News

Aug 12, 2019

Philly’s Percent for Art program — the nation’s first — celebrates 60 years, 600 pieces

Featured on whyy.org

When people enter the Matthias Baldwin Park in Philadelphia’s Spring Garden neighborhood, they may not know they are literally walking into a work of art.

The two-acre park was designed by the Greek-American artist Athena Tacha with a huge centerpiece of swirling, tiered plantings and dramatic rock outcroppings. Called “Connections,” it is so large, its curving patterns can only be seen from an aerial view.

Aug 09, 2019

Today’s hospitals discover the therapeutic touch of art

Featured on washingtonpost.com

If the word “hospital” elicits a mental image of sterile rooms and hallways and dreary decor, think again.

Modern hospitals have hit on a simple but effective way to foster even more healing: art.

It’s a creative approach to an age-old need — and one that’s transforming not just the walls of modern hospitals but the atmosphere in which patients heal. In an engaging feature for Artnet, journalist Menachem Wecker dives into the world of hospital art.

It’s a much deeper well than you might think.

Aug 08, 2019

Artists vs. Influencers: Why That Street Art Selfie Could Get You Sued

Social media stars who use murals as a backdrop for sponsored posts are in the crosshairs of artists who claim infringement: "I have had about a dozen of these cases already this year."

Featured on hollywoodreporter.com

Aug 07, 2019

Paris's First Floating Art Museum Just Opened — and It’s Completely Free

Featured on travelandleisure.com

The Louvre and Musée d'Orsay may be just over a mile away, but this new Parisian art center is already causing a stir in the art community.

For starters, it floats.

Aug 06, 2019

Using art to transform a community

Featured on whyy.org

A famous artist once said, “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”

While those words can apply to any artistic expression, this sentiment also pertains to how we – as a society —  judge what might or might not be worthy of our time, attention and resources. If something is not considered “of value,” then it doesn’t attract the investment necessary to increase its worth over time.

Aug 05, 2019

Generation XX: How Kaws Short-Circuited the Art World

Brian Donnelly, a.k.a. KAWS, short-circuited the fine-art galleries and auction houses when his playful paintings and cartoon-inspired cast of recurring characters (known by their signature ‘XX’ eyes) led to record-breaking sales. Now his outsize success may forever alter the perceived legitimacy of artists who came up honing their skills on the streets.

Featured on gq.com

Aug 02, 2019

How art deals with disaster, from Guernica to the climate crisis

Featured on cnn.com

When faced with catastrophe -- war, famine or natural disaster -- most peoples' first priority is simply to survive. Art is often not made until the aftermath, by those who survived or were far away.

It's this distance -- of both time and place -- that produces the tensions at the heart of art's response to human catastrophes, since, in the end, the question asked of such an artwork is always: What good can this do?

Jul 25, 2019

Art Is At The Core Of Entrepreneurship, Ignore It At Your Peril

Featured on forbes.com

As technology moves the world at ever greater speeds and artificial intelligence becomes the electricity of the twenty first century, engineers are revered, and STEM subjects encouraged. At times, this comes at the cost of art and the human element. A computer science graduate is currently guaranteed to find a well-paying job, whereas a liberal arts graduate may find it harder. 

Jul 24, 2019

A folk art trash palace in the shadow of Hearst Castle

Featured on latimes.com

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Friday, July 19, and I’m writing from Los Angeles.

Once upon a time, the California coast was a place where one could live strangely and cheaply, out on the fringes.

There were wild, sacred landscapes, like something out of a Robinson Jeffers poem. Rugged places that still had room for restless eccentrics and searchers and cranks.

Jul 22, 2019

With Jean Pigozzi's contemporary African art donation, MoMA to become a 'leader' in the field

The museum says the gift will play an important role in the reconfiguration of its permanent collection

Featured on theartnewspaper.com

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) announced today that the collector and photographer Jean Pigozzi was donating a “transformative” gift of 45 works of contemporary African art to the museum, positioning MoMA to become a “unique institutional leader” in the field.

Jul 20, 2019

Feminist Art Pioneer Judy Chicago Will Get First-Ever Retrospective in 2020

Featured on artnews.com

Forty years after her landmark installation The Dinner Party (1974–79) made its debut in San Francisco, Judy Chicago will get a homecoming of sorts in the largest exhibition of her work to date—a full-dress retrospective set to open next year in the Californian city’s de Young Museum. The artist announced the exhibition, which will open in May 2020, on Friday night at a celebration for her 80th birthday held in Belen, New Mexico, where she lives.

Jul 16, 2019

The brutal death that politicized New York’s art world

In the early 1980s, the death of a young graffiti artist in police custody shocked and enraged the likes of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring – and changed the city’s creative community for ever, writes Matt Barker.

Featured on bbc.com

Jul 11, 2019

Art Is Good for Your Brain

The field of neuroaesthetics uses neuroscience to understand how art affects our brains, both when we’re making it and when we’re viewing it.

Featured on daily.jstor.org

Jul 09, 2019

Are nature documentaries the greatest art of our time?

Featured on washingtonpost.com

The dentist I went to as a child had posters of Impressionist paintings on the ceiling. I remember lying back and gazing through my discomfort and pain at a thronging lunch party by Renoir, a Degas ballerina, and a sunlit field of poppies by Monet.