Seek and ye shall find / Enlightenment helmet in ideas, inside art, visual · Aug 8, 12:14

  I could use one of these right about now. Via these geniuses.

• RFK funeral train / A breaking up in inside art, photo, visual · Jun 10, 20:29

  The New York Times recently ran some photos that were taken from the train carrying Bobby Kennedy’s body between Washington to New York. The photos themselves are amazing documents of a nation in mourning, people from all walks of life lining the tracks, holding signs, saluting or just watching, but they’re also beautiful — saturated [...]

• Books / Pelican covers in inside art, lit, visual, web · Apr 16, 02:03

  things magazine has amassed an incredible index of Pelican book covers from the 1930s through the 80s. The one above is from 1968. Check it.

• Luxe life / Animal drawings at the Fairmont in inside art, san francisco, visual · Jan 26, 02:24

  Last Friday night was just another night in the penthouse of the Fairmont Hotel for Mara and I. We relaxed in seal-skin robes, shuffled around in baby polar bear ear fur slippers, snorted the finest powdered snow leopard pancreas, fed Kobe beef to the pigeons who delivered the New York Times piecemeal in tiny scrolls [...]

• Philly / A few minutes at Space 1026 in inside art, urban, visual · Nov 4, 20:00

  I was in Philadelphia last Thursday evening, and I discovered that I was staying near Space 1026, a studio/gallery near downtown. Some artists from 1026 had some cool work in a show at Yerba Buena a while ago, I walked over and spent a few minutes walking around as the residents were setting up for [...]

• Clare Rojas at Gallery Paule Anglim in inside art, san francisco, visual · Sep 7, 03:12

  Lots of intriguing stuff at Clare Rojas’s opening at Gallery Paule Anglim tonight. Woodland creatures, naked dudes in tai chi poses, an excellent video of Peggy Honeywell playing a slow sad song at a raging frat party filled with beer bongs and keg stands, Amaze, Barry McGee, and much, much more. Worth it.

  I call this [...]

• Foto / Modernity in Central Europe in inside art, reviews, visual · Sep 5, 19:20

  When I was in Washington DC last month, I saw an incredible show at the National Gallery called Foto: Modernity in Central Europe 1918-1945. As you may have guessed by the title, the show is photography-oriented, but it’s more than that: It’s a story about photography craft, and the way that European photographers bent, broke [...]

• Must-see movies / Killer of Sheep in cinema, inside art, tip, visual · May 23, 21:18

  A moment from a beautiful, riveting scene in Killer of Sheep. Photo: Milestone Films.
  Killer of Sheep is director Charles Burnett’s account of life in the LA neighborhood of Watts in the early 1970’s. It began life as his senior thesis at UCLA film school and until recently it was never seen outside art houses and [...]

• Rachell Sumpter / Ethereal, still, and strange in inside art, visual · May 22, 20:22

  Rachell Sumpter, Argonauts. From her collection at the Richard Heller Gallery.
  Her stuff reminds me of lots of other artists I like — Evah Fan and some aspects of Julianna Bright, for two. Maybe it’s something about the West Coast, but they’re all simple and light at first glance, but also deeply still, and it’s a [...]

• Information art / Typographic map of London in inside art, visual · Apr 24, 19:54

  This amazing typographic map, cheekily called “London’s Kerning,” was designed by NB: Studio, a London graphic design concern. It’s a pretty excellent demonstration of type’s ability to communicate size, shape, relationship, the list goes on. I also love the homage (via typeface) to the London A-Z, an indispensable companion, interpreter and guide for any navigator [...]

• Small worlds / Phil Collins, The World Won’t Listen in inside art, san francisco, the ancient past, visual · Feb 8, 21:32

  I met Phil Collins (the British artist, not the British pop star1) at a bar in Brooklyn in the mid 90’s. At the time, I didn’t know him as “the British artist,” I knew him only as my friend Tom’s legendary boyfriend. I remember little of the night, but I do remember a hubbub [...]

• Missed former SF locals / Chris Johanson in inside art, san francisco, visual · Jan 31, 20:52

  Once upon a time, a San Francisco resident strolling around these chilly city streets could brush by Chris Johanson pretty often. Even before I knew who he was, I’d seen him around the Mission a lot; when I finally connected the dots, I realized that he was the guy who had drawn little signs and [...]

• Art / Robert Irwin, BS, and the importance of questions in architecture, inside art, visual · Nov 29, 21:59

  My nomination for All-Time Best Moment In An Art Documentary has to be the “Bullshit!” scene in Concert Of Wills: Making The Getty Center. Abstract-artist-turned-landscape-designer Robert Irwin literally calls bullshit on architect Richard Meier during an important Getty Center planning session. [The object of their disagreement is Irwin's garden design, pictured at right. [...]

• Art / Olafur Eliasson in the New Yorker in inside art, reviews, visual · Nov 14, 22:20

  Two winters ago, I traveled to London for work. It was cold as hell, as a witch’s tit, as the blood that runs in Dwyane Wade’s veins during the fourth quarter. The sky was deep gray, hard, heavy and forbidding, and it felt as if it wasn’t more than 10 or 12 feet above [...]

• Art / CIA HQ in inside art, law & order, visual · Apr 22, 19:38

  Outside CIA headquarters, there’s an installation called “Kryptos,” a large metal sheet containing a series of characters that has perplexed puzzlers since it was unveiled 10 years ago. Today, the NYT reports that the artist mistakenly omitted a character.

• Art / Richard Misrach slays 49 Geary in inside art, reviews, san francisco, visual · Mar 5, 03:01

  First Thursdays at 49 Geary can be overwhelming, people-wise, and underwhelming, art-wise, and this month was different only in that the overwhelmingness was crammed into one place: the Fraenkel Gallery. Packed with people, it also displayed a face-melting collection of Richard Misrach photos.

  When I first saw Misrach’s photos, I thought immediately of Sebastiao Salgado. Both [...]

• Art / Oakland is special in other ways in inside art, reviews, san francisco, visual · Mar 5, 02:43

  Last night we checked out the Oakland Art Murmur. Actually, we didn’t even know that such a thing existed, and drove over the Bridge intending to see Jason Munn’s opening at Bloom Screen Printing. So it was a pleasant surprise to see that little stretch of Telegraph goin off when we got there. Jason’s stuff [...]

• Art / Jesus drives Satan from his toy room in inside art, new york, visual · Feb 21, 16:23

  A couple of weeks ago, Mara and Jonathan and I went to the Frick, where we saw this painting by Duccio. It’s called “The Temptation of Christ on the Mountain,” but I vastly prefer Jonthan’s title (hint: it’s the subject of this post). Incidentally, how great is the Frick? Ghostly Whistlers, multiple Vermeers, “St. [...]

• Art / Marcel Dzama, bats, root beer, Canada in inside art, san francisco, visual · Jan 20, 02:23

  The Royal Art Lodge snuck up on me. I wandered into a show of theirs at the Power Plant, a gallery in Toronto in 2003. In a fairly small space, they’d crammed a wall full of collaborative paintings, Polaroids, homemade musical instruments, and many paintings by Marcel Dzama and Neil Farber. It was all very [...]

• Art / Robert Adams at SFMOMA in inside art, the ancient past, visual · Dec 7, 15:12

  I’d never heard of Robert Adams before I saw his show at SFMOMA. Called “Turning Back,” the photos document the destruction of the old-growth forests that Lewis & Clark passed through on their journey westward. The title refers to the implications and complications of westward advancement. When Lewis and Clark reached the West Coast, they [...]

• Art / LACMA garage RIP in flickr, inside art, street art, visual · Nov 4, 03:36

  Soon, the garage outside the LA County Museum of Art is getting torn down to make way for some big new building. Unfortunately, it’s got some really excellent murals by Barry McGee and Margaret Kilgallen that I checked out when I was there a couple of summers ago.
  The LA Weekly says:
  Now’s the time to check [...]

• Art / Muhammad Ali likes soul food in flickr, inside art, san francisco, visual · Nov 4, 02:55

  One of my favorite neighborhood art spots is called Creativity Explored, “a nonprofit visual arts center where artists with developmental disabilities create, exhibit, and sell art.” Or so it says on its website.
  At first, I felt conflicted about Creativity Explored. Much of the art is geniunely impressive, and a few of the artists are quite [...]

• Fresh Air interview w/ Mike Mills in inside art, tip, visual · Sep 29, 19:09

  Mike Mills is a graphic designer, director of many excellent music videos (among them: “Kelly Watch the Stars,” by Air, the one with the 70’s-looking slow-motion ping-pong players), and all-around aesthetic bad-ass. Terry Gross interviewed him on Fresh Air a couple of weeks ago, and you can check out the archived version on the NPR [...]