Shen Wei: No. 1 Beach, Qingdao, Shandong Province, 2010; Grandma's Table, Shanghai, 2008. Copyright Shen Wei, courtesy Daniel Cooney Fine Art. Thursday, June 2 Opening reception, 6-9 pm, for Matt and Mark Enger: Streets of Glory. Christopher Henry Gallery, 127 Elizabeth Street, NY, NY. Danny Lyon, in conversation with Vince Aletti at the book launch, 7pm, for Deep Sea Diver. The Phaidon Store, … Read the full Story >>
It would be wryly interesting if in human history the cultivation of marijuana led generally to the invention of agriculture, and thereby to civilization.—Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden Back in the 1970s, when Carl Sagan was musing on the history of mankind, the counties north of the Bay Area began to be populated by a new breed of first-generation farmers. They moved … Read the full Story >>
Friday, March 20: New Museum Re-Opens on The Bowery After a nearly two-year expansion and a delayed reopening, the New Museum in New York City will finally welcome the public again this week. Designed by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture’s partners Rem Koolhaas and Shohei Shigematsu with Cooper Robertson, the new complex uses laminated glass with metal mesh to create a crystalline facade … Read the full Story >>
Design is having a New York moment—right now. With NYCxDESIGN on the way, and How Posters Work about to open at the Cooper Hewitt; the opening of the new Whitney Museum of American Art; Everything is Design: The Work of Paul Rand continuing at Museum of the City of New York; and Revolution of the Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of … Read the full Story >>
Tomorrow, the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, opens Boundless: A California Invitational. The third triennial exhibition of contemporary California photographers, the invitational began in 2010 as State of Mind and was followed in 2013 by Staking Claim. These exhibitions showcase the talent and diverse scope of artwork by photographers living within the museum’s home state. The exhibition features 11 California artists … Read the full Story >>
Editor's note: I invited Ward Schumaker, a book lover who has done several limited edition artists books, to give Bay Area DART subscribers a tour of one of his favorite hangouts.- Peggy Roalf The first time I stumbled into William Stout Architectural Books, a fellow browser exclaimed, "Look! I found one in English!" At the time-and this goes back thirty years-that was truly … Read the full Story >>
We made it to the Osa Peninsula, in Costa Rica, after the usual hustle of prepping, testing, packing, homeland security dealings, wrestling over 400 pounds of equipment and luggage through customs, stuffing the Cessna, bouncing in the Land Rover, setting up the work stations. My new snake boots are confidence-inspiring, lightweight, and offer great support, though I hope not to test them with an actual strike. … Read the full Story >>
This year's New York Comic Con sneaked up on me while I was deep in an overdue site cleanup. So I did what any reasonably agile editor would and asked a few illustrators to share their thoughts on the city's annual marketplace for sequential art. Drum roll please!!!! Hey Peggy, Yeah, I'm definitely coming to New York this week. I'l be signing at the … Read the full Story >>
Thinking about how much richer Romney is than anyone we have seen in politics, I decided to play with the portrait as infographic. The result, in generous collaboration with Mary Parsons and the editors of The American Prospect, is the double page spread in the current issue, dissected below. What we see is a remarkable man: loaded with enough money to get what he … Read the full Story >>
Special Events Frieze Week 2017 Frieze New York: May 5-7 | VIP Preview May 4 Randall’s Island, NY, NY Info Frieze Projects 2017 includes a “secret theater” screening videos by Jon Rafman that combines amateur 3-D animation and computer-generated erotica, with the audience becoming part of the performance. Photo: © Peggy Roalf for DART TEFAF New York: May 4-8 | VIP Preview May 3 … Read the full Story >>
After weeks of springlike weather that was a boon for visitors to all the art fairs this month, a cool rainy Monday ushered in a week of business as usual today. Taking a moment to clear out debris in my sustenance farm, which consists of an herb garden in a window box, I discovered that the tarragon I planted last May had survived a … Read the full Story >>
At first [a Kyrgyz cemetery] seems a mirage, the ornate domes and minarets are so completely at odds with the desolate landscape. Miniature cities appear unexpectedly on the edges of inaccessible cliffs or stretch along deserted roads. As one approaches, the scale contracts. The opulent structures are surprisingly smaller than they seemed from afar. Graceful crescent moons float above cupolas and peaked towers, balanced on fragile … Read the full Story >>
One of the great questions photographers bring to portfolio reviews is: How to get ahead in photography. A number of answers can be found by studying the career of Elliott Erwitt alongside the exceptional photographs he has made over the past sixty years, in a retrospective exhibition that opens today at the International Center of Photography. Left: ICP’s Chief Curator Brian Wallis … Read the full Story >>
The unofficial start of summertime in New York is now—and for my money, the best one-day destination this weekend is Governors Island. Yesterday I beat the downpour for a preview of LMCCs Building 110 Swing Space studios, which will be open to the public on Saturday and Sunday. Jeanne Verdoux, a French artist living in Brooklyn, met me at the ferry in Lower Manhattan … Read the full Story >>
The ongoing interest in photographs of vast and often toxic landscapes can probably be traced to Land and Environmental Art (Phaidon 1998), a book by Brian Wallis and Jeffrey Kastner - whose ideas segued into Ecotopia, the second triennial at the International Center of Photography, in 2006. A new edition of the book will be in stores this Fall. For now, a small … Read the full Story >>
Public art has the power to uplift a city. This has been proven true in New York City, which now has numerous foundations devoted to installing large-scale sculpture in places where people gather. From Doris Freedman Plaza at Central Park, to City Hall, Brooklyn Bridge Park, the High Line and beyond. But some pieces become legends. It’s impossible to say why, exactly, but here … Read the full Story >>
In search of a fun post for today, I fell into a stream of typography issues, including a movement to banish the ubiquitous Comic Sans. Chip Kidd, fyi, is so anti that he used Gotham, one of the straightest of the sans, for the text bubbles of his new book, Bat Manga. "As a fan, I have an extreme aversion to computer … Read the full Story >>
Before the idea of becoming an artist was even a scribble in my mind, I was determined to become an entomologist, or "bugger", as I declared to a friend of my parents, who worked at the Museum of Natural History. The study of insects, especially butterflies, was my first love. Almost as soon as I became enthralled, I heard about a seemingly mythical place … Read the full Story >>
Last week, when the sun finally came out in Our Fair City, giant sunflowers sprouted in the plaza between Broadway and Fifth Avenue at 23rd Street - just a few blocks from DART HQ. This pedestrian zone, with lush flower-filled planters, umbrella tables and chairs, is now a free Wi-Fi zone, courtesy Toyota. NYC's Flatiron Plaza sprouts Toyota's free Wi-Fi flowers. The installation serves … Read the full Story >>
