Art Talk

Compared to the US, everything in Europe seems so close. It took me less than an hour to get from Antwerp to Amsterdam by speed train...

Summer is upon us, and many of you are probably traveling. Like everyone else, planning a trip, I ask my smart, artsy friends for advice: what to see and what to eat....

Trust me, it's not Lady Godiva chocolate or the amazing variety of beers that made me go to Belgium twice in the last five months. In January, I was invited to Brussels...

My recent trip to Europe ended up in Barcelona... About fifty art dealers from around the world gathered there for Loop, an annual video art fair....

When I went to the Whitney Museum in December, I had no idea who Paul Thek was...

It's 6 o'clock. I am waiting for a plane and staring in disbelief at the bold, colorful posters of Kandinsky, Sam Francis and Howard Hodgkin — of all places — on the walls of MacDonald's...

My last program with a reference to the art of super-famous Jeff Koons as "Shiny, Bubbly and Boring..." hit a nerve with listeners. I got quite a lot of responses to this program and you might want to read them on KCRW's website. Here are a few of my favorites...

Being the student of contemporary art, it’s not difficult to notice the relatively short time in which the rich and famous buy and then put these toys back on the market…

The story starts in the beautifully appointed room, where a lady of leisure is rolling up her stockings and tying them, just above the knees, with a pink ribbon...

Last week, in the industrial heart of Downtown L.A., thousands of people were confronted with art and artists behaving badly. Big time. Graffiti and litter...

Strolling through the gardens of the Huntington Library makes me feel as if I am walking through the elaborate set design of a Shakespeare play..

Looking at the schedule of art exhibitions here and abroad, one is tempted to say that all roads today lead not to Rome but to David Smith (1906-1965)...

If you had a chance to see paintings by Henry Taylor a couple of years ago at the Santa Monica Museum of Art...you definitely would remember the overwhelming impact of the gritty street scenes with their downtown denizens, captured by him so colorfully, so mercilessly but, ultimately, so lovingly on his large canvases...

The forecast for last weekend was rather grim, so I was crossing my fingers and praying that the group of art aficionados I was scheduled to lead on an art tour in downtown L.A. would not be caught in a storm. Somehow, my prayers were heard...

This is a story that is almost too good to be true. The story of a young artist who dedicated and virtually sacrificed his life to save the art of hundreds of other artists he admired...

Last summer, when the Getty placed the highest bid — $45 million — at London auction, for the rare and beautiful landscape by J.M.W. Turner, many skeptics, including myself, were understandably pessimistic about the chance that this great painting would ever be allowed to leave the shores of England...

I wonder if the less than stellar results of the last Oscars, with its low voltage and sagging viewership, will make the Hollywood weasels — clearly in need of help and inspiration — turn to the world of Art...

However strange it might sound, there is something in common between visiting a particularly good art exhibition and going to that special restaurant for a great dinner with friends. In both cases, the moment you enter the premises, you are charmed and slightly seduced.

Generally speaking, I do not have an addictive personality. Anyway, I’m not a smoker or heavy drinker. But when I feel like getting high, I head to the nearest museum or gallery, or at least grab an art book off of a coffee table.

It's not that often that one can find art related news on the front page of American newspapers, except when a big time scandal rattles the status quo. In 1990, the director of the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati was put on so-called "obscenity" trial for exhibiting provocative photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe. Now, Mapplethorpe's name is once again front-page news, but this time it marks a happy occasion...