In my late 20’s, after returning to the west coast from Africa, I sought a temporary job before entering graduate school. The employment office sent me to apply for clerical work with a large advertising firm in Los Angeles.  I was excited. Advertising had always interested me. For

In 2014, I wrote about the Intentional Fallacy, a term of literary criticism. (6/5/14)   The theory states that to understand a work of art, nothing is relevant except the piece itself.  Knowledge of the artist’s childhood or what he or she ate for breakfast has no bearing on int

The trick to make something old seem new again is to describe it using different words. The world will be mesmerized by the novelty. The ploy worked for Andy Warhol’s soup cans and made him a fortune. To be honest, I don’t believe there’s been a new idea in literature since Thea

Andy Warhol, the man who painted Campbell soup labels and framed them as art, once said, “Good business is the best art.” (“Damage Control, by Ben Lerner, Harper’s, Dec. 2013 p. 46) Certainly, when it came to art Warhol knew his business. When the performance artist, Dorothy P

The other day, the mail brought the latest edition of Portal, a glossy magazine published by my local art museum. Browsing through the pages, I came across two articles of interest. The first was a critic’s essay defending an exhibit that angered several patrons, material which, the