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Repository 184: A Man and His Messy Muse | Francis Bacon Studio Redux
I’ve always been comfortably obsessed with the art and life of Francis Bacon (1909-1992). While his work is received popularly as tortured, emotional and expressionist I’ve always found it to be a fairly clear representation of what tension and violence feels like. This is neither a good or a bad thing – it’s not violence in the sense of domestic abuse, it’s violence in the sense of wanting something when you absolutely can’t have it, the violence of a frozen…
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Repository 168 | Copyright, Appropriation, Stealing and Radical Democracy
It’s been over a year and a half that I have tried to find a willing bookstore for my coloring book – a swan song to a book I wrote and could not afford the copyright, a red flag to artists to stop working in isolation, an homage to the shoulders of giants on which we stand. While a handful have said the book was too special and to try museum bookstores, the majority of artist friendly, curious book shops…
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Repository 166: Where Art Falls Down | The Not-so-genius MacArthur Genius
I’m not going to lie, if Picasso were alive today and he spoke at my commencement address I would listen very, very carefully. If he told me to go smoke a cigar through my nose, I would. We artists, despite the idea or aura of being one’s own voice, are very impressionable. And in a field that gives no rules, no reassurance and no true metrics we are constantly looking for a sign, a guideline or a concept that will…
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Repository 149: Art and Empathy | Artists Exploring the Horrific
Art deals with things forever incapable of definition and that belong to love, beauty, joy and worship. The shapes, power and glory of which are ever building and unbuilding and rebuilding in each man’s soul and in the soul of the whole world. – quote by Victor Hugo carved on the facade of the Nelson Atkins Museum erected in 1930 Does anyone ever wonder where to turn the art spigot when things happening in the world seem beyond comprehension, beyond…
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