For Art's Sake-1

The most overlooked aspect of an artwork is by no means the least important, as specialist Tom Rooth explains

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of International Women's Year, Sydney University's the Tin Sheds is exhibiting a range of posters to celebrate female activism

US authorities tried to ban them, but a gang of artists, models and writers made a living from dirty books sold under-the-counter in 1950s New York. Enter a world of Raw Dames and superheroes

"Donna Sharrett’s work is both emblematic of its time and difficult to classify. At first glance, it may appear to be quintessentially postmodernist, offering a borrower-conjurer’s cornucopia of found objects and unusual materials that have been plucked out of their original, utilitarian settings and repurposed. At the same time, though, Sharrett’s mixed-media abstract art is not intentionally postmodernist at all..."

Donna Sharrett: Love Songs and Sampling continues at Pavel Zoubok Gallery (531 West 26th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan) through February 7, 2015.

http://pavelzoubok.com/node/donna-sharrett-love-songs

An Italian historian's theory that Mona Lisa might be a Chinese slave and Leonardo da Vinci's mother -- making the 15th-century polymath half-Chinese -- ...

Pop art emerged at the beginning of the electronic age, bringing life and colour to a grey post-war Britain and US.

A few weeks ago, my husband & I attended an auction at the Cass Country Historical Society. The museum was deaccessioning hundreds of items in order to raise funds to replace the historic St. J...

collective-history:
“ “Beware of Artists” - Actual poster issued by Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1950s, at height of the red scare.
”

Through Ishiuchi Miyako’s lens, the things we leave behind are not merely totems of ourselves, but rather objects with lives of their own. An upcoming exhibit at Andrew Roth gallery presents “Here and Now: Atomic Bomb Artifacts, ひろしま/Hiroshima 1945/2007—,” Ishiuchi's photos of objects in the archive of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

Nearly 155 years before CompuServe debuted the first animated gif in 1987, Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau unveiled an invention called the Phenakistoscope, a device that is largely considered to be the first mechanism for true animation. The simple gadget relied on the persistence of vision principle to display the illusion of images in motion.

In her heyday, Martha Graham’s name was internationally recognized within the modern dance world, and though trends in choreography continue to change, her status in dance still inspires regard. In this, the first extended feminist look at this modern dance pioneer, Victoria Thoms explores the cult of Graham and her dancing through a feminist lens that exposes the gendered meaning behind much of her work. Thoms synthesizes a diverse archive of material on Graham from films, photographs, memoir, and critique in order to uniquely highlight her contribution to the dance world and arts culture in general. 

Anita Steckel, Just Waiting for the Bus, Photo-montage, 1969–70

"In the 1960s and 1970s, Anita Steckel fought for the public acceptance of explicitly sexual art made by women, as part of the broader feminist art movement that was pushing for a revolution in the gender dynamics that continued to stifle women artists. Steckel’s photo-montages provocatively revamped existing imagery, often adding nudity and references to sexuality in order to vividly convey timely social or political messages.

Selections from Steckel’s archive are currently on view in NMWA’s Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center. Papers, photographs, and art illustrate her boundary-pushing art and activism."

Equal Exposure: Anita Steckel’s Fight Against Censorship

National Museum of Women in the Arts, until May 09 2014

See more at: http://nmwa.org/learn/library-archives/library-exhibitions#sthash.zfJaG7ox.dpuf

Lilla Cabot Perry, The Black Hat, 1914.

A number of long-overdue exhibitions have recently celebrated the achievements of overlooked women artists. What’s driving this wave of rediscoveries?

In 1902, a poet attempts to stage the world’s first “perfume concert.”

beautifuldavinci:
“ Nathaniel Sichel (1843-1907)
Sichel, of Berlin, a graduate of the Berlin Academy and the Paris Academy. He was born at Mayence, and was first a lithographer.
He is a favorite...

A few years ago, Aaron Huey journeyed to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to photograph members of the Oglala Lakota Nation. The disarming stories of deceit, heartbreak, and violence he heard there changed his life forever. I know this is a long one, folks, but I guarantee you'll be hooked by his transformation at 4:38, the breathtaking mural at 6:03, and the devastating words of a 17-year-old at 10:36.