July 4th
This year, working from the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada Day on July 1 gets all the attention. But with July 4 quickly approaching, I find myself looking through firework photos from years past across American towns.
I Spy With My Little Eye…
Maybe as a child you played the game “I spy with my little eye…“? Or on road trips, the license plate game? Or the letter game (things always get stuck on Q and Z)? I have fond memories of childhood trips driving across America whiling away the hours with things like these. I still love to wander, whether in the car or by foot, and am always on the lookout for new visual information...
9-Note Register: America’s Empty Signs
One type of American roadside signs is those that have fallen into disrepair or become partially disassembled such that where there was once a sign, all that remains is a window to the world behind it. The “frame” of the sign, which previously kept some name, symbol, or slogan, now holds the space behind it—a shifting picture.
John Stezaker & the Not-So-Perfect Marriage
John Stezaker’s surreal, handmade collages—comprised of film stills, publicity portraits, and postcards collected from thrift stores and bookshops—are masterful studies in contradiction. They are familiar and nostalgic, but also unexpected and strange. Like a Coen Brothers film or Flannery O’Connor short story, they walk that compelling line between comedy and tragedy.
A Quest for the Quiet Mind: Can the Art World Make Room for Sincerity?
"There’s nobody living who couldn’t stand all afternoon in front of a waterfall...," wrote Agnes Martin. "Anyone who can sit on a stone in a field awhile can see my painting. Nature is like parting a curtain, you go into it...as you would cross an empty beach to look at [...]
Crystal Bliss: What the Snow Photos of Doug + Mike Starn Teach Us about Originality
Doug + Mike Starn, from the series alleverythingthatisyou, 2006-2007. (Photograph Doug + Mike Starn courtesy dmstarn.com) Doug + Mike Starn, Big Bambú: You Can't, You Don't, and You Won't Stop, 2010. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art Roof Garden (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images North America via [...]
Gwarlingo’s 26 Favorite Art, Photography, Film & Design Books of 2013
As an ex-librarian and book collector, one of my favorite things to do is to ferret out new publications and share them with readers. Whenever I'm traveling, I scour local bookstores and museum shops for interesting books. (Carting heavy art tomes home on an airplane is a familiar [...]
Chop-Suey, Automats, & Diamondback Terrapin: Michael Lesy & Lisa Stoffer on Dining in America
The chefs of Sherry's restaurant at luncheon in 1902 (Photo courtesy the Museum of the City of New York, the Byron Company Collection. Click to Enlarge) Wisconsin Death Trip My first introduction to the work of Michael Lesy was a chance encounter many years ago with his classic [...]
Solid Sound 2013: Wilco’s Music & Art Festival
Jeff Tweedy of Wilco performing at the 2013 Solid Sound Festival at Mass MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts (Photo by Michelle Aldredge) Last weekend around 8,000 festival-goers gathered at Mass MoCA under the supermoon to participate in Wilco's sold-out Solid Sound Festival in North Adams, Massachusetts. Attendees come [...]
Wilco, Ruscha, Sondheim,Tom Phillips, Xu Bing & More: 11 Don’t-Miss Arts Events
Liu Bolin, Hiding in the City No.93 -Supermarket No.2, 2010. Photographs by the Chinese artist are on view in Brattleboro, Vermont, through June 23rd. (Photo Courtesy Eli Klein Fine Art © Liu Bolin. Click to Enlarge) The summer art scene in New England presents a special challenge. [...]
The Polaroids of Andrei Tarkovsky : The Mystery of Everyday Life
Polaroid by Andrei Tarkovsky from the book Instant Light: Tarkovsky Polaroids from Thames and Hudson. “Never try to convey your idea to the audience," said Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, "---it is a thankless and senseless task. Show them life, and they’ll find within themselves the means to [...]
The Sunday Poem : Joan Murray
Joan Murray (Photo by David Lee) Today's Sunday Poem is a special excerpt from poet Joan Murray's project The Visitor: Poems from the Eastman House. The last time I saw Joan she was working on this series of poems at The MacDowell Colony. I asked Joan to [...]
Obsession & Empathy: Nan Goldin, Michael Chabon, & A Home for Indigent Bohemians
Left to Right: Writer Ayelet Waldman, photographer Nan Goldin, and Pulitzer-Prize-Winner Michael Chabon (Photo © Joanna Eldredge Morrissey 2012. All rights reserved) Two weeks ago, artists and art lovers converged on the quiet town of Peterborough, New Hampshire, for a chance to meet some of the most talented [...]
Receipts, Email, Bread Tags, Styrofoam : Rachel Perry Welty Transforms Life’s Daily Clutter into Art
Rachel Perry Welty, Lost in My Life (receipts), 2011. Pigmented ink print, edition of 3. 91.25 x 60 (Photo courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery) Rachel Perry Welty, Lost in My Life (price tags), 2009. Pigmented ink print, edition of 3. 91.25 x [...]
Learning to Look : Whistler, Fireworks, and a New Way of Seeing
I'll never forget the first time I saw James McNeill Whistler's Nocturne in Black and Gold. I was still in high school when I stumbled across the painting in an art history book and was immediately stunned. I had never seen night captured so perfectly in an artwork [...]
The Art of Taking Risks : 13 Years, 3500 Artists, 7 Memorable Lessons
When I was a girl, I was fearless. I was always falling out of trees, off of speeding bicycles, into muddy creeks. Once, I was bitten by an angry goose. I was knocked on the head accidentally with a baseball. A rock. And a basketball. On one hot [...]
New England Artists Finally Get Their Due at the deCordova’s 2012 Biennial
A few weeks ago I attended the opening for the 2012 deCordova Biennial, which is on view in Lincoln, Massachusetts, through April 22nd. This year curators Dina Deitsch and Abigail Ross Goodman have created a regional Biennial that features the work of 23 New England artists. As Greg [...]
The Spectacular Snow Drawings of Simon Beck
Winter has finally arrived in New Hampshire. We're expecting about a foot of snow here in the Monadnock region by the time the storm ends Thursday evening. There hasn't been a single opportunity for snowshoeing this year, which I've missed. Snowshoeing has been on my mind...This week I noticed [...]
Ansel Adams: I Know What Love Is
Today is Valentine's Day--a day for candy hearts, sentimental cards, flowers, garish lingerie, and romantic dinners for two. It's another holiday aimed at consumers, a holiday especially tortuous for my friends who are "single and still looking." So today, out of respect to the singles of the [...]
Believing is Seeing: Errol Morris Uncovers the Mysteries of Photography
What makes an "honest" photograph---a "true" photograph? Is the medium of photography more factual and authentic than other art forms? What makes a photograph "a fake"? Can a photo be objective or does it always have a point of view? When does a photograph document reality? When is it [...]
Gwarlingo Tours the High Line, New York’s Park in the Sky
If you're fed up with partisan bickering and political dysfunction in Washington, the gratifying, lavishly-illustrated book High Line: The Inside Story of New York City's Park in the Sky, just published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, might temper your burgeoning cynicism. The book is a lesson in what can [...]
Snow: A Holiday Gift from Gwarlingo
Last night the snow finally arrived in New Hampshire. Having grown up in Georgia, a white Christmas is still a welcome novelty for me. Back home in Atlanta, businesses and schools close the moment the "S" word is mentioned. There are few snow plows or sand trucks there, [...]
Little People in the City: The Street Art of Slinkachu
In recent years the London street art scene has been dominated by the brash, satirical, crowd-pleasing work of Banksy. His 2010 film Exit Through the Gift Shop, which I'll be writing about in the coming weeks, made Banksy a familiar name in certain American households, and his book, Wall [...]
Photographer Bill Jacobson: A Rare Look at the Evolution of an Artist
If you're in New York be sure to stop by Julie Saul Gallery to catch Bill Jacobson's new photography show. Into the Loving Nowhere (1989 till now) opens Thursday, October 20th with a special reception from 6-8 p.m. and will be on view through December [...]
95 Rare Color Photographs: America in Transition
Recently, I stumbled across a small online collection of rare color images taken by photographers from the Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information. The above photograph of Jack Whinery and his family was so remarkable and surprising that I immediately began exploring the online archive of the Library [...]