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An exercise course for the eye by James Panero
In the appreciation of art, they say the eye is like a muscle. It needs training and regular workouts. Unfortunately, you could pass through an entire academic study of art history and never have the chance to look at great work up close. No wonder academia is besotted with art theory. With only slides and reproductions, the eye becomes weak and the head takes over. The artist and friend of The New Criterion Tom Goldenberg is someone who has overcome this deficiency. He has developed his own art through a close study of drawings through history. Now he is offering a course to bring this study to others. It is my pleasure to endorse it and bring it to the attention of all. And I would be remiss if I did not, because I join the course whenever possible and have taken a great deal away from it already. by James Panero
As the editor of Arts & Letters Daily, the web's finest online compendium, Denis Dutton has driven more traffic to The New Criterion that any other source. So I hope I can reciprocate by sending a few readers to Denis's provocative (and accurate) editorial on the diminishing returns of conceptual artists like Damien Hirst. Denis's op-ed appears in today's New York Times and comes out of his studies in art and human evolution, the subject of his book The Art Instinct (which John Derbyshire wroteabout for us, Roger wrote about for the TLS, and I covered for City Journal). Denis writes:
Future generations, no longer engaged by our art "concepts" and unable to divine any special skill or emotional expression in the work, may lose interest in it as a medium for financial speculation and relegate it to the realm of historical curiosity. The full article is available here.
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'The Culture Crash' on the radio by James Panero
This morning I appeared on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show to discuss The Culture Crash, my article for City Journal about arts endowments in the economic downturn. If you missed the broadcast, a recorded version of the segment has just gone up on the show's website and on itunes. I encourage you to listen in and posts your comments about the broadcast on the show's website here. WNYC has also posted more about funding of the arts on its blog here (with an additional comment from me). Let's keep the discussion going. Since I am in the process of writing a short online follow-up article for City Journal, your comments are all the more appreciated.
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by James Panero
Earlier this summer I contributed an article to a special issue of City Journal on "New York's Tomorrow." My article, The Culture Crash, was an analysis of how arts organizations are doing in the economic downturn. The quick answer is not well. I then question why arts endowments lost so much money (often between 25 and 33 percent of value). I argue that a risky, heavily managed, and fee-driven strategy of investment, sometimes called the "Yale Model," led to bad habits in many organizations. The article has received a great deal of attention. Investment managers have contacted me to say that the Yale Model still cannot be beat in a comparison of investment strategies over time. One friend sent me a copy of David Swensen's book Pioneering Portfolio Management, which is much appreciated. The reason arts endowments have fallen to such an extent, they point out, is because art funds went up so much in previous years. by James Panero
How could I not mention a post by Daniel McCarthy at Tory Anarchist that states: "I think there's more to be said for Panero's view than I allowed at the time." Alas, I hear this refrain all too often. McCarthy's comments comes out of a panel discussion I took part in last February on "The Enduring Legacy of William F. Buckley Jr," sponsored by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. The venue was the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington and my co-panelists were McCarthy of The American Conservative and Matthew Continetti of The Weekly Standard. The audio of the conference is now available below, and ISI has also posted a video at its website. My latest abstraction obsession: Jack Tworkov by James Panero
Jack Tworkov, RWB #3 (1961) In 1960 the Abstract Expressionist painter Jack Tworkov complained that "I've been second-rated by every critic, large or small." Two first-rate productions now allow us to reconsider this estimation. At no other moment, including 1964's Whitney survey and 1987's Pennsylvania retrospective, could this artist be so fully examined. At the UBS Art Gallery in midtown Manhattan, the curator Jason Andrew has assembled a must-see show called "Jack Tworkov: Against Extremes, Five Decades of Paintings," which remains on view through October 27. by James Panero
James Little, When Aaron Tied Ruth (2008), Oil and wax on canvas, 72 ½ x 94 inches In May 2005 I wrote about an exhibition that stopped me in my tracks. The show was called “Raising the Bar” at Sideshow Gallery in Williamsburg, Queens, with paintings by Thornton Willis and James Little. Stop the presses! Hold that headline! Run a retraction! All of two pages ago I doubted whether painting would ever be “back.” But yes, Virginia. Painting is Back. At the Sideshow Gallery in Williamsburg, “Thornton Willis and James Little: Raising the Bar” has become the sleeper hit of the season, with a run extended now into May. I caught these two painterly statesmen just hours before deadline. With richly brushed surfaces of oils and wax, James Little proves that not all hard edge is created equal: the vibrating colors and racing lines of Exit Strategy (2004) dazzle the eye. Thornton Willis, meanwhile, has worked through Minimalism and Cubism since the 1970s to arrive at a totemic synthetic of modern painting. Dog Fight (2002), my favorite piece of the show, even evinces Beckmann. Willis builds up heaping layers of Cubist castoffs, drafting marks, and colored planes. Little lures us in with sensuous surfaces of silk and quicksand, and colors as sharp as needles. The two play perfectly together—a double-stroke engine in paint and a humming dynamo of potential. Readers of this space will be aware of my continued interest in Willis, who recently finished a second solo show at Elizabeth Harris Gallery. Now James Little is back with his own solo exhibition at June Kelley gallery in Soho. I went to the opening last night and will have more to say about it in my next gallery chronicle. Little’s treatment of surface is unique. He builds up his painting surfaces with twenty coats of encaustic, a combination of pigment and wax that he formulates and brushes on at high temperature. No mere masking-tape hard-edger, Little needs to be seen in person. His exhibition will be on view through June 7. by James Panero
It's not what you think. <blockquote> In recent years, a handful of small but ambitious publishing houses have been steadily releasing classic works of fiction in graphic form, hoping to entice younger readers for whom the very notion of great literature may seem outdated. </blockquote> New Criterion contributor Alexander Nazaryan has some thoughts on new graphic interpretations of classic novels here.
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by James Panero
Lora Urbanelli, the director of the Montclair Museum, appeared on WNYC today along with Arnold Lehman of the Brooklyn Museum to discuss their institutions' responses to the economic downturn. While we wait for the audiocast of this interview to be posted online, Urbanelli's appearance gives us another chance to review her letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal that appeared last Thursday: In"Another Art Museum Puts Its Collection on the Block" (Leisure & Arts, April 15), James Panero engages in a serious discussion of the nature of deaccessioning and the responsibility that museums have to their communities to uphold their trust. The Montclair Art Museum's collection policy and plans came under review and he takes issue with our decision to deaccession selected items from our collection during a time of financial crisis. This is indeed a complex and topical issue that no museum undertakes lightly. by James Panero
Gabriele Evertz, Red + the Spectrum (2008) Lately I have become interested in contemporary abstract painters who make abstraction the subject of their work. These artists, often through variations of hard-edged color contrasts, do more than merely "abstract" the visible world. They concern themselves with pushing abstraction's formal potential. Thornton Willis, one of these artists, just completed his latest run at Elizabeth Harris Gallery; I wrote the catalogue essay for the show (and participated in a video profile of the artist). James Little will open at June Kelly in Chelsea on May 7. Consider my calendar marked. |
About ArmaVirumque ( AHR-mah wih-ROOM-kweh) In the Aeneid, the Roman poet Virgil sang of "arms and a man" (Arma virumque cano). Month in and month out, The New Criterion expounds with great clarity and wit on the art, culture, and political controversies of our times. With postings of reviews, essays, links, recs, and news, Armavirumque seeks to continue this mission in accordance with the timetable of the digital age.
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EventsNovember 24, 2009 OPEN EVENT: Laura Jacobs reading December 02, 2009 Friends Event: The Swallow Anthology Reading December 17, 2009 Friends Event: New Criterion Holiday Party More events > |
