Petro Wodkins – Manneken Pis
I got contacted recently by an assistant to Petro Wodkins, a Russian artist who recently repurposed the classic kitsch 15th-century fountain in Brussels, Manneken Pis. I saw Manneken Pis many, many times in people’s basement bars as a humour piece…
Robert Rauschenberg – Monogram
There are few artists whose work I admire more than that of Robert Rauschenberg. Not only for his work itself, but how it pushed boundaries of how art was considered. In 1964, after Robert Rauschenberg won the Venice Biennale Grand…
Herb & Dorothy Vogel Built a Priceless Art Collection on a Budget
Herb & Dorothy Vogel, a couple of unassuming New Yorkers, built one of the world’s most significant collections of modern art then gave it away to the National Gallery of Art. Their shared obsession with art is by turns endearing…
Photos of Skulls – inspired by Andreas Feininger
As a teenager I lived in downtown Hamilton, Ontario. A couple of blocks from my house was King Street, the main east-west corridor through the heart of downtown. In my neck of the woods was what the city fathers dubbed…
MetPublications – All Publications from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Since 1964
You know when you go see a show at a museum and they have those awesome large-format glossy exhibition catalogues in the gift shop that (if you are like me) you wish you could afford? Well, the Metropolitan Museum of…
Andy Warhol’s Fashion Spread for TV Guide
Andy Warhol is still one of the biggest celebrity names in the world of art. His work commands some of the highest prices ever paid, such as “Eight Elvises” (1963) which sold for $100 million in 2008. He has vast legions…
Artwork Preservation and Restoration in the News
Although I usually write about art from the perspective of an artist or a viewer, there is a lot to be learned from looking at art from the perspective of an archivist. While looking through the “news roundup” feature on…
Jiří Kolář – Master of Collage
Checking out one of my favourite blogs, but does it float, I came across the work of a collage artist with whom I was entirely unfamiliar – the Czech artist, Jiří Kolář(1914-2002). This is really incredibly exciting for me, not only…
Claude Monet – Ice Floes
It looks like we’re getting a good start to winter here in Montreal, with a record snowfall yesterday of 45 centimetres – when you factor in the snowdrifts, that’s a pretty impressive one-off, the snow was up to mid-thigh in…
Salvador Dali & J.G. Ballard
Lately I’ve been reading a great little book, J.G. Ballard Quotes. As one might expect, it’s a collection of quotes from interviews and writings from one of my favourite authors, J.G. Ballard – you may know his work such as…
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