Art

MODERNISM IS A HOAX:

The Cartoonist Who Mocked the Madness of Modernism: With biting satire, Alan Dunn captured how 20th-century architectural trends left everyday Americans astonished, baffled, and enraged. (Gabriele Neri, MIT Press Reader)

In 1936, Alan Dunn was paid $25 for his first cartoon in Architectural Record. The drawing shows a scene from American suburbia, with two single-family houses side by side. On the right, we see a modern, geometrically abstract abode with large windows set into very slim walls, a flat roof, bright metal parapets, and no traces of decoration. In short, a work of architecture aligned with the new avant-garde style spreading across the country.

Gabriele Neri is the author of “Alan Dunn,” from which this article is adapted.
But to the left, another house appears — one with much bolder features. It is composed of a post set into the ground on which two bare slabs are wedged, which constitute the entire living space on their own. The elevated living space is reached via steps with a curved handrail that rises from the ground to the top. There are no other pillars, not even walls, a roof, or windows. The house, in its sculptural incompleteness, is an exercise in absolute radicalism. Looking perfectly at ease, its inhabitant reads the paper, lounging on a futuristic chair, seemingly unperturbed by issues of privacy or climate control. This display gets on the nerves of his modernist neighbors, irritated by such extreme modernity.

“Well, we’re dated!” the wife complains to her husband. “That abstractionist next door built his house in space-time.”

It is a typical setup by Dunn, then a mainstay of The New Yorker’s graphic humor, notorious for satirizing the transformations of 20th-century American architecture. Trained at the National Academy of Design and the American Academy in Rome, Dunn was a shrewd visual critic who brilliantly juxtaposed everyday aesthetic banality with surreal disruption. He showed that, rather than a matter of substance, the modernity seeping into Americans’ lives was, above all, a phenomenon of form — a passing fashion soon to be supplanted by new trends and convictions.

JUST BUSINESS:

IN SEARCH OF BANKSY: The British street artist’s identity has been debated, and closely guarded, for decades. A quest to solve the riddle took Reuters from a bombed-out Ukrainian village to London and downtown Manhattan — and uncovered much more than a name. (SIMON GARDNER, JAMES PEARSON AND BLAKE MORRISON, March 13, 2026, Reuters)

Reuters took into account Banksy’s privacy claims – and the fact that many of his fans wish for him to remain anonymous. Yet we concluded that the public has a deep interest in understanding the identity and career of a figure with his profound and enduring influence on culture, the art industry and international political discourse. In so doing, we applied the same principle Reuters uses everywhere. The people and institutions who seek to shape social and political discourse are subject to scrutiny, accountability, and, sometimes, unmasking. Banksy’s anonymity – a deliberate, public-facing, and profitable feature of his work – has enabled him to operate without such transparency.

As for the risk he might face of retaliation or censorship, Britain’s legal and political establishments seem comfortable with Banksy’s messages and how he delivers them.

On September 7, for example, he stenciled a provocative piece on the exterior wall of London’s Royal Courts of Justice, a historically protected building. It depicted a judge in wig and robes bashing an unarmed protester with a gavel. Two months earlier, the government had designated the pro-Palestinian group Palestine Action as a terrorist organization. The day before the painting appeared, about 900 people were arrested at protests against the ban.

Stephens didn’t reply to a question about whether the mural was tied to that crackdown. In any event, Banksy’s painted protest against British justice appears to have gotten a pass so far.

Under local laws, graffiti is a crime, with penalties ranging from fines and community service to (rarely) jail time. The day after the mural went up, London’s Metropolitan Police said it was investigating “a report of criminal damage” to the building. An investigation remains under way, the Ministry of Justice said. The mural was power-washed off the wall, leaving behind a shadow of the image. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the ministry said that as of December, the government had spent £23,690 removing the piece. The work continues, it said: Next, specialist contractors will use laser equipment on the stain.

The justice ministry declined to say whether Banksy was penalized or paid compensation. Stephens had no comment.

Some artists have questioned if Banksy, once considered anti-establishment, now enjoys special treatment from Britain’s powers that be. In 2014, Vice Media asked: “Why Is Banksy the Only Person Allowed to Vandalize Britain’s Walls?” The story quoted David Speed, a street artist who ran a British graffiti collective. “It’s very much one rule for him and another rule for everyone else,” Speed told Vice. “When street artists do it, it’s vandalism. When Banksy does it, it’s an art piece.”

Contacted by Reuters, Speed praised Banksy as “a really important artist of modern times.” Yet he still wonders why “one artist should be able to have carte blanche and everyone else would be subject to penalties.”

“Is he above the law?” Speed said. “The evidence would suggest that he is.”

Some experts believe Banksy’s ability to use the world as his canvas is money in the bank. One analyst, MyArtBroker, observed that the Royal Courts of Justice mural helped bolster Banksy’s market value.

Although such public pieces “cannot be monetised directly, they maintain visibility and authorship – qualities that keep collector confidence high and demand active,” art investment site MyArtBroker wrote in a report on the 2025 market for Banksy’s work. Banksy’s “street interventions,” it said, help prop up demand and prices for his art as a whole. One Banksy piece was sold by Sotheby’s for £4.2 million ($5.7 million) last year, the report noted.

Banksy lawyer Stephens didn’t answer questions about whether Banksy has been penalized for his exploits. But he noted that some owners are happy when he paints on their buildings. “It appears that if people find a Banksy added to their wall, most of them call Sotheby’s rather than the police,” he wrote. “The question of where the artist’s work sits in the legal landscape is an interesting one, and I’m as bemused as anyone else.”

This is the story of the art, commerce and paradox of Banksy, arguably the most famous anonymous man in the world. The journey to understand him began in Ukraine and took us to a billboard in New York’s Meatpacking District, and the walls and auction houses of London.

COMFORT:

What is it, therefore, that makes a good walking stick?: As it turns out, quite a lot. Gabriel Stone investigates. (Gabriel Stone, 3/10/26, Country Life)

A well-made stick is an object of beauty, a symbol of connection to the land from which it was plucked and, over many patient hours, refined. That symbolism becomes weightier still when it takes the form of the crozier, or shepherd’s crook, long carried by bishops on ceremonial occasions to represent pastoral care for a perpetually wayward flock. Cathedrals excepted, a wooden stick feels out of place in town or, at least, a striking style statement. In the countryside, however, there’s no finer companion to tackle uneven ground, beat down nettles, shoo errant livestock or simply rest on in contemplation.

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS QUALITY:

What if every artwork you’ve ever seen is a fake?: I was shocked to learn just how many pieces of art sold around the world are forgeries. But should finding out something is a cheap dupe really make us enjoy it less? (Nell Stevens, 10 Jul 2025, The Guardian)

Many years ago, I met a man in a pub in Bloomsbury who said he worked at the British Museum. He told me that every single item on display in the museum was a replica, and that all the original artefacts were locked away in storage for preservation.

I was shocked and challenged him. It surely could not be the case that millions of annual visitors to the British Museum were encountering and experiencing not tangible, concrete treasures of human history, but the shallow simulacra of replicas. I may have even used the term “fraud”.

Yet on my way home that night, I began to question my own experiences at the British Museum. I wondered what it meant if the Greek water jar I had been so moved by, depicting a woman who may have been Sappho bent over a scroll, had in fact been a worthless copy. Did that make the experience any less real?

No.

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS QUALITY:

People say they prefer stories written by humans over AI-generated works, yet new study suggests that’s not quite true (Martin Abel & Reed Johnson, 3/18/25, The ConversationO)

People say they prefer a short story written by a human over one composed by artificial intelligence, yet most still invest the same amount of time and money reading both stories regardless of whether it is labeled as AI-generated.

BIZARRO HOPPER:

The Secret Painter by Joe Tucker review – art for art’s sake (Andrew Martin, 27 Jan 2025, The Guardian)

“The Secret Painter” here is Joe Tucker’s uncle Eric, apparently the most unaesthetic of men, inhabiting the most unaesthetic of places, the industrial town of Warrington, Lancashire. He kept his trousers up with a rope; his habitual bomber jacket was patched with sticky tape, as was the cracked rear window of his car. He worked as a labourer and his regular haunts were Warrington pubs, the rougher the better, and the local Betfred.

But when Eric Tucker died, aged 86, in 2018, more than 500 paintings were found in the small council house he had long shared with his mother. The works, of the highest quality, depicted mid-20th-century working-class northern life. Many showed blurry, smoke-filled pub interiors, beautifully composed and full of slightly grotesque figures, typically side-on to show their strange profiles. They often look pale (except for red noses) and pensive, but they all have one another, and here is the first of many paradoxes about Eric Tucker.

He depicted scenes of sociability yet he himself was an uncommunicative loner with few close friends.

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS QUALITY:

If You Can’t Tell the Difference, There Is No Difference
(Shelly Palmer, December 1, 2024)

Our clients’ tests confirm this, if the audience isn’t told what it’s listening to, they have no idea how it was created, don’t notice, and don’t care.

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS QUALITY:

Despite Creative Hubris, Artists Are Quietly Embracing A.I. in Their Work (Aaron Mok • 12/05/24, Observer)

Artists across the entertainment, art and design industries are biting their nails over the rise of generative A.I. Many argue the technology violates intellectual property, devalues creative labor and flattens creativity. But as A.I. image and video generators advance, a growing minority of artists are embracing the tools with open arms. Creative professionals ranging from art directors to filmmakers say using A.I. saves time, boosts creativity and leads to new opportunities.