Taking on the role of a gallery, auction house giant Sotheby’s presents Divine Comedy, a lively exhibition of art from olden days to contemporary times at its New York outpost. None of the works on view, including major pieces by Jeff Koons, Damian Hirst, Takashi Murakami, and Andres Serrano will be auctioned, but many of them are privately for sale. Using Dante’s epic poem as a point of departure for visual portrayals of Purgatory, Heaven, and Hell, the exhibition gathers together top-notch pieces by some of today’s most in-demand artists.
Read More »
Rosy-cheeked, nostalgic, kitschy, clichéd: our feelings on Norman Rockwell are manifold. Though Rockwell’s depictions of America evoke a certain warm feeling for yesteryear, they are more akin to propagandistic advertisements than high art. It’s worth noting, however, that Rockwell referred to himself as an illustrator, not an artist — a fact that dovetails with his use of photography in creating his iconic images. NPR has a fascinating look at the process behind the lens; peep side-by-side comparisons plus other photorealist picks after the jump.
Read More »
The text panel prefacing The Problem Perspective, the first major U.S. retrospective of German artist Martin Kippenberger, opens with a quote from Aristotle: “everything in moderation.” It then continues with the following statement: “Martin Kippenberger never got this message.”
Curatorial assistance or not, it doesn’t take long to pick up on the Dionysian overtones of Kippenberger’s work. At the entrance to The Problem Perspective an oat-covered Ford Capri peeks out into the foyer (a nudge to Anselm Kiefer) and continuing through the exhibit, the viewer passes by drunken street lamps (which unlike sober ones weave in and out of walls) deprecating self-portraits, and a junkie’s forest populated by disco balls, wooden pills, and ominously headless birch trees.
Read More »
