Josiah Tell
Medieval Treasury
These scenes (and others, like the stations of the cross) are fascinating precisely because their content is so regimented. The Gospel says that Christ was nailed to a cross, so he has to have stigmata. He was stabbed with a lance, so he has to have a slit in his ribcage. His mother was there, so she has to be seen reacting to her dead son. Etcetera.
More inside.
Galileo in Philadelphia
A Reuters article says that the focus of the show is Galileo’s telescope, which has never been outside of Italy. According to Paolo Galluzi, who runs the Instituto e Museo Nationale di Storia della Scienza (the institution loaning the telescope) “There will not be a second time in the States.â€
More inside.
The Jan Mitchell Treasury
Well. We failed. As we approached her, we were overtaken by the memory of the first time we’d ever asked a girl to slow dance in sixth grade. K— M——- (who we still have a crush on and would marry if the chance arose) rolled her eyes, sighed loudly and said, “fine†in the same tone of voice usually reserved for words like “treason†or “staff infection.â€
A South American Getaway in the Met! As always, there’s more inside.
No More Pencils, No More Books
SmARThistory is the work of Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, two professors of art history who were “dissatisfied with the large college textbooks [which] were difficult for many students, contained too many images, and just were not particularly engaging.†Their solution is a shotgun approach to learning—they write concise articles and podcasts about major themes in art history and post them to their growing website, smarthistory.org.
Pretty Art Robots
Jansen, who comes off as a mad scientist with a hint of a god complex, has been developing (“evolvingâ€) these things for almost twenty years, and his labor is evident in the creatures’ graceful movement. Most are made from PVC, but one particularly striking Strandbeest is made from 3.2 tons of what looks to be Corten steel. It’s so perfectly engineered that a single person can push it around, its many lumbering metal legs attached to an axis that somehow lets a person move forty times his body weight.
The End of Capitalism; Damien Hirst is some Bullshit
Damien Hirst and Murakami need an ass kicking. Conflating consumerism with high art was funny and original when Warhol did it, guys. But 50 years have passed, and Warhol’s been inducted into the canon. So that just makes you greedy, derivative profiteers. Hirst, for example, sold his diamond encrusted one-liner for $100 million, then sued a 16-year-old who was making bootleg collages of his work. Because, you know, it’s a self-conscious meta-criticism. 
“But at least we’re talking about art,†apologists will cry. “Isn’t that the point?†No, no it’s not.
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We didn’t sleep well last night, and we’re taking it out on capitalism! Read on.
Little Boxes on the Hillside
I have eaten more than one living insect on purpose, and worn more than one pair of pleather pants. I played rhythm guitar in a band called “The Alarm Cock.†I have also purchased, and it pains me to write these words, no fewer than three Insane Clown Posse albums. Purchased, not pirated.
This week, Josiah goes to France and sees little boxes. Come on in!
Punch Card from the Public Liberry
Our office has a scanner, and we have decades-overdue library book titled The Causes of the American Civil War (slavery. And nothing else . . . I did not read the book).
Sounds like a winning formula for an SD post!
Read on. If you’ve got the guts.
Yesterday was a Stumble in the Rain
While stumbling around in the rain on Sunday, our gang came across Black & White Project Space, a new non-profit gallery on Driggs Avenue in Brooklyn (n.b. we are an actual gang with matching leather jackets). The space opened on March 7, and its inaugural exhibition, a collection of photos, videos, and objects taken from Brighton Beach, will evolve over a 3-month run.
If you like half-baked ideas on art and architecture, you’ll probably want to step inside.
China is Like a Hundred Years Old
Contained in the Weber galleries is a beautiful collection of belt buckles and daggers, tiny clay and bronze figurines, rhythmically engraved stone, and cast metal vessels. Wall text sheds some light on the mysteries for the patient. For the rest of us, the aesthetic impact of five thousand year-old axes is enough.
More on the inside!
SD Columnist Accurately Predicts the Future!
On Saturday, Poster Boy defaced, among other prints, a Warhol Marylin in MoMA’s Atlantic Pacific installation.
Somewhere, an art historian who spells authenticity with a capital A just ejaculated and keeled over dead.
We Will Destroy the Museums
It was Nietzsche gone wild, nationalistic and revolutionary, violently misogynistic. It was an art movement whose adherents rejected museums, a mode of thought that presaged Buck Rogers and the atomic bomb and the The Factory the Wars and the transistor radio and the plastic century. It was Futurism, and it’s a hundred years and two days old.
