Essay

Author’s Disclaimer: As a practicing sculptor I spend a fair amount of time involved in what can only be described as “donkey work” and while I have to pay attention…

  Forget iPhone 5. Instead of buying the latest Apple gadget, I’ve added Magritte VI to my credit card bill. Nothing Apple sells stirs my covetousness like a book on Magritte–and…

Recent conversations on contemporary art are littered with language on the archive-as-artwork, mostly inspired by Derrida’s 1988 publication, Archive Fever.  Exhibitions continue to spring up centered on the archive, most…

Celebrating the legendary de Menil years of the Rice Museum and Rice Media Center. The Menil Collection’s 25th anniversary this year has had me thinking a lot about its importance…

Three things: 1. Amid the brouhaha following Paul Schimmel’s departure from MoCA this summer, Eli Broad was quoted in the LA Times as estimating the value of MoCA’s exhibits by…

I ended my weekend by going to see the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie The Master. The film is broadly about a Scientology-like group in post-war America who believe, through…

  1. New York in the fall is ridiculously seductive. I visited this past weekend and the weather was perfect–blue skies, cool breezes. I walked all around, looking at art, meeting…

Martin Parr’s newish book, Up and Down Peachtree, represents the South’s shiny capital with a mix of mean-spiritedness and generosity that recalls Richard Avedon’s long-ago treatment of the American West.…

Chuck Ivy presents his 2012 Glasstire Virtual Residency. I consider myself a research artist, developing rules, frameworks and systems with which I investigate media and culture. Through a balance of…

There’s been a lot of writing on John Cage in the last week in preparation for today, what would have been his 100th birthday. You can read about his influence…

With the changing of the seasons comes too the changing of the art climate. In the past year in Austin we’ve seen a flourishing of house and apartment galleries from…

Mikaylah Bowman‘s recent series of photographs reminds me of the 17th century Dutch still-life tradition, paintings that depict neatly arranged flowers, their edges crisp with decay. Something sweet and slightly…

“Please, someone, do the research and write a really in depth article on the nature of getting people in the door [of galleries] versus the likelihood that they buy something…”…

The new normal should be anything but. Time to fuck shit up.   Dear Young DFW Whippersnapper Artists, Whatever the last “up” economy may have taught you, in your teen…

The Olympics are approaching, and my mind has been wandering in eager anticipation. Will David Beckham be shot into space at the opening ceremonies to light a lunar torch symbolizing…

I really don’t understand the brouhaha over this Museum Tower thing. All I see are opportunities. Perhaps the lawyers on both sides lack vision. Lawyers, arbitrators, city council members. Not…

I was a late-comer to Francesca Woodman‘s pictures but liked them right away. That was around 2003, and Woodman’s surrealism provided me with a lyrical counterpart to René Magritte’s poetically banal imagery.…

Manscape: Man as Subject and Object opened last night at Lora Reynolds Gallery. The group photography and video show is curated by Christopher Eamon and purports to be about “the…

  Need a lawyer to look over a contract before you sign it? Are you planning on starting a nonprofit organization and need assistance with filing the paperwork? Can’t afford…

There’s been a lot of management turnover within top tier Texas museums over the past year. [Quick recap: Just 13 months ago, Simone Wicha replaced Ned Rifkin as Director of…