Artists who work in this maximalist vein know when a work is finished. It’s finished when there’s no more room to breathe.
Michael Bise
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People who advocate for “reconceptualizing personhood” by eliminating property and ownership are dangerous.
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Like music, art doesn’t allow us to transform our nature or bring us closer to some abstract ideal of what we should be. But both help us shift our perspective and allow more stories to come into view.
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Review
Snake Oil: Taraneh Fazeli, Critical Writing Fellow, Core Program
by Michael Biseby Michael BiseFazeli’s valorization of illness as a tool for economic revolution is an example of the kind of fuzzy thinking that too often goes unchallenged in the art world.
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The court painter might be the least naïve kind of artist. Franz X. Winterhalter presents a relevant prism through which to examine our contemporary social moment.
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All of art history in 1000 words.
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Cartier-Bresson’s human subjects are full of agency in spite of their positions in historical moments over which they may have little control.
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I’m increasingly convinced that too much contemporary art making is becoming cultic and pseudo-religious.
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Review
Big Brother on Mars: MPA at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
by Michael Biseby Michael BiseLet’s take a moment to contemplate how far into Neverland so many young leftist artists have drifted.
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The undeniable truth is that Copley’s paintings, in spite of their humor and limited formal charms, are not very good.
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I could be convinced by a car show. I’m a sucker for a good anthropological dig into the charred remains of the twentieth century. This is not that show.
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Like ancient art, Modern art depicts the power, glory and terror of being human in our time. It has painted the darkest, most seductive portrait of humanity in all recorded history.
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Why does the hair stand up on the back of my neck when I read artist statements, reviews and essays that invoke the word “community?”
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A friend and I have a theory that all artists, even now, basically split along the Northern and Italian Renaissance divide.
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For every kid on either side of any racist divide there comes a time when they figure out that in this country, they’re either a cowboy or an Indian.
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If you’re not an artist this all probably sounds terrible and terrifying. If you are an artist, it still sounds terrible, but you’re going to do it anyway.
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I’m learning to be grateful for all the terrible shit that hasn’t happened to me instead of being pissed off at all the things that have.
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It’s not totally Abstraction’s fault that I turned it into a religion.
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Duggins’ artistic act is to face a reality in which we remain at the mercy of a natural world that can bury cities and wipe out populations. He delivers it with a half smile and a sure hand.
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Individual artists have to fabricate purpose because human life does not inherently possess it.