Friday, December 27, 2024
As I’ve done for the past few decades, I’m ending the year with a look back at some cultural highlights I found most fulfilling during the past 12 months: Hitting the road with the kids: 2024 was a special year for family travel — an early summer trip to stay with relatives in San Francisco (a moment from there above), then a late summer stay with my sister just outside of D.Good timing from the NYT — I’ve been wondering about the story behind the day-improving @artbutmakeitsports account. (No, he doesn’t use AI.) In the spirit of doubles, his work brings me back to reading Lawrence Weschler’s wonderful “Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences” 15 years ago.
Since 2000, I’ve been publishing a kind of year in review — mainly cultural highlights from the prior 12 months, along with a few personal notes. Here’s my post for 2022.
Wearing Mama’s black jacket for warmth, Leo turned curator, leading the way.
Mona Hatoum’s “Hair Necklace,” shown in a slide from her packed-house talk today @pulitzerarts.
SLAM’s impressive German collection has this effect on a lot of visitors
Family fun in KC. Thanks for joining us, @fourletter — and for the 📷!
An inspiring New Yoker profile of Steidl by Rebecca Mead.
Friday, May 15, 2015
Watching Ragnar Kjartansson’s “S.S. Hangover,” part of “Drifting in Daylight: Art in Central Park” from Creative Time.Thursday, August 8, 2013
“Artist’s wire trees free the mind, shape the future,” written by Doug Moore and published in this past Sunday’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch. With some nice photos to boot. To view (and buy?) his work, visit H-Omer.com.Sunday, March 10, 2013
"> <figure class=" sqs-block-image-figure intrinsic " style="max-width:500px;"> <div style="padding-bottom:100%;" class=" image-block-wrapper has-aspect-ratio "> <img src="http://sschenkenberg.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/6eca7-image-asset.jpeg" alt="" /><img class="thumb-image" alt="" /> </div> </figure> </div> Gerhard Richter, quoted in Atlas: Do you know what was just great? — To notice that such a stupid, absurd little act like copying a postcard can result in a painting. And then the freedom to be able to paint what’s fun. Deer, aeroplanes, kings, secretaries.
A recent work from my father-in-law, whose sculptures can be purchased here.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Following up on my previous post about this extraordinary 900-page book — I finished it last night — here are a few more remarkable passages around which I drew my customary lines, stars, and exclamation marks: Paris, February 1905: With [Théodore] Duret to Mademoiselle Courbet, Courbet’s sister. Works of Courbet from all periods, especially interesting the Demoiselles de la Seine (around ‘66) and quite early pictures from Courbet’s childhood when he was fifteen to seventeen.Sunday, September 30, 2012
<figure class=" sqs-block-image-figure intrinsic " style="max-width:338px;"> <div style="padding-bottom:147.63313293457%;" class=" image-block-wrapper has-aspect-ratio "> <img src="http://sschenkenberg.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/198bd-kessler.jpg" alt="kessler.jpg" /><img class="thumb-image" alt="kessler.jpg" /> </div> </figure> </div> Last April, I read an extraordinary review-essay by New Yorker classical music critic Alex Ross about the following book: Journey to the Abyss: The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler, 1880-1918. Ross, one of my favorite cultural writers, told a vivid story of someone with seemingly unlimited reach in European cultural circles, someone who might have breakfast with Rilke, discuss art with Rodin over lunch, spend an early evening looking after a deteriorating Nietzsche, and look ahead to a weekend with Vuillard.Thursday, June 14, 2012
Art in America reports on this very interesting project: On June 21, Brooklyn-based online magazine Triple Canopy will begin a two-week residency called Perfect Strangers, in Sarajevo. While in the Bosnian capital, where several of the country’s national cultural institutions were closed earlier this year due to inadequate government support, Triple Canopy will initiate a program of workshops, site-specific visual and textual works, lectures, and publishing. Artworks and other project components will examine Bosnia and Herzegovina’s fraught history and national identity.Friday, June 8, 2012
"> <figure class=" sqs-block-image-figure intrinsic " style="max-width:592px;"> <div style="padding-bottom:66.554054260254%;" class=" image-block-wrapper has-aspect-ratio "> <img src="http://sschenkenberg.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/2a3b7-image-asset.jpeg" alt="" /><img class="thumb-image" alt="" /> </div> </figure> </div> From T magazine's brief piece on the great photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, who has a new collaboration with Hermès: “Light is my medium to be investigated,” says the Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto, who spent years chasing bands of prismatic color around his studio in Tokyo and capturing them, with what was for him rapid-fire succession, using a Polaroid camera.Saturday, May 26, 2012
clear"> <div class="slide"> <div class="margin-wrapper"> <a class="image-slide-anchor content-fill"> <img src="http://sschenkenberg.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/400be-tumblr_m4nd4tphxt1qaqkgvo1_1280.jpg" alt="Art Institute of Chicago" /><img class="thumb-image" alt="Art Institute of Chicago" /> </a> </div> </div> <div class="slide"> <div class="margin-wrapper"> <a class="image-slide-anchor content-fill"> <img src="http://sschenkenberg.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/1fc31-tumblr_m4nd4tphxt1qaqkgvo2_r1_1280.jpg" alt="de Young Museum" /><img class="thumb-image" alt="de Young Museum" /> </a> </div> </div> <div class="slide"> <div class="margin-wrapper"> <a class="image-slide-anchor content-fill"> <img src="http://sschenkenberg.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/01520-tumblr_m4nd4tphxt1qaqkgvo3_1280.jpg" alt="Pulitzer Arts Foundation" /><img class="thumb-image" alt="Pulitzer Arts Foundation" /> </a> </div> </div> <div class="slide"> <div class="margin-wrapper"> <a class="image-slide-anchor content-fill"> <img src="http://sschenkenberg.Saturday, March 3, 2012
Hey, that’s my father-in-law. Well done, Omer!Wednesday, February 22, 2012
My post for the “Artful Travels” series at the TOKY Blog.Saturday, February 11, 2012
<figure class=" sqs-block-image-figure intrinsic " style="max-width:332px;"> <div style="padding-bottom:150.60241699219%;" class=" image-block-wrapper has-aspect-ratio "> <img src="http://sschenkenberg.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/b338b-germans-dive-deeper.jpg" alt="germans-dive-deeper.jpg" /><img class="thumb-image" alt="germans-dive-deeper.jpg" /> </div> </figure> </div> Peter Watson's The German Genius: Europe’s Third Renaissance, the Second Scientific Revolution, and the Twentieth Century is an extraordinary 1,000-page book. It is immensely ambitious, rich in ideas and evidence of the German-speaking peoples’ world-changing achievements in music, literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis, biology, geology, bioethics, archeology, art history, and on and on.