In 2007, the German-born artist Barbel Helmert moved from San Antonio to Alpine, drawn by the wide-open skies and austere landscape. She’s found inspiration in subtle, highly textured, colorful elements…
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Vernon Fisher started off his art career as an abstract painter, but by the mid-1970s that line of inquiry came to a screeching halt. He began making small books instead.…
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Next morning in Marfa I mail a sixth postcard to Jens Hoffmann. A funny ratio you might say to the two postcards he kept, especially considering that I also sent…
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In a little casita not far from downtown Marfa, Catherine Cox is working diligently to set up her studio, which she’s named Marfa Made Paper. After spending three…
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Earlier this year, I simultaneously read Jaron Lanier’s You Are Not A Gadget and Steven B. Johnson’s Everything Bad Is Good for You, and found it, as you can imagine, confounding. Lanier argues that digital…
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On my first visit to Kurt Schwitters: Color and Collage at the Menil Collection, I overheard a man behind me whispering to his companion. “You know,” he hissed, “this stuff…
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I can sense the Hermes assist as I cross into New Mexico. Out here they call him Coyote. He’s a kind of fellow traveler for me and has provided joy,…
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Thursday morning Jeff and I head into Lubbock in separate cars. He’ll go east to Dallas for a Texas Artists Today book signing and I’ll go north, but first we…
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This year marks the centennial of the Mexican Revolution and the bicentennial of Mexico’s independence. In commemoration, curators Kerry Doyle and Karla Jasso have assembled Contra Flujo: Independence and Revolution,…
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Fell asleep last night thinking how I had the Lone Ranger flashlight with me and didn’t think to use it. As if it were a different sort of object, than…
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The lucky key continued to influence my time yesterday as I wound down from writing. I turned on the TV about one am and found John Ford’s silent film, The…
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This is day one of One Kind Favor, a trip I’m taking around the state and into New Mexico, reversing the route taken by Jens Hoffmann, Director of the CCA…
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While I lament the lack of legitimate arthouse venues to view offerings from the second annual Houston Cinema Arts Festival, I have to admit that I did enjoy seeing Waste…
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On November 11, 2010, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that some of the biggest names in technology, media and fine art are coming together to support Art.sy, a Pandora Radio-type…
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The past few years have been a busy time for new (or renewed) contemporary art institutions in Austin. The Blanton Museum of Art opened a new and expanded building in…
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I have been living and working in Beijing’s “798” for a month now. I visited this most important arts district in China for a few exciting days in 2008. This…
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I can hardly see a new photograph these days, whether in galleries, on Etsy, or in blogs, that doesn’t smack of a certain beauty of the ordinary—photos of arranged utensils…
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Mostly an armchair explorer of the human psyche, Hills Snyder journeyed to Peru in 2006 to visit the ancient temple of Chavin de Huantar, experiencing first-hand the Ayahuasca ceremonies of…
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Two photographs hang side by side in a gallery. On the right, in a white frame, is a photo of two little girls in front of a white-and-red house decorated…
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The last NYC vs. Marfa post was so popular that I decided to try it again. See if you can guess which photos feature Marfa and which picture scenes from New York. Answers…