New York taxis are known for lots of things, most of them bad.Thanks to a new advertising campaign, 500 Big Apple taxis will be known for something great—great art.Works by artists Chuck Close and Kehinde Wiley will grace the tops of 500 cabs for the rest of the month of January as part of an advertising campaign hoping to bring art to people in the streets.Their works will take up more than $100,000 worth of advertising space as part of a gift to the city. The next question will be whether pedestrians and fellow motorists will take note of these drive-by sightings or if the ads will blend into the great blur of life in the big city. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Drive-By Sightings."
“I don’t care for bohemian culture. Innocent people are hurt by it,” says Richard Neel, eldest son of the painter Alice Neel in Andrew Neel’s documentary film, now available on DVD from New Video. “I was hurt by it.” “You always hurt the one you love,” goes the old pop standard. In this film, Neel’s grandson Andrew, two sons, friends, and critics gather to sing a bittersweet love song to the woman who painted in obscurity for much of her life only to find renown near the very end. The resulting chorus reflects the disharmony of her personal life and the life she gave her sons (and abandoned daughter), as well as the deep feeling Alice had for each of her portrait subjects. It’s this paradox of unfeeling and feeling that makes Alice Neel the person and the artist, and now the film, so compelling. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "The Ones You Love."
There’s a telling moment early on in Alison Chernick’s 2004 film The Jeff Koons Show, now available on DVD from Microcinema. Jeff Koons muses on his idyllic childhood and how he sold candy and gift wrap door to door as a very young boy. Whenever someone opened their door to the ever-smiling, ever-earnest Koons, he admits, he became whatever they wanted him to be. Koons the artist remains the eternal salesman, pitching a brand of art that seems to many to be big on talk and low on substance. It’s the dearth of this salesman’s art that Chernick’s documentary dances around, leaving it to us to decide whether we buy Koons’ message of art for the masses through kitsch and almost convulsively bad taste. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Dearth of a Salesman."
