Benjamin Lima teaches modern and contemporary art at the University of Texas at Arlington. He is at work on a book about the cultural history of neo-avant-garde artists' groups in 1960s West Germany.
Lima's Posts:
14 October 2010 | Baroque/Neoclassical, Books, Modern, Photography, Renaissance
Recently in the papers: In the Economist, reviews of Eadweard Muybridge at the Tate, and Bronzino at the Palazzo Strossi. In the FT, Jackie Wullschlager on four books on Caravaggio (Strinati, Fried, Graham-Dixon, Schütze). At the NYRBlog, a teaser of Willibald Sauerländer’s article on Franz Xaver Messerschmidt. In the Guardian, Rosemary Hill on the pre-Raphaelites [...]
30 September 2010 | Career
After reading Jon’s interesting posts on the NRC rankings, as well as the nifty interactive tool from the Chronicle of Higher Education ($) that makes it easy to scan the range of data for each field, I would concede that many of the criticisms of the process and results are valid. Nonetheless, I would suggest that it’s [...]
18 September 2010 | Africa, Ancient, Baroque/Neoclassical, Contemporary, Modern, Renaissance, Theory
Recently in the papers: Kaelen Wilson Goldie on Routes d’Arabie at the Louvre (The National) On Dynasty and Divinity: Ife Art from Ancient Nigeria, previously in Santander, Madrid and London, now in Houston, and later in Indianapolis, Richmond and New York: Douglas Britt (Houston Chronicle); The Economist; Itziar Reyero (ABC.es); Richard Dorment (The Telegraph); Jonathan [...]
11 September 2010 | Modern
Last March, advised by Jonathan Fineberg and Ethel Kessler, the U.S. Postal Service issued a set of stamps reproducing works by the Abstract Expressionists.
4 September 2010 | Ancient, Baroque/Neoclassical, Books, Modern, Museums, Photography
Recently in the papers: “Art and its mediums,” a set of links from Bookforum Alex Danchev reviews Michael Fried, The Moment of Caravaggio (THE) Jeffrey Hamburger and Anthony Grafton, “Save the Warburg Library!” (NYRB) Rebecca Solnit and Peter Conrad on Eadweard Muybridge at Tate Britain (The Guardian) Tom L. Freudenheim on German Master Drawings at [...]
18 August 2010 | Ancient, Baroque/Neoclassical, Medieval, Modern, Museums
Press clippings: Sarah Williams Goldhagen reviews Ćurčić and Hadjitryphonos, Architecture as Icon: Perception and Representation of Architecture in Byzantine Art in The New Republic (exhibition and catalog) “The Lost World of Old Europe: The Danube Valley 5,000-3,500 B.C.” at the Ashmolean Museum, reviewed by Neal Ascherson (LRB), and noted by Jonathan Jones (Guardian) and Paul Levy (WSJ); previously [...]
27 July 2010 | Architecture
The architect Günter Behnisch, who designed the 1972 Olympic Park in Munich together with engineer Frei Otto, died July 12th in Stuttgart, at the age of 88.
18 July 2010 | Uncategorized
Recently in the press: The Education of the Virgin (c. 1617), in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery, has been reattributed by curator John Marciari to Velázquez. See Marciari’s article in Ars Magazine (full text not online); The Guardian; Los Angeles Times; El Pais. “Fra Angelico to Leonardo: Italian Renaissance Drawings” at the [...]
1 July 2010 | Conferences, Islamic, Pre-Columbian, Renaissance
On July 9th, the Institut national d’histoire de l’art in Paris will present “1500-1600. Entre Islam et Nouveaux Mondes: les réformes dans un contexte global,” in the Salle Walter Benjamin of the Galerie Colbert. The event aims to extend the Reformation’s questions of “idolatry” beyond the European context, and consider well-known Reformation images within a broader frame [...]
28 June 2010 | Architecture, Medieval, Renaissance
In the Wall Street Journal, Jay Pridmore considers Florence’s Ponte Vecchio: When the morning sun reaches across the Arno and hits the varied ochre tones, the whole bridge glows as one in the hazeless Florentine light. Visually, distinct elements weave together like immutable strands— genius, commerce and tyranny, to name three big ones—of the Florentine [...]
20 June 2010 | Uncategorized
The Economist alerts its readers to the enduring Portuguese tradition of azulejos, “glazed ceramic tiles that were fashioned into narrative scenes.”
16 June 2010 | Architecture, Medieval
Designboom posts a blurb and excerpt from David Stephenson, Heavenly Vaults: From Romanesque to Gothic in European Architecture (Princeton Architectural Press, 2009). (See also a review by Marcus Bunyan of the 2009 exhibition at John Buckley Gallery, Richmond, Australia; 2007 show at Julie Saul and Brian Sholis review.) What appeals to me about this project is 1) seriality as a way of [...]
30 May 2010 | Uncategorized
Can art history be published, reported on, or otherwise communicated through the medium of the podcast? In logging many hours of commuting time, I have had reason to ponder this question.
9 May 2010 | Ancient, Books, Modern
Recently in the papers: Stuart Ferguson reviews Ravenna in Late Antiquity, by Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis Ingrid D. Rowland, “Radiant, Angry Caravaggio” [$] Julian Barnes on a new, 2,520-page edition of Delacroix’s Journal (“un document étonnamment complexe, hybride, chaotique, labyrinthique”)* Dalia Judovitz on her book Drawing on Art: Duchamp and Company
6 May 2010 | Architecture, Theory
Robert Hewison’s Ruskin on Venice has been reviewed by Steve Donoghue, Jonathan Glancey, Jonathan Wright, and Kevin Jackson. The productive tension between Ruskin’s Protestant moral sense, and his sensual affection for the visual arts, resulted in a distinctive prose variously termed “idiosyncratic,” “incomparable,” “magnificent,” and “gorgeous, insanely overwrought.”
25 April 2010 | Architecture, Renaissance
Three recent reviews and essays on the Renaissance: Colm Tóibín on the stubbornness of Lorenzo Lotto, Rachel Spence on early Renaissance art in Siena, and Nicolai Ouroussoff on “Palladio and His Legacy” at the Morgan Library.
24 April 2010 | Contemporary, Museums
Neo Rauch, central figure in the so-called Leipzig School of German painting, observes his fiftieth birthday with a double retrospective in Leipzig and Munich. The catalog is from Hatje Cantz.
18 April 2010 | Modern, Museums
In the March 30th issue of the New Republic, Jed Perl reflects on survey exhibitions of Joaquín Torres-García, Arshile Gorky and Anne Truitt.
18 April 2010 | Baroque/Neoclassical, Books
Roberto Calasso’s book, Tiepolo Pink (translated by Alastair McEwen for Knopf), which proposes the 23 etchings of the Scherzi di fantasia as an interpretive key, has elicited mixed reactions from a number of reviewers.
16 April 2010 | Contemporary
In the spring 2010 issue of X-TRA: Contemporary Art Quarterly, Damon Willick writes a memorial to the art historian Henry T. Hopkins (1928-2009): In 1960, Hopkins directed the Huysman Gallery, which was across the street from the Ferus Gallery on La Cienega. Though Huysman’s history was brief, the gallery offered an alternative to the dominant Ferus Gallery [...]
