Jim Shaw: The Hidden World, edited by Marc-Olivier Wahler. Koenig Books, London, 512 pages, 2014. ISBN: 978-3863355845. Hardcover. Jim Shaw’s collection of religious, political and cultural ephemera, published in 2014 as an exhibition catalog, makes for a great book, especially if your collecting interests align with Shaw’s, as mine not coincidentally do.
Continue readingAs Essential as Dreams: Self-Taught Art from the Collection of Stephanie and John Smither, by Michelle White, with contributions by Lynne Adele, Brooke Davis Anderson, Haley Berkman, David Breslin, Víctor M. Espinosa, William Fagaly, Edward M. Gómez, Jo Farb Hernández, Lee Kogan, Colin Rhodes and Leslie Umberger. The Menil Collection, Houston, 112 pages, 114 color illustrations, 2016. ISBN: 9780300218411. Hardcover, $45. As Essential as Dreams could easily have been another routine entry in a long line of vanity art projects-exhibits of personal collections, ideally at prestige museums, with catalogs just weighty enough to prove the collectors’ good taste and sound
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Outsider Art: Visionary Worlds and Trauma, by Daniel Wojcik. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, MS, 276 pages, 174 color illustrations, 2016. ISBN: 978-1496808066. Hardcover, $45 Can we agree that the art still sometimes known as outsider is much more interesting than what to call it? It might seem a simple enough proposition, yet arguments over the label continue to distract from the art, even among those who consider the debate mostly fruitless. Daniel Wojcik’s book is a case in point. When it’s good, it’s very good, providing sensitive, thoughful accounts of the art and its creators, with real insights into
Continue readingIt took a long time to get to the Ventures in my project to rip and sell a large vinyl collection. I left them for the end because, frankly, I wasn’t sure I could face listening to the hours of music my Ventures 24 albums contained. These guys released some two dozen albums in the first half of the 1960s alone, and they must have been desperate for material. How else to explain why a song like Jimmy Crack Corn – a standby from everyone’s second or third music lesson — would wind up on Dance With The Ventures (also
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To grasp the impact of the temples around Angkor Wat, think of Chartres. Chartres is wonderful — here you find a dozen-plus Chartres, all within 45 minutes of each other. The Cambodian temples are every bit as spectacular as their reputation would have you believe. Their massive scale, their finely crafted detail, their lovely jungle settings, their ruin and their restoration combine to make this one of the world’s great places. Yes, it is very hot, and many of the sites are crowded with tourists. Some temples were probably over restored. But the architecture is compelling and the sculpture fascinating.
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Visit the 10th century Pre Rup temple in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
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Visit the 9th century Preah Ko temple in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
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Visit the 10th century Prasat Kravan temple in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
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Visit the 10th century Banteay Srei temple in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
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Visit the 12th century Banteay Samre temple in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
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