Just three months shy of her 90th birthday, Los Angeles artist Betye Saar gives a tour of her studio and explains what keeps her inspired.
Can art be taught? That question isn't as old or as hoary as one might imagine. For many centuries, artists were taught, either through a studio apprenticeship or, later, in a formal academy. It only became possible to think of art as something different in the 19th century, when the old system fell apart and it seemed conceivable that anyone could be an artist.
Because I'm surrounded by artists in both my professional and personal life, people often ask me what insights I've gained into the creative process. The unromantic truth is that being an artist in any field is hard work. Because artists need a lot of time alone in order to create, they wrestle with loneliness and insecurity.
The First International Dada Fair took place in Berlin in the summer of 1920, and included works by George Grosz, John Heartfield, Max Ernst and Francis Picabia. Photographs from the opening show the gallery teeming with paintings, posters and scurrilous assemblages; hanging from the ceiling is Prussian Archangel, by Heartfield and Rudolf Schlichter: a pig-faced dummy in military uniform.
As described by contemporary American artist James Turrell, "Light is not so much something that reveals, as it is itself the revelation." For centuries, revolutionary artists like Turrell have harnessed light to manipulate it as both subject and medium. In its many changing forms, light inspires-and provides flexibility to those who wish to use it metaphorically.
In the summer of 1967, Martin left New York and went off-grid before reappearing in New Mexico. The art she made there - with its buoyant bands of colour - offer no clues to the turbulent life of an artist who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
This Mondrian-inspired and tramp art styled box is signed and numbered by the artist, Bob Magahay. Magahay, a Hollywood set and costume designer made elaborate boxes such as this one for his friends and patrons. This box is made entirely from pieces of cardboard the work is not glued to a manufactured cardboard box .
Germany You might not know it, but we're in the middle of pagan ritual season! Every year from December until Easter, people from every country in Europe partake in pagan rituals in order to honor the planet's annual cycle of death and rebirth.
Generate your own artist statement for free, and if you don't like it, generate another one. Feel free to use the statements with funding applications, exhibitions, curriculum vitae, websites, ... My work explores the relationship between the tyranny of ageing and emotional memories.