ARTES MAGAZINE

The idea of contemporary India, and a quintessential one at that—a conglomerate of many Indias, with its fluid social fabric and multitudes of people—is the paradox that confronts the photo-artist, JJ Valaya, an accomplished designer and pioneering fashion guru. Through his viewfinder, Valaya captures the fascinating multiplicity of a burgeoning city where he has lived [...]

Each year, OPEN generously peppers the beautiful island of Lido with unexpected, imaginative artistic surprises and is one of the most entertaining sculpture and installation exhibitions in the art world. Essentially an outdoor walking tour with a few in-hotel installations, OPEN begins the moment you disembark from the vaporetto onto the Piazzale St. Maria Elisabetta. [...]

She was born in Belgium, he in the Netherlands; they both live in the United States. Between them they’ve assembled the finest private collection of Dutch and Flemish Old Master paintings in the world.  Unlikely though it might seem, Golden: Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection, currently on display at the Museum [...]

My first encounter with Grand Catalina (2005-11) came unexpectedly, as I thumbed through the pages of the gallery section of an art magazine. Her uplifted face, eyes closed, suited and capped for laps in the pool, skin still moist with droplets of water as she appears to slip from the water, riveted me in an unexpected moment of intimacy with [...]

One thing becomes immediately clear upon entering the Fuller Craft Museum’s current exhibition, Fresh Figurines—these works, gathered from wide-ranging sources under the skillful eye of curator, Gail Brown, will redefine your notion of figurative porcelain. This is NOT your grandmother’s safe and sentimental collection, sitting behind glass in the corner hutch! While not quite a [...]

Before even seeing it, I made a judgment on this show. And I was right. The landscapes that Barkley Hendricks has made are revelatory in ways so precise and disarming that they trained me instantly. An enlarged capacity to respond to them was guaranteed simply by looking. Eleven of these scenes share a single tight [...]

Republican presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich, recently referred to the Palentinians as an “invented people.”  Don’t tell that to a certain cab drive in New York City, in a nation with an equally legitimate claim to ‘being invented.’ I step from the cool marble lobby of a mid-town office building into the blazing sunlight of a [...]

“Sane judgment abhors nothing so much as a picture perpetrated with no technical knowledge, although with plenty of care and diligence.” ~Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) The sixteenth century marked the dawn of a new age of inquiry, understood by many as the earliest beginnings of the modern age. Religious fervor, superstition and broadly-held, ancient views of [...]

As a treat and a belated birthday present, I was fortunate enough to go to New York City Comic Con, one of the East Coast’s largest ‘popular culture’ events, including some of the best-known comic and graphic novel artists, and my favorite– anime and manga characters. The editor of ARTES e-magazine arranged press passes for [...]

“Intelligence is based on how efficient a species became at doing the things they need to survive.”  ~Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species “The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return. We penetrated deeper and deeper into the [...]