I have been remiss in, well, a lot of things, but let's stick for now with "not adding or mentioning some noteworthy links" and move on from there. Anyone reading sites such as this one knows all the below already, but still, here goes:
- Art in America has arrived in the new century, finally creating a website that someone might want to visit. Of particular note is the "News and Opinion" page, under the direction of the forwardly retreating Sarah Hromack and featuring writers (such as this one, this one, and this one) also found in the sidebar at right. I'm looking forward to spending more time with the site.
- As much as I like it when media professionals get into the online world, I can't help but often wish it were happening in some other way. Don't even get me started on the latest headlines about the Boston Globe (the imagine title for that post, should it ever be written: "The world is gradually becoming a place where I do not care to be anymore.") My general lassitude, along with a certain degree of shame, stopped me from posting about it at the time, but I found myself reading the last months of Regina Hackett's page at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer fairly obsessively. I found it beautiful and painful. Art to Go is now gone, but Regina's still here, now at ArtsJournal. So Another Bouncing Ball will take a place a right.
- Closer to home, I'm not sure how I've escaped knowing about this site for so long. A recent note on the front page indicates changes will be coming soon, so I hope I haven't found about it just too late. Worth keeping an eye on.
- I also missed congratulation the Big RED & Shiny crowd on busting through the 100 issues mark back in February. That is a heck of an achievement that deserves recognition. At the time, Matt Nash looked back and asked, "How the hell did we get here?" By working a heck of a lot, I bet.
- More recently in BR&S, New England in decay: a review of a mid-20th century New England printmaker who illustrated Robert Frost and whose work, or some of it, is as grim as its time. Or ours.
- I've mentioned Adventures in the Print Trade before, and now do so again, as a reminder to myself to look at it more often and to add it to the sidebar.
- Despite appearances, I have been out a bit these past few months. Work took me to Albany in January (whoo-hoo), and since I read Anaba, I knew I had to go see the Empire State Plaza Art Collection. It was as weird and wonderful as I could have hoped, though I didn't get to see all of the same works that Martin shows. Think of the lighting and ambience of Penn Station, but with no bustle and no commuters. Instead, a few government bureaucrats and those come to see them move through the largely empty corridors, past the giant McDonalds, the shoeshine kiosk, and an amazing collection of American modernism at or just past its apex. It's great stuff, and a very strange experience. I took some pictures, which I'm not much good at, but you can see them over at Flickr. Gene Davis, getting no respect, sets the tone.
Soon I'll be out to see this in Newport (the late artist's site here); and of course there's the Venetians in Boston, the Dutch sailing to Salem, and more. As for reading, I'm going through this and that, with a book on a Swedish bird painter at the top of the stack right now. Not kidding. We'll see what it's like, maybe tell you soon. We shall see.