An exhibition at the Renwick Gallery in Washington DC titled The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946 showcases objects made by internees. The museum’s website tells us that the Japanese word ‘gaman’ means “to bear the seemingly unbearable with dignity and patience.” This moving show explores how creativity served as a necessary way of acquiring needful things that were otherwise unavailable, provided an outlet for frustration, and reinforced bonds in a painful and alienating time.

This article is filed under After Image, Art.

Since its in 1980, Critics have lambasted Warhol’s “Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century” as one-dimensional and exploitative. Several recent shows have reawakened the controversy surrounding the project. After traveling to San Francisco and New York in 2008-2009, the series is now on display in a retrospective at the Washington DC Jewish Community Center. In response to these shows, many contemporary reviewers have repeated the argument that Warhol was motivated solely by profit and that he trivialized important historical figures. Perhaps it is time to check our cynicism and explore how the series fits into his oeuvre and intellectual interests.

This article is filed under After Image, Art, Design.

The Vienna Secession, which was designed to display works by Gustav Klimt and his contemporaries, recently decided to spice up their collection by requiring visitors to walk through a swingers club before reaching Klimpt’s masterful “Beethoven Frieze”. This strange paring is part of a project by Swiss artist, Christoph Büchel and involves a collaboration between the museum and a local swingers’ club called Element 6. The club will be open at night during the exhibition. The next morning, mattresses and other nasty remnants of the evening’s activities will be on display. I’m betting that for once, visitors won’t have to be told “don’t touch.”

This article is filed under After Image, Art.

It is undeniable that the reduction, which was largely brought on by budget constraints, has created a more sober atmosphere than the artistic smorgasbords of previous years – but maybe that’s not a bad thing. 2010 is less about the diva that is the art world and more about the art, and the people who make and inspire it. Walking through, you can concentrate on each piece without feeling overwhelmed by an overabundance of visual stimuli.

This article is filed under Art, Art & Design.

If Salon Cubism pleased nobody in 1912, the recreation of the gallery from the Salon d’Automne in the Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris exhibition is bound to excite the highest praise. The paintings are clustered about the walls, many of them positioned well above the heads of viewers, which presents Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 from an especially striking position. Sculpture busts, including one by Amadeo Modigliani, are stationed in front of the paintings, revealing how displays of different types of art were often closely integrated during the pre-World War I era.

This article is filed under Art, Art & Design.

Before dawn on the morning of February 18 a group of Florentines entered the church stealthily and stole Michelangelo’s body, which they concealed on a farm cart. Upon arrival of the corpse three days later in Florence, thousands of citizens turned out spontaneously, dressed in workmen’s and artists’ smocks like those Michelangelo himself wore. Many wept as they accompanied the bier in an improvised procession through the dark streets. No such a procession, as if for a saint, had ever been seen there before.

This article is filed under Art, Biography, Non-Fiction Reviews.

Oliver won’t socialize. He won’t even speak. He simply spends his days wrapped in his obsession, a pattern that is only slightly modified when he is given painting materials. For then he takes to painting a dark-haired woman over and over again.

This article is filed under Art, Fiction Reviews.

The astonishing amount of detail, the tremendous amount of work that went into crafting the tiny piece and Lorna’s serene expression and frontal pose give her the air of a modern day Madonna. Despite her imperfections, nose rings and edgy attire, Lorna becomes an icon of contemporary feminine beauty.

This article is filed under Art, Art & Design.

In Roberto Cuoghi’s 2006 portrait of Davide Halevim, one of the highlights of the section entitled “Representations of Mortality,” Halevim is covered in leaves, dirt, and twigs; his face is discolored; and rigor mortis appears to have set in. But Halevim was alive (and still is) when Cuoghi made this depiction of the Milan-based collector. To create this work, part of the artist’s series of portraits of art-world figures begun in 2001, Cuoghi made a cast of Halevim’s face, buried it in his garden to let the process of decomposition run its course, and then photographed the results.

This article is filed under Art, Art & Design, Italy.

Predictably, Tim Burton is already a wildly popular show. As throngs of families, film buffs and multi-pierced hipsters make their way through the narrow hallway, you are forced along at a fairly rapid pace. In the background, a museum employee occasionally shouts that this part of the exhibit is available online to remind you that lingering is not an option.

This article is filed under Art, Art & Design, Movies.