Category Archives: art

architecture: fixing SFMOMA

Posted on 2012-01-09 by skierpage

It looks like up-and-coming starchitects Snøhetta have figured out how to fix the bad Mario Botta design with their massive planned expansion. They junk that stupid ugly staircase peering out on the cheap siding lining the dull box of the original atrium.
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movies: recent Woody Allen

Posted on 2011-08-19 by skierpage

Woody Allen’s recent Midnight in Paris is a fun trifle, stroking the audience’s ego with its 1920s Paris fantasy imagined by an intellectually lightweight author. Literally nothing’s at stake in this well-fed easygoing fantasy. It’s an echo of the far … Continue reading →

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Anthony Lane, funniest writer at The New Yorker (updated)

Posted on 2011-06-08 by skierpage

Irrepressably droll. On 20-kilometer walk competitors at the Beijing Olympics: They will continue to propel themselves, year in, year out, as if learning to moonwalk too soon after a hip replacement. On Yoda  (Space Case, “Star Wars: Episode III”): Also, … Continue reading →

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art: Deborah Butterfield K.O.s AbEx at ART MRKT

Posted on 2011-05-23 by skierpage

It was interesting to go to ART MRKT and see the work that high-end galleries and organizations pay to present. I couldn’t discern any theme to it all. One gallery was hawking Damien Hirst prints, such as a 2-D diamond-dusted … Continue reading →

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art and excess: $1M Red Tibetan Mastiff vs. Jeff Koons’ Puppy

Posted on 2011-03-17 by skierpage

A multi-millionaire coal baron in China just bought “Big Splash”, a red Tibetan Mastiff, for $1.5 million because “they have become highly-prized status symbols for China’s new rich.” The dogs are thought to be a pure “Chinese” breed and they … Continue reading →

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Mannerism and the end of post-modernism

Posted on 2010-09-22 by skierpage

Maybe this aperçu from Peter Schjeldahl in the New Yorker explains why the noughties of this new millennium have been underwhelming. I want to live in the modern age, even if I have to go retro to do so! … … Continue reading →

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