Columns & Features

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | A Good Wind: Forces of Nature in the New Age of Innocence

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | A Good Wind: Forces of Nature in the New Age of Innocence

How can artists and other cultural practitioners create the spaces they need to work and to exhibit? In part, says Erin Sweeny, by forming those spaces themselves, through partnerships and collaborations.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Uncovering Works of Art

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Uncovering Works of Art

Monday evening I had the pleasure of participating in a dynamite online conversation with our current group of Art21 Educators. We decided, based on some requests we received recently, to spend a little time actually looking at art together.

Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment | Swimsuits and Ibiza: Lessons from Bob and Joni

Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment | Swimsuits and Ibiza: Lessons from Bob and Joni

Does it still make sense to divide art-making into distinct genres? A look at Joni Mitchell, Robert Irwin, and other artists who actively resist labels and categorization.

On View Now

On View Now | The New Normal: Photographs from the Traina Collection

On View Now

On View Now | The New Normal: Photographs from the Traina Collection

Max Weintraub reviews “Real to Real: Photographs from the Traina Collection” at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.

Bedfellows: Art and Visual Culture

Bedfellows | Catalog Crimes

Bedfellows: Art and Visual Culture

Bedfellows | Catalog Crimes

What happens when fashion becomes a signifier of altruism? Victoria Gannon on the aspirational identities catalogs weave around desirable objects.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Building Trust On The Way In

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Building Trust On The Way In

Starting off each new school year, one of my biggest concerns in the first few weeks is getting to know my students better in order to build trust. Without trust students will not take the risks necessary to break free from the habitual and try new things, which teaching with contemporary art will ultimately call for.

Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment | Residencies: The (Almost) Eternal Application Process

Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment | Residencies: The (Almost) Eternal Application Process

Jenn Pascoe tells us why applying to an artist residency program is a good idea.

Inspired Reading

Inspired Reading | Text Sightings at dOCUMENTA(13)

Inspired Reading

Inspired Reading | Text Sightings at dOCUMENTA(13)

Kelly Huang shares photographic notes and “text sightings” from her visits to dOCUMENTA (13).

Ellen Gallagher. "Bird in Hand," 2006. Image courtesy of Tate Liverpool.

Art21 New York Close Up

Polyculturalist Visions Revisited

Art21 New York Close Up

Polyculturalist Visions Revisited

Nettrice Gaskins revisits themes she first explored in her essay on “polyculturalism” for Art21.org’s Ideas series on “The Culture Wars, Redux.”

Inside the Artist's Studio

Inside the Artist’s Studio | Shannon Fitzgerald

Inside the Artist's Studio

Inside the Artist’s Studio | Shannon Fitzgerald

Georgia Kotretsos talks to the new executive director of the Rochester Art Center in Rochester, Minnesota.

Flash Points

The Museum as Memory Palace

Flash Points

The Museum as Memory Palace

Our new Flashpoints series on Storytelling kicks off with a look at how museums can weave narratives through the placement of objects in space.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Ideas With Legs

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Ideas With Legs

Because I so love questions and quotes, and use them in my own teaching to get students thinking about process, predetermined notions about contemporary art and even prejudices, this week I wanted to offer three dynamite thoughts to get students thinking out of the gate…

Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment | Auf Wiedersehen, Berlin

Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment | Auf Wiedersehen, Berlin

Michelle Jubin bids farewell to her summer in Berlin, but pays a visit to dOCUMENTA 13 before departing.

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Doug Ashford

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice

5 Questions for Contemporary Practice with Doug Ashford

Thom Donovan interviews Doug Ashford, who is widely known for his work with Group Material during the period 1983-1996.

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

Centerfield | Embodying the Disembodied: Leif Elggren at LAMPO

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

Centerfield | Embodying the Disembodied: Leif Elggren at LAMPO

Caroline Picard shares her observations on Leif Elggren’s performance at the Graham Foundation (presented by LAMPO) last fall.

After restoration, night view of the north west wall of Milton Glaser's mural, "Color Fuses," 1975. Image by Mark Williams, Imagenation, LLC. Property of the U.S. GSA.

No Preservatives: Conversations about Conservation

No Preservatives | Restored and Renewed: Milton Glaser’s 1975 Artwork, “Color Fuses”

No Preservatives: Conversations about Conservation

No Preservatives | Restored and Renewed: Milton Glaser’s 1975 Artwork, “Color Fuses”

Mitlon Glaser’s 1975 art installation in Indianapolis, “Color Fuses,” recently underwent a dramatic restoration and can now be seen as the artist originally intended.

The Storyteller: An Interview with Hera Buyuktasciyan

The Storyteller: An Interview with Hera Buyuktasciyan

Istanbul-based artist Hera Buyuktasciyan’s projects draw on the stories people tell–some tragic, others triumphant–about family, community, and their relation to individual self-worth.

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Mash Up: Collage from 1930 to the present at L & M Arts

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Mash Up: Collage from 1930 to the present at L & M Arts

Lily Simonson reviews a group show featuring collage works by Art21 artists John Baldessari, Barbara Kruger, Mark Bradford, and Paul McCarthy.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Why the Meta Matters

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Why the Meta Matters

Kelsey Elisabeth Nelson explains why even the most cryptic work of art gains meaning when we question the steps that brought it to where it resides.

Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment | just look.

Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment | just look.

Sarah Merianos tells us how she and her classmates created a “Parafiction” exhibition as a final course project.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

And furthermore…

Teaching with Contemporary Art

And furthermore…

One of my students read last week’s post and was interested in playing devil’s advocate by asking a few more questions about the recent New York Close Up segment, David …

Word is a Virus

Word is a Virus | Jack Goldstein: The Subject Vanishes

Word is a Virus

Word is a Virus | Jack Goldstein: The Subject Vanishes

Carol Cheh looks at the writings of Jack Goldstein, a seminal member of the Pictures Generation who also made numerous bodies of work using nothing but text.

Revolution 2.1

Revolution 2.1 | The Dictator Will Be Tagged: Power, Revolution Graffiti and the Deconstructed Superhero

Revolution 2.1

Revolution 2.1 | The Dictator Will Be Tagged: Power, Revolution Graffiti and the Deconstructed Superhero

TheArt21 Blog’s newest column debuts today!

Revolution 2.1

New Column | Revolution 2.1: Art and Resistance in the Middle East

Revolution 2.1

New Column | Revolution 2.1: Art and Resistance in the Middle East

The Art21 Blog’s newest column looks at the second chapter of the Arab Spring through the visual art, poetry, music and other cultural forms it inspires.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Carrying Home

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Carrying Home

Erin Sweeny reflects on the varied meanings of home, partly by way of Mike Kelley’s “Mobile Homestead,” a full-size replica of his Michigan childhood home.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching with New York Close Up: David Brooks Tears The Roof Off

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching with New York Close Up: David Brooks Tears The Roof Off

David Brooks Tears The Roof Off is an apt title for one of our most recent New York Close Up films this summer. Within the first 60 seconds of a …

Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment | Entry to Kassel

Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment | Entry to Kassel

Guest poster Laura Miller shares her experience staying in an art installation-cum-living space called Temporary Home while visiting dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, Germany.

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Anna Piaggi and the Summer One-Off

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Anna Piaggi and the Summer One-Off

The writer and fashion icon Anna Piaggi, who died this week at 81, serves as a reminder that in art, as life, one-off gestures are often the most memorable ones.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Kids on the Beach?

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Kids on the Beach?

There are times when you just have to sit for a while in order to experience a show… and sometimes you get lucky and there are also benches in the picture. I got lucky on steamy summer day and both elements came together for a recent visit to Rineke Dijkstra’s retrospective at the Guggenheim, on view through October 8th.

Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment | Internships and the Graduate Student

Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment | Internships and the Graduate Student

Jenn Pascoe talks to Denise Carbone, head conservator at the American Philosophical Society, about graduate internships and their value for young professionals.

Transmission

Transmission | An Interview with Faith Coloccia: Sympathetic Magic, Visual Scores, Archives and Memory

Transmission

Transmission | An Interview with Faith Coloccia: Sympathetic Magic, Visual Scores, Archives and Memory

Amelia Ishmael talks to artist Faith Coloccia about her photography, mixed-media album works and her musical project Mamiffer.

Bedfellows: Art and Visual Culture

Inside the Artist's Studio

Inside the Artist’s Studio: Leeza Ahmady (Part 2)

Bedfellows: Art and Visual Culture

Inside the Artist's Studio

Inside the Artist’s Studio: Leeza Ahmady (Part 2)

Part 2 of Georgia Kotretsos’ interview with independent curator Leeza Ahmady, the director of Asian Contemporary Art Week in New York.

Ink: Notes on the Contemporary Print

Ink | Seriously Printeresting: An Interview with the Founders

Ink: Notes on the Contemporary Print

Ink | Seriously Printeresting: An Interview with the Founders

Sarah Kirk Hanley talks to the founders of Printeresting, a blog devoted to the art of printmaking and to printmaking miscellany.

On View Now

On View Now | Arresting Development: Rineke Dijkstra’s Retrospective Exhibition

On View Now

On View Now | Arresting Development: Rineke Dijkstra’s Retrospective Exhibition

Max Weintraub reviews the Rineke Dijkstra retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Lives and Works in Berlin

Lives and Works in Berlin | Berlin Gallery Roundup

Lives and Works in Berlin

Lives and Works in Berlin | Berlin Gallery Roundup

Ali Fitzgerald reviews a slew of ambitious (and bawdy) summer shows in Berlin, upending the notion of the seasonal afterthought.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Summer Talk

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Summer Talk

For as long as I can remember, interviews like those featured in Bomb, Harpers and Art in America have inspired me to reevaluate the kinds of things I assume in my own teaching and art making. Divergent perspectives, or perspectives that are close to my own but unfamiliar in some ways, have provided me with more than just stunning quotes to share with my students and ideas to meditate on in the studio. I find myself underlining, highlighting, bookmarking pages and sticking post-its all over the place (a well-loved book in my library looks like it’s been through hell and back).