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A painter friend of mine is putting on a web convention of famous contemporary artists. It includes interviews with Marvin Mattelson, Albert Handell, Fernando Freitas, and many other Masters in the art world. I apologize for not posting this sooner, as it's been going on for a week now and is only available until March 26, 2014. There have been six interviews released with a new one every day. If you are an artist or art-lover, this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to gain information and inspiration to help transform your own art or hear from the masters. This is really...

First it was the media, now it is the artists. Censorship in the birthplace of the so-called Arab Spring - Tunisia - is back. The government has already been accused of clamping down on reporters. And now, two Tunisian artists have been charged. Their crime: creating sculptures that the authorities say are harmful to public order and good morals. Nadia Jelassi's work is of a veiled woman surrounded by rocks and suggests she is being stoned, while Mohamed Ben Slama's work is of a child with ants streaming from a schoolbag that spelt out "God". Meanwhile in Egypt, two journalists...

Leonardo da Vinci's drawing of a male figure perfectly inscribed in a circle and square, known as the "Vitruvian Man," illustrates what he believed to be a divine connection between the human form and the universe. Beloved for its beauty and symbolic power, it is one of the most famous images in the world. However, new research suggests that the work, which dates to 1490, may be a copy of an earlier drawing by Leonardo's friend. Another illustration of a divinely proportioned man — the subject is Christ-like, but the setting is strikingly similar to Leonardo's — has been discovered...

President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign is asking artists to design promotional posters that convey a message: “support American jobs.” The brutal irony for artists, however, is that they will receive no payment for their work. The campaign, which has $61 million on hand, will reward only the three artists whose work is selected for use. The compensation? A copy of their artwork, signed by the president. The Graphic Artists Guild isn’t pleased with the ask. On Saturday, the guild issued an open letter to the campaign voicing outrage over what it called a “shameful” competition.

Immediately after President Obama took office, his Hollywood benefactors clamored for the creation of a "Secretary of Culture." Tinseltown was disappointed with the administration's crony arts czar choice (Chicago lawyer Kareem Dale), but left-wing artists and entertainers have now been mollified. Instead of one government-supported arts czar, the White House has designated an entire herd of them. On Tuesday, as part of Obama's "Winning the Future" initiative, the president designated members of the liberal activist group Creative Coalition as official "America's Champions of Change for the Arts." This is the latest in a series of "public engagement" efforts overseen by...

The Analogue Counter-Revolution, Part 6 Part 1: Step Away from the Computer Part 2: iPad, Therefore I Am Part 3: Life between the Cracks Part 4: The Tyranny of Google Part 5: Digital Dark Age Ahead? Bach is singing. Well, from his grave at least. A local Bach Society presented its annual concert recently, a fine affair featuring selections from several composers, including Bach and Beethoven. The setting at the small chapel was perfect, and the musicians were first rate. Yet, the concert was only an hour long. Since half a dozen selections were featured, most ran only a few...

Prime Minister Netanyahu threatens to withdraw funding from theaters whose actors refuse to perform in city located beyond Green Line, says 'the last thing we need is boycotts from within.' Finance Minister Steinitz: These artists don't belong in theater. Meanwhile, Ynet learns Cameri Theater foresaw objection, included special clause in contractPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said the government would not fund boycotts from within against the State of Israel. He was referring to the protest of several Israeli artists, who declared over the weekend that they would refuse to perform in the new cultural hall in the city...

Fairey, , "Some of the works are about gridlock in Washington. Washington is too intertwined with corporate America . . . I had a lot of hope for Obama, but it's not panning out. He's not pushing hard enough."

God, the Creator, a lover of the beauty in His created world, invited Adam, one of His creatures, to share in the process of "creation" with Him. He has permitted humans to take the elements of His cosmos and create new arrangements with them. Perhaps this explains the reason why creating anything is so fulfilling to us. We can express a drive within us which allows us to do something all humans uniquely share with their Creator. God has thus placed before the human race a banquet table rich with aesthetic delicacies. He has supplied the basic ingredients, inviting those...

OK. So which male artists NOT associated with duo, group etc would make your top 10. Here's mine..in no particular order..Non opera please!

DETROIT (AP) -- Two artists who have encased one of Detroit's thousands of abandoned homes in ice are hoping their effort inspires and helps draw attention to the housing crisis that has battered the nation. Photographer Gregory Holm and architect Matthew Radune (Ray-DOON') have spent weeks spraying water on the home for the Ice House Detroit project. They plan to bring in large lights Friday to illuminate the house.

I saw a piece on the news recently which said, in essence, that even if you want to "buy American," there are so few American-made items in the stores that it is almost impossible. Sad, and if you insist on buying the trendy stuff at the mall, probably true. But there is an alternative. All across our land there are artisans, craftsmen, and artists who produce Made-in-America items which are far superior to the brummagem stuff made in China.

Even though Obama's popularity has been sliding significantly, Shepard Fairey, designer of the viral blue-and-red Manifest Hope poster, thinks it's the perfect time to release a slick and comprehensive anthology of celebratory Obama-related artworks: Art for Obama, which he co-edited with Evolutionary Media Group founder Jennifer Gross, comes out October 2. In addition to getting a look at the imagery, we spoke with Fairey about Obama's approval ratings, how political art reaches beyond politics, and his thoughts on the artistic deification of our leader.Watch the Slideshow Siegel: Tell us about the idea behind Art for Obama. Fairey: People undervalue...

'ROSEMARY'S Baby" ("outdoes Hitchcock" -- Roger Ebert), "China town" ("outstanding" -- Variety) and "The Pianist" ("definitive" -- The New York Times) are fine films. They've been rightly honored and praised. The question is whether their excellence justifies criminal acts. The controversy over director Roman Polanski's arrest in Switzerland on his way to a film festival exposes a stark front in the culture war. The divide is not necessarily between right and left, but between an artistic elite that thinks it deserves its own moral rules, and the rest of us who'll never win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film...

Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood is out today with new details on the National Endowment for the Arts scandal, including a full transcript and audio recording, as well as a CliffsNotes summary by John Nolte, of the notorious Aug. 10 conference call in which administration officials urged artists to help promote President Obama's legislative agenda. Formally, the call was led by Michael Skolnik, who is not a government employee. But Skolnik declares at the start of the call that he is acting on behalf of the administration:I have been asked by folks in the White House and folks in the NEA about...

This is it; the story we were speculating about today. Well, this is the "pre-story" and the rest breaks tomorrow at noon (don't know EST or PST) But, there is even a larger issue that hasn’t yet received much attention in the press. Among the Obama Administration officials on the call were Buffy Wicks, Office of Public Engagement and the lead White House official on the President’s Serve.Gov initiative to promote national service. Also on the call was Nell Abernathy, Director of Outreach for Serve.Gov. One of their mail goals on the call, it seems, was to encourage artists to...

"They were not going to report this blockbuster unless they were forced to. And they were. What's more, it ain't over yet. Not every hint I dropped in that piece about what was to come has played itself out yet. Stay tuned." ----snip---- "High praise to you, Mr. Stewart. It's nice to see there's someone out there in liberal media-land who would recognize there's something terribly wrong on these videos. And yes, there are more to come." At the very least, filmmaker James O'Keefe and actress Hannah Giles deserve a Pulitzer Prize for their expose of deep corruption and unspeakable...

Artists, they can be so temperamental. Me? I can be temperamental too, but I never thought that I had anything in common with the creative class. However, if the object of this story s truly art, then it appears I may be an artist after all. Check it out. (A GIANT inflatable dog turd by the American artist Paul McCarthy has blown away from an exhibition in the garden of a

Iraqi singers, actors and artists are fleeing the country after dozens have been killed by Islamic radicals determined to eradicate all culture associated with the West. Cinemas, art galleries, theatres, and concert halls are being destroyed in grenade and mortar attacks in Basra and Baghdad. According to the Iraqi Artists' Association, at least 115 singers and 65 actors have been killed since the US-led invasion, as well as 60 painters. But the terror campaign has escalated in recent months as both Shia and Sunni extremists grow ever bolder in enforcing religious restrictions on the citizens of Iraq. Those remaining are...

TARA DONOVAN'S PINS are hard to miss. There are thousands of them upstairs at the new Institute of Contemporary Art. They're smushed together almost as if dropped into a trash compactor, except instead of being bent, they form a 3½-foot-tall block of sinewy, shiny metal. This is art, and it sits in the center of a gallery at the ICA, one of the signature pieces of the museum's collection. Stare at "Untitled (Pins)," and you're likely to have questions. How does this cube stick together? Is it solid or a kind of pin shell? And what of the artist? Did...