thoughts in and out of season
The retiring director of the British Museum, Dr. Robert Anderson, says that he ‘ prefer[s] paternalism to populism’. The good doctor gives away too much by the phrasing. Neither paternalism nor populism is at issue in current disputes over the nature of the museum. The paternalist doesn’t give people the best he has, and … More ...
We escaped the heat yesterday by a visit to the Metropolitan Museum and were particularly struck by an exhibition of Thomas Eakins’ work and by some Gauguin canvases. Both represented possible responses to the basic problem of the late 19th century, the death of God. Eakins’ response was a sort of heroic materialism, the artist … More ...
The Tate Gallery has paid £22,300 for 30 grams of merda d’artista. The artist, apparently an honest and talented man, canned the stuff and sold it for the price of 30 grams of gold to express his utter disgust with the art world. A couple years later, in 1961, he died of drink. At … More ...
I’m not sure it was worth the effort putting Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi together for the joint exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum. Maybe the thought was that neither is worth a major exhibit alone, but if you put them together Orazio provides artistry and Artemisia notoriety and then you’ve got something.
It’s not that Artemisia … More ...
There’s something odd about intellectual property. Rules are necessary to prevent conflict in the case of tangible property but not intellectual property. So unlike other kinds of property, which would be found in almost any society, patent and copyright are visibly things we made up. The phrasing of the U.S. Constitution reflects the situation: Congress … More ...