Category Archives: art

art: Tamara de Lempicka’s supreme shaded style

Posted on 2024-11-10 by skierpage

Tamara de Lempicka is melodramatic swagger, backed up by superb shading of colored areas (chiaroscuro?); it reminds me of Georgia O’Keefe’s landscapes yet the complete opposite. Look at the heart shape in the draping of her lover’s dress, it’s phenomenal. … Continue reading →

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art: Jhane Barnes greatness

Posted on 2024-08-25 by skierpage

Jhane Barnes‘ legendary shirts are just too beautiful to hide in a closet. I need a glassed-in mobile of shifting shirts that move close and recede. Failing that, after I wear one I leave it out to catch my eye … Continue reading →

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art: Charles Schulz and Christo

Posted on 2024-07-03 by skierpage

Charles Schulz is very much conventional decent middle-America (with a side of deep bitter existential distress underlying his Peanuts cartoons). Yet, as I learned on a return visit to his museum, it turns out “Sparky” was a big supporter of … Continue reading →

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art: Serra “Band” broke me

Posted on 2024-04-23 by skierpage

I unexpectedly met Richard Serra’s Band again, at LACMA; surely one of his greatest. I was sad at the great man’s[*] death in 2024, but walking around and through its spaces one more time left me collapsed and sobbing. Museum … Continue reading →

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art: love and ancient mastery at the Legion of Honour

Posted on 2023-05-13 by skierpage

John Singer Sargent in Spain is pretty good. Paintings of fishermen and male artists looking at the viewer with smouldering eyes… it’s puzzling that a San Francisco museum didn’t mention the “lifelong bachelor”‘s likely love affair with Albert de Belleroche, … Continue reading →

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art: excellent VR experience of the ISS

Posted on 2023-03-30 by skierpage

THE INFINITE is one of the best VR exhibitions I’ve experienced (and I’m lucky to have strapped into Char Davies’ unbelievably great Osmose and the PHI Centre’s Horizons VR greatest hits exhibition, and even the early 1991 Dactyl Nightmare VR … Continue reading →

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music: the Most Unwanted Song endures

Posted on 2022-07-11 by skierpage

Way back in 1977 I read a brief article in Wired magazine about artists Komar & Melamid‘s project to make the most unwanted song (and most wanted song) based on a rigorous consumer preference survey. When I got to “an … Continue reading →

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art: Franz Kline’s best work in years, done by AI

Posted on 2022-07-08 by skierpage

“Painting of a black cat with white markings sitting on a chair” is the best thing Franz Kline has painted in 60 years! Love the coiled energy and the furry tail on the left. This is the best of 9 … Continue reading →

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software: where’s my ARchitect identifier?

Posted on 2022-05-27 by skierpage

One of the oft-touted promises of Google Glass and other Augmented Reality headsets is you’ll look at something and the headset will indicate or say what it is. Meanwhile in the real world, a friend posts great cityscape photographs and … Continue reading →

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music: a return for Spinal Tap!

Posted on 2022-05-20 by skierpage

zOMG there will be a sequel to This is Spinal Tap. After 38 years, it can only be even sadder than the band’s first tour film; the original was another product of 1984, the high point of Western civilization. This … Continue reading →

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