The Art Couple When an established artist becomes an artist couple, what does this mean? Does the work change? Why is it always the wife who gets added on to the famous husband's career, and there's not one husband appended to a woman's? The Soviet/post-Soviet "conceptual" artist Ilya Kabakov and his wife Emilia are now publicly a husband-and-wife team. They join the illustrious ranks of the late Ed Kienholz and Nancy Reddin Kienholz; Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen; Christo and … [Read more...]
NAYLAND BLAKE’S IDENTITY: BURLY, BLACK AND GAY
An Identikit for Unreeling the Invisible identikit n: (trademark) a likeness of a person's faceconstructed from descriptions given to police; uses a set of transparencies of various facial features that can be combined to build up a picture of the person sought. Identity politics, as exemplified … [Read more...]
PICABIA TO PEARLSTEIN: CHELSEA ART WALK
DeChirico, Gladiators (1930-31) Picabia, Minos (1930) Warhol, 18 … [Read more...]
Smithson’s Spiral Jetty: Does It Need a Makeover?
Robert Smithson: Spiral Jetty, 1970. SAVING THE JETTY Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty, thanks to drought, is above water level again … [Read more...]
Jay DeFeo’s “The Rose”
Jay DeFeo, The Rose, 1958-66 INTO THE LIGHT Is a halo by any other name still a rose? Are the titles Deathrose or The White Rose the same as The Rose? Jay DeFeo's masterpiece -- for it is indeed that, with a vengeance -- had these titles until she settled upon the last. Her painting, so thick it … [Read more...]
El Greco, Rosenquist, and Kiki Smith
Philip Pearlstein: John Perreault, 1975 Welcome to my blog. I'm really excited to be writing about art every week once again. Finally technology has caught up with my preferred writing style. Let me explain what I mean. Years ago when I was writing for the Village Voice, I remember that after my first year of art columns an irate reader wrote complaining I had used the first person pronoun 73 times. First of all, he obviously did not follow what was then called the New Journalism. Secondly, my … [Read more...]