Posts by Art & Antiques Magazine
Otherworldly Masquerade
There is something inherently uncanny about masks. The placement of a false face over a real face, the displacement of identity, the fixed expression, all conspire to unsettle or even frighten the beholder. The sense of the weird is especially strong in masks that were intended to represent unearthly beings and to allow humans to temporarily assume the identity of denizens of the spirit world during religious or magical ceremonies.
Read MoreA Haunting Humanism
Nearly a century ago, much of Europe waited with trepidation for war to break out. In August 1914, the conflagration that would become World War I finally erupted, and the German artist Otto Dix was one young volunteer who eagerly headed to the front. An avid reader of the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th-century philosopher who had championed an ideal “superman” or “overman” who would overcome the limitations of mere humanity as it had evolved thus far, Dix would soon find his illusions shattered.
Read MoreCritic’s Notebook: Conceptualizing Tradition
In 1997, the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei published a photograph showing Tiananmen Square blocked out by his middle finger. He titled his image Study in Perspective, in a phrase making a provocative statement out of an obscene gesture. Formulating his contempt for power in a manner akin to a classical painter extending a digit to reckon proportions, Ai suggested that the individual artist might eclipse even the most oppressive government.
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