Posted in Art, Art Education, Painting on Nov 18th, 2010
ShareBy Heddy Breuer Abramowitz
THE AXIOM “THOSE WHO CAN, DO; THOSE WHO CAN’T TEACH” reveals an attitude of disdain towards teaching that reduces those who shape future generations to ones that haven’t made the grade. In art, it is more true to say that if one can’t do, it is unlikely that one can teach. Even [...]
Posted in Art, Art Education, Art and Politics, Artistic Identity, Artistic Pretension, Culture Cues on Nov 7th, 2010
ShareINFLATION IN THE ARTS IS OF A PIECE WITH INFLATION IN ACADEMIA. The upcoming College Art Association, in New York this year, has just mailed out its conference information.
Scheduled for the first day of the conference are workshops on the important things: finding a job, keeping it, and getting grants. One of them aims at [...]
Posted in Art Education, Art and Politics on Oct 19th, 2010
ShareTO READ AN ART SCHOOL PRESS RELEASE, it helps to steady yourself with a good shot of Orwell. His essay, “Politics and the English Language” seems more pertinent now than ever. Why now? Because artists are increasingly encouraged to think of themselves as activists and savants. The link between art and craft—and the concomitant aspiration [...]
Posted in Art, Art Education, Art History, Things to Read on Oct 12th, 2010
ShareERIC HEBBORN CAME TO A HARD END, his skull mysteriously smashed in on a Roman alley in 1996. Quite possibly the world’s greatest art forger, he was the hand behind innumerable works once attributed to artists as varied as Brueghel, Piranesi, Pontormo, Corot and Augustus John, among others.
Born in London, he studied at The Royal [...]
Posted in Art, Art Education, Things to Read on Oct 11th, 2010
ShareWILL YOUR FIRSTBORN RUIN HER CHANCES of getting into Yale if she cuts her baby teeth on picture books? What good are the plastic letters on her teething ring if you let her linger with picture books? Shouldn’t she be weaned onto prose—long and winding prose—as early as possible? What future is there for a [...]
Posted in Art Education, Artistic Identity, Culture Cues, Things to Read on Sep 10th, 2010
ShareA reader sent me this listing posted yesterday on Craigslist. It came with the simple word “Yikes!” That is about as eloquent as you can get over a post that is almost too forlorn for words. The listing appeared, appropriately enough, all in lower case. Diminished punctuation suits the pathos of the quest:
performance artist looking [...]
Posted in Art, Art Education, Artistic Identity, Culture Cues, Things to Read on Sep 6th, 2010
ShareTHIS IS A SOBERING LABOR DAY. We have seen the employment statistics. Somewhere under the rubble of numbers are artists—semi-employed, underemployed—supporting themselves with every imaginable odd job: a part-time adjunctcy here, another there; waiting tables; house painting; dog walking; carpentry—you name it. Yet institutions of so-called higher learning, keep turning out M.F.A. candidates on the [...]
Posted in Art, Art Education, Culture Cues on Sep 5th, 2010
SharePRESENT AN ALIEN FROM OUTER SPACE with an illustrated time line of Western art—from, say, Theodoros of Samos to selected offerings from any museum of contemporary art. Ask the fellow if he can tell which end of the time line is the beginning. [It is not a trick question. We just do not know whether [...]
Posted in Art, Art Education, Culture Cues on Aug 31st, 2010
ShareIN RESPONSE TO THE EARLIER POST, Art & Money, an astute reader writes to ask:
Perhaps conscientious and knowledgeable critics should try to explain the supply side of this equation, how art is produced to play a role in the continuing cycle. How does it happen that a woman with no more talent than any teenage [...]
Posted in Art, Art Education on Aug 12th, 2010
ShareIS THERE A VACCINE FOR ART INTOLERANCE? If so, please tell me where to get it.
At the beginning of the summer CalArts announced its exhibition of work by this year’s crop of MFA grads. This next wave of artistic talent washed over downtown Los Angeles’ Chinatown from July 2nd through July 9th at six participating [...]