Art News Roundup: Auction Week New York
Let’s talk Monet. Is it a coincidence that I typed “Money” instead of “Monet” upon starting this post? Either way, Auction Week at Christie’s and Sotheby’s New York concluded the week of May 10 with big money spent on works by Basquiat, Kahlo, Monet, and Hepworth, among others. According to The New York Times, […]
SFMOMA Opens with Plenty of Pomp & Circumstance
For San Francisco fans of modern art, the wait is finally over. On May 14, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art reopened its doors to the public after a three-year closing and expansion. With thousands in attendance and over 15 inaugural exhibitions, Saturday’s opening was one for the books. Opening celebrations included […]
Pre-Raphaelite Sass
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of painters(and sometimes-poets) in mid-to-late-19th century England. Consisting of such artists as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and William Holman Hunt, their aim was to capture the artistic grace they found in the paintings of Raphael. Their works are generally characterized as being very aesthetically pleasing but not […]
Jenny Holzer + Nirvana
We all know Nirvana, the band from Aberdeen, Washington who brought grunge to the masses. Comprised of singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic, and drummer Dave Grohl, Nirvana voiced an entire generation’s angst and frustration. But did you know that in this picture, in all its angst-ridden glory, Nirvana is actually posing with a work […]
Happy Birthday, LACMA!
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, better known by its acronym, LACMA. Though it’s unlikely that you’ve never heard of LACMA, you’ve almost certainly seen it, as several of its large-scale exhibitions like Levitated Mass and Urban Light are featured in countless advertisements for […]
What’s that Rothko in Ant-Man?
So I finally saw Ant-Man last week and was pleasantly surprised. Of course, it’s Ant-Man, the superhero that’s most likely to have us mutter “seriously?” under our breath, but it’s totally self-aware that it’s Ant-Man. It’s Marvel plus Paul Rudd as ex-con-turned-heroScott Lang, so of course I expected some tongue-in-cheek humor with a bit of […]
Gainsborough and Co.’s Best Portraits
As I was flipping through some of my art history materials lately, I came upon a realization: British portraits of the late 18th century are actually some of the most entertaining things ever. Why? Well, around that time, Neoclassicism and Romanticism began to take root in Great Britain, and painters continued to create portraits of their […]
Museum Spotlight: Getty Villa
We’ve all heard of the Getty Museum, one of L.A.’s preeminent art museums that houses an impressive collection of European paintings, drawings, sculpture, manuscripts, and photography. The impressive modern structure sits on a hill above the 405 like a beacon. You can probably see it if you look hard enough when you’re stuck in rush […]
Art Reads: Musée des Beaux Arts
Today we’re going to take a look at the art that inspired one of my favorite poems, “Musée des Beaux Arts” by W. H. Auden! Composed in 1938 after Auden’s trip to the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels (hence the title), the text of the poem reads: About suffering they were never wrong, The […]
Artist Spotlight: Francisco Goya
So I had heard of Francisco Goya before riding the Metro in Madrid, but I had never really heard about him. One of the stops before mine was named after him, and to my regret, I never alighted there to find out why. But I remember turning the name over in my mind, and when we finally […]