This week’s Pink Thing of the Day comes from an exhibit I saw way back in 2017 by photographer Stephen Shore and his quietly captivating image Room 509, Dnipro Hotel, Kiev, Ukraine, July 18, 2012. The photograph seems almost disarmingly simple: a hotel room washed in soft pink tones, a bed neatly made, and a doorway that reveals a second room beyond. But the longer you look, the more the image unfolds. The composition layers space through that open doorway, creating a subtle narrative — two rooms, two viewpoints, and the quiet suggestion of someone just out of frame. Continue reading Pink Thing of the Day: Room 509, Dnipro Hotel By Stephen Shore→
Let’s take a look at a painting that feels less like a traditional artwork and more like a window into a dream. Created by French Surrealist painter Yves Tanguy, Extinction of Useless Lights (1927) invites viewers into a mysterious landscape where logic takes a back seat and imagination takes the wheel.
Tanguy was a key figure in Surrealism, which explored dreams, the subconscious, and the strange imagery that exists beyond everyday reality. Interestingly, he was largely self-taught as an artist. After encountering the ideas of Surrealist leader André Breton in the 1920s, Tanguy quickly developed a visual style that would become unmistakably his own. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Extinction of Useless Lights By Yves Tanguy→
Completed in 1972 by architect Kisho Kurokawa, Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower was one of the most radical expressions of Japan’s Metabolist movement. Designed as a living, modular organism, the building consisted of prefabricated capsules meant to be replaced over time — an architecture of flexibility, impermanence, and futurist optimism. In reality, the capsules were never updated. Aging infrastructure, rising maintenance costs, and changing safety standards eventually led to the tower’s closure and demolition in 2022, transforming it from visionary landmark to architectural legend. Continue reading Eye On Design: Nakagin Capsule Tower Commemorative Lamp→
While wandering through the Museum of Modern Art last week, I noticed something unexpected in the gift shop: a new collectible Barbie inspired by what is arguably Vincent van Gogh’s most famous painting, The Starry Night. The doll felt perfectly placed, considering the original painting hangs just upstairs as part of MoMA’s permanent collection. Continue reading Yes, It Exists: Starry Night Barbie→
For many artists working in the 1960s and ’70s, ideas often superseded the physical making of art. These ideas were typically ideological, structural, and philosophical in nature and conveyed in the form of words, grids, and graphs. By the 1980s, Thomas Schütte and other artists ushered in a return to representation, which some critics described as a response to a “hunger for images.“ Around this time, cherries, watermelon, and other kinds of comestibles became motifs in his work. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Thomas Schütte, Melonely→
