The “Other” Art at Lincoln Center

Riley, Charles A.
Art at Lincoln Center: The Public Art and List Print and Poster Collections
Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2009
We all know of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, but have you ever experienced Lincoln Center for the Visual Arts? If not, I recommend a tour of the campus, where to the [...]

Paintings for the People

Braun-Reinitz, Janet, and Jane Weissman
On the Wall: Four Decades of Community Murals in New York City
Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009
Several years ago I was awarded a grant to take a group of high school students to a local homeless shelter to paint a mural. I remember the day I opened the letter of acceptance. [...]

Optical Effects: Seeing and Painting Color and Light

Livingstone, Margaret
Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing
New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2008
“Just look at those apples! They’re practically rolling off the table! So vivid!” That was me looking at a Cezanne still life. My husband yawned, smiled politely and moved on to the next painting. For years of an otherwise perfect marriage, we have [...]

Art in the 21st Century

Art:21 Season 4
PBS Home Video, 2007
When my work is on display and people ask me questions about it, I sometimes find myself tongue tied. How do I begin to explain the process which leads me through the creation of a painting? Yet it is in the act of creating that discoveries are made, choices are [...]

Photography as Oral Tradition: Jeff Wall’s Narrative Tableaus

Newman, Michael
Jeff Wall: Works and Collected Writings
Barcelona: Poligrafa, 2007
About a year ago I found myself standing in front of one of Jeff Wall’s large format photos at a retrospective exhibit of his work at MOMA in NYC. I was entranced. With each photo a new question arose, or rather a multitude of questions. What was [...]

The Color of Ambiguity

Rondeau, James and Douglas W. Druick
Jasper Johns: Gray
Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2007.
How often, as we gaze at a work of art, do we ask ourselves “What does this work of art mean?” Sometimes we break that question into two parts: “What does the artist mean?” and “What does this work of art mean to [...]

Fast Forward–The Art of the Italian Futurists

Apollonio, Umbro
Futurist Manifestos
Boston, Mass. : MFA Publications, 2001
On January 20th I heard our new president, in his inaugural address, speak about achieving our goals “when imagination is joined to common purpose.” I interpret this as meaning that in order to make the choices that the changing world presents to us, in order to move together [...]

Public Speaking

Finkelpearl, Tom
Dialogues in Public Art
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001
At the end of my street, a towering American Civil War memorial overlooks the river and New Jersey beyond. The local kids use its lower plaza as a skateboard park. They don’t look up at the names of the heroes it memorializes as they careen wildly down [...]