The Signing of the Declaration of Independence, 2022 by Sandow Birk (b. 1962)
Tag: art criticism
Neo-Cubist Calvin
Home in Bed — Shannon Cartier Lucy
Home in Bed, 2018 by Shannon Cartier Lucy (b. 1977)
Allegory of Desire from the Fourth Freedom — Marc Dennis
Allegory of Desire from the Fourth Freedom, 2015 by Marc Dennis (b. 1971)
Richter’s Cat — Marc Denis
Richter’s Cat, 2021 by Marc Dennis (b. 1971)
The Temptation of Saint Anthony (After Maerten de Vos) — Mitchell Villa
The Temptation of Saint Anthony (After Maerten de Vos), 2021 by Mitchell Villa
Ben Shahn’s The Shape of Content (Book acquired, 23 July 2021)
I went by my favorite used bookstore the other week to pick up the copy of Tatyana Tolstoya’s novel The Slynx last week. (I’m halfway through it, and it’s fantastic stuff—dirty, cruel, funny, unexpectedly moving—like a filthy generative loam that isn’t exactly poisonous, but will certainly yield side effects.) After seeing this diagram earlier in the week, I looked for a copy of Thomas C. Oden’s 1969 multidisciplinary
text Structure of Awareness. I was unsuccessful there, but I did spy something called The Shape of Content by the artist Ben Shahn. I’ve long been a fan of his work, so I picked it up and thumbed through. I ended up reading most of it this weekend.
The Shape of Content (the title now is not exactly ironic, I guess) collects a series of lectures Shahn gave to Harvard students in the late 1950s. The first lecture is a somewhat boring apologia, a kind of What the hell am I doing here?, but the following material is good stuff, if not exactly fresh. There are plenty of illustrations too, mostly unrelated to the, uh, content of the words (although they are of course intimately related). Illustrations like the one above, and this one, below, make the 144 pager seem, well, kinda short.
Here’s Harvard UP’s blurb:
In his 1956–57 Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, the Russian-born American painter Ben Shahn sets down his personal views of the relationship of the artist―painter, writer, composer―to his material, his craft, and his society. He talks of the creation of the work of art, the importance of the community, the problem of communication, and the critical theories governing the artist and his audience.
Watch — Eric Fischl
Watch, 2015 by Eric Fischl (b. 1948)
The Wave – From the Sea – After Leonardo, Hokusai and Courbet — Pat Steir
The Wave – From the Sea – After Leonardo, Hokusai and Courbet, 1985 by Pat Steir (b. 1940)
The Minimalist — Ilya Milstein
The Minimalist, 2017 by Ilya Milstein
Shifting the Gaze — Titus Kaphar
Shifting the Gaze, 2017 by Titus Kaphar (b. 1976)
Homage to Balthus and Freud — Sasha Gordon
Homage to Balthus and Freud, 2017 by Sasha Gordon (b. 1998)
Judith and Holofernes — Kehinde Wiley
Judith and Holofernes, 2012 by Kehinde Wiley (b. 1977)
Tribute to De Chirico — Carlos Mensa
Tribute to De Chirico, 1974 by Carlos Mensa (1936-1982)
The Apprehension of Ted Kaczynski (Lincoln, Montana – April 3, 1996) — Sandow Birk
The Apprehension of Ted Kaczynski (Lincoln, Montana – April 3, 1996), 2019 by Sandow Birk (b. 1962)
From Narcissus to Icarus (After Déjeuner sur l’herbe) — Raqib Shaw
Annunciation after Titian — Gerhard Richter
Annunciation after Titian, 1973 by Gerhard Richter (b. 1932)