Here are some more masterpieces of prosaic art from around the world.
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Fast Art: The Pointlessness of so Much
Art Chicago is an orgy of fast art. Scores of galleries haul out scads of work so visitors can plow up and down endless aisles burdened with art regressing toward the mean. The work, mostly by living artists, is mostly a blur. Occasionally something lends a booth enough gravity to slow you down, more often than not modernist paintings that you’ll never see in a museum since they’re privately owned (and not necessarily museum-quality pieces even if they’re museum-quality artists). This year the highlights for me were Chicago Imagist pieces of relatively recent vintage – works by Karl Wirsum, Gladys
Continue readingFabulous Roadside Vistas
A sampling of wonderful vistas that line — or in some cases used to line — the roadside coast to coast.
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Book Review: John Margolies, Roadside America
John Margolies, Roadside America, edited by Jim Heimann, with contributions by Phil Patton, C. Ford Peatross and photos by John Margolies. Taschen, 288 pages, about 400 color photos, 2010. ISBN: 978-3-8365-1173-5. Hard cover $39.99. The enthusiasm for vernacular expression that began flowering in the United States in the 1970s never quite gelled into a unified movement. Yet a new generation did learn to value the work of self-taught artists and a sizable coterie of writers, photographers, architects and others discovered an exterior landscape whose aesthetic dimension was almost entirely accidental, but all the more striking for it.
Continue readingBook Review: Henry Darger
Henry Darger, by Klaus Biesenbach, with contributions by Brooke Davis Anderson and Michael Bonesteel. Prestel USA, 304 pages, 250 color illustrations, 2009. ISBN 978-3-7913-4210-8. Hard cover $85
Continue readingArchitectural Miniatures
Architectural visions and details from vintage matchbook covers.
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Book Review: Mary Nohl Inside and Outside
Mary Nohl Inside & Outside: Biography of the Artist, by Barbara Manger and Janine Smith. University of Wisconsin Press, 134 pages, 165 color images, 145 b/w or sepia images, 2009. ISBN 978-0-6152-5118-9. Soft Cover $29.95. See my Mary Nohl photos, circa 1990
Continue readingFine fashions
It’s been some time since I’ve stumbled across anything as nice as these fashion drawings in an antique store, mostly because I don’t spend much time in them any more.
Continue readingThe Bottle Cap Inn: New Views
Some new views of the monumental Bottle Cap Inn, and an updated page format.
Continue readingThe Signs of Clark Street
There are great signs up and down Clark Street. This is part 2 of what will no doubt be a continuing series. Here’s part 1
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