Art Beat

Where the Indigenous and Comics Meet

By Arts Desk

Until recently, American Indians appeared only as stereotypes in comic books, their real narratives and folklore obscured by generic images of teepees and headdresses.

Weekly Poem: ‘Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down’

Bob Hicok is the author of five collections of poems, including "This Clumsy Living" (2007), which won the 2008 Bobbitt Prize from the Library of Congress.

Conversation: Filmmaker Ramin Bahrani

By Arts Desk

"Goodbye Solo" is the third film by 34-year-old director Ramin Bahrani. It film won the Critic's Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 2008, and is just beginning to be seen in selected theaters around the country.

Conversation: Jonathan Lethem & L.J. Davis Ponder ‘A Meaningful Life’

L.J. Davis' 1971 novel, "A Meaningful Life," re-published with an introduction by Jonathan Lethem, is a black humor romp into the bowels of life's greatest disappointments.

Poems Spring Up Everywhere

On this first day of April when you're playing practical jokes on your friends or family, do it poetically. Even better, celebrate the beginning of National Poetry Month instead.

William Kentridge at SFMOMA

In the catalog for "William Kentridge: Five Themes," a major survey now showing at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the artist writes: "[B]efore the work can begin (the visible finished work of the drawing, film or sculpture), a…

Weekly Poem: ‘Evening Walk’

Charles Simic was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1938 and moved to the United States in 1954. He was Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2007-2008.

Conversation: Robert Lynch, President, Americans for the Arts

By Arts Desk

Amid the economic downturn, many arts organizations around the country are feeling the hurt right now, along with everyone else.

Conversation: Mary Gaitskill’s ‘Don’t Cry’

Vladimir Nabokov once wrote that art is "beauty plus pity." It's a formula author Mary Gaitskill took to heart, after quoting his words in a tribute essay years ago. They've both been accused, after all, of varying levels of perversity…

Witness to the American West

Like most great figures of the American West, there is a touch of legend in the tale of how Ernest L. Blumenschein made it to New Mexico.