Hype is an insidious, all but irresistible phenomenon. It preys on our insecurities, our need to belong to a community, however contrived or flimsy. It’s also there to sell us a bill of goods. Hype was the sole factor explaining the crowds at the Whitney Biennial that just closed. No one visiting the Whitney expected Read More
It had not been my intention to return to the subject of the Jean Hélion exhibition at the National Academy Museum any time soon, but after reading Roberta Smith’s lengthy and altogether malicious attack on the artist in The New York Times of Aug. 5, I believe a rebuttal is needed. Jean Hélion (1904-1987) was Read More
It had not been my intention to return to the subject of the Jean Hélion exhibition at the National Academy Museum any time soon, but after reading Roberta Smith’s lengthy and altogether malicious attack on the artist in The New York Times of Aug. 5, I believe a rebuttal is needed. Jean Hélion (1904-1987) was Read More
The French painter Jean Hélion (1904-1987), whose work is the focus of a compelling exhibition at the National Academy Museum, was a man of strong moral and intellectual passions—so strong, indeed, that when he changed the course of his art, turning to a highly charged realist style after achieving great distinction as an abstractionist, it Read More
Artists
tend not to be very obedient about following rules, even when the rules are established by their fellow artists; they prefer to do their own thing rather than conform to some committee directive. So it was not exactly a surprise to discover that a number of artists represented in the 180th Annual Exhibition Read More
In the history of modern art, nothing dates more rapidly than audacity. Every fresh shock marks a new beginning for a rising generation eager to overtake established elders. The art that challenges orthodoxy in one generation is embraced as a classic by the next and soon absorbed into the realm of established convention. As a Read More
Almost everyone has a story to tell about being caught in a storm, and accounts of storms are as variable as the people who recall them. My own earliest memory of a storm goes back to the 1938 hurricane that devastated much of the New England coast. I was then 10 years old, living in Read More
