Tag: art

by jad

Organic Intelligence at Slip Belltown

“OPERATION” by @benirito at ORGANIC INTELLIGENCE at @slip_belltown I made a friend on Monday. We’d first met at an art show, so it seemed fitting that we’d meet up again at another. But first, we pretended to be elsewhere for a while, somewhere far from this city we’ve both adopted. We sat at a sidewalk cafe, performing aperitivo under a Seattle sun turned a Mediterranean orange by the smoke of Spokane’s hellfires, and we talked about what it meant to think and feel and relate in this part of the world. Our backgrounds were vastly different, and yet, the resonances … Continue reading “Organic Intelligence at Slip Belltown” →

by jad

Rothko, Sontag, and a Book Called Fotografare

“The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them.” That’s what Mark Rothko said in 1965 about the colorfield work he’s most famous for, an insistence on a “meaning” behind the “abstraction” that his son, Christopher, has reiterated in interviews about the major exhibit he co-curated in Florence this year: “He wanted those who looked at his paintings to experience the same religious experience that he had while creating them.” I’m no art historian and had no sense of his intentions when I encountered a Rothko in real life for … Continue reading “Rothko, Sontag, and a Book Called Fotografare” →

by jad

#JimothySummer: Peace Dropping Slow

It’s official! The summer of 2026 is #JimothySummer! I have never felt prouder of my city. Thank you @councilmember.amr 🥁 and thank you Jimothy! I even teared up a little during this love fest. There were soooo many beautiful artworks that I’ll have to post a follow-up reel later to do them justice. For now, enjoy Seattle at its best 🦝 x “For peace comes dropping slow…” I was planning a follow-up video with more of the artists after yesterday’s lovely proclamation of #JimothySummer by @councilmember.amr, and before the tragic news from the Seattle Center that we all heard about … Continue reading “#JimothySummer: Peace Dropping Slow” →

by jad

The Bored Invigilators of Florence

The bored invigilators of Florence. The first was in the Uffizi. The rest were in Palazzo Strozzi. x Il posto era stracolmo. A phrase that could describe any place in Florence. x People and paintings in the Uffizi. It’s a bit of a cheat, but one of my favorite reasons for visiting a museum or art gallery is staging the works on display in the act of their apprehension by the other visitors. I must say, however: the Uffizi did not make this easy. For the first half of our visit, there was a dizzying chaotic energy in almost every … Continue reading “The Bored Invigilators of Florence” →

by jad

Caravaggio’s Medusa (The Horror of Being Perceived)

People with cameras and windows with views in Florence’s famous Uffizi galleries. x Caravaggio’s Head of Medusa in Room 90 of the Uffizi, caught in what I’d like to imagine is the horror of being perceived. Photography is decapitation again and again. x The hallways and sightlines of the Uffizi. x

by jad

Portals (More from Vinci)

More views from Vinci. x Portals. x “I became fascinated not only by his art, but by his insatiable curiosity. He refused to stay within a single discipline, moving effortlessly between painting, engineering, anatomy, architecture, and science. Somewhere in my ten-year-old mind I decided that if I wanted to become an artist, I needed to go to Italy. Maybe even live there. I wanted to speak the language and learn the way Leonardo learned.” @christine.bingham.art on christinebinghamart.substack.com x

by jad

Vinci: The Vitruvian Man and Da Vincian Geometries

While we were in Florence, we took the opportunity to spend a day in Vinci, the birthplace of Italy’s canonical Renaissance Man and the town’s most famous “da,” Maestro Leonardo. There was something quite cute about the town’s embrace of all things Leo, and while some aspects of its three museums dedicated to his life and work felt a little Disneyfied, the overall effect showed a town that took art and education seriously. x We’d been warned that Leonardo’s childhood home was a long walk just outside of the main part of Vinci, with a steep incline and little shade, … Continue reading “Vinci: The Vitruvian Man and Da Vincian Geometries” →

by jad

Golden Hour with Florence’s Golden Boy

Another series showing the passage of time. After visiting the Uffizi, we passed by Palazzo Strozzi to get tickets for the Rothko exhibit later that evening. You can see how dramatically different @superflexstudio’s artwork look in the inner courtyard at those two times of the day. I’ll be posting more from both galleries soon. x This one’s for Christine for teasing me about butts in the Met. It also marks the moment when the skies cleared, and the city started to shake off its dreary overcoat. x Golden hour with Florence’s golden boy. x

by jad

A Part of Us Left in Italy

We’re back in New York, but we’ve left a part of us in Italy. Going through my photos and thinking about our trip feels a little like this scene around Constantine’s Colosso in fragments at the Capitoline Museums: bits and pieces indexing other bits and pieces, a mosaic of affect still in need of putting together. It’s a good thing I have so many photos to go through. I’m going to need more time processing this experience. x Our trip to Italy was a convergence of several “tracks,” for the lack of a better word, one of which being @christine.bingham.art’s … Continue reading “A Part of Us Left in Italy” →

by jad

Near Raphael’s Grave, Thinking About Orientalism

I’m sitting in a room that’s a ten-minute walk from where Raphael is buried in Rome, going through the last couple of shots I took from the exhibit of his life and work at the Met, writing these words while waiting for the sun to start setting, to get respite from the unbearable heat blazing across Europe. And I’m only just now noticing the subtitle the curators had chosen: “sublime poetry.” Being in Italy during this heatwave has been an interesting twist to a challenge we’d already set ourselves. Italy is infamous for its inscrutable ways. But there’s graffiti in … Continue reading “Near Raphael’s Grave, Thinking About Orientalism” →