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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Raymond Pettibon

Monday, June 16, 2025 | Karl Cole

Art history is full of examples of the cultural preoccupation with the use of written language within the visual arts field—from illustrated scrolls of ancient Egypt to the Pop Art obsession wit ...

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Curator's Corner

National Love a Tree Day: Sylvia P. Mangold

Friday, May 16, 2025 | Karl Cole

Mangold is very fond of the trees that were on her country property and they became frequent subjects of her paintings. She would definitely approve of National Love a Tree Day, which encourages every ...

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Curator's Corner

International Families Day: Alice Mizrachi

Thursday, May 15, 2025 | Karl Cole

During the 1980's, the United Nations began focusing attention on issues related to the family. In 1993, the General Assembly decided in a resolution that 15 May of every year should be observed as Th ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Peter Doig

Thursday, April 17, 2025 | Karl Cole

Peter Doig is a Scottish painter who has lived in Canada, London, Trinidad for 20 years, and now back in London. He focuses on both landscapes and figures, melding art historical and personal referenc ...

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Curator's Corner

Black History Month: Cey Adams

Monday, February 24, 2025 | Karl Cole

Throughout the history of the United States, African American artists have been pioneers in many artistic movement. Since the Harlem Renaissance (ca. 1920s–1930s), many Black American ...

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Curator's Corner

Black History Month: Ali and Chase-Riboud

Tuesday, February 18, 2025 | Karl Cole

The Curator’s Corner celebration of Black History Month continues with two contemporary artists whose personal visions are broadly different, but fascinating nonetheless—Laylah Ali and Bar ...

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Curator's Corner

Artist Birthday: Alfredo Jaar

Wednesday, February 5, 2025 | Karl Cole

Alfredo Jaar is an installation artist whose work is conceptual and documents injustice, genocide, ongoing famine, and other major afflictions to humanity in many parts of the world. ...

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Curator's Corner

Happy New Year 2025: teamLab

Monday, December 30, 2024 | Karl Cole

I can’t think of a nicer way to end 2024’s blog posts than with images from the beautiful immersive digital installation, Proliferating Immense Life - A Whole Year per Year, by the Japanes ...

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Curator's Corner

Autumn Is Upon Us: Yun-Fei Ji

Monday, September 30, 2024 | Karl Cole

I’m marking the onset of autumn with a work of art from Chinese American artist Yun-Fei Ji. His work tackles many subjects about contemporary China, as well as world-wide issues such as pollutio ...

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Curator's Corner

Gem of the Month: Kyoko Tokumaru

Monday, June 10, 2024 | Karl Cole

Kyoko Tokumaru is a brilliant sculptor who creates organic forms in ceramics, fashioning complex pieces out of hard-to-work-with porcelain. Like many contemporary clay sculptures, Tokumaru’s wor ...

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Curator's Corner

A Winter Tree: Jennifer Steinkamp

Monday, January 22, 2024 | Karl Cole

I’m fairly certain that many of us have experienced the sight of snow-laden trees in January. That is my favorite part of winter. What better image to conjure up the sensation of a cold winter d ...

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Curator's Corner

The Intangible in Japanese Photography

Monday, October 30, 2023 | Karl Cole

Traditional reverence for nature—a mainstay in most Japanese art forms throughout art history—continues in the work of contemporary Japanese artists. After a couple of beautifully foggy mo ...

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Curator's Corner

Gem of the Month: Lori Weitzner

Monday, October 16, 2023 | Karl Cole

Some of the major developments in the design world during the 2000s have involved the use of sustainable materials, ecologically friendly production processes, and upcycling otherwise wasted materials ...

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Curator's Corner

AAPI Heritage Month 2023: Chan Chao

Tuesday, May 30, 2023 | Karl Cole

Photography was a groundbreaking art form when it was first introduced. Quite soon after its development, numerous Western photographers explored photography for documentary and journalistic purposes. ...

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Curator's Corner

Gems of the Month: Contemporary Japanese Tea Bowls

Monday, May 8, 2023 | Karl Cole

This month’s gems are contemporary artworks that serve the ages-old Japanese tea ceremony (chanoyu or sado). Tea drinking was first introduced in Japan during the Nara period (710–794) aft ...

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Curator's Corner

Spring Green from Gary Hume

Monday, April 24, 2023 | Karl Cole

In my ongoing celebration of spring, I’m featuring British artist Gary Hume. His Spring Angels series of eight screenprints sets just the right tone with their vibrant colors. In some of the pri ...

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