A new survey by research firm Perspectus Global finds that 69% of employees believe “interesting and visually striking art” in the workplace contributes to their wellbeing. The finding is based on responses by 3,250 UK workers required to work in the office from two to four...
Two environmental activists superglued their hands to Botticelli's Primavera in the Uffizi Gallery last week, AP reports. A museum security guard wasted no time in reacting. In a "refreshing, no-nonsense approach to eco-warriors," according to The Daily Mail, the guard tore the protesters' hands from the painting...
Art offers breathing room for the spirit. ― John Updike A new study published in the Journal of Positive Psychology shows that visiting art museums can ease chronic paid, reduce anxiety and depression, and forestall dementia. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania compiled and reviewed over 100 science...
A new study from UBS shows that nearly half (47%) of all American art museums focus on the top 4% of contemporary artists. Commercial art galleries are less biased, with only 23% focused on the top 4%. Nonetheless, that means 96% of artists—the "emerging" ones—have little chance...
The British art critic David Sylvester asked AbEx painter Willem de Kooning in 1960 whether painted forms should be recognizable. De Kooning replied that painted forms "ought to have an emotion of a concrete experience." Today we'd more likely say that painted forms should convey how they...
The sentimental person thinks things will last; the romantic person has a desperate confidence they won't. — F. Scott Fitzgerald "High culture is paranoid about sentiment," the late painter Thomas Kinkade once said. The undisputed "king of kitsch," he often compared his art to Walt Disney's. "My paintings beckon you...
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. — Ecclesiastes A fellow artist expressed to me yesterday her disappointment that realist painters—even of the caliber of Monet and Van Gogh—never add anything original to our...
Informally, I call many of my paintings depictions of "nostalgic food." Viewers who react to these paintings usually respond with cheer, and will immediately mention memories of childhood. Among other things, I've painted sandwiches, donuts, Twinkies, Peeps, and bottles of soda pop. Right now, I'm trying to capture...
The pump don't work 'cause the vandals took the handle. — Bob Dylan Just in time for the 60th anniversary of Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues"—which enshrined a vandalized pump within America's literary canon—an unknown artist in Denmark has vandalized a painting by one of nation's most...
We live in a political world. — Bob Dylan The notion behind this post came to me a week ago, but I felt no urgency to pursue the idea until late last evening, when POLITICO announced that the Supreme Court has voted to strike down Roe v. Wade. My...