Speed of Life

by Gregg Chadwick Intimately viewing the drawings of Michelangelo helps pull the veil of fame off of this towering figure. In spite of the title of the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to give humanity back to artistic gods is no easy feat. The Met has done it twice in fourteen years. First was the 2003 exhibition of  Leonardo da Vinci's  drawings and now those of Michelangelo in 2017. Both exhibits have given a sense of hope and human possibility back to viewers in times of struggle and uncertainty. In its exhibition,  Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer  the Metropolitan Museum has created a temporary museum dedicated to the life, times, and art of Michelangelo. It includes 133 drawings and poems created by Michelangelo that link the artworks to ongoing projects by the artist and his workshop. One of Michelangelo's earliest paintings is included and a small group of his sculptures in marble fill out the show. Also included are dr...

Santa Monica, CA The Getty Museum snaps up a Bernini bust, adding heft to L.A.'s Baroque holdings http:// fw.to/azVqbSI  

                 Gangnam for Freedom - Anish Kapoor and Friends  The British sculptor Anish Kapoor and a group of his human rights oriented friends have released a new video in partnership with Amnesty International and PEN International to bring attention to the ongoing persecution of artists and writers across the globe from China to Russia who have been harassed and imprisoned because of their work. Taking up where Ai Wei Wei's recent Gangnam Style video left off, Kapoor's own Gangnam Style romp combines symbols of imprisonment and torture with the names of many who have been persecuted in their artistic strivings for freedom. Please watch, visit the links, and find out what you can do to help shed light on this growing problem of censorship and oppression. As an emigré from India to the United Kingdom, Anish Kapoor has often been concerned with the ideas of freedom and dislocation in his artwork. I have posted a few exam...

Ed Ruscha Standard Station, Amarillo, Texas 64.5" x 121.75" oil on canvas 1963 Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire © Ed Ruscha Opening this month in Southern California are a series of art exhibitions, Pacific Standard Time , documenting the Los Angeles art scene from 1945-1980. Pacific Standard Time is an unprecedented collaboration of more than sixty cultural institutions across Southern California. Initiated through grants from the Getty Foundation, Pacific Standard Time will take place for six months until April 2011. In a Teaser for Pacific Standard Time , Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers Takes Artist Ed Ruscha for a Ride The Getty Museum's comphrehensive exhibit of the period, Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture, 1950-1970 , opens on October 1, 2011. More at: Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture, 1950-1970

by Gregg Chadwick Egyptian Portraits at the Neues Museum, Berlin photo by Gregg Chadwick Including: Upper Left Mask from Amarna: Portrait of a Man Center : Queen Nefertiti Bottom Right: Pharaoh Ay New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, ca. 1340 BC Gypsum Amarna Height 18 cm Neues Museum, Berlin These life-sized masks are from a series found in the workshop of the sculptor Thutmoses in Achet-Aton (today called Amarna) in Middle Egypt. Amarna was the capital of Egypt during the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaton and Queen Nefertiti. The portrait study of a man in the upper left of the photo provides an interesting view of Thutmoses' artistic process. First a cast was taken directly from the sitter's face and then a gypsum copy was made from the mould. The gypsum sculpture was then brought to detailed completion. In this installation of ancient sculptures, we are directly confronted with the real faces of Egypt. Even if the sitters' names and identities have been lost to history, their muted prese...

Update; January 26, 2010 The statue is of Tawaret the goddess of protection during pregnancy and childbirth. Temple of Haroeris and Sobek, Kom Ombo , copyright by Gary Jones . The Egyptian god Sobek seems to be the inspiration for the giant statue on LOST. I was leaning towards Anubis but the crocodilian snout gives it away. (Anubis was probably a bit too close to Stargate anyway.) Gary Jones' masterful photo of the Temple of Haroeris and Sobek in Egypt shows Sobek in detail. The light in Jones' photo is stunning - mysterious and beckoning. Caroline Seawright writes of Sobek: "Having the form of a crocodile, the Egyptians believed that he also had the nature of a crocodile. He could be the strong, powerful symbol of the pharaoh, showing the ruler's might. He could use this force to protect the justified dead in their after life, and be the protector and rescuer of the other gods... yet he could also use that power to savage his enemies and the sinful decease...