Praeterita

Actually, a recreation of the famous bedroom from the Yellow House in Arles, which Van Gogh rented in 1888. The Art Institute of Chicago created an exact replica of the second 'bedroom' painting in a condo in Chicago, as a publicity stunt for their exhibition Van Gogh's Bedrooms -- and I was invited to be the second person to stay in the room overnight. I'm writing an article about it for Hyperallergic. (UPDATE: Here is the link to the published article: Inside Van Gogh's Bedroom .) Meanwhile, this happened: Our writer @hartiganartist is spending the night at the van Gogh room at the @artinstitutechi (📷 Philip Hartigan) A photo posted by Hyperallergic (@hyperallergic) on Feb 16, 2016 at 4:09pm PST

As you may know, I am a regular contributor to Hyperallergic , the online art magazine that has come to be a significant landmark in the artworld landscape in the last few years, as print coverage of the visual arts has shrunk dramatically. (Just last week, for example, Art in America merged with its rival, ArtNews). One of the features I write is called A View from the Easel, for which artists from all over the world submit a photo of their studio (no people), and a short description of the space. It's one of the most popular things on Hyperallergic now, regularly getting 1500 Facebook shares. A few weeks ago, I received an envelope in the mail sent by someone whose View was published in June: The artist is Alan Neider , and the work in the catalogue consists of assemblages of plaster and collage on cardboard. They are reminiscent of Robert Rauschenberg's assemblages, though with more colour. My quick response to the work is that the pieces that contain looping shapes s...