KCRW's Art Talk Podcasts

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Art reviews, news and announcements from Edward Goldman. Primary Format : Arts Language : English Also Listed as: City : Santa Monica State/Province : CA Country : USA Region : NA User Tags: User Votes: RSS Feed Website People found this Podcast Searching for: View this Podcast on a Google Map. Podcast iTunes Link Text Only listing of KCRW's Art Talk Podcasts Methings.com listings of KCRW's Art Talk Podcasts If you like this podcast, you might also like:

Encountering Art, Police Chief Gets Egg on His Face So, what would you think about the LA Police Chief if you heard that hehad expressed support for a controversial public artwork installed infront of the new police headquarters? Would you worry? Rest assured,outgoing Police Chief William Bratton simply hates the eight monumentalbronze sculptures installed at the new LAPD... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website LA Artists on Fire For almost one hundred years, people around the world have known Los Angeles primarily as the place where movies are made. But in the last couple of decades, something else has entered into the equation: a few LA artists have achieved such international acclaim that they've become ourde factocultural ambassadors to the world at large... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website He Was the Scheherazade of Our Time Last month, at the opening of the Irving Penn exhibition at the GettyCenter, the celebrated 92 year-old photographer was not in attendance.We were told that he hates to fly, which shouldn't come as a surprise,considering his age. Though his exhibition of 210 black and whitephotographs is still on view at the museum, the artist himself is nomore; last week brought the sad news of the death of Irving Penn, oneof the most famous photographers of the 20th century... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Hitting a Nerve: The Anatomy of Beauty and Horror Do you remember the olden days when everyone had a Polaroid camera, and the small color photos our parents took on vacation could be found in virtually every household?  These days, Polaroid technology is almost obsolete, and one can hardly find the film for those instant cameras.  A few people, however, are still continuing their love affair with this medium... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Towering Figures, Tumbling Walls Anyone who had the good fortune to know Henry Hopkins (1928-2009), a seminal figure on the California art scene for the last fifty years, would probably agree that he was the epitome of what we call a gentleman scholar.  Even at crowded museum openings, one could always spot Henry ? tall, imposing, impeccably dressed ? charming everyone with his courtly manners... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Love Thy Garbage I'm not a morning person, so, fortified with plenty of coffee, I usually start the day off slowly by paging through the newspapers to catch up on the latest. Sometimes, a headline jumps off the page with such a good vibe that it instantly snaps me out of the morning doldrums.  Today is one of those days: the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times reported on this year's recipients of the MacArthur Grants, each of whom will receive $500,000, no strings attached.  Among the winner ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A Generous Serving of Small Trades If you have the slightest interest in the art of photography orfashion, you will undoubtedly recognize the name Irving Penn, whoseartistic achievements have had a major influence on the contemporaryart scene of the last sixty years. Born in 1917 and still active today,Irving Penn might have started his career as just a fashionphotographer, but he quickly developed a distinctive style which sethis images apart... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Escaping the Dog Days of Summer So, how wasyourLabor Day? Myself, I'm never sure what's theproper thing to do on this holiday ? to honor it with an honest day ofwork or by taking it easy. Even here in Santa Monica it was hot, so Idid my usual and fled to the air-conditioned sanctuary of museumgalleries... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What's in the Drinking Water in Toledo, Ohio? Five flights, four cities, two countries ? not too bad for a one-week trip, eh?  It was my first trip to Canada, where I spent three days in Toronto and two in Ottawa, followed by even shorter visits to Detroit and Toledo, where I hadn't been before either... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Naked Truth Truth be told, I haven't yet seen any of the five exhibitions that I want to tell you about today ? though I'm still hoping to catch one of them in New York, and another, if luck is on my side, in Florence.  Two more exhibitions are coming this fall to Los Angeles, so that makes four.  And the last one, the controversial installation of Jeff Koons' sculptures at Versailles, has already closed... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Inside the L.A. Art World Summertime, and the livin' is easy...You are probably packing for a trip and looking for a book to read, so here's my suggestion: the recently published collection of essays by Los Angeles art insiders who spill their guts in conversation with Richard Hertz ? himself a consummate insider of the LA art world, with experience teaching at Caltech and CalArts as well as heading the Department of Graduate Studies at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website In This Cemetery, Some Like it Hot There were four of us on this warm Friday night; blankets under our arms, plastic bags full of snacks; we were walking down a nondescript stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard after a seemingly endless search for a parking spot. And we were not alone. One could see a few more people on the sidewalk, like us schlepping bags and lawn chairs and headed in the same direction... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Paintings Enjoyed by All, Read and Deciphered Only by Few I wonder how many of you would raise your hands if asked, "Who has been to a performance at UCLA's Royce Hall?" I wouldn't be surprised if most of you have been there on a number of occasions to see dance, theater, or a concert. But how many of you know about the museum tucked away down the hill from Royce Hall? I'm talking about the Fowler Museum, where savvy, adventurous Angelenos can find a variety of exhibitions about little-known arts and cultures... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Beautiful Nightmare What would you say if a nightmare that woke you up in a cold sweat could be described in the most terrifying detail to a great artist who would be able to recreate it in bronze...and I mean it not figuratively, but literally, in bronze. If you are lucky enough to stumble upon the National Archeological Museum while wandering through Florence, you will never forget the encounter with one of its world-famous treasures, the life-size bronze sculpture of the Chimaera, the mythological creature ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Collecting, Until Death Do Us Part For those looking for an excuse to step away from the media obsession with Michael Jackson ? and the Sarah Palin sideshow ? here's a good chance to do just that: go see the irresistibly charming documentary about Herb and Dorothy Vogel, the most beloved American collectors of the last half-century, whose unique and inspiring life devoted to art collecting earned them a well-deserved reputation as cultural icons... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Abroad, in Search of Art Immediately after coming home from a trip abroad, I like to check out what's happening on the art scene here in my own town, to see if it holds up against the great variety of art adventures I had while traveling. The first day back in LA, totally jet-lagged and exhausted from two weeks of stuffing myself full of art in Europe (oh, poor Edward...), I rushed to the Getty for the opening of the ambitious exhibition of three centuries of French bronze sculpture. It was full of fascinating ob ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website So Many Tsars, So Little Time It's been only a couple of months since my last trip to Amsterdam, so there better be a good reason to return so soon for yet another visit. And how could I say no to an invitation to attend the inaugural ceremony for the opening of the Hermitage Amsterdam, the ambitious collaboration between the famous museum in St. Petersburg and its colleagues in the Netherlands? While two previous attempts at branding by the Hermitage Museum – first in London and then in Las Vegas – turned o ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website It Takes a Village to Raise Museum Funds For good, normal folks who might go to a museum only once in a while, museums present themselves in a stately, unhurried, dignified manner.  But if you peer behind the curtain, 'calm' is the last word you would use to describe what's going on there... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Twitter as Big Brother? In last week’s program I asked you for advice: ‘To Tweet or Not to Tweet...’ and respond you did – with humor, sarcasm, and good straightforward advice.  To read all the responses posted, visit theArt Talkpage of the KCRW website.  Here are some excerpts... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website To Tweet or Not to Tweet, That Is the Question Looking back at the past thirty years, I see the pattern of my initial reluctance to embrace the technology of the modern world.  First, I had to learn to drive a car, though some of my friends tell me that I still drive like a Russian peasant.  Then, there was an especially embarrassing moment when I heard for the first time the word "fax" and mistook it for, hmmm...an unprintable profanity, and that's how l learned about the existence of fax machines.  When I started to do ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Oh...to Be Sixteen Again It's unbearably hot even here, in Santa Monica, near the beach. Damn those Santa Ana winds. To survive, I need to think and talk about something cool. How about this? A stone's throw from Venice Beach sits LA Louver Gallery, one of the mainstays of the Los Angeles art scene. There, for the next few weeks, you can find a small herd of horses roaming the galleries– some standing still, others grazing or lying down, maybe even sleeping... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moved by Art Compared to a journalist covering the disintegration of the international financial system or reporting from the battlefield in Afghanistan, there is an obvious advantage to being an art critic. After all, where else if not in the art business can one think about Death, Debt, and Divorce as something to look forward to, a renewable source of profit for auction houses when private collectors are pressured to sell their art as a result of these three famous "D's." Even when the news from the ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website From Russia with Art Somehow in the last several weeks, Russian avant-garde culture of the early 20th century has been presenting itself with surprising consistency, both here in LA and during my recent trip to Holland. In Amsterdam I saw excellent early paintings by Kandinsky, and on the last day there, I was invited to seeThe Four Temperamentsby Balanchine performed by the Dutch National Ballet. The theater was packed, and the dancers were very good. All that made me think about the famous Ballets Russes a ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 'I love plastic. I want to be plastic.' - Andy Warhol Returning to LA from a ten-day trip to Holland, I jumped head firstinto the thick of things, trying to catch up with the new exhibitionsin museums and galleries. First I drove downtown to the USC Fisher Museum, which has become the happy recipient of a generous gift from the Andy Warhol Foundation... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Best Place to Get High without Getting Arrested The name of the picturesque ancient city Maastricht, in the south ofHolland, might not ring a bell in American ears, but in Europe it’s definitely well known as the place where the Maastricht Treaty was signed in 1992, giving birth to the European Union. Another reason to be aware of this city is TEFAF, the celebrated annual international art fair, often referred to as the ‘Tiffany’ of all art fairs. That’s where curators and discriminating collectors from around the wor ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Is Old Master Art Still a Sure Thing? The last couple of months, running into various art dealers, thefirst thing I ask is how they're holding up. No doubt, it's been adifficult time for the art market, where sales of contemporary art areway below what they were even a year ago. One exception was the recent sale of the Yves Saint Laurent collection, a big success, probablyattributable to the worldwide recognition of the designer's name;people are willing to pay extra for an art work belonging to a famousperson... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Beverly Hills Housewife for Sale When you think about the most important Los Angeles cultural patrons of the last fifty years–- people who devoted their sizable fortunes and limitless passion to supporting and promoting the arts 0– three names spring immediately to mind: Dorothy Chandler, who gave us the Music Center, Marcia Weisman, the driving force behind the creation of MOCA; and, last but not least, Betty Freeman, a legendary patron of avant-garde music as well as a major collector of American post-war art.. ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Humble, but Sooo Sexy Now that the razzle dazzle of Oscar night has mercifully passed, and our tuxedos and one-strap designer gowns are back in the closet, let's put on overalls and roll up our sleeves: it's time for a reality check...at least reality the way I see it... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website In Good Times and Bad, We'll Always Have Art Whatever the state of the economy right now, one thing is clear:major museums in LA are not wanting for attendance. Last Sunday, theLos Angeles County Museum of Art was pleasantly crowded; not only itstemporary exhibitions, but the galleries with permanent collectionswere full of visitors as well. A lot of young people gathered aroundfour BMW Art Cars exhibited outdoors on the museum plaza. You mightwant to check out these cars painted by Andy Warhol, Frank Stella,Robert Rauschenberg, and R ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website In Gold We Trust Bad weather, with its strong winds and rain, can sure put a damperon weekend plans, unless you get a little bit creative– after all, there are always museums out there waiting for us. It was pouring when I hit the Pacific Coast Highway last Sunday, but all of a sudden, the celestial authorities had a change of heart, and the rest of the drive to Malibu was smooth sailing: few cars and plenty of sunshine... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website All Art, All the Time It's been a whole week since the dawning of a new era, withPresident Obama urging fellow citizens to work harder rather thansending us to shop our way out of trouble. I can honestly say that I'venever worked harder than this last week; it was all art, all the time,and then some. Judge for yourself... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website All Art, All the Time It's been a whole week since the dawning of a new era, withPresident Obama urging fellow citizens to work harder rather thansending us to shop our way out of trouble. I can honestly say that I'venever worked harder than this last week; it was all art, all the time,and then some. Judge for yourself... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Obama as Arts Czar? Since Election Day, when Barack Hussein Obama became President-Elect of the United States, I, like everyone else, have been swept up in the wave of enthusiasm over the results of the election. But truth be told, I'm elated not just becausewe have our first black president, but because... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Obama as Arts Czar? Since Election Day, when Barack Hussein Obama became President-Elect of the United States, I, like everyone else, have been swept up in the wave of enthusiasm over the results of the election. But truth be told, I'm elated not just becausewe have our first black president, but because... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Hidden in Plain Sight (Art, That Is) It shouldn't come as a surprise that with so many good, importantart exhibitions fighting for our attention, we inevitably miss one ortwo of them. But what about the smaller exhibitions and art eventswhich often don't make headlines, though definitely worthy of ourattention? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Hidden in Plain Sight (Art, That Is) It shouldn't come as a surprise that with so many good, importantart exhibitions fighting for our attention, we inevitably miss one ortwo of them. But what about the smaller exhibitions and art eventswhich often don't make headlines, though definitely worthy of ourattention? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Hidden in Plain Sight (Art, That Is) It shouldn't come as a surprise that with so many good, importantart exhibitions fighting for our attention, we inevitably miss one ortwo of them. But what about the smaller exhibitions and art eventswhich often don't make headlines, though definitely worthy of ourattention? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Lights, Camera, Action: LA Is Ready for Its Close-up I do remember the opening of the first Los Angeles gallery dedicatedexclusively to showing photography, an event that was met withconsiderable skepticism. Then, in the early 80's, not only the public,but a lot of critics considered photography to be the stepchild of theart scene, dominated by painting and sculpture and the criticaldarlings, conceptual and installation art. These days photography isall the rage... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Lights, Camera, Action: LA Is Ready for Its Close-up I do remember the opening of the first Los Angeles gallery dedicatedexclusively to showing photography, an event that was met withconsiderable skepticism. Then, in the early 80's, not only the public,but a lot of critics considered photography to be the stepchild of theart scene, dominated by painting and sculpture and the criticaldarlings, conceptual and installation art. These days photography isall the rage... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Lights, Camera, Action: LA Is Ready for Its Close-up I do remember the opening of the first Los Angeles gallery dedicatedexclusively to showing photography, an event that was met withconsiderable skepticism. Then, in the early 80's, not only the public,but a lot of critics considered photography to be the stepchild of theart scene, dominated by painting and sculpture and the criticaldarlings, conceptual and installation art. These days photography isall the rage... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website To MOCA: Our Hallelujahs, Mazel Tovs and Spasibos This year, Santa Claus has decided to deliver his gift to us a littlebit ahead of time. Today's announcement that MOCA at last accepted agenerous 'bail out' offer of $30 million from L.A.philanthropist Eli Broad put an end to a flurry of speculations thathad inflamed the local and national art scene. It seems that the museumsurvived the storm and has figured out a way to come out of this messas a lean, mean and stronger fighting art machine... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website To MOCA: Our Hallelujahs, Mazel Tovs and Spasibos This year, Santa Claus has decided to deliver his gift to us a littlebit ahead of time. Today's announcement that MOCA at last accepted agenerous 'bail out' offer of $30 million from L.A.philanthropist Eli Broad put an end to a flurry of speculations thathad inflamed the local and national art scene. It seems that the museumsurvived the storm and has figured out a way to come out of this messas a lean, mean and stronger fighting art machine... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website To MOCA: Our Hallelujahs, Mazel Tovs and Spasibos This year, Santa Claus has decided to deliver his gift to us a littlebit ahead of time. Today's announcement that MOCA at last accepted agenerous 'bail out' offer of $30 million from L.A.philanthropist Eli Broad put an end to a flurry of speculations thathad inflamed the local and national art scene. It seems that the museumsurvived the storm and has figured out a way to come out of this messas a lean, mean and stronger fighting art machine... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Blind Leading the Blind? By nature, I am an optimist. But being an art critic and historian,I put things in perspective, which keeps my positive impulses in check.So, I guess that makes me a cautious optimist... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Blind Leading the Blind? By nature, I am an optimist. But being an art critic and historian,I put things in perspective, which keeps my positive impulses in check.So, I guess that makes me a cautious optimist... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Blind Leading the Blind? By nature, I am an optimist. But being an art critic and historian,I put things in perspective, which keeps my positive impulses in check.So, I guess that makes me a cautious optimist... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Does MOCA Have the Courage to Face the Music When I went to Paris in March 2006 for the opening of the groundbreaking exhibition at the Pompidou Centre, which hailed the emergence of Los Angeles as one of the art capitals of the world, I rejoiced not only in celebrating the art and artists of our City of Angels, but also in the fact that so many outstanding works of art came from the collections of our own Museum of Contemporary Art... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Does MOCA Have the Courage to Face the Music When I went to Paris in March 2006 for the opening of the groundbreaking exhibition at the Pompidou Centre, which hailed the emergence of Los Angeles as one of the art capitals of the world, I rejoiced not only in celebrating the art and artists of our City of Angels, but also in the fact that so many outstanding works of art came from the collections of our own Museum of Contemporary Art... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Does MOCA Have the Courage to Face the Music When I went to Paris in March 2006 for the opening of the groundbreaking exhibition at the Pompidou Centre, which hailed the emergence of Los Angeles as one of the art capitals of the world, I rejoiced not only in celebrating the art and artists of our City of Angels, but also in the fact that so many outstanding works of art came from the collections of our own Museum of Contemporary Art... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website MOCA in Peril: Don't Ask for Whom the Bell Tolls Rumors about the financial difficulties at LA's Museum of Contemporary Art have been circulating for a few years, but the institution, muchadmired for its cutting edge exhibition program, has maintained a braveface. The museum continued to mount exhibitions in all three of itsfacilities–- two large spaces downtown and a smaller one at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. Ambitious exhibitions were accompanied by thick, scholarly catalogues, well designed and obviously expensive ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website MOCA in Peril: Don't Ask for Whom the Bell Tolls Rumors about the financial difficulties at LA's Museum of Contemporary Art have been circulating for a few years, but the institution, muchadmired for its cutting edge exhibition program, has maintained a braveface. The museum continued to mount exhibitions in all three of itsfacilities–- two large spaces downtown and a smaller one at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. Ambitious exhibitions were accompanied by thick, scholarly catalogues, well designed and obviously expensive ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sex, Life and Lots of Art After being seen in London, Paris, and New York, the retrospective exhibition of works by 96-year-old Louise Bourgeois has finally arrived in LA -– to dazzle, to provoke, and to unsettle virtually everyone who walks through the galleries of the Museum of Contemporary Art, hosting this exhibition until the end of January... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sex, Life and Lots of Art After being seen in London, Paris, and New York, the retrospective exhibition of works by 96-year-old Louise Bourgeois has finally arrived in LA -– to dazzle, to provoke, and to unsettle virtually everyone who walks through the galleries of the Museum of Contemporary Art, hosting this exhibition until the end of January... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Please, Mr. President, Take Us on a Date I never start my weekly radio broadcast by giving you its title;only if you visit the KCRW website or sign up to receive Art Talk viaemail do you find out that each program comes with a headline. Today,for the first time, I want to start this broadcast with the title. Hereit goes: PLEASE, MR. PRESIDENT, TAKE US ON A DATE... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Please, Mr. President, Take Us on a Date I never start my weekly radio broadcast by giving you its title;only if you visit the KCRW website or sign up to receive Art Talk viaemail do you find out that each program comes with a headline. Today,for the first time, I want to start this broadcast with the title. Hereit goes: PLEASE, MR. PRESIDENT, TAKE US ON A DATE... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Art, Politics, Money... With just one week left before the election, it's difficult to think ortalk about anything else. The political drama–- or comedy, if you will -– of the presidential election proves that we Americans do have a National Theater after all... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Art, Politics, Money... With just one week left before the election, it's difficult to think ortalk about anything else. The political drama–- or comedy, if you will -– of the presidential election proves that we Americans do have a National Theater after all... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Berlin, Part II: Getting Drunk on Art In the last few years, I've had the good fortune to visit a number ofgreat cities famous for their art and culture -- from Paris and Londonto Beijing and Mexico City -- but the eight days I recently spent inBerlin left an especially indelible impression on me. To put it simply:I never worked so hard and, definitely, I don't remember ever having somuch fun... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Berlin, Part II: Getting Drunk on Art In the last few years, I've had the good fortune to visit a number ofgreat cities famous for their art and culture -- from Paris and Londonto Beijing and Mexico City -- but the eight days I recently spent inBerlin left an especially indelible impression on me. To put it simply:I never worked so hard and, definitely, I don't remember ever having somuch fun... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Seduced by Berlin Patience is not my main virtue, but I had no choice but to wait formany years to complete my journey to Berlin. It's been 34 years sinceI've been there. At that time, the city was divided by the Berlin Walland we, Soviet tourists, were allowed to see only the Eastern part ofthe city. I remember standing in front of the Brandenburg Gate in 1974 and wondering what it would be like to walk through itsNeoclassical splendor and to discover the forbidden Western part of thecity hidden behind the ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Is the Art Market Impervious to Stock Market Turmoil? Following last week's roller-coaster news– Wall Street in turmoil while London art auction sales for Damien Hirst exceeded $200 million – I couldn't help thinking about the mischievous Gods of Commerce and Art looking down from Mount Olympus at us mere mortals and giggling at our attempts to make sense of it all... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A New Madonna for Our City of Angels So, ladies and gentlemen, if you, like me, have been procrastinating on filing your taxes until the very last moment, then today --- April 15 --- is your Atonement Day. Why this Christian reference. Probably it has something to do with the deep impression left on me by the spectacular works by Anselm Kiefer and their religious symbology that I talked about last week. Or, maybe I was swayed by the purity and beauty of the Madonna, not the one on the cover of Vanity Fair, but the 500 year-ol ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website My Thoughts on Madonna, Moses, and...Anselm Kiefer For me, last weekend turned out to be anything but usual. It's Saturday: I am drinking my morning coffee and, all of a sudden, I am in the presence of...Madonna, staring at me from the cover of Vanity Fair. Still in great shape, still eager to provoke. Behind her, the globe that she holds ---- or should I say, clutches ---- with rather frightening determination. Then, another sip of coffee, and a quick look at another cover story: Moses and his famously thunderous voice is no more; Charlto ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Art, Sex and Videotape As far as the Los Angeles art scene is concerned, last week was a winner. Consider this: in celebration of its tenth anniversary, the Getty Center held two special conferences. The first was focused on new acquisitions made by Weston Naef, Curator of Photographs, Lee Hendrix, Curator of Drawings, and Thomas Kren, Curator of Medieval Manuscripts. All three curators are old pros who have been with the Getty for decades and have virtually built these collections from the ground up. Each drew ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website To Love It All There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that artists cannot make good art from, including such strange substances as bodily fluids and excrement, both animal and human. You may remember the controversy surrounding the paintings by Chris Ofili, the British artist whose trademark material is elephant dung. Bull's urine was used in the past to produce a particular yellow paint, famous for its warm, golden glow. Andy Warhol made a series of so-called 'piss paintings,' where he and his assistants ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Who Calls the Shots at LACMA. Who Calls the Shots at LACMA. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website I Wanna Wish You an 'Artsy' Christmas What would A Christmas Day Art Talk be without Mr. Scrooge. His latest misdeed is a royal screw-up of a major cultural exchange between Russia and Great Britain. A few weeks before the opening in London of a blockbuster exhibition from the Hermitage and three other major museums, the Russians called it off... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Chinese Lessons Though the invitation to travel to Beijing came up only a couple of months ago, I was preparing myself for this trip --- without even realizing it --- for almost a year... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website You Can Never Be Too Thin, Too Rich or Have Too Many Museums Keeping up with what's happening on the Southern California art scene is not as easy as it used to be.-- In the last 25 years, existing museums have greatly expanded and new museums have opened, while the number of commercial art galleries has jumped from a few dozen to a few hundred. A few weeks ago, I reported on the small, new, fascinating Wende Museum in Culver City, devoted to the history and culture of the Cold War era in Eastern Europe... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A Week Chock Full of Art September is the month when, after a summer lull, the art world kicks into high gear. And for me, last week turned out to be all art, all the time, virtually a 24/7 art explosion... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Story of Two Exhibitions: One Friendly, The Other Not One of the best kept secrets of LA's downtown art scene is REDCAT, a cutting-edge performance and exhibition space run by CalArts. Don't feel guilty if you haven't been there yet; it's not easy to find, as it's tucked away on the ground floor of Disney Hall, far from the main entrance of this famous building. Since its opening a few years ago, REDCAT has hosted a number of ambitious exhibitions, often presenting challenging conceptual and performance art not necessarily intended for a gener ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The New York Times' Love Affair with LA. It took me no time at all to fall in love with Los Angeles -- just a few intakes of the balmy air upon emerging from the plane shortly after midnight.-- Until then, I didn't believe in love at first sight.-- Now, almost thirty years later, I know better.-- Never mind the wonderful climate and suspiciously gorgeous Hollywood wannabes.-- This huge and sprawling metropolis stubbornly refuses to follow the rules of success established by its older rivals, and instead of the storied beauty of Pa ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The New York Times' Love Affair with LA. It took me no time at all to fall in love with Los Angeles -- just a few intakes of the balmy air upon emerging from the plane shortly after midnight.-- Until then, I didn't believe in love at first sight.-- Now, almost thirty years later, I know better.-- Never mind the wonderful climate and suspiciously gorgeous Hollywood wannabes.-- This huge and sprawling metropolis stubbornly refuses to follow the rules of success established by its older rivals, and instead of the storied beauty of Pa ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website