Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Opinion”
Glenn Adamson joins us this month as editor at large with an interesting mandate you can read about below. Glenn was most recently director of the Museum of Arts and Design. Before that he was head of research at the V&A, and curator of the Chipstone Foundation. The Magazine ANTIQUES: In your column you will think through difficult matters that …
On April 30 the government of Kenya staged the largest ivory burn in history.
The American Revolution has a hit on its hands with Hamilton, the hip-hop musical currently lighting up Broadway. “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story,” the cast sings in its sly retooling of our republic as the story of Alexander Hamilton’s rise through the imperial city of New York (“History is happening in Manhattan and we just happen/to be in …
We occasionally split the run of an issue of ANTIQUES with one cover for subscribers—an interior from Abbeville, Louisiana, in this case—and another for distribution at shows—Louis Lozowick’s 1930 lithograph of the Brooklyn Bridge. If this sounds like a North/South thing it isn’t exactly, but I’ll explain that in a moment. The New York art and antiques season seems a …
It would be tempting to wiggle into this one, introduce the issue with some high minded talk about the past not being another country and so forth, go on to mention our wonderful articles about Julia Margaret Cameron, etc., but more about all of that in a minute…The fact is we have something here requiring immediate comment—Paul Kossey’s discovery of …
One afternoon not long after I began working here I opened a letter that asked me a challenging question: how, the writer wanted to know, “did a Polack [sic] like you get your position?” After a few jolly moments in the office I called our longtime editor Wendell Garrett, who enjoyed odd news from the passing scene. Wendell was amused, …
We look forward to the merger of The Magazine ANTIQUES and MODERN Magazine with ARTNEWS S.A. as we expand our digital presence, reach new readers, and bring the best in scholarship and criticism on the fine and decorative arts to a global audience.
What has been lost… The only thing more American than sentimentalizing the past is our habit of discarding it. And so when it comes to the dolls shown in this issue, stunning examples of an African-American folk art, questions abound: who were their makers and for whom were they made? How can they be dated and where did they originate? …
We missed something this spring, and at this point all I can do is urge you not to miss it too. I refer to When the Curtain Never Comes Down at the American Folk Art Museum, closing July 5. There is much to say, even much to debate, about what is happening with outsider art in the museum’s galleries, and …
The divide between “pure” art (painting and sculpture mostly) and functional art (lighting, ceramics, furniture, and so much else) comes and goes in history depending on who has the power to enforce its shaky distinctions. Just now the contemporary art market tilts toward the healthy side of the issue: a table by Urs Fischer, for instance, is a work of …