Columns & Features

Flash Points

Eleanor Antin Takes Over @Art21 on Twitter Today at 2pm EST!

Flash Points

Eleanor Antin Takes Over @Art21 on Twitter Today at 2pm EST!

Today, artist Eleanor Antin will take over the @Art21 Twitter account to perform a special reading from 2:00–3:00 p.m. EST. Please follow along!

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | When Rock Star Fantasies Go Too Far

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | When Rock Star Fantasies Go Too Far

Catherine Wagley looks at several LA shows that occupy the slippery space between truth and reality.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Having It Both Ways

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Having It Both Ways

Kelsey Nelson delves into Vladimir Nabokov’s and Roland Barthes’ diametrically opposed methods of interpreting art and texts, and asks, is it possible to have it both ways?

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Feedback Control

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Feedback Control

Giving good quality feedback can sometimes make the difference between students completing mediocre assignments and high quality works of art. This week I want to offer some suggestions for what to do when students are “done” but we know they aren’t.

Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment | Forbidden Topics and Sheesh, Haven’t I Seen That Before?

Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment | Forbidden Topics and Sheesh, Haven’t I Seen That Before?

Guest columnist Katherine Pulido wonders if all the original ideas are already taken…and finds the inspiration to keep on going in a clever, Sol LeWitt-inspired video.

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Center Field | Two Histories of the World: Part Two

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Center Field | Two Histories of the World: Part Two

Caroline Picard looks at “Two Histories of the World,” a two-part exhibition taking place at two different venues and at two different points in time.

Eleanor Antin Takes Over @Art21 on Twitter

Eleanor Antin Takes Over @Art21 on Twitter

Artist Eleanor Antin will take over the @Art21 Twitter account to perform a special reading on Friday, October 26, from 2:00–3:00 p.m. EST.

Gastro-Vision

Gastro-Vision | Lucy + Jorge Orta: Food-Water-Life

Gastro-Vision

Gastro-Vision | Lucy + Jorge Orta: Food-Water-Life

Nicole Caruth on Lucy + Jorge Orta, whose first major traveling exhibition “Food-Water-Life” is now up at Tufts University Art Gallery in Boston.

Gimme Shelter: Performance Now

Gimme Shelter | The Rush of Fall Part 1: Archive of a Deluge

Gimme Shelter: Performance Now

Gimme Shelter | The Rush of Fall Part 1: Archive of a Deluge

Marissa Perel surveys a number of recent performance works taking place in and around Brooklyn.

Revolution 2.1

Revolution 2.1 | Talkin’ ‘Bout My Revolution

Revolution 2.1

Revolution 2.1 | Talkin’ ‘Bout My Revolution

Safa Samiezade’-Yazd on the power of protest signs and the concise, author-less slogans they bear.

Lives and Works in Berlin

Lives and Works in Berlin | Art Hangover, Berlin

Lives and Works in Berlin

Lives and Works in Berlin | Art Hangover, Berlin

Ali Fitzgerald looks back on Berlin Art Week and a busy past month of art events in the city.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Exploding a Theme

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Exploding a Theme

This week began with one of my advanced classes looking into the paintings of season 6 artist, Rackstraw Downes. As students start up a thematic series of their own work I wanted to see if we could “explode a theme” and “frame” Downes’ paintings in three different ways- as a topic, a theme, and as a question.

Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment | Think About the Void

Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment | Think About the Void

Lindsay Preston Zappas asks her fellow Cranbrook students, “How do you distract yourself from studio stress in order to open up fresh creative space?”

Alchemy of Inspiration

Alchemy of Inspiration I Picasso Redux

Alchemy of Inspiration

Alchemy of Inspiration I Picasso Redux

Jessica Lott looks at “Picasso Black and White,” on view at the Guggenheim Museum in New York through January 23, 2013.

Word is a Virus

Word is a Virus | New Releases in Artist-Run Journals: MATERIAL and Prism of Reality

Word is a Virus

Word is a Virus | New Releases in Artist-Run Journals: MATERIAL and Prism of Reality

Carol Cheh looks at two artist-run journals, both of which provide compelling textual windows into L.A.’s rich community of artists and artistic practices.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Disorderly Conduct: The Imperfect Librarians

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Disorderly Conduct: The Imperfect Librarians

Erin Sweeny on the “new Order” governing her post-graduate life, where any sense of normalcy or routine has largely disappeared.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Visionary Studios: Getting Started

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Visionary Studios: Getting Started

Anyone who knows me often asks about how I coordinate three jobs. I teach two high school classes and serve as department chair in my school district, work as Art21’s …

Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment | The One in Which I Accidentally Got Political.

Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment | The One in Which I Accidentally Got Political.

After watching the first Presidential debates, Sarah Merianos wonders, should we (as artists, as practitioners, as supporters) keep up the good fight, or let federal funding for the arts die out?

New Kids on the Block

New Kids on the Block | The Right Stuff

New Kids on the Block

New Kids on the Block | The Right Stuff

When it comes to art-making and artists, what does it mean to have “the right stuff?” Jacquelyn Gleisner’s new column explores this and other questions.

New Kids on the Block

New Column: New Kids on the Block

New Kids on the Block

New Column: New Kids on the Block

The Art21 Blog’s newest column is “New Kids on the Block,” which features interviews with up-and-coming younger artists working in a range of media.

Ink: Notes on the Contemporary Print

Ink | All Hallows’ for the Print World: New York Print Week

Ink: Notes on the Contemporary Print

Ink | All Hallows’ for the Print World: New York Print Week

New York Print Week is almost upon us. Here’s Sarah Kirk Hanley’s guide to the events.

On View Now

On View Now | Andy Warhol and the Anxiety of Effluence

On View Now

On View Now | Andy Warhol and the Anxiety of Effluence

Max Weintraub reviews the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition “Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years,” which aims to account for Warhol’s influence on other artists.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Test This

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Test This

This school year has started out like none other in recent memory. The fascination to quantify practically everything in education has now moved steadily into art education, as discussed in last week’s interview with Jessica Hoffmann Davis. Here in New York and across the entire country art educators (well, all educators, actually) are being forced to administer pre-assessment tests that “establish a baseline” of “what students know and are able to do” at the beginning of a course.

Open Enrollment

What To Do, What To Do

Open Enrollment

What To Do, What To Do

Jenn Pascoe shares a list of things artists do to get by, get through, and get to creating when times are tough and anxiety levels are high.

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Landmarks

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Landmarks

Lily Simonson looks at Jennifer Bolande’s survey exhibition Landmarks, on view at Cal State Los Angeles’ Luckman Gallery.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Repeat Repeat Repeat

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Repeat Repeat Repeat

Antonius Wiriadjaja reflects on the meaning of a quote from playwright Anna Deavere Smith: “If you say a word often enough, it becomes you.”

Teaching with Contemporary Art

An Interview with Jessica Hoffmann Davis, Part Two

Teaching with Contemporary Art

An Interview with Jessica Hoffmann Davis, Part Two

This week it’s my pleasure to share part two of our interview with Jessica Hoffmann Davis. Many, many thanks to those who sent along such positive e-mails and messages saying they enjoyed the first half last week. I have a feeling you will also find part two inspirational…

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Centerfield | Goal-less Living Things: The Plants of Heidi Norton

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Centerfield | Goal-less Living Things: The Plants of Heidi Norton

Caroline Picard talks to artist Heidi Norton about her current solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, which incorporates living houseplant material.

Gastro-Vision

Gastro-Vision | Supersonic (After Cage)

Gastro-Vision

Gastro-Vision | Supersonic (After Cage)

Nicole Caruth on Lisa Myers’ and Autumn Chacon’s sound and video show “Noise Cooking,” now on view at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

An Interview with Jessica Hoffmann Davis, Part One

Teaching with Contemporary Art

An Interview with Jessica Hoffmann Davis, Part One

This week it’s my pleasure to kick off a two-part interview with one of my favorite authors in the field of education, Jessica Hoffmann Davis.

Jessica Hoffmann Davis has published and lectured extensively on the role and promise of arts learning, drawing not only on her own and other current research, but also on personal experience as a visual artist, writer, and educator. While her popular book, Why Our Schools Need the Arts (Teachers College Press, 2008), proposes a “new and unapologetic approach to advocacy for the arts in education”, I originally came to admire her work through reading (and re-reading!) Framing Education as Art: The Octopus has a Good Day (Teachers College Press, 2005), where she challenges non-arts education to be more connected to and like the arts.

Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment | The One with the Unpaid Intern Debate

Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment | The One with the Unpaid Intern Debate

Sarah Merianos looks into the controversies surrounding unpaid internships.

Alchemy of Inspiration

Alchemy of Inspiration | The Mind’s Lovers

Alchemy of Inspiration

Alchemy of Inspiration | The Mind’s Lovers

The debut of the Art21 Blog’s newest column takes a look at Yayoi Kusama’s recent retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Alchemy of Inspiration

New Column: Alchemy of Inspiration

Alchemy of Inspiration

New Column: Alchemy of Inspiration

The Art21 Blog’s newest column is “Alchemy of Inspiration,” which explores the nature of artistic inspiration and the intersection of artists’ lives and work.

Ink: Notes on the Contemporary Print

Ink | Political Art for a Contentious Time

Ink: Notes on the Contemporary Print

Ink | Political Art for a Contentious Time

Following a trend that began with the Enlightenment, prints play a role in today’s political discourse by disseminating artists’ views and rallying the public.

Transmission

Transmission | An Interview with Aldo Tambellini: Black Zero, Avant-Garde Jazz, and the Cosmic Void

Transmission

Transmission | An Interview with Aldo Tambellini: Black Zero, Avant-Garde Jazz, and the Cosmic Void

An interview with the 82 year old experimental artist who is best known for exploring the color and concepts of black.

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | I Already Know I Exist: Ken Price at LACMA

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | I Already Know I Exist: Ken Price at LACMA

Catherine Wagley considers the role that personal biography plays–or doesn’t–in LACMA’s newly-opened “Ken Price Sculpture: A Retrospective.”