reviews, features & interviews
Lots of art stories I read today
By libby
March 28, 2010 · 5 Comments
New York Times: Roberta Smith declares painting is not dead. Great images of contemporary painting.
And several stories in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Red Grooms’ Philadelphia Cornucopia goes to PAFA!
NCECA gets coverage from Ed Sozanski and Edie Newhall. (I think Sozanski should have revealed his personal interest when he went after the PMA for not having a more ambitious ceramics show!)
A story about a great find–a face jug made by slaves in South Carolina, dug up in Philadelphia in the ’50s, goes to the PMA.
Tags: face jug, nceca, philadelphia cornucopia, red grooms
“(I think Sozanski should have revealed his personal interest when he went after the PMA for not having a more ambitious ceramics show!)”
Or maybe Ed could just admit he dislike contemporary art and refuses to cover it. Always a great situation when the lead critic of the paper of record ignores a certain type of art altogether and won’t answer emails. I am not a fan.
Of course painting isn’t dead! Swing by our website or forum and share more of your thoughts!! Art Fortune
yes! He doesn’t like either contemporary or conceptual art. It’s unfortunate, because it affects what he covers. On the other hand, because he covers the museum shows, and does a nice job of covering something large like NCECA or Philagrafika, which are tough to handle in a blog, I feel like it takes us off the hook for doing those big stories and allows us to focus on contemporary and unfamiliar work.
He may not care what we cover–we’re small potatoes with a niche audience–but we do care what he covers because the whole city and its art needs are part of what we think about.
A couple things on the Roberta Smith article.
First,
“One is never tired of painting, because you have to set down not what you knew already, but what you have just discovered.”
William Hazlitt
Second,
Wow, that painting by Henry Taylor is a knockout. I’d never heard of him!
Third,
I find Alexi Worth’s paintings formal, funny and fervent. Once, I wrote a wiki page for him. The page was deleted after a few days because, well, he wasn’t famous enough. Haha, such is the art world. These paintings are more interesting than the one included in the NYT article:
http://www.alexiworth.com/jpeg/work_tml/formalists.htm
http://www.alexiworth.com/jpeg/work_tml/head%20and%20shoulders.htm
Hi, PJ, Many of the artists in that article I had never seen before, and I thought they were by in large pretty great. And I totally agree that the one by Alexi Worth in the Times was less than some of his other work. I’ve been a fan of his for a while, and I’m glad you put these links up there!!!
Must be a relief to know that something you spend so much time at isn’t dead!!! Whew.