Vienna, with the MIA

Vienna – Top Ten Arts Experiences 1. St. Stephen’s Cathedral 2. Otto Wagner, Steinhof Church The yin and yang of Viennese architecture, one from the 15th century, the other a landmark of “Vienna 1900,” both exemplify gesamtkunstwerk, complete decorative ensembles. 3. Vermeer, The Art of Painting In the richness of the Kunsthistorisches, this one painting […]

Chinese Paintings at LACMA

Of all the marvelous Chinese Paintings from Japanese Collections currently visiting LACMA, courtesy of curator Stephen Little, three ink works from perhaps the 13th century not only caught my attention, they rewarded revisits and made me think I could look at them for days on end. That, I suppose, is one goal of a Zen […]

New York, May ’14

On successive days I saw similarly provocative shows, at the Guggenheim and the Museum of the City of New York. Neither contained great art; both raised questions about the role of art in society. Futurism was the kind of exhaustive, indeed definitive, survey in which the Guggenheim excels. Full of loans from Italy, it showed […]

Loot

An appearance by the estimable Sharon Waxman at an SBMA Director’s Dialogue prompted a return to my thoughts on the issue of repatriation of stolen art. It also prompted me to read her 2012 book, Loot . There was nothing in the book that added to my previous understanding of the subject, formed by reading, […]