Marion Milner, a celebrated child psychoanalyst wrote of her own creative anxieties in her book On Not Being Able to Paint (Heineman, 1950, but still available). Fear is embedded in much of the writing on… Feel the fear and paint it
Another early scratching of an early human endeavouring to capture the external world has been found in Wales (2011). What was this person thinking, and why did he or she even do this? What is… The mind in another cave
The September issue of Frieze art magazine is all about ‘theory’ or what appears to pass for theory in the art world. The whole issue reads like some undergraduate magazine or papers prepared by graduate… Physics Envy: or why art theory isn’t
“Tu m’” by Marcel Duchamp is a good example of how this artist played with our sensibilities. Karl Gerstner, in his Puzzle Upon Puzzle, which examines Tu m’ in exquisite #161617233 / gettyimages.com detail is… Tu m’: me pense que…
Image via Wikipedia Should we see art history as linear, with the phases, fads and movements embedded in the moment, or can we continue to learn from them, revisit them over time. Indeed, can all… The arrow of time & art
Image via Wikipedia I am still trying to make sense of Malevich. His book, commented on in an earlier posting, published in English in 1959, but dating much earlier, still feels fresh and insightful and… All that is real, isn’t, really
Bruno Frey writes about the economics of art. His work is provocative and challenges many assumptions about how the art world operates. I quite like his observation of the challenge facing gallery owners who, striving… Art & Economics: Bruno Frey
Today I’m thinking about the work of Tomma Abts and her highly geometric abstractions. Her colours are delightfully muted. I am thinking about whether I like the machine-like perfection (despite her saying these works take… Abts, Hodgkin, Rothko, Twombly, Newman & Chou En-Lai