Speed of Life

  "I have always tended to take art contextually. If I have any merits as a critic, they have to do with my ability as a storyteller — and above all I wanted to tell a story." Robert Hughes in Salon , May 23, 1997 Robert Hughes in New York City - 1970's In a  1997 piece  on "60 Minutes," correspondent Steve Kroft said to Robert Hughes that he was the most powerful art critic in the world. Hughes deftly avoided the moniker and described his job as being akin to being the most important beekeeper in the world and that his influence said more about Time magazine than it did about the importance of his writing. But Robert Hughes writing is important. For many of us it was the first real taste of the transcendence and power of great art.  Since I discovered the art criticism of Robert Hughes in Time magazine when I was a teenager, I have eagerly awaited each of his new works. Robert's articles, books, and documentaries helped open the worlds of art...

Gregg Chadwick To Talk About Trees 24" x 18" oil on linen 2012 What Kind of Times Are These BY  ADRIENNE RICH There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted who disappeared into those shadows. I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here, our country moving closer to its own truth and dread, its own ways of making people disappear. I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods meeting the unmarked strip of light— ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise: I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear. And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these to have you listen at...