Fine art and architecture on Lincoln Avenue in Chicago between Irving and Bryn Mawr.
Continue readingCategory: Art
It’s a Pretty Grim Life, Actually
Back in 1978 or so I wrote a college term paper about the increasing level of despair apparent in Frank Capra’s movies, through It’s a Wonderful Life. I revised it a bit for this Web site in 1995 or so, taking into account the film’s rise to holiday classic status in the intervening years. It’s sort of gratifying to see many of my same points made in the New York Times, though without the film history elements. At least I don’t feel quite so lonely in my crankdom: New York Times’ It’s a Wonderful Life My It’s a Wonderful Life
Continue readingMy Weekly Credo: Against Authenticity
A quest for the authentic is likely to turn up nothing so real as the hunger that inspired it.
Continue readingPulaski Road, Chicago
Signs and sights from Pulaski Road. This mosaic sign is one of the best. I’ve never seen another one like it.
Continue readingMy Weekly Credo
It’s best not to confuse actual moral authority with lording it over your kids.
Continue readingRed City San Diego
A selection of mostly handmade signage from San Diego.
Continue readingEmma on Sarah Palin
“She keeps that blank face the whole time she’s talking.”
Continue readingMatchstick Musical Instruments That Sound Great
Check out the amazing video clips at http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=w2VNdDV6Vzo.
Continue readingBook Review: Follies of Europe – Architectural Extravaganzas
Follies of Europe: Architectural Extravaganzas, by Nic Barlow, Caroline Holmes and Tim Knox. Garden Art Press, 256 pages, 286 color illustrations, 2008. ISBN 1-87067-356-5 In the United States, writing on the environments of self-taught artists tends to place them within the outsider art context or, sometimes, within a specifically American tradition of individual expression. Follies of Europe demonstrates a very different way of looking at these sites. Not only is their individualistic exuberance not distinctly American, but they belong to a tradition of highly personal outdoor extravaganzas going back at least to the 17th Century. Indeed, the book opens with
Continue readingBook Review: Collecting Madness – Outsider Art from the Dammann Collection
Collecting Madness: Outsider Art from the Dammann Collection, by Thomas Röske, Bettina Brand-Claussen, Gerhard Dammann and others. Catalog by the Prinzhorn Collection, 224 pages, 101 illustrations, 2006. ISBN: 3-88423-265-7 It may seem like a cheap shot to call this volume schizophrenic, but between its own punning title and its divided sense of purpose, the description is irresistible. “Collecting Madness” refers both to the mania of acquisition and to a particular exhibit of a German collection focused on work by artists with histories of mental problems and confinement in asylums. The catalog itself is divided by an abrupt transition halfway through,
Continue reading