The Irreplaceable Charm Of Homemade Menageries

Fig. 1. Alexander Calder - Calder's Circus (Lion and Cage), 1926-31


She told me the best of stories about the worst of things. Not from a book, but from memory. Sometimes I would ask to hear a story again, simply to see of she could tell it exactly the same way twice. Well, she could - and not just twice! ... Now that she is gone, just once would do. I wouldn't be listening to catch her out, but, rather, to catch myself in the act of listening to a tale only my grandmother could tell.

Once Upon A Time There Was An Artist Who Wasn't

Fig. 1. Marina Abramović - Performing Joseph Beuys’ How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965) at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on Nov. 13, 2005


All great impersonators strive for a degree of imperfection. This is how they sign their work.

Places & Spaces That Exist Because We Think Them

Fig. 1. Etienne-Louis Boullée - Perspective View of the Interior of a Metropolitan Church, 1780-81


Space is as much a figment of the imagination as it is a verity of sensory perception.

Nostalgia Can Sometimes Make The Familiar Invisible

Fig. 1. Roy Lichtenstein - Bedroom at Arles, 1992


Occasionally it is necessary to reinvent an image in order to see it for the first time.

Within Reach, But Only If You Let Her Be Your Venus

Fig. 1. Pompeo Batoni - Diana and Cupid, 1761


Touching - be it verbally or bodily - is a dangerous business. Done in the right manner, and at the right time, it is a caressing, seductive zephyr: done in the wrong way, and at the wrong time, it is a barbarous, bond-shattering gust. … Intimacy is correspondence by other means. It challenges us to know more than simply how to conjure closeness. It also requires us (as Julia Kristeva has wisely observed) to '[know] how to handle distances'.

The Sunday Six: Things Animal, Vegetable, & Mineral

Fig. 1. Charles Ray - Family Romance, 1993

Fig. 2. Axel Hütte - Audubon Swamp, 2005

Fig. 3. Goshka Macuga - Madame Blavatsky, 2007

Fig. 4. Jill Magid - Vetting Box, 2008

Fig. 5. Israel Hershberg - Todi from Afar, 2009

Fig. 6. Louise Hearman - Untitled #1298, 2009

We stalk the infinite by means of its finite becomings - the very same means it uses to evade us.

A Not Very Grand Tour ... A Not Very Grand Traveller

When travelling, one is always arriving or departing - even when stationary.