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Edward Goldman is an art consultant for private and corporate collectors. Contact: edwardgoldman (at) earthlink.net to sign up for his email list and to receive the weekly Art Talk program.
Art Talk
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Art reviews, news and announcements from KCRW's resident art critic, Edward Goldman. Both fearless and fun, Edward offers a unique "accent" on art. Formerly employed by the famed Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, and a favorite on-air presence, he offers impassioned views on what he sees in the galleries and museums and at events throughout the world, and he isn't afraid to "speak truth to power."
Programming note: To accommodate election coverage without pre-empting our art critic, Edward Goldman's weekly Art Talk
commentary will move to 4:44 pm (usually heard at 6:44 pm) through the
primary season. Live streams, podcasts and archives available at
KCRW.com.
RECENT SHOWS
Racing against the Clock
Legacy Player:
It's always the same; with so many museum and gallery exhibitions to see and talk about, I'm constantly racing against the clock. Definitely want to be sure that you will see MOCA's captivating exhibition, Collecting Collections, before it closes this Monday, May 19. This sprawling exhibition is a celebration of the generosity and vision of private collectors – most of them Angelenos – who have enabled this relatively young institution to become a major player on the international art scene...
The Germans Are Here
Legacy Player:
If I were the cultural commissioner of this city, I would have declared the past few weeks a 'mini festival' of German culture in Los Angeles. Judge for yourself: a week ago I went to a screening of the new documentary, Shadows in Paradise, a fascinating story of German émigré musicians, writers, and filmmakers who fled the Nazis and settled here in LA. Some of them flourished; others merely managed; a few committed suicide. Never before have so many of the best and brightest creative minds of one country either left on their own or been forced to emigrate, and what's especially unusual is that most of these people ended up here in LA. The impact of this German-exile community on the cultural life of our city was profound...
Profound? Yes. Sacred? No.
Legacy Player:
I love LA for being an inexhaustible field of discovery for art, architecture, and music – not only in museums, galleries, and concert halls – but also in less expected venues...
Under Cover and Behind Closed Gates
Legacy Player:
When a few years ago, two Los Angeles museums, MOCA and the Hammer, jointly organized a sprawling exhibition devoted to the history of the American comic strip and comic book, I felt underwhelmed and slightly excluded from all the excitement that surrounded the exhibition...
A New Madonna for Our City of Angels
Legacy Player:
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-old vision of her that I saw last Sunday...
My Thoughts on Madonna, Moses, and...Anselm Kiefer
Legacy Player:
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; Charlton Heston is dead...
Museums and Private Collectors: It Takes Two to Tango
Legacy Player:
My fellow Angelenos, judging by the numerous exhibitions of contemporary art currently on display in various Los Angeles museums, I want to assure you that the state of art in our city is strong...
Great Art, Fake Art... Who Knows?
Legacy Player:
The news about the recent acquisition by the Getty Museum of a rare painting by Paul Gauguin came as a welcome surprise. Though this work is known to specialists, it has rarely been seen, as its Swiss owner was very reluctant to loan it out for exhibitions. Even in reproduction, it is absolutely striking, not only because of the beautifully preserved colors, but also because of the strangeness of its subject. Painted by Gauguin during his first trip to Tahiti, it shows what appears to be the severed head of a man placed on a white pillow in the center of the composition...
Art, Sex and Videotape
Legacy Player:
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 from a treasure trove of entertaining, poignant stories about their many triumphs and occasional defeats in the never-ending hunt for rare, beautiful artwork...
The Color of Life
Legacy Player:
We are lucky to have here, in southern California, some of the best art schools in the country. But when several years ago, I went to one of them to see an exhibition of works by students graduating from the Master of Fine Arts program, I left the galleries feeling rather depressed. Most of the art was inept, and I felt sorry for the parents who had been duped into investing thousands of dollars in their kids' education, with such a dismal return...
Artists as Magicians and Holy Fools
Legacy Player:
In the heady art scene of the 1980's, with New York as its epicenter, there were several brash, young artists who ruled the day. Their paintings were big, their personalities even bigger. Julian Schnabel, David Salle, Eric Fischl, Robert Longo -- they all had become part of the fashionable crowd, their names constantly in the news. Now, a quarter of a century later, their presence on the contemporary art scene is, to put it mildly, rather modest. Today only Julian Schnabel, whose reputation was made by painting over shards of broken plates, continues to evolve as an artist...
To Love It All
Legacy Player:
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 literally urinated on canvas treated with copper; the resulting 'Oxidations' elevated a lowly process into high art. Anselm Kiefer, a celebrated German artist, deals with apocalyptic subjects and uses for his art everything from hay to semen...
Idiots Retreat
Legacy Player:
Last week I talked about the theft of four priceless artworks from the Bührle Museum in Zurich and wondered what the hell the idiot burglars were planning to do with the stolen French paintings, so famous as to be virtually unsellable. Here is the latest about the idiots and their heist...
What a Shame
Legacy Player:
Every time I see an artwork appear on the front page of the newspapers, my heart sinks, because I know: the news, most of the time, is not good. Today's headlines announce the brazen theft of four priceless works from a private museum in Zurich, Switzerland...
The Oscars, Hollywood and Art
Legacy Player:
This morning, when the Academy announced the Oscar nominations, all other front-page news -– the stock prices plunging, the gas prices rising –- seemed less important to me. Hey, after all, I live in LA, in close proximity to the gods and goddesses of Hollywood who, for almost a hundred years, have kept us enthralled in dark theaters across the world. They are the objects of our worship, inspiration, gossip, and ridicule. I can't resist quoting Frank Sinatra: "Call me irresponsible... tell me I'm impractical... throw in undependable too..." But today, I feel it would be appropriate to mention their less celebrated role as patrons of art who in the past have generously donated numerous artworks to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art...
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Host
Edward Goldman
Edward Goldman is the fearless art critic who speaks truth to the art world’s power – a must-listen for culture mavens.
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