There is a Reading Room set up at Gallery Kayafas as part of my exhibition there called Family Pictures. These are the texts I included: Going to Meet the Man (stories) by James Baldwin Without Sanctuary Lynching Photography in America by James Allen, essays by Hilton Als, John Lewis, Leon F. Litwack, and James Allen Lynching… (read more)
I am thinking about my palette for paintings and I have been doing a lot of walking lately. Now, I am not the sort of person who has ever been remotely interested in painting the landscape. Seriously, it was something I did when I was in school but I was never very good at it…. (read more)
A detail from the glorious “Self-portrait in a Tuxedo” (1927) on view at the Harvard Museums weird ass “greatest hits” installation at the Sackler. Everyone is usually kvelling over his use of black but the joy is the chromatic shadows in the face. You can see this painting and then go look at the Poussin’s… (read more)
I was walking through the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston the other day. I was having a particularly nasty studio day. Nothing was going well and every color I tried to mix ended up as mud. I figured I should go look at the work of people who knew what they were doing before I… (read more)
Well, it has been a very interesting couple of days. My friend Tom runs a blog called The Good Men Project. He was putting together a edition of the blog on race. And he asked me to contribute. I should say that Tom and I have been friends for well over a decade. I’ve held… (read more)
The permanent collection at the Detroit Institute of the Arts has an enormous influence on me. Like most kids in Detroit, I first went there on a school trip. (This was back when education included things like art and culture.) I was spellbound by the building itself. I stood on the stairs with my mouth… (read more)
Things I loved here…. The Grande Hotel de Londres – Amazing place, loaded with history and a great crowd in the lobby. Wireless access, central location, strong tea, great decor and wonderful staff. (And they have great new carpeting in the lobby.) Hemmingway stayed here, so should you. Beyoğlu – This is the neighborhood where… (read more)
This is the view crossing the Galata Bridge looking back at Sultanahment. That is Aya Sofya on the right on the hill. Today I walked for about 10 hours and I did not get tired until I put the key in the door of my room at the Grand Hotel de Londres. It was amazing… (read more)
Anything would be a let down after Epheseus, but man, Troy is really hard to take. First off, there is a huge wooden horse inside of the entry gate to Troy. It is filled with laughing school children running around it and climbing inside it. Parents surround the thing to get a photo of their… (read more)