News Art Blog

The best way to learn any language is total immersion. If you live in a place long enough and open yourself up to the experience, then you’ll come away not just with a new tongue, but also with the flavor of the culture in which that language is expressed. For many people, art museums feel like a foreboding foreign nation with a language all its own. Frederick Wiseman’s new documentary, National Gallery, finally offers an immersion class in how to speak fluent “museum.” Wiseman’s 39^th documentary, National Gallery takes you inside London’s National Gallery to eavesdrop on the docents leading tours, spy on the early morning floor waxers, look over the shoulders of conservators, and even join executive meetings behind closed doors all in the name of learning what really happens in an art museum and how the very voice of the modern museum is changing with the times. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "How to Speak Fluent 'Museum.'"

The sight of a grown man trying to stuff a bobbing plastic doll into a jar of what he claims to be his own urine is a sad thing, but when that man is right-wing commentator Glenn Beck making a strange comment about freedom of speech combined with a hateful symbolic act against the President, it’s not surprising. Beck tweely titles his artwork Obama in Pee Pee(shown above), but let’s call it what it is—Piss Obama, a 35-years-too-late reply to Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ, one of the landmark works of the late ‘80s/early ‘90s “culture wars” pitting conservatives versus liberals in the battle for artistic expression. Beck hopes to piss off liberals with this act, but what he might have actually achieved is firing the last shot (squirt?) of the culture wars, proving perhaps once and for all that those cruel days are over. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Is Glenn Beck’s Obama in Pee Pee the Last Shot Fired of the ‘80s and ‘90s CultureWars?"

If Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus shown above seems a bit off, you’re right. In this version of “Venus on the Half-Shell,” the goddess is almost half her self, thanks to some deft photoshopping by Italian artist Anna Utopia Giordano. Giordano poses the question of what the classic beauties of art history’s past would look like today given the current ideal of feminine beauty—and comes up with some frankly grotesque results. After watching a who’s who of art history’s Venuses pass by after Giordano’s extreme health makeover, you’ll never think of beauty as an absolute ever again. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "What If the Old Masters Painted Modern Ideals of Beauty?"

With all apologies to the memory of Theodor Geisel, it’s not the Grinch stealing Christmas this year—it’s Banksy! In Cardinal Sin (above), Banksy takes a replica of an 18^th century stone bust of a forgotten Catholic clergyman and defaces it by “de-facing” it and replacing the visage with a series of tiles. Timing the revelation for just before Christmas and choosing to “indefinitely” loan the piece to Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery, Banksy steals all the warm, fuzzy feelings of the holiday and forces us to face the chilling reality of the Catholic Church’s worldwide sex abuse scandal. Is this a valid religious-political statement or shameless self promotion—Banksy being Banksy even if it means ruining Christmas. You’re a mean one, Mr. B. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "How Banksy Stole Christmas."

For its central and seemingly endless roll in the history of the Western world, Rome more than earns the nickname of “Eternal City.” For centuries that history has sparked the imaginations of painters around the world hoping to capture some of the magic of the ages. In The History of Rome in Painting, edited by Maria Teresa Caracciolo and Roselyne de Ayala, a team of art historians gathers together the best paintings ever made in tribute to the times of Rome. Working from the central idea that art history can enhance political and social history not only by illustrating events great and small, but also by giving some of the elusive flavor of what it feels to be inspired by the past or the present of Rome, The History of Rome in Painting brings the entire panorama of Rome to life spectacularly as only great painters can. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Rome: Eternal City of Painting."

[Image: Cimabue. Saint Mark and Italy/Rome (Ytalia), c. 1280 (detail). Fresco. Basilica of San Francisco, Assisi, Italy.]

[Many thanks to Abbeville Press for providing me with the image above from and a review copy of The History of Rome in Painting, edited by Maria Teresa Caracciolo and Roselyne de Ayala.]