Category Archives: art

world calligraphy day

My father is a self taught calligrapher. He taught me the rudiments of italics and other hands after a teacher complained about my handwriting. I continued to practice italics at an amateur level for years, repeating my shaky upright alphabet … Continue reading →

Posted on 13 August 2019 by Diana ben-Aaron
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progress

When I am not working I have the impression I know what to do.Once I start I am lost. The eye is very precise.You risk losing the expression.The head of an Egyptian in the Louvremissing its eyesbrings it out.I don’t … Continue reading →

Posted on 10 September 2017 by Diana ben-Aaron
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museums: Fahrelnissa Zeid

Tapestry, carpet, stained glass window, mosaic, kaleidoscope are some of the metaphors that come to mind in viewing the work of the Ottoman-born artist Fahrelnissa Zeid. Her dominant tones were modulations of primary colors – tomato red, denim blue, Girl … Continue reading →

Posted on 27 August 2017 by Diana ben-Aaron
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museums: David Hockney

Is that … the Ladybird Book of David Hockney? A few things about David Hockney, based on the exhibition now closing at the Tate: 1. His palette resembles the acrylic paints we used in school – those saturated hues that came … Continue reading →

Posted on 13 May 2017 by Diana ben-Aaron
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art: goya: order and disorder

Before visiting the latest blockbuster MFA show I had little sense of Francisco Goya except a vague and incorrect association with Maja soap. I came away flattened by his reach and versatility: portraitist, cartoonist, war artist, realist, imaginer, storyteller; in … Continue reading →

Posted on 2 January 2015 by Diana ben-Aaron
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art: british open

Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, June 10 to August 18 (hurry!), London A few weeks ago I went to the RA Summer Exhibition, guided by Liz Z, who was going for the fourth time. I had never heard of it. Apparently … Continue reading →

Posted on 5 August 2013 by Diana ben-Aaron
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art: the eighties at ica

This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s. Institute for Contemporary Art, Boston The subway advertisements for this show promised, in punky cyan-magenta-yellow letters, iconic Eighties artists – Basquiat, Sherman, Mapplethorpe, Koons, Goldin – while the title … Continue reading →

Posted on 7 January 2013 by Diana ben-Aaron
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art: our land at the cable factory

Maamme (Our Land), Minna Rainio and Mark Roberts. Finnish Museum of Photography, Cable Factory, Helsinki Musically, the Finnish national anthem is easy to sing except for the devilish first line, which sounds as if it combines two wrong-way key changes … Continue reading →

Posted on 23 November 2012 by Diana ben-Aaron
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seven ways of looking at a Fabergé exhibition

Reposted for Easter 2013 before returning to original spot in the timeline. The Era of Fabergé, Vapriikki, Tampere, Finland, 17 June – 1 October 2006 1. As a celebration of an exploitative imperial autocracy, rationalized through the familiar rhetoric of … Continue reading →

Posted on 29 August 2006 by Diana ben-Aaron
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Stages of house moving (assuming one has keys to both places for several days): 1. Denial. 2. Moving unobtrusive things. 3. Moving good things. 4. Confronting the junk that’s left. 5. More denial. 6. Oh crap, the old place doesn’t … Continue reading →

Posted on 5 June 2000 by Diana ben-Aaron
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