Magnificent 11


The Bellelli Sisters, Edgar Degas
"Eleven of LACMA’s permanently held artworks made the Times list. In era, subject, and form they are profoundly varied, ranging from ancient sandstone dryads to Georges de La Tour's seventeenth-century The Magdalen with the Smoking Flame to Vija Celmins’ monumental enamel-on-wood comb of 1970."
LACMA, Art Babble

Wim Mertens


Wikipedia - "Wim Mertens (b. Neerpelt, Belgium, May 14, 1953) is a Flemish Belgian composer, countertenor vocalist, pianist, guitarist, and musicologist."
Wikipedia, Wim Mertens, The Belgian Pop & Rock Archives, Discogs, MySpace, last.fm, YouTube, (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6)

Keith Haring


Into the Groove
Wikipedia - "Keith Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s."
Wikipedia, K. Haring, YouTube, (1), (2), (3)

Poetic Realism


"Port of Shadows"
Wikipedia - "Poetic realism was a film movement in France leading up to World War II. More a tendency than a movement, Poetic Realism is not strongly unified like Soviet Montage or French Impressionism."
Wikipedia, The Criterion Collection

Yang Fudong


Seven Intellectuals In a Bamboo Forest
"Yang Fudong’s films and photographs articulate multiple perspectives. His works investigate the structure and formation of identity through myth, personal memory and lived experience. Each of his works is a dramatic existential experience and a challenge to take on."
ShanghART Gallery, The Renaissance Society, BNET, Hans Ulrich Obrist

Weavings of War


"Weavings of War: Fabrics of Memory accompanies a landmark traveling exhibit of textiles depicting the horrors of war, by women from Central and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and South Africa."
Weavings of War

Jorge Colombo


Times Online - "The iPhone is great for everything from gaming, social networking and figuring out where the heck you are once you get lost. But you wouldn’t have thought it would be a great tool for artists. Until now."
Times Online, Jorge Colombo

Giorgio Barrera


"Thus when we see open windows appearing inside an image, the impression we always get is that of a painting within a painting or a photograph within a photograph a further framing that is at times capable of absorbing and blanking out the function of the first and more decisive act of framing."
photo.box.sk, Giorgio Barrera, Fondazione Studio Marangoni

Chelsea Visits Havana


"Hundreds of Cubans packed into Havana's Museo De Bellas Artes for the launch of the first major US contemporary art exhibition to be shown here for almost a quarter of a century."
Art exhibition fuels US-Cuba thaw - BBC, NYT, format, The Art Newspaper

Moleskine


"Welcome to the new Moleskine website. Please take the time to explore our new contents and features, including the new MSK format."
Moleskine, Moleskine en masse, Wikipedia, Moleskine - UK, Black Cover

Alexander Rodchenko and Lyubov Popova


"For Alexander Rodchenko and Lyubov Popova, the entire fabric of daily existence - from biscuit packets to book jackets - served a revolutionary vision."
New Statesman, MoMA, Wikipedia, Culture 24, Tate

Graffiti Ren


"Classical art, improved with spraypaint..."
Worth1000

The Raincoats


Wikipedia - "The Raincoats are a post-punk band and were formed in 1977 by Ana da Silva (vocals, guitar) and Gina Birch (vocals, bass) while they were students at Hornsey College of Art, London, England."
Wikipedia, MySpace, The Raincoats, YouTube, (1), (2), (3)

Kevin Bauman


"My landscapes, however, do not always reflect the idyllic scene most often portrayed by the traditional landscape photograph or painting, but ranges from serene Lake Superior sunsets to chaotic post-industrial landscapes of urban Detroit."
Kevin Bauman

Social realism


Eviction Scene, Henry Jones Thaddeus (1889)
Wikipedia - "Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic."
Wikipedia

Fuzzbox


Wikipedia - "A fuzzbox (or fuzz box) is a type of effects pedal comprising an amplifier and a clipping circuit, which generates a distorted version of the input signal. As opposed to other distortion guitar effects pedals, a fuzzbox boosts and clips the signal sufficiently to turn a standard sine wave input into a waveform that is much closer to a square wave output."
Wikipedia, Dailymotion, (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (8)

Maya Deren


Wikipedia - "Maya Deren (April 29, 1917, Kiev – October 13, 1961, New York City), born Eleanora Derenkowsky, was an American avant-garde filmmaker and film theorist of the 1940s and 1950s. Deren was also a choreographer, dancer, poet, writer and photographer."
Wikipedia, senses of cinema, Maya Deren Forum, Meshes of the Afternoon, YouTube, (1), (2), (3)

James Castle


"James Castle: Portrait of an Artist renders Castle's life and creative process, as told by family members, art historians, curators, artists, collectors and members of the deaf community. A true case of triumph of the spirit, James Castle's story is one of monumental achievement. Castle used drawings to examine everything in sight."
J CRIST GALLERY, Greg Kucera Gallery, Gallery Paule Anglim, Philadelphia Museum of Art

Univers Zero


Wikipedia - "Univers Zero are an instrumental Belgian band known for playing dark music heavily influenced by 20th century chamber music. The band was formed in 1974 by drummer Daniel Denis. For a time they were part of a musical movement called Rock in Opposition (RIO) which strove to create dense challenging music, a direct contrast to the disco and punk music being produced in the late 1970s."
Wikipedia, MySpace, Univers Zero, Cuneiform Records, last.fm, Photographies

Jean-Baptiste Debret


Indians Crossing a Creek (The Slave Hunter), circa 1820-1830
Wikipedia - "Jean-Baptiste Debret (1768-1848) was a French painter, who produced many valuable lithographs depicting the people of Brazil."
Wikipedia, postershop.com, Google

Michael Anderson


Black Panther Apocalypto, 2007
"Advertising provides the material, appropriation is the mode of operation, and collage is the medium of my artistic creation/recycling. To create my collages, I use international street posters, taken from the streets of such far-flung places as Mexico City, Berlin, Amsterdam, London, Paris, Rome and, of course my hometown favorite, NYC. The fragments of thousands of posters are re-arranged in a painterly fashion to create the composition and imagery of an individual piece."
... the Art of Michael Anderson ...

Barcelona 1908


"Placed on the driver’s cabin, the camera seems to lead the way! And off we go to the prestigious Paseo de Gracia, the Calle Salmeron, before driving through Lesseps Square…"
Barcelona en Tranvia

Diego Rivera


The Flower Carrier
Wikipedia - "He was a world-famous Mexican painter, an active Communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo, 1929-1939 and 1940-1954 (her death). Rivera's large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Renaissance. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted murals in Mexico City, Chapingo, Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City."
Wikipedia, PBS, Olga's Gallery

Sandy Denny


Wikipedia - "Sandy Denny, born Alexandra Elene Maclean Denny (6 January 1947 – 21 April 1978), was an English singer and songwriter who has been described by Allmusic's Richie Unterberger as 'the pre-eminent British folk rock singer'."
Wikipedia, MySpace, YouTube, (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6)

Dan Witz


Scott (Diamond Grate), 2008
"Definitely not. That's way too broad of a question. It requires definitions-which always end up as limitations. If pressed though, I'd say there's probably little difference in the big picture. We're all pretty much cave painters in the end. From slightly different caves maybe."
Dan Witz, YouTube

Ephesus


Wikipedia - "Ephesus (Ancient Greek Ἔφεσος; Turkish Efes) was an ancient Greek city on the west coast of Anatolia, in the region known as Ionia during the period known as Classical Greece. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League."
Wikipedia, Ephesus Library, Celsus Library

Sanford Biggers


Blossom, 2007
"A native of Los Angeles, California, and current New York resident, Sanford Biggers uses the study of ethnological objects, popular icons, and the Dadaist tradition to explore cultural and creative syncretism, art history, and politics."
Sanford Biggers, artnet, artkrush

The Red Admiral and Painted Lady Research Site


"Observers and experimenters ranging from casual to serious can discover new and valuable information about these butterflies. The list below links to more detailed information, including summaries of published findings and methods for observing these fascinating butterflies."
The Red Admiral and Painted Lady Research Site

Negativland


Wikipedia - "Negativland is an experimental music and sound collage band which originated in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s. They took their name from a Neu! song, while their record label is named after another Neu! song."
Wikipedia, Negativland, MySpace, WIRED, YouTube, (1), (2), (3), (4)

Western art history


Pierre Mignard, Clio, muse of heroic poetry and history, 17th century
Wikipedia - "Western art is the art of European Countries, and those parts of the world that have come to follow predominantly European cultural traditions such as the Americas. Written histories of Western art often begin with the art of the Ancient Middle East, Ancient Egypt and the Ancient Aegean civilisations, dating from the 3rd millennium BC."
Wikipedia

Bernd and Hilla Becher


Bernd and Hilla Becher’s 1972 study of of concrete cooling towers
Wikipedia - "Bernd Becher (born August 20th 1931 in Siegen; died June 22nd 2007 in Rostock) and Hilla Becher, née Wobeser (born September 2nd 1934 in Potsdam) were a German artist couple, best known for their photographic images of industrial buildings."
Wikipedia, Google, Fine Art Photography, designboom, Dia

Shahzia Sikander


Hood's Red Rider #2, 1997
art:21 - "Sikander specializes in Indian and Persian miniature painting, a traditional style that is both highly stylized and disciplined. While becoming an expert in this technique-driven, often impersonal art form, she imbued it with a personal context and history, blending the Eastern focus on precision and methodology with a Western emphasis on creative, subjective expression."
art:21, Cooper-Hewitt, Artdaily, Shahzia Sikander

Brian Dettmer



Wikipedia - "Brian Dettmer (born 1974) is an American contemporary artist. He is noted for his alteration of preexisting media -- such as old books, maps, record albums, and cassette tapes -- to create new, transformed works of visual fine art."
Wikipedia, Brian Dettmer: Book Autopsies, Kinz + Tillou Fine Art, Packer Schopf Gallery, Toomey Tourell

Dorothy Simpson Krause


Trees, 2007
"The exhibition will include both large-format pieces and artist books which combine traditional art materials and digital processes. The wall-hung pieces are printed primarily on uv cured flatbed printers on substrates such as aluminum and polycarbonate. The books include covers pigment printed on copper and engraved with a laser into wood."
Dorothy Simpson Krause, artnet

Extravagant Crowd


Ruby Dee
Bruce Kellner - "Women seem always to have loomed large in Carl Van Vechten’s photographic legend. During his Iowa youth in the 1890s, he began making photographs with a box camera and glass plates for blue cyanotypes, starting out with his paternal grandmother, posed rather like Whistler’s mother, although he had not yet seen or even heard of that painting."
Extravagant Crowd

Adrian Ghenie


Flight into Egypt, 2008
The Romanian Cultural Centre - "Adrian Ghenie approaches painting like an old master, and there is very much a sense that his collages and paintings can and should be read in dialogue with the history of painting as much as with contemporary culture."
The Romanian Cultural Centre, Andreianamihail Gallery, Galeria Plan B

Kenneth Patchen


Wikipedia - "Kenneth Patchen (December 13 1911 – January 8 1972) was an American poet and novelist. Though he denied any direct connection, Patchen's work and ideas regarding the role of artists paralleled those of the Dadaists and Surrealists."
Wikipedia, Kenneth Patchen Home Page, poets.org, Poet Hunter, Painted and Silkscreened Poems , Jacket 12, Grand Inspiritors

Holger Czukay


Wikipedia - "Holger Czukay (born Holger Schüring [1] on 24 March 1938) is a German musician, probably best known as a co-founder of the krautrock group Can."
Wikipedia, Holger Czukay, Discogs, An Interview With Holger Czukay, ESTWeb, last.fm, YouTube, (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7)

Carol Reed


Wikipedia - "Sir Carol Reed (30 December 1906 – 25 April 1976) was an English film director, most famous for directing The Third Man and Oliver!. He won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Director for the latter."
Wikipedia, Carol Reed, senses of cinema. YouTube, (1), (2), veoh

Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice


Venus with a Mirror, 1555, Titian
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - "In the sixteenth century, Venice was one of the largest and richest cities in Europe, and steady demand for paintings from both local and international clients fostered a climate of exceptional competition and innovation."
mfa, NYT

Industrial Workers of the World


Wikipedia - "The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies) is an international union currently headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. At its peak in 1923 the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict and government repression."
Wikipedia, Industrial Workers of the World, "Red Robin's" Wobbly Page and Links, Fire in the Hole, Google, Temple University Libraries, NPR

David Burrows



All over the new smart, 2008

Wikipedia - "David Burrows (born 1965) is British contemporary artist and writer. His work consists of drawings and paint-spattered, debris-littered, haphazard installations."
Wikipedia, fa projects, BBC

John Fahey


Wikipedia - "John Fahey (February 28, 1939 – February 22, 2001) was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who pioneered the steel-string guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the self-taught nature of his art."
Wikipedia, John Fahey, last.fm, YouTube, (1), (2), (3), (4)

smarthistory


smarthistory - "For years we have been dissatisfied with the large expensive art history textbook. We found that they were difficult for many students, contained too many images, and just were not particularly engaging. In addition, we had found the web resources developed by publishers to be woefully uncreative."
smarthistory

Larry Rivers


Camel Quartet, 1978
Wikipedia - "Larry Rivers (August 17, 1923 - August 14, 2002) was a Jewish American artist, musician, filmmaker and occasional actor. Rivers resided and maintained studios in New York City, Southampton, New York on (Long Island) and Zihuatanejo, Mexico."
Wikipedia, Larry Rivers Foundation, Google, artnet, Artopia - John Perreault

New York Arts of Pacific Asia Show


Chrysanthemum and Brushwood Fence, early 19th century, Edo (Tokugawa) Period (1615-1868).
NYT - "The annual spring extravaganza known as Asia Week is under way, but like so much else it’s been downsized. The New York International Asian Art Fair is no more, leaving collectors and browsers with just one centralized marketplace: the New York Arts of Pacific Asia Show, in a new home across from the Empire State Building."
NYT, Asian Art Dealery

Louise Nevelson


Wikipedia - "Louise Berliawsky Nevelson (born Leah Berliawsky, September 23, 1899, Kiev, Czarist Russia - d. April 17, 1988, New York, New York) was a Ukrainian-born American artist."
Louise Nevelson, artnet, Louise Nevelson Foundation, The Jewish Museum

Josef Hoflehner


Frozen Trees
"Josef Hoflehner was born in 1955 in Wels, Austria when the country was still under allied occupation. He grew up in a family where the camera was used so rarely that as many as three Christmas holidays would be captured on one roll of film."
Michael Hoppen Gallery, Josef Hoflehner, artnet

Lucie Debelkova


"Why photograph? For me it's simply an extension of the natural impulse to explore the larger world. Photography is a great self learning process that has no borders. It should be far more than the simple act of recording a lasting memory. In a way, it is about tempting our imagination to create an outer image. In essence, it is an art form and a way of expression."
Lucie Debelkova

IN MOTION: The African-American Migration Experience


"New societies, new peoples, and new communities usually originate in acts of migration. Someone or ones decide to move from one place to another. They choose a new destination and sever their ties with their traditional community or society as they set out in search of new opportunities, new challenges, new lives, and new life worlds."
IN MOTION: The African-American Migration