Margaret Bourke-White

By: Lynn Peril

The name MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE (1904-71) conjures up an image: a woman with a camera balanced atop one of the chromed, art-deco eagles that guard the upper reaches of New York’s Chrysler Building. Though she didn’t […]

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Egon Schiele

By: Peggy Nelson

EGON SCHIELE (1890-1918) was the best thing about the blizzard I spent in Vienna. I had gone to see the remnants of a nervous splendor, expecting well-behaved aesthetic souvenirs from a once-hypermodern past. But when […]

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Jasper Johns

By: Peggy Nelson

Known best for his Flag (1954-5) and Map (1961), JASPER JOHNS (born 1930) along with his friend and one-time lover Robert Rauschenberg, applied gestural painting and bold, unblended color to everyday images and objects. Focusing […]

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Joseph Beuys

By: Peggy Nelson

A conceptual artist, self-inventor, and master of materials who constructed his strongest work out of intangibles, JOSEPH BEUYS (1921-1986) was our postcard deity in art school. His sense of the absurd combined with his high […]

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GERD ARNTZ: TYPE & ISOTYPE

By: Matthew Battles

BORN IN 1900, German artist Gerd Arntz designed a pattern language for life in the twentieth century. His prints and designs were intended to further the purposes of a socialist world even as they dreamt […]

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THOMAS DOYLE: Crucibles of Hazard

By: Matthew Battles

The art of Thomas Doyle is at once inviting and unsettling. Miniature tableaux under glass, his pieces have the quirky, lilliputian charm of the model railroad, the dollhouse, and the museum diorama. But upon further […]

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The Highbrow Kite

By: Matthew Battles

Thomas Horvath’s kites are like every kite you’ve ever seen, and like no kite you’ve ever seen. They’re what kites dream of when they lie sleeping in a tangle of string at the bottom of […]

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The Upset: Hilo for Your Coffee Table

By: Matthew Battles

Much contemporary art prides itself on posing questions. But too often the questions are rehearsed, and the answers prompt only tepid flickers of sensation. Works that engage the imagination in a total fashion — that […]

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