At the end of a party the other night, we decided to leave the apartment and go on a nighttime stroll. I sat on a bench by the elevator with Emma, my friend’s very young daughter, waiting for family and others. Emma carried a stuffed animal—a grey pony named Jasmine. “I feed her carrots every day,” she said, petting the bedraggled little creature, peering from a miniature purse.
Emma is assuredly in a developmental stage called animism, in which very young children imbue inanimate objects with life and emotion. “Calvin and Hobbes,” by Bill Waterson, offers the most famous example of animism. The tiger Hobbes is five-year-old Calvin’s best friend: lanky, living, breathing. Yet in panels where adults interact with Hobbes, he’s nothing more than a slumped, stuffed animal. (more…)
Although born in Omaha, Nebraska, Ed Ruscha began his artistic career in Oklahoma. Literally. In 1956, at the age of 19, Ruscha set out on Route 66 from Oklahoma City (where he had lived for 15 formative years) to Los Angeles. It was the first in a series of drives that took him past the sites that would form the basis of his 1962 book Twentysix Gasoline Stations (above, middle) and reappear in his later images of hotels, parking lots, swimming pools and the grizzled glamour of the Sunset Strip.
An exhibition opening today at the Price Tower Arts Center proves that Oklahoma’s significance in the contemporary art world goes far beyond that tidbit of Ruschian trivia. The state has also bred and/or trained such artists as David Salle, Joe Goode, Larry Clark, Joe Andoe and Carolyn Brady. “Out of Oklahoma: Contemporary Artists From Ruscha to Andoe” features about 35 of these artists’ paintings (including Ruscha’s “Black Hollywood” [1984]), sculpture, photographs and works on paper in an exhibition that ranges from Pop Art, abstraction and minimalism to photorealism and new figurative painting.
According to Richard P. Townsend, who curated the exhibition, the show “reveals a little known-and little suspected-aspect of later 20th-century American art” while spotlighting Oklahoma’s “innovative spirit and pioneer attitude.” It’s a fitting way to celebrate the state’s centennial. (more…)
The other day, I sat by a pond. A soft rain patterned its surface with circles, radiating and vanishing in a green glassiness. So easily drawn by a mere raindrop, a perfect circle seems like the simplest of forms—and yet not a soul has ever drawn a simple, perfect circle freehand.
If we can build great pyramids without pulleys, wheels or iron tools, swim the English Channel or run four minute miles, why can’t we draw perfect circles? It turns out we’re not built to draw perfect circles–even the most naturally gifted artists. (more…)
One family vacation long ago, I trudged through Disney World and its fake Moroccan city of Marrakesh, debating the true lyrics of The Jetson’s theme song with my sister. “It’s Jane is nice!” I cried. My sister, ever rational, replied, “No, it’s Jane, his wife. And his boy, Elroy.” Deep down, I knew I was wrong, but my childhood pride wouldn’t relent.
Thanks to Google, I don’t think obscure arguments last as long today. Who was President Calvin Coolidge’s wife? Within seconds, anyone can download the answer: Grace Anna Goodhue Coolidge. What’s the capital of the former Upper Volta? Everybody knows it’s Ouagadougou. Who has the world’s longest mustache? Let’s see—a hirsute Turkish fellow, Mohammed Rashid. To tap into a collective consciousness, nobody needs to be Buddha, meditating beneath a fig tree. All of life exists in an electric, invisible Web, available on computer screens and portable devices. (more…)
That’s the (edited) title of a documentary released in November about at septuagenarian retired truck driver who may have bought a Jackson Pollock painting for $5 at a thrift shop in San Bernardino. Emphasis on may, since no one from the art world’s formidable establishment will authenticate the painting.
Anderson Cooper on the May 6 airing of “60 Minutes” revisited the topic, well covered when the movie first came out. Using footage from the movie and his own interviews, Cooper captures the trucker Teri Horton’s one-woman war against the “the art-world conglomerate conspiracy.” (more…)
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