Do Great Artists Have More Sex?

Although I risk impinging on the territory of fellow Big Think blogger Marina Adshade of Dollars and Sex, I can’t help but comment on a recent report in The Guardian titled “When art breeds success in the bedroom: Does success as an artist bring you more sexual conquests? Well, yes and no, say researchers.” Marc Abrahams, editor of the Annals of Improbable Research and chief organizer of the humorous and thought-provoking Ig Nobel prize, stumbled across an article in the Frontiers of Psychology titled “Status and Mating Success Amongst Visual Artists” written by UK researchers Helen Clegg, Daniel Nettle, and Dorothy Miell in which the trio argue that successful male artists have a lot of sex, whereas less successful male artists have less. When you talk about female artists, however, success means pretty much nothing at all when it came to their sex life. At the risk of going against their findings (and of sounding like Carrie from Sex and the City), is really true that great male artists have greater sex? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Do Great Artists Have More Sex?"

Can Lee Miller Ever Be More than Man Ray’s Muse?

“I don’t have students,” Man Ray allegedly told Lee Miller when she finally tracked the Surrealist down in a Parisian bar after he eluded her visit to his front door looking for tutelage. Miller became Man Ray’s student, then his lover, then his muse, and, eventually, as Man Ray/Lee Miller, Partners in Surrealism, a new exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum, argues, his equal partner. A victim of her own beauty (her husband, artist Roland Penrose, compared meeting Lee for the first time to being “struck by lightning”), Miller continues to toil under the label of “muse” that diminishes her own artistry. This exhibition lifts that label and strikes you with the lightning bolt of realization that Miller and Man Ray developed a deep, profound relationship on multiple levels—artistic, emotional, and philosophical—that we’re still trying to understand. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Can Lee Miller Ever Be More than Man Ray’s Muse?"

[Image: Man Ray (1890–1976); A l’heure de l’observatoire–les amoureux (Observatory Time–The Lovers), 1964, after a canvas of c.1931; Color photograph; 19 5/8 x 48 3/4 in. (50 x 124 cm); The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; © 2011 Man Ray Trust/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris/ Photo © The Israel Museum by Avshalom Avital.]

[Many thanks to the Peabody Essex Museum for providing me with a review copy of the catalog and other press materials related to Man Ray/Lee Miller, Partners in Surrealism, which runs through December 4, 2011.]

Is the Hottest New Art Coming from Chilly Nordic Countries?

“Scandinavian Pain” burns crimson in the night in one photo by Ragnar Kjartansson featured in the new exhibition North by New York: New Nordic Art in celebration of the centenary of the creation of The American-Scandinavian Foundation. That phrase could serve as the motto for much of the work that appears in this choice selection of contemporary Nordic art curated by Robert Storr and Francesca Pietropaolo. This cross-section of modern angst from the territory of Munch, Ibsen, and Sibelius updates that Nordic sensibility for a new age and shows how these artists use new media to convey that old message. As Mieskuoro Huutajat, also known as the Screaming Men’s Choir (image above), prove, this new wave of hot art from a cold climate is something to shout about. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Is the Hottest New Art Coming from Chilly Nordic Countries?"

[Image: Petri Sirviö featuring Mieskuoro Huutajat (Screaming Men’s Choir), Sorry Speech, 2010. Video stills—4 images total; 3-channel video installation, 3 min. synchronized loops, sound. Courtesy of the artist.]

[Many thanks to The American-Scandinavian Foundation for providing the image above from and a review copy of the catalog to North by New York: New Nordic Art, which runs through August 19, 2011.]