If it’s true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the beholder happened to be Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich henchmen, then the likes of Kandinsky, Kirchner, Kokoschka, and Klee (and that’s just the early 20^th Century artistic giants whose names start with “K”) were in big trouble.  By the time the Nazi campaign to purge the world of modernist art ended, some 20,000 pieces were confiscated, hidden, sold, or destroyed.  

"Symbolic Abstraction" was the term Hagedorn used to reference his work, which spanned the 1950s to the 21st century. He employed the mediums of painting, drawing, watercolor and gouache. Through the decades the connective tissue throughout his output was his vivid colors, forms, and shapes. His work relates all these elements in the search  for a connection between the human  system, spirit, and the world it simultaneously reflects and creates. 

At once restrained and exuberant, Smith transforms compositions of comestibles, silverware, cutlery and plates into tableaus teeming with resonance and eloquence. “Food is something we all have a relationship with,” said Carrie Mae Smith. “My work examines and re-examines these familiar subjects, experimenting with composition, brushstrokes, light and shadow, inviting the viewer to fill in the blanks of both form and context.” 

One of the possibilities that await Instagram users who are driven either by curiosity or boredom with their current feed is to take a chance on the “explore” feature.  Within seconds, a user who observed a fellow foodie’s dinner in Los Angeles can now be transported to such far-flung locales as Malaysia or Sao Paolo.  Spain-based artists Jorge Martinez Phil Gonzalez have now taken that feature one step further with the creation of the world’s first Instagram Gallery in Miami.  

ArtCenter’s new exhibition, “In His Own Likeness,” showcases diverse media (photography, sculpture, painting and video) of four Latin American artists who illuminate  the subject matter of gender and its relationship with power and divinity. The artists are from Guatemala, Mexico and Cuba and include ArtCenter/South Florida resident artist Othón Castañeda, plus visiting artist Eny Roland, with Rocío García and Mario Santizo. The exhibition is currently on view through March 16 at the Richard Shack Gallery

The Anita Shapolsky Gallery in New York City is presenting a multifaceted group of abstract paper works by 27 artists the gallery has exhibited over the years. Paper experimentation shows the dichotomy between planning aspects in art and free form automatic drawing. These works show great technical skill which brings the artists visions to life. The works gives incredible insights into their diverse approaches and the timelessness of their art. 

If living the bohemian lifestyle is about creating, than it would be reductive to dismiss the crusty guy selling newspaper clip art outside of Prospect Park on principle. Dismiss him for making crappy art, sure. True, Hemingway and Baldwin probably benefited from the community of artists that they interacted with, but Emily Dickinson never left her room. Where you are might not hurt, but it might not help much either. What you do matters more. 

Eleanor Bennett is  the CIWEM Young Environmental Photographer of The Year 2013 and has also won first places with National Geographic, The World Photography Organisation, Nature's Best Photography and The National Trust to name a few. Her photography has been published in the Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The British Journal of Psychiatry, Life Force Magazine, British Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and as the cover of books and magazines extensively throughout the world. 

There has always been something highly conspicuous about our obsession with the macabre deaths of famous people. There is the aforementioned Sylvia Plath bowing into the oven, playing Gretel to the wicked witches in her head; Kurt Cobain and all the conspiracy theories casting a gaseous haze around that sinister shotgun; even Anna Nicole Smith, who has been immortalized, paradoxically, because the narrative of her life seemed so destined to end in sordid, premature death. 

While we understand that these works are fastened to the canvas, that the paint is permanent once dried, there is an ever-evolving quality to their surface—one seems to not only respond emotionally, but the paintings themselves react optically to the colors and light around them. Stripped of narrative and void of external references, what remains is pure and intense color. In an age where artists are constantly exploring new mediums and trying to break away from what has already been done, Eric Freeman finds his mode of expression by pushing through the traditional medium of oil on canvas.