Sam Ben-Meir

[caption id="attachment_71775" align="alignright" width="100"] Sam Ben-Meir[/caption]

Sam Ben-Meir, PhD is an adjunct professor at Mercy College. His current research focuses on environmental ethics and animal studies. sam@alonben-meir.com

Light and Obliquity: Edward Hopper at the Whitney Museum

By Sam Ben-Meir NEW YORK — Clement Greenberg once observed that Edward Hopper was a “bad painter. But if he were a better painter, he would, most likely, not be so superior an artist.” “Edward Hopper’s New York,” a major retrospective currently on view at the Whitney Museum, confirms this judgment. There is occasionally a

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Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Ben-Meir, USA

‘King Pleasure’ Lives Up to Its Name

By Sam Ben-Meir NEW YORK — Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure, on view at the Starrett-Lehigh Building in Chelsea, features more than 200 artworks and artifacts from the artist’s estate – 177 of which have never been exhibited before. This highly unusual and intimate exhibition was assembled not by a curator or art historian, but by Basquiat’s

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Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Ben-Meir, USA

The Authoritarian Personality and Rise of Right-Wing Extremism

By Sam Ben-Meir NEW YORK — If nothing else, the Republican Party has steadily removed any doubt that it has embraced an extremism that threatens the future of American Democracy. We can clearly perceive the imminent danger that the Party poses in several crucial ways, perhaps the most salient being the refusal of candidates to

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Opinion, Sam Ben-Meir, USA

‘Philip Guston Now’ at Boston Museum of Fine Art

During his 50 years as a painter, Canadian American artist Philip Guston created a body of work that stands out as among the most significant and daring of the 20th century. His development as an artist involved several phases, and culminated with images notable for their dark, biting humor, distinct palette, unmistakable lexicon of objects, and concern with themes when taken together seem designed to heighten our uneasiness and have us question everything we thought we knew about painting. [Sam Ben-Meir]

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Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Ben-Meir