I Know It When I See It
There are two broad semantic categories in our society that are defined largely by intuition. One is ‘What is Art?’ and the other is ‘What is Obscenity?’. And the two are related in that anything deemed to be art, is generally excused from being suppressed as obscenity. Indeed this very relationship is [...]
Is Stock Photography Evil?
It is no longer difficult to take an adequate photograph. I say that with confidence, as a person who treats her digital camera as essentially a magic box with a button on one side and a USB port on the other. And yet, if I take enough pictures under good light, I can [...]
2009 Art Sales May Not Have Been Bad For Auction Houses, But Was It Good For Art?
Antique Week, Vol. 41, Issue No. 2112 (January 11, 2010) has a report in the national section on art sales in 2009.
In the article, two things stood out for me.
First:
Auction houses started slashing pre-sale estimates by as much as 50 percent to stimulate sales. When Sloans & Kenyon of Chevy Chase, Md., gave a [...]
Michael Jackson: King Of Commissioned Kitsch
We keep hearing how poor MJ was, but the dude spent a fortune commissioning art — of himself. And while he was one helluva a musical artist & entertainer, he didn’t have a clue about art.
Just unveiled, Kehinde Wiley’s monumental commissioned portrait of Michael Jackson:
And here’s a 1990 painting of Jackson by David Nordahl:
Now [...]
