Drive-By Sightings: Fine Art Ads on NYC Taxis

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."

Seeds of Destruction: Dustup at the Tate Modern

Art is good for the soul, but sometimes it can be bad for your health. Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds installation at the Tate Modern in London aroused curiosity before it began affecting visitors’ respiratory systems with the porcelain dust it threw off. Sadly, this is just the latest hazardous episode in the nine-year history of the Tate Modern’s “The Unilever Series” program of featuring installation art by the hottest contemporary artists. But are these blockbuster shows pushing the envelope beyond the limits of public safety? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Seeds of Destruction."

In the Wilderness: The Unknown Art of James Magee

“What happens if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it?” Willard Spiegelman asks intriguingly in a recent article in The Wall Street Journal. “What happens if a man spends 30 years building an architectural-spiritual monument in the west Texas desert, which few people have seen and probably very few will ever see?” Who Spiegelman is talking about is James Magee, a reclusive sculptor whom another critic believes may be "America's greatest living unknown artist," a dubious and unwelcome title for most. What Spiegelman is talking about is The Hill (shown above), a massive work of art set in the arid desert 90 minutes outside of El Paso, Texas, that Magee has been working on for 30 years. Magee’s reclusive days may be over with a new exhibition of his work and resulting media attention. Will success spoil the rock sculptor? It seems unlikely for this artist who at the age of 64 now wanders into the mainstream from the wilderness—a prophet of individual art professing a new gospel to the commercialized art industry that has no idea who he is or what to make of him. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "In the Wilderness."

Close Examination: A Chuck Close Portrait on Film

“Chucky Fat Face,” artist Chuck Close admits to being called by fellow artist Richard Serra during their graduate school days together at Yale early on in the film Chuck Close, Marion Cajori’s lauded documentary now available on DVD for the first time from New Video. In Cajori’s film, we see Close full face—both while painting one of his signature self-portraits and through the eyes of his fellow artists and his family. It is this combination of intimate close examination and wide-angle perspective that makes Chuck Close not only an unforgettable study of an individual artist, but also a thought-provoking examination of twentieth-century art and how modern artists mentally approach their art. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Close Examination."

[Many thanks to New Video for providing me with a review copy of Chuck Close.]