Edward Hopper's New York at the Whitney →

A wonderful exhibition at the Whitney in Manhattan.

Matisse in the 1930s at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

A wonderful exhibition that I’ve been meaning to see since it opened. I’m glad I finally managed to experience it today.

Having way too much fun with the DALL-E image generator

I decided to create an account on the open AI website and play around with the DALL-E image generator. My first generation was “a Bassett hound in a Wonder Woman costume in a Classical Greek mosaic” and my second generation was prompted with “an impressionist painting of a Bassett hound writing on a typewriter on a tropical island.” Below are some of my results.

Some socialist realist art from Bulgaria

Working women!

The Rouge Exhibit at the Grand Palais in Paris

While I was in Paris, I was lucky enough to catch the tail end of the Rogue exhibition at the Grand Palais. This was an exhibition of art from 1917 to 1953, and included amazing works from the early Soviet Era, while not whitewashing the horrors of Stalinism.

One thing that fascinated me were the quasi-erotic paintings of athletic bodies produced during the Stalinist era. According to the curators, because Soviet society was so prudish, the only way to paint nudes or scantily-clad figures was to portray young Soviet citizens engaging in sports activities. These images would have been quite titillating, I imaging, but they were acceptable because they upheld socialist ideals of physical fitness.