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Exhibitions

Aesthetic Autonomy

This blog introduces the current exhibition Fables, Allegories, and Aestheticism: The Art of the Message.   The exhibition compares two modes of art making; a mode which prioritizes the art itself as “the message of form” and a mode that prioritizes “the message of content.” Artists who follow the “message of form” create art without an …

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The Life of Thomas Eakins

We explore in this post, the family, friends, education, and art of Thomas Eakins in relationship to his social contexts and highlight key events and paintings.  As many readers know, Cedarhurst cares for four paintings by Eakins — Samuel Murray, 1889; Professor Barker, 1886 (and the excised canvas fragment of Barker’s hand turned into a separate painting); …

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The Mountain Lake Experience

This blog introduces the exhibition Rural Avant Garde: The Mountain Lake Experience showing at Cedarhurst October 18 through January 3, 2021.   The exhibition was organized by the Longwood Center for the Visual Arts in Farmville, Virginia.  In 2018, the companion book was published as The Mountain Lake Symposium and Workshop: Art in Locale.  Edited by Ray Kass and Howard Risatti. The …

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John Cage Values

John Cage is not a household name, though his music influenced Frank Zappa, Yoko Ono, Laurie Anderson, David Bowie, Sonic Youth, Radiohead, Stereolab, the Kronos Quartet and reached well into the visual arts. The occasion for my blog post is the traveling exhibition Rural Avant Garde: The Mountain Lake Experience now showing at Cedarhurst until January 4. If you …

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Smithsonian’s “Things Come Apart”

This exhibition explores the product design and evolution of some of our most cherished tools, the telephone, the clock, and the camera.  And many others.  Along the way, we discover that some of our most important, like the smartphone, though incredibly well-designed, and without a doubt, now indispensable, may not be the most sustainable and best …

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Encyclopédie, Smithsonian, & Cedarhurst

What could the 18th-century and the 21st-century possibly have in common?  Two things: a love of knowledge, and a love of takings things apart to see how they work.  See Things Come Apart and Jefferson & Diderot blogs. The Encyclopédie gathered current knowledge in written essays and illustrations to make it available beyond aristocrats and scholars. A side-by-side comparison; left, …

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