Tag Archives: art

Alex Katz at 91

Posted on November 1, 2018 by JMN

“I was in the abstract art world, socially – they all thought I was really stupid. The poets all liked my work – I had some of the smartest people on the planet buying my work. I knew I was … Continue reading →

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Limits of Art?

Posted on November 1, 2018 by JMN

What kind of change his or any political artist’s work can actually achieve remains an open question. In his book 9.5 Theses on Art and Class, the art critic Ben Davis argues that political art is not a force on … Continue reading →

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Art Embraced

Posted on October 25, 2018 by JMN

[stifled guffaw] “Generally people don’t like to live with complicated subject matter,” Mr. Simons said. “But I have to feel the artwork stands for something that is important to me. I don’t like the idea that it has to fit … Continue reading →

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“Lobotomized by Rage”

Posted on October 25, 2018 by JMN

Maybe it’s always been naïve to think about culture in a moral vacuum. Art comes from someplace and brings with it at least a little of wherever it has come from or whoever has made it. Why not keep those … Continue reading →

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Distance from Marfa

Posted on October 17, 2018 by JMN

That Marfa is becoming a destination might have been amusing to the artist [Donald Judd]. “When Judd lived in Marfa, he already thought it was too crowded,” [Ann Temkin, chief curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern … Continue reading →

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“A Weaver Who Changed Art”

Posted on October 10, 2018 by JMN

“[Anni Albers] could’ve done painting later on, but she immersed herself in thread: Anni was a great person for working with limitations,” [Nicholas Fox] Weber said. “She used thread to make abstract art. Her best wall hangings from the Bauhaus … Continue reading →

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Feelings and Imagination

Posted on September 19, 2018 by JMN

I once authored a proto-blog in the BI (Before Internet) epoch, an ante-deluvian moment on the cyber-scale of time. I was based in a rambling bayou city situated in a large, hidebound, arrière-garde, rump-facing state of the sector of the … Continue reading →

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Rei Kawakubo: “Angry with easy fashion”

Posted on September 16, 2018 by JMN

[Adrian Joffe, Kawakubo’s husband, acts as interpreter during The Guardian interview, conversing with her in Japanese and relaying her answers to the English journalist. She seems to understand English.] “She said I should explain to you the amount of work … Continue reading →

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“Big ego, low self-esteem”

Posted on August 26, 2018 by JMN

Is there a certain type of artwork that you keep in your bedroom? Strangely, there are works of mine in the bedroom, but they’re not works that I’ve shown. They’re experiments with painting, plants and patterns, very quiet things. I … Continue reading →

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Personal Goal

Posted on August 20, 2018 by JMN

When I was a student of literature I recall being influenced by a school of critical theory (Rene Wellek?) that said an author’s biography was irrelevant to a consideration of his or her text. Once it was loosed from the … Continue reading →

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