artfultext making sense of art in a digital world

There is nothing pretty about humanity in Francis Bacon's art. For him, we are no different than animals, always scratching and clawing to satisfy the needs of our flesh. No madonnas here with mothers adoringly looking at offspring. No next generation on the horizon, at all. Bacon depicts sex, but n

(Washington, D.C.) -- Between December 1933 and June 1934, in the first U.S. government program to provide direct support to the arts, 3,750 artists traveled the country to portray the “American Scene.”It was the Great Depression. Unemployment was rampant. American confidence was shaken. Food was sc

I wondered as I took the subway from the Upper West Side to the Bowery's New Museum if I would relate to the art at its "Younger than Jesus" show, which features works from 50 artists from 25 countries who are younger than 33, the age at which Jesus died.As someone older than Jesus at his demise, wo

An argument can be made that there is a direct aesthetic and philosophical connection between the early 20th century postcards collected and appreciated by photographer Walker Evans (1903-1975), which are now on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and digital photography today.The postcards (

When the Dahesh Museum closed its doors at 56th Street and Madison Avenue in September 2007, I was disappointed. Its collection of 3000 works of academic art from the 19th and early 20th centuries always was a sobering counterpoint to Impressionism, Modernism and abstraction in painting. The museum

 A week ago, if I looked at what is on my desk, I would see a computer monitor, a keyboard, a plastic water bottle, a scotch tape dispenser, a cup filled with pens, a small Buddha, a stapler and a land-line telephone. I didn't imagine these objects outside of what they are and what they are supposed

  When then 15-year-old teen idol Miley Cyrus, of Hannah Montana fame, posed semi-nude for Vanity Fair, in 2008, young fans and parents were in an uproar.Her Disney Channel avatar of a regular school girl by day and a pop star by night took a beating, leading to apologies by the young performer. Whe

That approximately 12.5 million Americans are currently unemployed is staggering. What are all those people doing without having a place to go to for work? Although looking for work is a full-time job, it can be discouraging when there is no work to be found. How are people going to adapt to the ch

to scan my Twitter "art-based" stream feels like a form of madness. I click on abbreviated urls, spend time finding people to follow and then have them follow me. There is no structure, per se. It is sheer randomness. Yet I do it.Much of the 140-character art "lineage" is self-promotional, such as m

Peter Singer, apparently, is trying to goad us into doing the right thing and to personally contribute to ending world poverty, according to a review of his new book "Acting Now to End World Poverty" in the New York Times. I agree. We could all do more to help those less fortunate than ourselves. Pe