Originally published in the Marina Times San Francisco in January 2014 In November, authorities in Munich, Germany revealed that they had stumbled upon over 1,500 paintings, drawings and etchings by artists including Matisse, Picasso, Chagall and Klee. The artworks were stolen by the Nazis during World War II, and were hidden away in what was…
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Originally published in the Marina Times San Francisco in December 2013 A Larry Rivers painting, drag queens using a phone booth as a changing room, and an animated group of partygoers emerging from the lobby elevator: These are some of the memories that Victoria Cohen shares in her new book of photographs of the Hotel…
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Originally published in the Marina Times San Francisco in November 2013 What we did then is now art history —Herbert Vogel In 2008, film director Megumi Sasaki released the film “Herb and Dorothy”, a story of two unlikely art collectors. Herbert and Dorothy Vogel, a postal employee and librarian respectively, accumulated what is considered to…
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Originally published by the Marina Times San Francisco in October 2013 In the end nobody knows how it’s done – how art is made. It can’t be explained. Optical devices are just tools. Understanding a tool doesn’t explain the magic of creation. Nothing can. –David Hockney From October 26th through January 20th 2014, the de…
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Originally published in the Marina Times San Francisco in September 2013 I don’t believe in art. I believe in the artist. —Marcel Duchamp When he first met Marcel Duchamp in 1959, Calvin Tomkins was not the famous art critic he would later become. In fact, at the time, Tomkins knew nothing about art. His meeting…
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Originally published in the Marina Times San Francisco in August 2013 Observe what’s vivid. Catch yourself thinking. Vividness is self-selecting. And remember the future. —Allen Ginsberg Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg will be on view at the Contemporary Jewish Museum through September 8, 2013. Ginsberg became well known in the 1950’s as a…
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Originally published in the Marina Times San Francisco in July 2013 In May, Christie’s contemporary art auction set record prices when paintings by Roy Lichtenstein, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jackson Pollock and others sold for a record $495 million dollars. Soon after, news broke that Detroit’s financial manager, Kevyn Orr, was considering selling the collection of the…
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Originally published in the Marina Times San Francisco in June 2013 My pictures are not that interesting nor the subject matter. They are simply a collection of facts. —Ed Ruscha Fifty years ago, contemporary artist Ed Ruscha published Twentysix Gasoline Stations, the first of sixteen photo books that would help to redefine the art book…
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