In my “Why Art Became Ugly,” I claimed that modern art’s trajectory was to abandon art for philosophy. In modernism, art becomes a *philosophical* enterprise rather than an *artistic* one. The driving purpose of modernism is not to *do* art but to *find out* what art is. Here’s a new-to-me datum about René Magritte, from […]
Was Magritte an artist — or a philosopher? Read More »
Why does Fountain matter so much to art history? Honored to be included in this collection of quotations on Duchamp’s significance. For more context and development: “The Most Important Artist of the Century” and “Why Art Became Ugly.”
The significance of Duchamp’s urinal Read More »
This is a song to celebrate banks, Because they are full of money and you go into them and all you hear is clinks and clanks, Or maybe a sound like the wind in the trees on the hills, Which is the rustling of the thousand dollar bills. Most bankers dwell in marble halls, Which
“Bankers are just like anybody else, except richer,” Ogden Nash Read More »
My keynote speech at the joint The Representational Art Conference (TRAC) and Figurative Art Conference and Expo (FACE) will be given in Miami on November 10. My title is The Flight from the Figure — and Back: Human Significance in Art. The abstract is: Across centuries, the art world has exhibited cyclical trends of engagement
Keynote speech at TRAC — title and abstract Read More »
Where does art go after postmodernism? My lecture in Hong Kong — in which I discuss the historical examples of Classical Athens, Renaissance Florence, the Dutch Golden Age, and nineteenth-century Paris — is at YouTube. Here also are the text in English (with images) and the condensed translation into Cantonese. Part 1: Part 2: Thanks
Hong Kong lecture: “NEO-ENLIGHTENMENT ART AFTER POSTMODERNISM” Read More »
Stuart Mark Feldman’s The Future in Our Hands By Michael Newberry Stuart Mark Feldman’s sculpture group, The Future in Our Hands (1992, Reservoir Park, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) is four life-size bronze statues placed around a large outdoor fountain. There are two males and two females, life-sized, each playing with a child. (To my knowledge, this is the
Newberry reviews Feldman sculpture *The Future in Our Hands* Read More »
Keynote speech this November on Figurative Art and Philosophy.
Keynote speech at TRAC art conference in November Read More »
From a letter from Beethoven to Franz Wegeler in Bonn, June 29, 1801: “You want to know something about my present situation. Well, on the whole it is not at all bad … My compositions bring me in a good deal; and I may say that I am offered more commissions than it is possible
Artist as entrepreneur versus patronage — Beethoven and Mozart Read More »