Walking in my neighborhood on a recent sunny Sunday morning I noticed a young and attractive family out for a brisk walk. The father, mother, and newborn stroller-bound baby appeared to be soaking in the breezes and sunshine that made the morning of November 8, 2009 exceptionally beautiful in Lake Worth, Florida. (more…)
by
George A. Magalios
September 29, 2009
Dear Mr. Tebow:
I am writing to wish you a speedy recovery from your recent concussion and to thank you for your awe-inspiring character and sportsmanship. (more…)
by
George A. Magalios
February 2009
Dear Mr. President:
Congratulations on your historic victory in a remarkable campaign. I am writing you to thank you for your courage and leadership. (more…)
by
George A. Magalios
February 2008
It is a rare event when an artist fuses disparate media into one cohesive concept and exhibition. It is rarer still when that exhibition engages the politics and history of a people without being ironic, pseudo-clever, or pedantic. (more…)
First Presented at the Collge Art Association Conference, New York, 2007
A Cynic is a spy who aims to discover what things are friendly or hostile to man; after making accurate observations, he then comes back and reports the truth.
-Epictetus (55 – 135 C.E.)
The Surface: Warhol’s Victory
Ladies, Gentlemen. Artists and Academics:
Let me begin by speaking about the wound…
Or, more precisely: the social/aesthetic disease from which the creative wound today originates: Cynical Irony. (more…)
If the enemy masses his forces he Loses ground, if he scatters he loses strength.
-Mario Merz quoting Vietcong General Vo Nguyen Giap, 1968
Everything has always been about space, about our relationship to movement in space, possession of space, and power over others (nature, animals, and humans) to acquire and protect space. No matter how sophisticated we may think painting has become pictorially, semiotically, as a practice, or as a discourse, we are always painting as dwellers of both geopolitical and psychic space. (more…)
by
George A. Magalios
July 8, 2008
In the heat and deathly humidity of Florida after seemingly interminable practices (for my 12 year-old body) my little league baseball coach used to say that people only remember who finishes first, and nobody ever remembers who finishes second. (more…)
by
George A. Magalios
July 14, 2008
Cynical irony is a social disease born of cowardice, arrogance, and a derisive sense of humor based on negativity and schadenfreude. In the contemporary political realm of cartoons, sit-coms, talk shows and the relatively recent phenomena of mock news shows such as “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report”, one sees the development and seepage of irony into the popular cultural mainstream at an unparalleled level. (more…)
Surface versus Ground: the battle between the sign and that which is signified. This contest encmpasses good and evil, rich and poor, Republican and Democrat, environmentalist and gun lobyist and all of the central epistemological dichotomies of our time. (more…)