 Dispatches from exhibitions around the world.
By James Polchin |
| Western Exposure Sebastião Salgado photographs of nature are undeniably beautiful, but they also portray a typical Western gaze.
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| Modernism's Margins George Bellows may have died before his work reached its peak, but it’s the fact that he’s “unfinished” that makes him interesting.
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| Picasso in the Future What does art from the ice age have to do with Picasso? It makes us think — how will we discuss Picasso millennia from now?
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| The Power of the Brushstroke Lichtenstein’s obsession with the minute details of painting proves there’s more craft to Pop Art than you might think.
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| The Gaze In Victorine Meurent, Manet found a model that examined the viewer, and thus Manet invented the modern art spectator.
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| Candid Camera Presenting the artist at work turns painters into performers. They become their art.
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| Into the Canvas Matisse wasn’t just a painter but an explorer, and each painting was a journey.
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| Artificial Paradise The Impressionist painters found a new natural beauty in the Paris's burgeoning fashion scene.
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| American or Artist? In defining Edward Hopper as the quintessential American artist, we've lost the artist himself.
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| Industrial Comfort Though the Victorian Era and the conservatism of the 1980s may have conflicted ideologically, even the Tories were charmed by the Pre-Raphaelites.
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| From Gossip to War Glamour Cecil Beaton had a knack for creating iconic photographs but his images of war are strangely romanticized and familiar.
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Some Enchanted Evenings Christer Strömholm turned an affectionate eye on the less conventional ladies of the night.
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| Face Time The masks and dolls of Ralph Eugene Meatyard lead us to the margins of reality.
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Meet the New Barnes Same as the old Barnes. Well, sort of.
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Sherman's March Thirty years of looking at Cindy Sherman.
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Bi-Curious Evaluating the role of the critic at the 2012 Whitney Biennial.
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Skin Problems Lucian Freud's portraits do not create relationships with viewers, but instead explore those between the artist and his subjects.
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Point and Shoot For 15 years, New York's Photo League used cameras to promote social change. Then McCarthy came along.
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| A Portrait of the Merchant as an Important Man Renaissance portraits reflect a shift in artistic style. More important, they mark a radical transformation in artistic subject.
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| If It Bleeds Weegee captured gruesome scenes of murder and mayhem, but the crimes are often incidental.
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| Selective Memory ''Youth and Beauty'' tells a very particular story about the 1920s, but the takeaway applies to any time in the past.
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| Oh, Really? The Whitney Museum of American Art blurs the line between the real and the surreal.
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| The Painter and His Process The Museum of Modern Art's de Kooning retrospective celebrates a way to live and work.
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| Creative Class Picasso's early drawings reveal much about the artist, but more about the creative process.
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| American Dreamer Peter Sekaer never had the fame of Walker Evans or Dorothea Lange, but his photographs may be the most relevant today.
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| World Views Lyonel Feininger left New York for Germany at 16. He returned almost 50 years later, but the city he knew was gone.
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| Going Hungary From Kertész to Capa, what makes Hungarian photography Hungarian?
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| Tiny Dancer Jane Avril was small and sick. Toulouse-Lautrec was deformed and unwanted. Together they created a new aesthetic.
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| Burning Down the House Miró may not have liked the dictatorship, but he was most interested in bringing down the ways we look at art.
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| Creative Forces ''Claude Cahun'' at the Jeu de Paume is an archive of the creative process.
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| Murky Muybridge To talk of Muybridge is to talk of the horse, yes, but also of railroad tycoons, Native American battles, epic nature, economic collapse, and murder.
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| Flash! ''Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance & the Camera'' reminds us that every photograph involves the very conscious act of looking. And boy do we love to look.
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