Tag Archives: Art

Breathing Light: James Turrell at LACMA

A retrospective of artist James Turrell's work offers a personal, spiritual experience to viewers

Artist James Turrell (b. 1943, Los Angeles) played a pivotal role in the West Coast’s Light and Space Movement during the 1960s and 70s. The movement was rooted in the flexibility of perception and manipulation of space, and Turrell’s pieces … Continue reading

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Mortality in Your Hands: “The Pocket Size Tlingit Coffin” by Gérard Titus-Carmel

What if you could carry your mortality in your pocket? Gérard Titus-Carmel's powerful reflection on life and death

It took Gérard Titus-Carmel (1942-present) over a year to finish his work, The Pocket Size Tlingit Coffin. Completed in July of 1976, Coffin is made up of 127 drawings (and one physical model) of various sizes and techniques of the … Continue reading

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A Moment of Life and Death

Sixteenth and seventeenth century Dutch vanitas paintings weave life and death into a single, still moment

Life is fleeting, and death apparently eternal. Still life paintings that came out of the Netherlands in the late 1500s through the 1700s, known as vanitas, gather symbolic objects of death into a memorialized moment, halting the processes of both … Continue reading

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Between the Abstract and the Real

Death, architecture and the public imagination

How do we come to terms with something as abstract as death? Our own heavy, very real flesh will one day be in another indistinct form. The sacred bodies of our loved ones are subject to the same fate. What … Continue reading

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Finding Words

Emily McDowell's Empathy Cards beautifully frame empathic connection

Hallmark cards are there for the saccharine sweet moments in life, but how do you send a card to someone you know who is dying? Send one of Emily McDowell’s emotionally rich Empathy Cards. Being on either side of a terminal … Continue reading

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Saving Face

Salvador Dali's portrait of his dead brother incorporates -- guess who? -- himself

Salvador Dali isn’t exactly known for his subtlety. His large ego was only surpassed — and certainly supported — by his wild creativity, which showed us a (very) different way(s) to look at the world. We can look to his paintings … Continue reading

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