A New Home for NAD NOW
We have some exciting news! The National Academy of Design has just launched a new
Blog
Mitch Epstein, New National Academician
Mitch Epstein helped pioneer fine-art color photography in the 1970s. More than 50 years later, he continues to use his work to explore social issues and question what it means to be American.
Beverly Fishman, New National Academician
Beverly Fishman speaks about how pharmaceutical industry advertising and design influences her glossy, three-dimensional artwork.
The Art of Collaboration: An Exhibition Examines Robert Blackburn and His Influential Workshop
Robert Blackburn learned printmaking in his Harlem community, and with his printmaking workshop, he created an inclusive place for artists to exchange ideas and resources.
Michael Maltzan, New National Academician
Maltzan discusses what drew him to Los Angeles, his experiences working on affordable housing, and why he believes architects have a responsibility to help communities move forward.
Rafael Ferrer, New National Academician
Rafael Ferrer is a predominantly self-taught artist. His works include paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations.
Reconsidering Art History with Cindy Sherman
The Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris presents an exegetical retrospective, regrouping some 170 works produced between 1975 and 2020.
Prospect and Refuge: A Conversation with Marlon Blackwell
Architect Marlon Blackwell discusses Keenan TowerHouse, a multipart work he donated to the National Academy of Design’s permanent collection.
Claire Weisz, New National Academician
Claire Weisz is a founding principal of WXY architecture + urban design. WXY works closely with local communities to create and reimagine public spaces and structures.
The Trouble with “Truth”: Peter Williams’s Black Universe
Peter Williams sheds light on the interconnectivity of personal and historical experience.
Dawoud Bey: A Rooted Gaze
Bey’s lens has been trained on the polyrhythms of Black American life in all its foundational, quotidian, and corporeal splendor.
Charles Gaines, New National Academician
Gaines speaks about his realization that he was uninterested in self-expression through art; the artists and books that led him to develop algorithmic, systems-based work; and the ideologies behind the systems we encounter in our daily lives.
Talking Art and About Training: My Invitation to Catherine Sullivan and Pope.L
The following conversation grows from my great respect for these artists’ thinking. Both allow themselves to be vulnerable as they orchestrate with affection and humility encounters with others in search of their subjects.
Island of No Birdsong
When I learned Maya Lin designed a digital memorial for endangered and extinct species, I was intrigued. What memories and emotions would it stir within me? Why did she title the project What Is Missing?
Jimmy Wright’s Downtown
During his early years living in New York City, Wright’s work provided a kaleidoscopic document of the city’s still burgeoning queer spaces.
Architects and Climate Change
Buildings in the US are more responsible for greenhouse gas emissions than any other single source, including transportation.
In Search of Ma: Snapshots from Japan
For my sabbatical last fall, my husband and I took an extended trip to Japan to experience firsthand something called Ma in Japanese and Chinese painting and architecture.
Intimacy at a Distance
Now that I am shut in my apartment and far away from everyone else, I am confronted by the limitations of the built environment.
The Kochi Boats
This past January, I was lucky enough to be awarded an artist’s residency in Southern India.
Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present in the Time of Social Distancing
When Marina Abramović agreed to take part in Matthew Akers’s documentary, she couldn’t have known how powerfully that film would resonate nearly a decade later.
The Compressed Visions of Helen West Heller
During my childhood in Canton, Illinois, we had a gallery of eccentric gentlemen, but the prince of the group was Roger Heller.
Kyle Staver at Zürcher Gallery
Within this uncanny and theatrical space, Staver’s paintings, aquatint etchings, drawings, and relief sculptures greeted visitors with a beguiling mix of tension and familiarity.
Kathy Butterly’s Universe in Color
Kathy Butterly is one of today’s most intriguing visual artists. A master of form, expression, and color, she conjures many-layered meanings in her work.
Peter Saul’s Painting Survey Asserts a Nuanced Take on Protest and Complicity at the New Museum
In a time when political controversy has become almost banal in its normalcy, Peter Saul’s paintings aren’t just palpable, they’re pretty damn on point.
Kiki Smith, Wild Woman
The exhibition was important both for the artist and the institution because the museum has since shut down its contemporary art program.
Paul Broches and Don Porcaro Reflect on the Nature of Collaboration
What is best approach to keep a gallery visually open without resorting to the usual, uninteresting white walls?
Artists, Architects, Activists
Architect Craig Dykers, one of the founding partners of Snøhetta, is interested in design as a promoter of social and physical well-being.
Shirley Jaffe Cut in Square Highlights Late Artist’s Work
The artist’s career that lasted over seven decades. What remains clear throughout is a strong sense of self and individuality.
Byron Kim’s Sunday Paintings: Gracious Encounters with the Sky at moCa Cleveland
The 48 canvases on view are a small portion of a series that numbers over 800 and is still growing.
For America: In Dialogue with James McGarrell
For over a half-century, James McGarrell has produced consistently engaging painting.
“Something Over Something Else”: Romare Bearden’s Profile Series
An important friendship and collaboration with the writer Albert Murray underlie the two-part Profile series, 1978-81, by Romare Bearden.
William T. Williams: Recent Paintings
For 50 years, painter William T. Williams has sought to expand the vocabulary of abstraction.
Seeing Differently, Seeing More: An Interview with peter campus
The power and beauty of the work of peter campus lies in his awareness.
Felice Casorati’s Susanna and My Paintings
Then and there, that one painting stopped me and held me captivated. The other rooms I had just seen disappeared from my consciousness.
Triptychs and Temporality
Since most of the published responses to The Fulbright Triptych have been in the form of essays, rather personal ones at that, let me begin with a confession, as personal as the triptych itself by Simon Dinnerstein.
Folk Rock, Blues & Flower Children
What was it that was so powerful about Woodstock?
Old Art, New Art, According to Alex Katz
These are not a reinterpretation of Monet—unlike many American artists, Katz never went to Giverny—but a genuine tribute to the French masterpieces.
Patterning en Pointe: Lorraine Shemesh’s Interstitial Paintings and Vessels
In 1937, pioneering choreographer Martha Graham noted the power of dance to express “the depths of man’s inner nature, the unconscious, where memory dwells.”
Pat Steir’s Silent Secret Waterfalls Share their Inner Life at the Barnes
Today’s artists, curators, and critics often assert that works of art themselves actively explore elements of human society, trouble conventional wisdom, demand that their audience consider specific issues, or otherwise directly affect their viewers and the world around them.
With Light and Wit: Joyce J. Scott
Scott is an educator and artist committed to every possible extension of her creativity.
A Review of Fred Tomaselli at the Joslyn
Tomaselli acts as a visual editor, cropping and recomposing cover stories while communicating his political views in his highly recognizable style and art historical approach.
Arlene Shechet’s Gestures and Jesters
In the world of Arlene Shechet, the gallery is a royal court.
Into the Void: Prints of Lee Bontecou
Voids, black holes, and cavernous openings show up frequently in the work of Lee Bontecou. She is best known for creating mesmerizing wall reliefs.
At 90, Frank Gehry Is Still Building His Legacy
What would it look like if Frank Gehry built a prison?
A Discussion with Bomb Pop!Up: How To
During the summer of 2018, the National Academy of Design’s former school had just gone on hiatus and people were wondering how to use the classrooms before vacating the building.
Leslie Wayne: What’s Inside
In the painting Everything, 2019, a set of white, wooden doors hinges outward.
Tooker’s Voice in Our Ear
Close one eye and hold up your hand to cover the speaking figure on the left. Even without it, the figure on the right is listening.
A Preservation of History: Alison Saar
The current exhibition at LA Louver is small, consisting of a single work. Yet, it is a testament to Saar’s prowess that the piece could be discussed for hours.
Melissa Meyer’s Sprezzatura
The work of Melissa Meyer possesses a kind of “sprezzatura”—meaning that it takes a great deal of skill and technical bravado to make it look so easy.
Designing Americans: A Conversation with Wendy Evans Joseph
Ours may be the only country with a “National Mall.” A mall with grass and museums instead of chain stores—museums that constitute the cultural franchise that is the Smithsonian Institution.
Behind the Scenes of Nick Cave’s The Let Go
By nearly all accounts, this American moment is one characterized by deep turmoil.
Unveiling Charles White’s Matriarch
This year, as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of White’s birth, the National Academy is proud to honor this Academician by unveiling his newly conserved Diploma Portrait entitled Matriarch.
Top Influences Summer 2018
Marilyn Minter is an artist who lives and works in New York. Her work focuses on the idea of unconventional beauty.
Don Voisine at Gregory Lind Gallery
The paintings of Don Voisine exhibit a formidable, even disquieting, restraint that can appear impenetrable.
Monolith, Labyrinth, Cultural Catalyst: Steven Holl’s ICA Invites Multitudes
At the crossroads of West Broad and North Belvidere, we witnessed with genuine curiosity an unusually fluid framework standing in stark contrast to its masonry surroundings.
Villains’ Villas
The villa is a substantial rural or suburban residence that often includes accessory uses, so that it constitutes a “hybrid” program.
Charles White: A Retrospective
White presented the lives of Black men and women, their culture, and allies in heroic terms. Throughout the exhibition, White displays his figures dynamically and full of vivacious energy.
The Mogao Caves
Located on the fabled Silk Road and sometimes referred to as The Caves of a Thousand Buddhas, there are 1,000 years of wall paintings and sculpture found throughout almost 500 caves.
Howardena Pindell: What Remains to be Seen
Howardena Pindell, like many of her fellow Black, female peers, has long been under-appreciated for her contributions to contemporary art, and this touring career survey covers a full 50 years of her artwork, activism, writing, and work as a curator and educator.
A Visit to the National Museum of African American History and Culture
Public architecture can invite, inform, entertain, and otherwise engage visitors, enrich their cultural experience, and make historical narrative palpable.
Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture, 1963 – 2017
The long and illustrious career of Jack Whitten is marked by constant experimentation. For over 50 years, he masterfully explored the possibilities of abstract painting, regularly utilizing untraditional materials and responding to changing technologies, which garnered critical attention.
Joan Jonas at the Tate Modern
“Good Night… Good Morning,” says Joan Jonas in the last work of her recent survey at the Tate Modern, curated by Andrea Lissoni and Julienne Lorz, with Monika Bayer-Wermuth.
Roberto Juarez: Inspiration and Process
On June 4, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art inaugurated Roberto Juarez Processing: Paintings and Prints 2008 – 2018. The exhibition filled the entire space of the museum with studies, prints, and paintings from this late period of the long and productive career of Roberto Juarez.
