After coming across several beautiful pictures by Gheorghe Chesler—shot with various Nikons and featuring his Sigma 150mm f/2.8 Macro—over on Google Plus yesterday evening, I found myself lusting after a proper macro lens… But I reminded myself: no new gear until I finish the 365. So I looked over the gear I do have, and pulled …
Continue reading “365.256 (wish I could) turn this sometimes”
Melvile Library Gallery, Stony Brook University, September 10 – 18, 2006 The gallery is completely dark. At first, the experience is purely auditory: an ambient chord progression, a fetal heart beat, and faint, scattered voices speaking intermittently in various languages. As eyes slowly adjust, we begin to discern the composition of the space. There are …
Assimilation and Resistance in Advanced Capitalism ABSTRACT Since 2005, street art has enjoyed rapid increases in market value. Works by Banksy, a notorious street art vandal, regularly fetch in excess of $500,000 at auction. While street artists often turn to the traditional media of painting and sculpture to supplement their illegal activities, budding artists employ …
An earlier version of this essay was presented to Donald Kuspit’s Spring 2007 graduate seminar, “Varieties of Realism in 20th Century Art” at Stony Brook University. The present version originally appeared in Art Criticism Volume 22, Number 2, 2007. I am deeply grateful to Donald Kuspit and Leah Modigliani for their comments and suggestions in …
Continue reading “Postmodern? Art and Architecture in the Third Reich”
I’ve been fairly active in music since a very early age. I remember flipping through my dad’s record collection and playing records by the Beach Boys and *shudder* Mylon LeFevre. In Junior High and High School, I played trombone and euphonium, and to this day I can play Just a Gigolo on just about any brass instrument in existence, and …
Ok. First, there is Light, and, second, a human to capture that light (by accident or with purpose). But light, in a void, is meaningless, and, indeed, it takes Two to Tango. So we need something to take a picture of, a fleeting moment or static to capture, to fix in a more permanent form than …
Continue reading “The 5 Elements of Photography – the Subject”
This is the passenger side door handle from my beloved (and no-longer-extant) 1970 Volkswagon Beetle—a plain Beetle, none of that ‘super’ stuff—that was destroyed by a nice woman in a 1984 Ford Bronco in 1998 or 1999. I’m not really sure of the date any more… I think the police must have brought me the …
