MoMA Revisited

[fusion_text]I will want to examine my perception more closely, but a  cursory visit to New York’s Museum of Modern Art (4/6/15) left me wondering about the disparity in quality between the sixth and fifth floors where the permanent collection is displayed. 1940 is the apparent dividing line between the two. The sixth floor is chock-a-block […]

Chinese Stones

Stephen Little, the curator of Chinese art at LACMA, spoke at Jill Finsten’s Art Talks on Thursday (3/5/15) about the Chinese veneration of stones, giving us more insight about the Chinese stone that guards our front door, which we really should name. This respect for stones arises from Daoism, which has a creation myth that […]

George Caleb Bingham

Looking ahead to the exhibition that will visit the Met this summer, I have just read the catalogue, “Navigating the West: George Caleb Bingham & the River” and found it illuminating and crystallizing why I so like Bingham’s work. First, it put his oeuvre in context: one never knows how unique an artist’s vision is, […]

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 […]