KtBlog

globeillustration

The Illustration Saga

My recent article for the Boston Globe included this unassuming concoction by way of illustration: Sure, it’s nice, but I would have thought no more of it but for a…

Public Arts Project Proposal, 2005

No Hate Crimes (Reported)

A friendly reminder to keep the count running.

Austria, 25,000 BCE

Who Are These Women?

Along the ramparts of the Brooklyn Museum’s Sackler Center for Feminist Art, there is a small exhibition of ancient female figurines, among them the oldest sculpture in the museum’s collection.…

Mango

When Hunger Can’t Be Fed

Remembering to eat, and live, when the stuff of life becomes unpalatable.

for-the-love-of-god

Heady Days

There’s nothing particularly religious about the recent record-breaking sale of a jewel-encrusted platinum skull by Order Cheap Cialis the British artist Damien Hirst. Yes, its $100 million price tag may…

"The Coming of the Lord" (detail), by William Thomas Thompson.

The Colorful Apocalypse

What does it take to be an “outsider artist”? Brushes, paint, and revelation.

Would a children's book be a better response?

A Whole Lot of Stupid

And other factors involved in the transformation of cartoons into riots.

"In Islam, it is not the content of an image that is blasphemous, but the very act of depiction."

The Right to Blaspheme

“God is not mocked,” and other proposed editorial guidelines.

Photographs by Joanna Ebenstein

Jesus Kitsch, My Lord and Savior

In the woods behind a West Virginia monastery, a writer and a photographer ask an age-old question: Is bad art good religion?

The Origin of the World Gustave Coubert, 1866 (detail)

Raptures

Art that redeems the world appears at first ugly. But look. Look again.

The Tribute in Light

Unbearable Lightness

Lingering ghosts and bright ideas at Ground Zero.

Lone Ranger and Tonto, 1998

Like the Goddamn Internet

James Martin’s strange paintings make him the Martin Luther of the art world.

from the new book, The Orientalist Poster, by Abderrahman Slaoui

Advertising Allah

God is my cruise director. Orientalist travel posters sell art deco Islam to the Western world.

Detail of Renee Cox, in The Pieta, by Renee Cox

Yo Mama’s Orthodoxy

The mayor, the artist, and the sacred faith of the elite.

This Members of the Moors, a Negro religious group of Chicago, Illinois. By Russell Lee

Old-Timey Timebomb

Michael Lesy’s Long Time Coming is a coffee table book that ticks.