It is astonishing, but painting desperately needs her defenders and explainers. This most primal of arts, which goes back to the very beginning of the human story, seems to confuse and repel much of contemporary civilisation. Like bad-omen comets, proclamations still come of the death of painting.
WE WROTE about displaying figurative art and nudes in March of last year, but thought it was worth revisiting this topic again because the act of surrounding oneself with such works can provoke interesting conversations about artistic expression, the human form, and personal taste.
I came across a TikTok recently that articulated something about my face I’d been struggling with. It was one of those videos where the speaker sits in the front seat of her car as if she’s been so overcome by an epiphany that she had to pull over and share.
Some art forms welcome, even require, collaboration. After all, it is the exceptionally rare film or television show that gets made by a single person. Music, too, often literally demands the assistance of others.
On a Monday morning in April, Sam Altman sat inside OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters, telling me about a dangerous artificial intelligence that his company had built but would never release. His employees, he later said, often lose sleep worrying about the AIs they might one day release without fully appreciating their dangers.
