“Authenticity is overrated – give me a perfectly struck pose. (That may be what authenticity is, anyway.) But everyone has things that set them off, and whatever we dislike we might choose to call pretentious. It’s not a stable category of behavior, really, so much as a versatile put-down, meaning, ‘I don’t like what you’re trying to do, and besides, you’re not pulling it off.'”
Author: Matthew Westphal
‘He’s Now A Classic’ – Holland Cotter On Why Robert Mapplethorpe Still Matters
“An artist once reviled as a pariah and embraced as a martyr has been thoroughly absorbed into mainstream. He’s now a classic, with auction prices to match. The question is, how does the work, cleaned of the grit of controversy, hold up?”
It’s True: Art By Narcissists Really Does Fetch More At Auction
“A new study confirms your suspicions that in the art world, delusional self-regard pays off: researchers found that work by narcissistic artists is likely to sell for more money at auction than work by their humbler counterparts.”
Galileo Was Totally Overrated
“In the popular presentations of the history of science, he is portrayed as a one-man revolution, an intellectual superhero who dragged science kicking and screaming into the modern era. … The descriptions sound too good to be true – and they are.”
How Did April Fool’s Day Get Started?
“Ah, April. A month of cherry blossoms and light cardigans, birds twittering and taxes being filed. And, of course, peak harvest season for Switzerland’s world-famous spaghetti crop, which, thanks to an exceptionally mild winter, was experiencing a bumper year in 1957.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 03.31.16
Perfect Pairings: Frick Draws on Van Dyck’s Drawings to Illuminate His Portrait Paintings
It takes not only brains but also curatorial brawn (which powerful institutions are in the best position to exert) to wrest seldom loaned choice works from discerning, possessive lenders. One of the many joys … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-03-31
Producer’s April: George Martin, Sam Phillips
Jerry Lee Lewis’s mother to her son: “You and Elvis are good, son — but you’re no Chuck Berry. Chuck Berry is rock ’n’ roll from his head to his toes.” … read more
AJBlog: blog riley Published 2016-03-31
Classical Pop Art
“… while the overall style of each fine artwork is maintained, eisen bernard bernardo’s mash-ups create quirky unions of contemporary and classical imagery.” Here’s Milo Miles talking with Robin Young. … read more
AJBlog: blog riley Published 2016-03-31
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Fire Maurice Sendak Estate’s Executors, Demands Museum-Library
“More than a year into the lawsuit it filed over Maurice Sendak’s will, the Rosenbach of the Free Library of Philadelphia has asked a Connecticut judge to remove the executors of the author-illustrator’s estate. Motivated by ‘financial self-interest,’ Sendak’s executors have refused to carry out his wish to leave millions of dollars’ worth of books to the Rosenbach,” the motion claims.
Did A Novel Written By A Computer Program Just Become Runner-Up For A Big Literary Prize? Not Exactly
“‘A Japanese A.I. Wrote a Novel, Almost Wins Literary Award,’ one typical headline read. [Another] worried that ‘no occupation is safe’ if an algorithm could compete in such a contest. Look a little closer, however, and this story isn’t about the rise of the machines – it’s a lesson on the limitations of contemporary A.I. technology.”
The Bolsheviks Stole My Great-Grandpa’s Van Gogh, And I Want It Back
“In the early 1900s, Ivan Morozov was a wealthy Russian textile merchant … [who] began making frequent sojourns to Paris, travelling from gallery to gallery and amassing some of the world’s most valuable artworks – then, and now.”
The Bohemian Mystics Of Islam
“On one level, it encompasses much of the popular practice of Muslim religiosity: it is an Islam of saints, miracles, pilgrimages … On another level, it consists of mind-bogglingly complex treatises in philosophical Arabic … [and] an unfathomably rich tradition of poetry written in Arabic, Persian, Urdu and many other languages.”