Architecture

Silent Opera Over Venice: Richard Humann’s Augmented Reality at Venice Biennale

The connection between the potential of augmented reality (AR), and art is a simple one to make—sometimes it only takes a ‘T.’ Yet as Richard Humann settles back into his Brooklyn studio after his nine-hour return flight, he can’t help but smile knowing he’s onto something considerably more complex.

Left: Richard Humann, The Dogs of War (2017), Augmented Reality, variable dimensions

“I don’t remember leaving it this way,” Richard says, setting down his laptop bag, “It’s remarkable how much mess it takes to get artists to their exhibitions.” However, this mess brought more than Richard Humann to the sun soaked waterways of Venice, it likewise brought “Ascension”, the first AR installation to premier during the Venice Biennale, in conjunction with the European Cultural Center and the GAA Foundation.More

Two Cheers for the Revolution: Telling Difficult Stories at Philadelphia’s Museum of the American Revolution

This exterior view of MOAR is about as inviting as its stolid massing gets. The architecture conceals rather than reveals the building’s subject. All photos courtesy of the Museum of the American Revolution.

The United States was birthed in resistance, rebellion, and war. The story of the American Revolution, repeated, refined, and simplified over many generations, has become an iconic element of our national fable: our patriot “ancestors” resisted the tyranny of the greatest empire of its day, preserved American liberties, and established a novel kind of egalitarian republic. The catch-phrases of “the times that try men’s souls”–“life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” “all men are created equal,” and “the consent of the governed”–still resonate in our political and cultural discourse. And yet the story of the Revolution is complex and messy, full of sharp elbows and glaring contradictions, including the persistence of slavery, the dispossession of Native Americans, tensions within the states, among the states, and between state and federal governments, and a tendency to advantage our elites over our masses. If ever there was a difficult, challenging story to tell, it is the story of our Revolution and its impact on subsequent generations, right up to the contemporary moment. In a sense, the story of the American Revolution, which is also the story of our first civil war, has always been contested and fraught.More

Editor’s Letter: July, 2017

“We must first look, before we can see.” ~Henry David Thoreau

Left: Isamu Noguchi, Mother and Child (1944-1947), Onyx, 19 3/8 × 12 3/4 × 8 5/8″. Noguchi Museum, NY.

On Being Taught Not to Fly

Another essay by art and theater critic, world traveler and ARTES contributing editor, Edward Rubin…

It wasn’t until I visited the Doge’s Palace in Venice (below, left and right [detail]) and came face to face with “Paradise,” Tintoretto’s large painting that hangs majestically in the Ducal Hall that I discovered that Tintoretto was still alive. Here he was, some 400 years later, looking down at me looking up at him. I didn’t have to read the painting’s label which no doubt listed the artist’s name, the title of the painting, and the date it was executed. I didn’t have time. I was pulled right past the words into the heart of the matter. Communication was instantaneous. I knew immediately that this seething mass of humanity, posing as saints and angels on canvas, all 23 by 72 feet of it, was transmogrified flesh…Tintoretto’s. More

Roman Ruins: Update on a Once Great Beauty

On a recent sunny September afternoon, I stood on one of the hills of Rome with a group of Italians, looking across the brown Tiber (below) to the old orange buildings of Trastevere. A bright green bird, maybe some sort of parrot, swooped over the river toward a row of darker green umbrella pines. Modern Rome has few birds, except for sparrows and pigeons, and precious little quiet, so we stood for a while and drank it in.More

Theaster Gates: The Minor Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Artist, Theaster Gates. Photo courtesy of hypocritedesign.com

Theaster Gates is a 21^st century Renaissance man whose art practice comprises painting, sculpture, installation, music, design, performance and urban planning. Gates is, as are L.A. artists Mark Bradford and Richard Lowe, an extraordinary social practice artist who can sees potential beyond the surface of a situation despite its outwardly decrepit state. He was born in Chicago in 1973 on Chicago’s run-down South Side, known as Greater Grand Crossing, where he continues to work and live. This visionary raises money, collaborates with urban planners/architects/policy makers and has been supported by Chicago’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel who made Gates an off-the-record commissioner of renewal for the city’s South Side.More

Editor’s Letter: March, 2017

Vanity, Thy Name Is…

“I don’t control painting, painting controls me.” ~ Hubert Roestenburg, German Expressionist

Left: Henri Matisse, Woman in a Hat (1920) Private Collection.

What can art teach us about human motivation? It is in our nature to surround ourselves with the people and things that reinforce our self-image and belief systems, as evidenced in the case of the current president? Take notice of the ‘new’ oval office and the change in art work that now hangs within sight of the chief executive, and all those who care to notice in photographs of proceedings there. To the right of the desk, from a viewer’s perspective, is a large portrait of Andrew Jackson (c. 1834), by then-Nashville colleague and White House resident artist, Ralph E.W. Earl. Jackson lost a bitterly contested election to John Quincy Adams in `24. His next campaign—characterized by his rough-hewn style and unconventional Tennessee country ways—was aimed at earning the vote of the ordinary man. This carried him to victory in 1828. In order to manage his public image, it is said that Jackson kept the artist close by in the years that followed, requiring that multiple portraits be produced to reinforce the perception of the man as a heroic and statesman-like figure.More

Baroque Rome in the Footsteps of Gian Lorenzo Bernini

www.artesmagazine.com — Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi in Piazza Navona, Rome. All photos courtesy of the author.

A s one walks the city of Rome, its major public squares and bridges, basilicas, galleries and other holy places, the work of 17th century sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini appear to accompany the visitor. No other artist, pope or urban planner had a more enduring impact on the look of the Eternal City today. From the colonnades of St. Peter’s Square to the fountains of Piazzas di Spagna, Popolo, Navona and Barberini – Bernini sculpted Rome’s look like no other. xxxxxMore

Peabody Essex Museum’s ‘Asia in Amsterdam’: Borrowed Inspiration

Creativity cannot exist in a vacuum. Whether intentional or subliminal, ideas travel and leave their mark regardless of culture, method of transport, or purpose. Because of this, society evolves and changes. Art changes. It has to, in order to survive. Creators borrow from everything around them, infusing each work with a moment in time and space. Throughout history as the world started to get smaller, this evolution only intensified. Exposure to new cultures created new opportunities, not only in art but also commerce. Nothing comes without a price however, often at the expense of the originator. xxxxxMore

‘Palm Beach Panache,’ Luxury from the Inside, Out

panache DSCN9513 Recently published, Palm Beach Panache, by inveterate design fashionista, Carolina (pronounced, Caro-lee-na) Fernandez, plunges headlong into a world few get to see. Behind the gates and curving drives leading up to those fine homes bordering the ubiquitous Florida inter-coastal waterways, there are treasures of design and good taste meant for only the most discerning eye. But, Fernandez has managed to pierce the coveted privacy veil, inviting her readers into those hallowed realms with dozens of beautiful photographs and her probing narrative style. Inspired by her own investment in Sunshine State property, as well as shaping attractive living environments for her own family, based in New England, the author ventured into the Palm Beach community to learn about and share her observations of the unique, ‘Palm Beach style.’ xxxxxMore

Copenhagen in the Footsteps of Painter, Vilhelm Hammershøi

What better way to see a city than through the eyes of a painter? For everyone knows that great painters see life not as it is for an ordinary person, but rather, life as it can be transformed into something otherworldly — an artwork. On a recent trip to Copenhagen, I did exactly that — I saw the Danish city, which was founded as a fishing village in the 10^th century, through the eyes of Vilhelm Hammershøi, a painter who lived and worked there for most of his life. Born in 1864, Hammershøi made a name for himself painting the interior spaces where he lived, and the landmarks of the city, in a stripped-bare style that anticipated both pointillism and modernism. Revered in his home country, he has been largely forgotten abroad. That is, until now. Currently, he is the subject of Painting Tranquility: Masterworks by Vilhelm Hammershøi from SMK – The National Gallery of Denmark, a critically acclaimed exhibition of his paintings currently on view at the Scandinavia House in New York through February 27, 2016. xxxxxMore