Museums

Kehinde Wiley at TMA

Mar 17, 2017

My first time at the DIA, I stumbled across Kehinde Wiley’s Officer of the Hussars, and I was instantly hooked.

There’s a baroque richness to Wiley’s (huge!) paintings that puts him on par with the old masters, but his subjects are very modern. His Officer is a black man, circa right now, dressed in Timberland boots, baggy jeans and a wife-beater, brandishing a cavalry saber and looking back from the saddle of a rearing horse. It was completely unexpected, and so awesome that I couldn’t stop grinning.

Every time we go back, I revisit Officer of the Hussars, and it always makes me smile. When I heard that Wiley’s art was coming to TMA, I knew we had to go, and I’m really glad we did.

Highlights from the British Museum: The Lewis Chessmen

Feb 13, 2017

The British Museum is one of the world-class museums. Except for the Louvre in Paris, I can’t think of any other place with such an impressive collection of world-famous artifacts. It’s consistently ranked Britain’s #1 tourist attraction; last year almost 7 million people came to see such famous artifacts as the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon Marbles, Greek and Roman sculptures, golden treasures from around the world, Samurai armor, an Easter Island Moai, and much more.

Medieval Christian Art at the DIA

Mar 8, 2016

No real story here, just a couple of nice shots from a recent trip to the Detroit Institute of Arts. I decided to follow up on an experiment from a few years back and shoot only with my 50mm f/1.8 lens. It was a gloomy, overcast day and the finished photos evoked the right mood when desatured and split-toned.