Ali Silverstein – red, fluorescent orange vessels

“I’m more of a draftsman than a painter”, Los Angeles-based Ali Silverstein (*1980) says about herself. She puts puddles of color on her canvases, cuts out, arranges and rearranges – most of all, she improvises, which of course as a jazz musician appeals to me immediately. “I’m trying this experiment now where I’m not allowed to […]

Stanley Whitney – Other colors I forget

Us jazz fans, we know 1959 was a milestone year for the genre. “Kind of Blue” came out, as well as “Giant Steps”, Mingus’ “Ah Um” and Ornette Coleman’s “The Shape of Jazz to come”. Stanley Whitney (*1946 in Philadelphia) was 13, and especially the latter inspired him deeply. “It wasn’t easy. I liked it, it wasn’t bourgeois, it […]

David Shrigley – the storm came and blew me to bits

Winter is coming, and something else is coming, too, a storm, or the end of the world, even. The USA are voting, and we are sitting on the edge of our seats unsure of the outcome of either outcome. Tonight and tomorrow we need an artist like David Shrigley (*1968), whose love for the absurd […]

Edward Hopper – Nighthawks

One of the best known paintings of the 20th century, Nighthawks shows three people in a bar, seemingly very lonely and isolated in a big city where fluorescent lights just started to change life at night. Hopper (1882-1967) himself didn’t give the picture the narrative of isolation, though he acknowledged that “unconsciously, probably, I was […]

Cyrus Kabiru

source On days when I don’t already know what to write about, I start to do random google searches. This always works like a charm, which today’s example shows perfectly. From “contemporary+art+red”, I discovered Cyrus Kabiru, a 32-year-old Kenyan artist, known for his “C-Stunners”, amazing sunglasses made from lost objects found in Nairobi. He considers himself an emerging […]

Barnett Newman – Onement VI

source This painting from 1953 caused a big stir in the art market in 2013 when it was sold at Sotheby’s for 43.8 million dollars. Imagine if a jazz musician’s work was priced at this amount – how the scene would change! (And if it was only for Svarowski-clad keyboards). For a long time before the sale, […]

yygallery: Molly Crabapple — Scenes from Daily Life Inside Mosul Just 32 years old, New York artist Molly Crabapple already published a memoir – “Drawing Blood”, in 2015. She started her career with burlesque life-drawing classes in Brooklyn ten years ago, but discovered her interest in political activism with the growing Occupy Movement in New York. […]

Juan Carlos Muñoz Hernandez – el color del espiritu

When Muñoz Hernandez’ family moved to Los Angeles from Mexico, he was exposed to the graffiti scene, and was soon commissioned by Homeboy Industries (a gang intervention project) to create his first mural. He later started an apprenticeship with sculptor Robert Graham. He is a sculptor as well as a painter now, and he likes […]

Gelbgrün, 1982 Strip, 2011 (www.gerhard-richter.com) Painting is declared dead with regularity – still, Gerhard Richter’s “Abstraktes Bild” (one of many with the same title) was sold for 41 million Euro at Sotheby’s this year. Richter is considered to be one of the most important artists of both the 20th and 21th century – he is, at 83, […]

art21: “My practice is both décollage and collage at the same time. Décollage—I take it away. And then collage—I immediately add it right back.” —Mark Bradford Seen here is artist Mark Bradford at work on his piece, Ridin’ Dirty (2006), from his Los Angeles studio in 2006—along with a view of the final work installed […]