It sounds more like a theme park for techies than an art museum. Dataland, the world’s first museum devoted to AI arts, is scheduled to open in Los Angeles this spring. For those wishing to address the vexing question, “Is AI art really art?” I direct you to online forums […]
Museum Teaching
Allegory in Art
Helping Children Bridge the Fact/Value Split This painting is part of the beautiful collection of Dutch golden-age paintings at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. Not only is it lovely, it’s allegorical. Allegorical paintings are my favorite pieces in any museum. They do something daring! They bridge the chasm […]
Ellsworth Kelly’s Austin-Form Without Spirit
Walking toward the south end of campus, you’ll see a new building at the University of Texas. It’s a large bulbous looking structure near the Blanton Museum of Art, as you pass between the PCL building and Jester dorm. It looks like a giant igloo from the back–plain stone, bereft […]
Thoughts on Ellsworth Kelly’s “Austin”
A Few Questions about Art and Faith
“An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump” by Joseph Wright, 1768
This painting captures the drama of the Enlightenment. During the late 17thth century, discoveries in the realm of natural sciences gave mankind unprecedented power, as well as unavoidable moral dilemmas. In this painting, Wright forged new territory, focusing on the prominent issue of his day. It’s not inconceivable that […]
Art is Medicine is on YouTube!
Consider “Book From the Sky” by Xu Bing
Xu Bing was 11 years old when the Cultural Revolution began in China. He grew up in a land hostile to the printed word. Countless books were burned and reading was discouraged, unless it was Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book. His parents were both employed at the University of Beijing, were […]
Two Kinds of Museum Visitors
While working at an art museum, I have had the chance to observe thousands of people walk through the doors. During my brief foray into the museum studies program at Johns Hopkins, I took a course in Museum Education and read multiple studies in which social scientists tried to categorize […]