Books – longlistshort

New York Public Art- Le Petit Prince Sculpture outside Villa Albertine

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Books, New York Art Shows, Public Art, Sculptors / Sculpture, Writers

Sep 302026

Looking up at the sky from outside Villa Albertine, the French Institute for Culture and Education’s headquarters in NYC, is this lovely statue of Le Petit Prince, a character from the book of the same name by Antoine de Saint Exupéry. Created by French sculptor Jean-Marc de Pas, it was installed in 2023 for the 80th anniversary of the book which was published in 1943.

In Le Petit Prince, or The Little Prince, a young prince from a very small planet lands on Earth and recounts his adventures to an aircraft pilot who is stranded in the Sahara desert after a crash. Through the prince’s stories Exupéry explores themes of love, loneliness, loss, and human nature.

Paintings and Literature- Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s “A Reading from Homer” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Books, Painting / Painters, Pennsylvania Art Shows, Philadelphia, Writers

Sep 172026

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, “A Reading from Homer” (1885) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

While interest in Homer’s epic poem the Odyssey grew this summer with the release of Christopher Nolan’s film version, it is also one of the oldest and most popular works of literature in the Western canon. Over the years it has been referenced by many artists in painting, film, and works of literature. In addition, according to Merriam-Webster, there are even a few words in the English language that can trace their origins back to the Odyssey.

Currently on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema‘s painting A Reading from Homer (1885).

From the museum about the work:

Here, a young poet crowned with a laurel wreath reads from Homer to an audience dressed for a festival. The setting is probably Greece toward the end of the seventh century BCE. The Greek letters in the upper right indicate that the place is dedicated to the poet.

Through attention to details such as architecture and dress, Alma-Tadema evokes scenes of everyday life in ancient Greece and Rome. However, his pictures are rarely entirely archaeologically accurate. For example, while he accurately rendered the ancient musical instrument on the left, a cithara, he also included a type of rose that did not exist before the nineteenth century.

Live readings of Homer’s works continue to this day. At the end of October, for example, the National Hellenic Museum in Chicago is hosting a marathon reading of the Odyssey taking place over two days.

Pennsylvania Art Shows- “How We Stay Free” at Tilt Institute for the Contemporary Image in Philadelphia

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Books, Pennsylvania Art Shows, Philadelphia, Photographers / Photography, Politics

Jun 262026

Protesting injustice is a powerful way for individuals to come together to create change. In the exhibition How We Stay Free at Tilt Institute for the Contemporary Image, photos by Mike Arrison, Harvey Finkle, Joe Piette, and Sunny Singh vividly capture past protests that have taken place in Philadelphia over the years, reminding visitors of the power of community.

From the gallery about the exhibition:

Following the widely publicized murders of George Floyd and other Black citizens by police, an unprecedented wave of public outcry swept the nation. Despite the pervasive uncertainty and restrictions imposed by the global COVID-19 pandemic, Philadelphians organized and sustained mass protests, taking to the streets to emphatically demand racial justice, police accountability, and structural reform. Later that same year, the tragic shooting death of Walter Wallace Jr. by police officers in the West Philadelphia neighborhood of Cobbs Creek further underscored these systemic issues. His family had called 911 seeking assistance for a mental health crisis, only for the encounter to escalate fatally, tragically illustrating the severe gaps in the community’s support and emergency response systems.

Inspired by the energy generated from these events, West Philadelphia residents Fajr Muhammad and Christopher Rogers published How We Stay Free: Notes On A Black Uprising. This project is not merely a book but a dynamic, living archive of community resistance, featuring powerful, multi-modal contributions from a diverse coalition of artists, writers, poets, and scholars who were active participants in the struggle. This exhibition, which shares the same title, serves as an essential visual and experiential archive. It documents the work initiated by the authors, alongside the tireless efforts of local organizations, grassroots collectives, and community-based activists. Philadelphia’s legacy of civil disobedience is both deep and enduring, stretching from the national Black Lives Matter protests to localized calls for Palestinian liberation and the No Arena fight against a proposed sports complex in the historic Chinatown neighborhood.

The visceral imagery and compelling narratives presented on the gallery walls emphasize a crucial point, a collective and sustained response is necessary to ensure meaningful and lasting progress is achieved. This philosophical approach—that change requires unity and shared purpose—serves as the foundational connective tissue binding both the publication and the exhibition. Spanning several decades of resistance and activism, the collection functions as a series of time capsules. These suspended moments deliberately position the artist not as detached photojournalists, but as participant-observers—marching alongside a broad and diverse coalition of revolutionaries united by the inalienable right of all people to be truly free.

This show closes 6/27/26.

Films to Watch- “Listers: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching”

Art, Artists, Films, Video and Film

Feb 282026

Listers: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birding

In 2024, brothers Owen and Quentin Reiser attempted a “Big Year”, which for birdwatchers entails identifying as many different species as possible in a single calendar year. Traveling in a 2010 Kia Sedona van, the pair learn a lot about birds and other birdwatchers— including the competitive ones. Environmental issues, technology, and the competition’s impact on the hobby are also explored throughout the film.

The documentary is filled with beautiful footage of the birds and lots of funny moments, but seeing this seemingly random idea create a new appreciation for something previously overlooked also feels surprisingly inspirational. It may even have you thinking about things in your own life that might be worth a deeper dive. Either way, you’ll probably find yourself taking a closer look at the birds around you.

For more on the film, this Audobon interview with the brothers is a good read. Owen created an illustrated book, Field Guide of All the Birds We Found One Year in the United States that looks fun too.

You can watch the whole ad-free film here.

NYC Art Shows- Sharon Core at Yancey Richardson

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Books, Conceptual Art, Illustration, New York Art Shows, Painting / Painters, Photographers / Photography, Sculptors / Sculpture

Apr 112025

For Facsimile, currently on view at Yancey Richardson, Sharon Core has reproduced Flowers, the famous 1980 book of photographs by photographer Irving Penn. Instead of using photographs, however, she has recreated the images by painting them using Epson printer inks and photo paper. These paintings were then photographed to create replicas of the book. The work investigates issues of memory, reproduction, and the authorship of images, while also creating works that are beautiful objects in themselves.

From the gallery-

Through the meticulous recreation of historical still-life paintings, along with more recent artworks rendered through the medium of photography, her work explores the tension between reality and its photographic representation. In Facsimile, Core expands these themes by subverting her usual process. Rather than reproducing painted still-lifes through photography, she has instead turned to Irving Penn’s iconic Flowers series—a masterful collection of photographic still-lifes—and reinterpreted them through painting. This ambitious project both deepens and reframes Core’s exploration of the still-life genre by posing questions not only about photography in the digital age, but about material specificity and the status of the reproduction as well.

At the center of Facsimile is a hand-made reproduction of Penn’s 1980 book Flowers, which originated from a commission for Vogue magazine for its annual Christmas edition in 1967. Each year from 1967 to 1973, Penn focused on a different flower—beginning with tulips and moving on to poppies, peonies, roses and other blooms—capturing their ephemeral beauty in various states of perfection and decay. In 1980, these images were compiled into the popular and widely available book Flowers, published by Harmony Books, now out of print. Core’s Facsimile: “Irving Penn, Flowers” resurrects and reimagines the book as a tactile, meticulously handcrafted object that visitors are invited to handle. Alongside this edition, Core presents a selection of her 73 hand-painted recreations of Penn’s photographs, displayed throughout the gallery to offer a closer look at her reinterpretations of the original works. Rather than a departure, we might see this as a return for Core, who originally trained as a painter. The interplay between painting and photography has always been central to her practice and Facsimile brings this dialogue into sharper focus.

Core’s process for Facsimile is as intricate as it is conceptually layered. Each of Penn’s photographs is recreated as a painting using Epson UltraChrome inks on Canson Photo Rag paper, materials typically associated with digital photographic printing. Through this method, Core subverts the intended use of contemporary materials, transforming them into tools for painting. She then photographed her painted pages, designed a layout replicating that of the original book and bound the final prints into an edition of seven. In Core’s words, “the book is a multiple sculpture or a three-dimensional print that must be handled and touched to experience. My name is nowhere in the ‘book,’ therefore it is not an artist book, per se, but in fact a converted replica or facsimile.” By humanizing and rarifying a mass-produced object, Core’s “three-dimensional print” calls for a different kind of attention from the viewer. It cannot be experienced via a screen and must instead be encountered physically. In this generous gesture, the now out-of-print book is given a new lease on life, taking on a different meaning through a complex process of conversion: transforming photographs into paintings, which are then re-photographed, printed and bound into a book.

Visually, Facsimile diverges from Penn’s original photographs through Core’s expressive, painterly approach. Unlike her earlier series, in which she precisely reproduced certain still-life paintings in three-dimensions and photographed the results, effectively posing questions about the boundaries between illusion and reality, here Core seeks to emphasize the handcrafted nature of all photographs. As she notes, “Ever more so, the photograph is manipulated and collaged and is printed not through time and light, as in analog process, but with a fluid medium on paper. It becomes a machine assisted drawing or painting.” In Facsimile, Core makes explicit the artistry behind the work: the hand-lettered text is visibly imperfect and the images, while faithful to Penn’s compositions, are imbued with the texture and fluidity of the artist’s brushwork. Even the colors in the paintings result from a rigorous process of mixing and diluting the digital hues of cyan, yellow, magenta and black.

There is no trompe l’oeil effect at play here, nor any photorealist painting technique either and the result is therefore not an exact replica but a layered gesture that urges us to reflect on the evolving nature of representation in the digital age. By moving from a mechanical form of reproduction to an analogue process, while using a medium of mass production, Core questions the role of materiality in image-making. This finely crafted body of work seems to slip between painting, photography and sculpture, casting new light on Penn’s original photographs and book, while posing deeper questions about image-making technologies and their supposed ties to representing reality in this post-truth era.

This exhibition closes 4/12/25.

David Lynch 1946-2025

Art, Artists, Books, Films, Miscellaneous, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Quotes, Television, Video and Film

Jan 202025

Still from “Mulholland Drive”

Club Silencio scene with Rebekah Del Rio from David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive

Today would have been artist and filmmaker David Lynch’s 79th birthday.

Although it was sad to hear of his passing, it was such a joy to spend the weekend looking through his artwork, reading the tributes from those who knew him, and rewatching his films and the documentary about him, The Art Life.

He also wrote Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity, a short book filled with his thoughts on transcendental meditation, his films, digital video, creativity and more- worth checking out. Below is a short clip from one of his interviews with The Atlantic.

He also acted occasionally, both in his Twin Peaks series and in other projects. Below he plays another famous director, John Ford, in a clip from Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical film The Fabelmans.

And here he is on Louis C.K.’s show Louie.

David Lynch’s creative legacy will continue to influence and inspire people for many years to come. He was one of the greats.

Los Angeles Art Shows- “Lumen: The Art & Science of Light” at The Getty Museum

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Books, California Art Shows, Conceptual Art, Glasswork, Illustration, Installation Art, Los Angeles Art Shows, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Printmaking, Sculptors / Sculpture

Dec 062024

As part of their programming for PST: Art & Science Collide, Getty Museum is showing Lumen: The Art & Science of Light. The exhibition includes a collection of European medieval artwork, along with several contemporary works, that focus in some way on the science and concept of light.

From the museum about the show-

Through the manipulation of materials such as gold, crystal, and glass, medieval artists created dazzling light-filled environments, evoking, in the earthly world, the layered realms of the divine. To be human is to crave light. We rise and sleep according to the rhythms of the sun, and have long associated light with divinity. Focusing on the arts of western Europe, this exhibition explores the ways in which the science of light was studied by Christian, Jewish, and Muslim philosophers, theologians, and artists during the “long Middle Ages” (800-1600 CE), when science and religion were firmly intertwined. Natural philosophy (the study of the physical universe) served as the connective thread for diverse cultures across Europe and the Mediterranean, uniting scholars who inherited, translated, and improved on a common foundation of ancient Greek scholarship.

This story is equal parts science, poetics, and craft. By bringing together a variety of media that materialize light and objects that communicate how medieval people understood the lights of the heavens and of the eye, this exhibition demonstrates how science informed the artistry of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. To convey the continuing sense of wonder inspired by starry skies or moving light on precious materials, the exhibition includes several contemporary works of art placed in dialogue with historic objects.

Below are a few selections-

“On the Construction of the World”, in “Book of Divine Works (Liber divinorum operum)” (text in Latin), Rupertsberg, Rhineland, Germany, about 1210-40 CE by Hildegard of Bingen (German, 1098-1179 CE), Tempera, gold, and ink on parchment

About this work from the museum-

The nun and philosopher Hildegard of Bingen is known for her deeply religious visionary experiences in which she communed with the fiery “living light” (lux vivens) of God. Yet her evocative spiritual imagery reflects the language of science and cosmology. Shown at lower left, Hildegard, an illuminator as well as author, recorded her dazzling vision of the human at the center of nested elemental spheres. The figure is ringed by heavenly bodies, the clouds, and the winds, all encircled by the figure of flaming Caritas, or Divine Love. As a way to understand humankind’s relationship to the Godhead, Hildegard’s imagery emphasizes the correspondence between the body and the cosmos; just as the four humors affected health, the four winds controlled the earth, and the vivifying power of divine light nourished both.

“The Glorification of the Virgin”, attributed to Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Haarlem, northern Netherlands, about 1490-95 CE, Oil on panel

The painting above by Geertgen tot Sint Jans has so many fascinating details and was part of a section titled Divine Darkness.

The wall text from that section-

Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all associate God with light. In the Creation story told in Genesis, when light was created, so too was darkness. As medieval optical theorists understood that sight was contingent upon light and that bodily vision was not possible in darkness, theologians of the time equated the unknowable, invisible aspects of God with darkness. According to a medieval “negative theology,” God exists beyond human perception and poses a challenge to vision itself. The fifteenth-century Christian theologian Nicholas of Cusa wrote that “God is found when all things are left behind; and this darkness is light in the Lord.” Such contradictory associations between God and both light and darkness were fundamental to the verbal and visual expressions used to elucidate the nature of the divine.

And about the painting-

Golden light surrounds the glorified Virgin Mary and Christ child at the center of this intimate and absorbingly detailed devotional painting as a luminous host of angels fills the heavens with eternal music. Their brightness contrasts with the dark perimeter that envelops this apocalyptic vision to suggest the ineffable darkness in which God dwells.

Constellations from a Hebrew Translation of Ptolemy’s “Almagest”, In an astronomical anthology (text in Hebrew), Catalonia, about 1361 CE, Tempura, gold, and ink on parchment and Astrolabe (with Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic Script), Iberia (Spain) or Italy, 1300s CE

From the museum about these two items-

In the Muslim and Christian courts of Europe, and particularly in Iberia, highly educated, multilingual Jews held important positions as physicians and astrologers. Jewish practitioners of these related fields contributed original works on astronomy, mathematics, and philosophy, drawing from and improving on Greco-Arabic sciences. At left, the Hebrew translation of Ptolemy’s Almagest (a work that was little known in Europe before 1200) updated the ancient text with the addition of astronomical tables that guided religious observance. Only a small number of European astrolabes with Hebrew inscriptions survive. This exquisite example lists the names of twenty-four stars in a combination of Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic. The centermost circle marks the ecliptic, or the sun’s path, and is labeled with the zodiacal signs in Hebrew.

“Untitled (Mugarnas)”, 2012, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Mirrors, reverse-glass painting, and plaster on wood

One of the most impressive contemporary pieces in the show was the sculpture pictured above, by Monir Sharoudy Farmanfarmaian, which captured and reflected light so beautifully.

About the work from the museum-

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian was deeply inspired by a visit to the Shah Cheragh shrine in Shiraz, Iran. The vaulted domes and walls of that site are covered in dazzling, intricate mirror mosaics that fracture and dematerialize space while reflecting light and amplifying movement and activity in the shrine below. Farmanfarmaian began exploring these mosaic techniques, eventually collaborating with master artisans to produce sculptural and wall-mounted works that incorporate mirror mosaic and reverse-glass painting. Untitled (Mugarnas) adopts the sacred and decorative forms that are common in Islamic architecture, and expresses the perfection of creation.

This exhibition closes 12/8/24.

Throwback Thursday- Ken Kesey Mural in Springfield, Oregon

Books, Oregon Street Art, Springfield Street Art, Street Art, Writers

Sep 212023

This two story mural of Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, is located in his hometown of Springfield, Oregon. It was designed by Craig Ferroggiaro of Portland and painted by Old City Artists of Los Angeles.

Reading List- Rick Rubin’s “The Creative Act: A Way of Being”

Art, Artists, Books, Music, Musicians / Bands, Quotes, Writers

Sep 012023

Music producer Rick Rubin’s book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, is a quick and enjoyable read. The short chapters are broken up with smaller ideas, like the ones pictured above. Although a lot of it felt familiar, there were definitely moments and ideas that were helpful and even inspirational. His advice on editing and completing creative projects I found particularly useful. Others may find they get more out of other sections.

If you don’t know much about Rubin’s career, he’s had an amazing creative journey himself. From founding the famous Def Jam label in college and playing in a punk band to producing albums and songs for a wide variety of musicians. From early hip hop artists to Red Hot Chili Peppers to Johnny Cash and Jay Z to Adele- it’s worth checking out his wide range of work.

Below is LL Cool J’s Going Back to Cali which Rubin co-wrote and produced. Rubin talks about working on this song, as well as many others, in this article in Rolling Stone magazine.