Is Art History Better Unsaid Than Red?

A new tour at the Museum of Modern Art in New York has many seeing red over “seeing” Reds in the collection. As reported in Art News, Artist Yevgeniy Fiks’ “performative tour” titled simply enough “Communist Tour of MoMA” begins with the current exhibition Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art before spilling messily into the political leanings of other artists throughout the collection. Although the Soviet Union disappeared from maps and globes and Communism is presumed dead, Fiks’ digging up of old political skeletons (some buried more shallowly than others) raises the question of whether any value can come from such politicized art history. Is art history better unsaid than Red? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Is Art History Better Unsaid Than Red?"

[Image: Diego Rivera. Indian Warrior. 1931. Fresco on reinforced cement in a metal framework, 41 x 52 ½” (104.14 x 133.35 cm). Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts. Purchased with the Winthrop Hillyer Fund SC 1934:8-1. © 2011 Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, México, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.]

[Many thanks to the Museum of Modern Art, New York for providing me with the image above from the exhibition Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art, which runs through May 14, 2012.]

Do Artists Have the Right to Destroy Their Own Work?

What drives an artist to destroy something they spent their time and energy on to create? Hatred? Self-disgust? Embarassment? Fear of how it might be interpreted or misinterpreted? German artist Gerhard Richter, set to celebrate his 80^th birthday on February 9^th and receive all the accolades and exhibitions such a landmark deserves, recently revealed to the German periodical Der Spiegel that he has been destroying some of his own work for over half a century for a variety of reasons, most of which entail a need for “liberation” from the constraints his public threatened to place on him as a “name” artist. With frank honesty, Richter admits his regrets over these acts of self-destruction which have cost him millions of dollars in potential sales (which he doesn’t seem to care much about) and have cost us all valuable landmarks in the progress of 20^th century painting. Even though an artist brings his or her art into the world, do they have the right to take it back out of it? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Do Artists Have the Right to Destroy Their Own Work?"

[Image: Gerhard Richter. Warship Destroyed by Torpedo, 1964.]

Is Christo Bad for the Environment?

Like doctors, artists should obey one rule above all, “To do no harm.” When you’re Christo and you specialize in “environmental art,” that rule takes on an even greater importance. Christo’s latest project, titled “Over the River,” hopes to hang 5.9 miles of "silvery, translucent" panels along the Arkansas River between Canon City and Salida, Colorado. The people of Colorado, however, fearing a whole slew of negative effects to their home state, hope to hang up the process long enough to make Christo give up. In looking back at Christo’s past works and at the possible effects of this future piece, it’s imperative that we ask if Christo is bad for the environment. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Is Christo Bad for the Environment?"