Another Thing to Pin on David Foster Wallace

I smell thesis topic!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/another-thing-to-sort-of-pin-on-david-foster-wallace.html

Looking into the Past

‘Looking Into the Past: Doing the Charleston at the Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC’
courtesy of ‘jasonepowell’

Hey, it’s an old photo, and a new photo, in one…and it’s of people doing the Charleston on the doorstep of Capitol Hill! What more could you want in a photo?

Jason is quite the innovator with this style of photo (Jason calls it “Looking Into the Past”; whatever you want to call it, we can all call the results awesome). He takes historic photos from publically available collections (mainly the Library of Congress), gets enlargements made, and then tries to line up the old picture with the present scene. It can make for quite the sight: some you see how much has changed, others how little, and then you see the downright weird. If you want to read more, Jason’s work has been highlighted by some high profile outlets recently.

Cy Twombly and Poussin exhibition

I would love to see this show up right now at Dulwich Picture Gallery in London:
http://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/exhibitions/now_on_show/twombly_and_poussin.aspx

Twombly and Poussin: Arcadian Painters

29 June - 25 September 2011

“Twombly has spent his life transforming and reinvigorating that rich American modern art. His paintings belong in Dulwich because he is one of the greats.” Four stars, The Guardian

“I would’ve liked to have been Poussin, if I’d had a choice, in another time.” Cy Twombly

A unique exploration of contemporary artist Cy Twombly (April 25 1928 - 5 July 2011) and 17^th century classical painter Nicolas Poussin (1594 -1665). This exhibition will look at these two figures side by side for the first time.

Separated by three centuries the two artists nonetheless share remarkable similarities. The connections are highlighted through the key themes of Arcadia and the pastoral, Venus and Eros, anxiety and theatricality and mythological figures that are central to both artists' work.

The exhibition will be accompanied by the British premiere of Tacita Dean's new 16mm film portrait of Cy Twombly, Edwin Parker (2011).

As part of the exhibition, the Gallery is also extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to display Poussin’s Seven Sacraments painted between 1637 and 1642 for his Roman friend and patron Cassiano dal Pozzo. As a set, Poussin’s Sacraments represent a high point in Western European art.

Beautiful Krakow

I was in Krakow this summer working on the Synagogue Replication Project with Handshouse Studio. Poland was once full of beautiful wooden synagogues, but they were all destroyed by the Nazis during WWII. One of these synagogues, The Gwozdziec Synagogue, was well documented. Handshouse Studio has been working now for eight years to recreate this synagogue using traditional building and painting techniques.

When the project is completed, it will be installed as a permanent exhibition in the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.

http://handshouse.org/gwozdziec.html

The painting in progress.

This is the space where we worked, the beautiful Temple Synagogue, in Kazimierz, the historic Jewish quarter of Krakow.

I'm going to make my students read this!

Postmodernism is dead

Edward Doc

A new exhibition signals the end of postmodernism. But what was it? And what comes next?

Link to the article here