Scarce Painting by Famed Artist Vermeer On View in Balboa Park

By Kraig Cavanaugh | June 18, 2015 |

Johannes Vermeer’s “The Woman in Blue Reading a Letter” now on exhibit at the Timken Museum of Art is one of the artist’s very best paintings, but other images and objects included in the boutique exhibition titled “Vermeer” serve to distract rather than enhance the Dutch Baroque masterpiece. With only thirty-five surviving paintings attributed to this baroque master, the odds of normally seeing one of his jewel-like canvases in San Diego are greater than winning the SuperLotto. This is real jackpot!….

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The Klines: My Dinner with Yahweh at La Jolla’s JCC

By Kraig Cavanaugh | May 4, 2015 |

Michelangelo sculptures, an entire Gothic cathedral made from plain aluminum crutches and huge tacky postcards are all part of an irreverent and provocative but definitely worth seeing exhibition titled “Seeing is Believing: A Reinvention of Articles of Faith” that was curated by 2013 San Diego Art Prize winners Debby and Larry Kline. Now on exhibit at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center in La Jolla, the exhibition is a very odd success due to amazing structure, overtly tacky kitsch, and spectacular failure… (read more…)

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Kevin Winger’s Paintings Begin to Soar

By Kraig Cavanaugh | January 5, 2015 |

Imagine “Candy Land” ruined after a devastating cyclone strike! Kevin Winger’s paintings from his new “Organic Demarcation Series” feature strong map-like landscapes in saccharine sweet hues that appear gathered from the sickened remains of a child after becoming ill from consuming every colorful confection in an old time candy store. Read more…

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Successful Word Play at the Athenaeum

By Kraig Cavanaugh | October 30, 2014 |

Do words have fixed meaning or are they arbitrary? The artist Allison Wiese poses this question by creating illuminating signage in her solo-exhibition “Speaking Otherwise” at the Athenaeum Music and Arts Library in La Jolla. Read more…

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A Zucchini Saves Art Exhibit

By Kraig Cavanaugh | September 11, 2014 |
Heather Rasmussen's "Untitled (Zucchini and yellow chair on table)," 2013. © Heather Rasmussen.

Gemstone arses, secret codes, and a hilarious erect zucchini come together to salvage an experimental art exhibit filled with art-star pomposity and copycat mentality at Quint Gallery’s Horizon exhibition in La Jolla…

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