News Art Blog

When British archaeologist Leonard Woolley discovered in December 1927 the tomb of Puabi, the queen/priestess of the Sumerian city of Ur during the First Dynasty of Ur more than 4,000 years ago, the story rivaled that of Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in Egypt just five years earlier. “Magnificent with jewels,” as Woolley described it, Puabi’s tomb contained the bodies of dozens of attendants killed to accompany her in the afterlife — the ideal material for a headline-grabbing PR campaign that momentarily shouldered Tut out of the spotlight. A new exhibit at New York’s The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World titled From Ancient to Modern: Archaeology and Aesthetics puts Puabi back in the spotlight to examine how archaeology and aesthetics intersected, transforming ancient art into modern and making modern art strive to be ancient. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "The Glam-Ur-ous Life: Archaeology and Modern Art."

“The extasy [sic] of abstract beauty,” artist Richard Pousette-Dart scrawled in 1981 in a notebook on a page across from a Georges Braque-looking abstract pencil drawing. Although included in Nina Leen’s iconic 1951 Life magazine photo “The Irascibles” that featured Abstract Expressionist heavyweights Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and Barnett Newman, Pousette-Dart has always stood on the edges, as he does in the photo, of full identification with that group. The “X” factor that frees Pousette-Dart from that and other “-isms” is both his ecstatic spirituality and endless artistic exploration stretching across six decades of work. The new Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibition Full Circle: Works on Paper by Richard Pousette-Dart takes aim not at pinning down Pousette-Dart, but rather at targeting his insatiable drive to work through the ideas of modern art on paper by continually building them up before breaking them down again. You’ll think you’re touring a group show before realizing that it all came from one artist’s vision—an ecstatic celebration of Richard Pousette-Dart’s celebration of the making of art itself. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "The Ecstatic Abstract Explorer: Richard Pousette-Dart."

Once Roy Lichtenstein started painting Ben-Day dots in 1961, could he ever stop? After a tour of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, exhibition Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective, you would probably answer no. The more important question is “Why?” The first major exhibition since Lichtenstein’s death in 1997, the show includes all of Lichtenstein’s greatest paintings—which sometimes feel like variations on one single greatest hit—as well as drawings and sculptures related to those icons of pop art. Is this a retrospective of a great artist or a recollecting of a good artist who hit on one great idea over and over, whether willing to do so or not? Fifteen years after Lichtenstein’s passing, it’s finally time to re-connect the dots and see what total portrait they create. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Re-Connecting the Dots on Roy Lichtenstein."



[Many thanks to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, for providing me with the image above and other press materials related to the exhibition Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective, which runs through January 13, 2013.]

Is there any more famous footage of an artist at workthan Hans Namuth’s film of Jackson Pollock? More than half a century after Pollock’s death, the “Jack the Dripper” label still sticks in the public’s imagination. But according to a recent piece by Robin Cembalest in Art News, greater attention is finally being paid to Pollock’s attempts at sculpture. What this reevaluation of the poster boy for Abstract Expressionism might mean remains to be seen, but is it possible that “Jack the Dripper” might also be “Jack the Chipper”? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Jackson Pollock’s Sculpture: Was “Jack theDripper” Also “Jack the Chipper”?"


[Image: Jackson Pollock. Untitled, 1930-33. Basalt. Private collection. Courtesy of Leila Heller Gallery.]