Monthly Archives: September 2021

Sean Scully: ‘Backs and Fronts’

Posted on September 29, 2021 by JMN

“Here’s another thing that I don’t agree with,” Scully says to me – the last comment he makes in our conversations for On the Line – “and that’s when Picasso said that art is war. Art is not war. War … Continue reading →

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Ballin’ the Jack

Posted on September 28, 2021 by JMN

(Continued from https://ethicaldative.com/2021/09/21/its-not-over-until-its-celebrated/) On the runways of the Hall of Fenestration slenderness was next to godliness. The frescos of the Gilt Tabernacle of Mar-a-Gogo depict Museolini, god of the catwalk, being draped in sumptuous crinolines by wingèd benitos whose sheer … Continue reading →

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Remedios Varo (1908 – 1963)

Posted on September 27, 2021 by JMN

“Armonía (Autorretrato Sugerente)”/“Harmony (Suggestive Self-Portrait)” 1956. Credit… Remedios Varo, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VEGAP, Madrid, New York; Sotheby’s, via Associated Press. Her father, Rodrigo Varo y Zejalvo, a hydraulic engineer, taught her mechanical drawing and encouraged her interest in … Continue reading →

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‘Jasper Johns: Divide and Conquer’ — Review by Holland Cotter

Posted on September 25, 2021 by JMN

Flags, maps and numbers were among the artist’s earliest repeating motifs. In “Map” (1961), the artist blurs the boundaries of states and strikes a line through the name South Carolina. Credit…Jasper Johns/VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Charlie … Continue reading →

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‘It’s Not Over Until It’s Celebrated’*

Posted on September 21, 2021 by JMN

(Continued from https://ethicaldative.com/2021/09/15/le-coeur-a-ses-raisons-que-la-raison-ne-connait-point/) *From the charter of the Rhipidistian Society. The end of lunation 247.457627-12 matched about twenty douzains of the Old Reckoning. No one was quite sure how to label the new chronology, but it felt like more than … Continue reading →

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‘Marquetry Remains Her Focus’

Posted on September 18, 2021 by JMN

In the past, Alison Elizabeth Taylor’s extraordinary wood-marquetry paintings have seemed interesting primarily for their bravura craft. Working from photographs, mostly her own, and using laser cutting (mainly), Taylor fashioned small pieces of various wood veneers into puzzle-like pieces fit … Continue reading →

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‘No path to heaven / except through this dirt’

Posted on September 16, 2021 by JMN

My title is from the poem by Philip Metres, “Never Describe the Sky as Azure,” in Poetry, September 2021. A Reservation Over the Fist Resisting the repressive Texas governocracy is of the essence. Are fisting poses ginned up for camera … Continue reading →

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Le Coeur A Ses Raisons Que la Raison Ne Connaît Point

Posted on September 15, 2021 by JMN

(Continued from https://ethicaldative.com/2021/09/10/heres-conflict-it-had-to-come/ ) He was an oddity in the Rhipidistian peerage: a patrician who chafed under the yoke of privilege and pose. Siddhartha Huff knew in his bones that he was a left-handed entity in a right-handed body. Sidd … Continue reading →

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“I’m Trying to Overwhelm the Museum,” He Said

Posted on September 12, 2021 by JMN

[Adam] Pendleton, 37, is best known as a painter of abstract canvases in a distinctive black-and-white style that challenge how we read language. Made using spray-paint, brush and silk-screen processes, they incorporate photocopied text, words unmoored from context, letters scrambled … Continue reading →

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Here’s Conflict. It Had To Come

Posted on September 10, 2021 by JMN

(Continued from https://ethicaldative.com/2021/09/06/rubber-of-aspire-meets-highway-of-dream/) His mansion sprawled in the sunny uplands; his larder bulged with premium ancillary protein; the flower of lab produce was carted daily to his kitchens; his chef staff conjured shakshukas and bibimbaps for him at the drop … Continue reading →

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