Pop Rides the News Cycle – Andy Warhol as Precursor to Twitter & Facebook

Holland Cotter has written a superb and insightful article entitled “Pop Rides the News Cycle” in the Art & Design section of The New York Times, looking at the work, and person, of Andy Warhol, his gimlet-eyed perceptions of the integration of news, commerce and art, and two exhibitions currently on view in the U.S. capitol, “Warhol: Headlines” at the National Gallery of Art and (through 2 January 2012) “Andy Warhol: Shadows,” (through 15 January 2012) at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.  Astounding.  Sharp, concise, deep, and clear.  A must-read, whether you can get to D.C. to view the shows, or not.

Excellent, but brief, slideshow, here.

Ndlr: scopophiliac, according to Wikipedia.

top image: Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/The New York Times

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Willem de Kooning – Unfurling a Life of Creative Exuberance

Pink Angels, 1945, Willem de Kooning

Holland Cotter has written an inspired and inspiring article entitled “Unfurling a Life of Creative Exuberance” in the Art & Design section of The New York Times, reviewing the enormous and masterful new MoMA retrospective entitled, appropriately enough, “De Kooning: A Retrospective” (through 9 January 2012 at the Museum of Modern Art; (212) 708-9400, moma.org) which includes paintings, drawings and sculpture created over a period of 70 years.  Cotter looks, with insight, knowledge and clarity, at de Kooning, his “energy-generating” work, and his methods in a way that is informative, easily accessible, and motivating.  All the more reason to make MoMA’s wonderful exhibition a must-see on your fall calendar.

image: Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles; Willem de Kooning Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / The New York Times

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Ellsworth Kelly – Reliefs 2009-2010 & Black & White Drawings – His Own Richest Source of Inspiration

 

Black Curve Relief, 2010, by Ellsworth Kelly at the Matthew Marks Gallery

image: Ellsworth Kelly/Matthew Marks Gallery 

Holland Cotter has written a short, clear article in the Art & Design section of The New York Times, entitled “Ellsworth Kelly” reviewing the exhibitions “Ellsworth Kelly – Reliefs 2009-2010” at the Matthew Marks Gallery, 522 West 22nd Street and 523 West 24th St., NYC and “Ellsworth Kelly – Black and White Drawings”, at the Matthew Marks Gallery, 526 West 22nd St., NYC (through 16 April 2011).  Cotter’s observations, precise, direct, are always welcome:  “Mr. Kelly give us nothing startlingly different from what he’s given us before, though the show itself does. By placing past and present more or less side by side, we get a chance to see where the artist, now 87, came from and is still coming from, and where he’s going.”

The Matthew Marks Gallery offers a compelling view of the exhibition on its site: Matthew Marks Gallery, including a video of the installation.

Visit the artist’s website here.  And a page of Google images, here.

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Ai Weiwei – Artist, Architect & Living Symbol of China’s Conscience

The Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei and one of the elements of his work “Zodiac”

image: AW Asia/The New York Times

Holland Cotter has written a thoughtful, informed and hopeful short article entitled “An Artist Takes Role of China’s Conscience” in the Art & Design section of The New York Times looking at the life, work and international artistic and ethical importance of the Chinese contemporary activist artist, architect and social commentator Ai Weiwei and his recent arrest by Chinese authorities.  Whether or not Ai Weiwei’s art, on a visual level, speaks to you directly, his work, on a more general, human level, should.

Slideshow, here.

Here is a link to Ai Weiwei’s official site, here is a link to his official Twitter account (in Chinese), and here is a link to Ai Weiwei’s official blog (shut down by Chinese authorities).

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Kurt Schwitters – One of Modernism’s Signal Outsiders

Mz 601, a 1923 collage from the exhibition “Kurt Schwitters: Color and Collage” at the Princeton University Art Museum (image: Kurt and Ernst Schwitters Foundation, Hannover, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn/The New York Times)

Holland Cotter has written a very good, very interesting article entitled “Versatile Collagist, Dangerous Times” in the Art & Design section of The New York Times looking at the fascinating, difficult life, and precise, urgent work of the collagist Kurt Schwitters, and reviewing the current exhibition entitled “Kurt Schwitters: Color and Collage” at the Princeton University Art Museum (Princeton, N.J., through 26 June 2011, (609)258-3788, artmuseum.princeton.edu. The exhibition then travels to the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum).  Schwitters’ graphic sensibility, heartfelt meticulousness and personal diversity are nothing if not inspiring.

Excellent slideshow, here.

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