Our contributor Dereck Stafford Mangus’s day job is museum guard at the Baltimore Museum of Art, but Dereck also works as a member of the museum’s conservation crew dusting the sculptures in the sculpture garden. Recently, the dusting tasks came up against the demolition of a building next door to the museum, on the campus of Johns Hopkins University, triggering Dereck’s thoughts about demolitions in general and the labor of artists and conservators. Enjoy this behind the scenes look at a different kind of museum work. All photomontages by Dereck Stafford Mangus.
Read MoreDereck Stafford Mangus reflects on moving from Boston to Baltimore, and into a building clad in Formstone. Dereck compares Formstone’s shaped-stucco facades to art forgeries, calling them “urban kitsch.” But he’s learned to appreciate them as part of what makes Baltimore …Baltimore!
Read Moref you’re a spoiler-lover, indulge in this sneak peak– here’s a list of Artblog ‘Posts in the Pipeline’ this Covid winter.
Read MoreMichael Lieberman reviews Pulitzer Prize winner Inga Saffron’s ‘Becoming Philadelphia.’ The book, a selection of the architecture critic’s Inquirer articles from the past 20 years, tells an intricate story about Philly’s 10 year tax abatement and construction boom– both its part in revitalizing the city, and its part in harmful gentrification and increased inequality.
Read MoreRoberta and Steve and friends, Chuck Patch and Iris Lindberg visit the imposing museum of decorative American arts that is Winterthur. During their exploration of the period rooms, hallways, parlors, and staircases with Winterthur guide, Anne Nickle, they hear, among other things, about the shrewd deal-making by collector Henry du Pont. Photos by Chuck Patch.
Read MoreArtblog’s resident architect, Mandy Palasik, attends this year’s Louis I. Kahn Memorial Award + Talk, and reports back on awardee, Sir David Adjaye’s presentation of his own work at the event. She reflects on his innovative approach to translating inspiration into material form and on his commitment to delivering quality design regardless of budget.
Read MoreArtblog’s new contributor, Mandy Palasik, writes a delightful essay about walking through the late architect Anne Tyng’s house and imagining how the architect lived in the space and how others would live there after her. It’s a very nice essay by Palasik, who is herself an architect. This article was submitted to the Artblog New Art Writing Challenge contest and we are publishing it here with special mention.
Read MoreNeil explores famed architect and furniture maker George Nakashima’s history and legacy, from his farm in Pennsylvania to his early work in India.
Read MoreThis stunning, indeed mind-boggling, monograph is the ultimate resource on the art of Paul Laffoley, whose works function as charts and diagrams of the Boston artist’s highly individual understanding of the physical, psychic, and spiritual world. They could be illustrations to a cosmology textbook written by a multi-authored committee which included Plato, Dante Alighieri, Giordano Bruno, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, P.D. Ouspensky, H.P. Lovecraft, and the physicist who named “black holes,” John Wheeler.
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