Interviews & Essays

Johannes Vermeer, born in October 1632, grew up and spent most of his life in the Netherlandish city of Delft. Though his name faded after his death in 1675, his work was ‘rediscovered’ in the nineteenth century and has remained popular ever since. His uncanny ability to capture light—from the glow of sunshine behind a curtain to the sharp glimmer of precious stones—remains particularly striking nearly 500 years after the artist’s life. So too has the artist's masterful use of composition, contrast, and allegory continued to inspire.

Each month, Art & Object is highlighting Sekka's five best new art stories. Here are the best art stories from Sekka Magazine, October 2021.

It is an understandable human instinct to treat any crisis as if it were the first of its kind. A century ago, those fears revolved around a widening gap between rich and poor, a global pandemic, and a growing loss of community. Sound familiar?

Teens, who grew up on social media and meme culture, have taken to the online art world organically, where NFTs are like physical collector’s items only digital: instead of an oil painting to hang on the wall (or a Pokémon card to hold in their hand) the buyer gets a digital file and one of a kind identifying code that is recorded on a blockchain. Only one person has exclusive ownership and therefore digital bragging rights.

Many of the most prolific and thoughtful digital artists have backgrounds in industries outside of the fine art world such as animation or advertisement. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, they tend to be much more visible on social media than a great deal of fine artists. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they tend to be much more visible on social media than a great deal of fine artists. Here are seven digital artists you should be following on Instagram.

Upon its creation, Quidor’s painting was widely panned by art critics for being too dark and focusing more on the woodland nature than on the chase. In many ways, this was a clever choice by Quidor, whose perspective reveals the two men for what they are: immature characters fighting over a young woman who is attracted to neither of them.

The art market turmoil of the past two years—including shutdowns, mask mandates, exhibition cancelations, and conflicts over deaccessioning—may look bad, but a rash of new museum openings internationally might be signaling a time of rebirth in the art world.

The color yellow has a rich cultural history that rivals the warmth of the various shades that it comes in. Often linked to the sun, it has come to symbolize a multitude of things from power and divinity to peasantry and isolation.

The October 2021 Focus for Reframed is GhoulishHorror and death in entertainment shows have captivated millions of Americans in the last decade, from Netflix’s most-binged series in 2018, The Haunting of Hill House, and its more recent Midnight Mass, to podcasts including Crime Junkie and Anatomy of Murder.Why are we so haunted by horror?

In September 2017, the New York City Council established the city’s first Office of Nightlife (ONL) under the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment. The inaugural ONL report dropped in June of this year, with the goal of reframing and reinvigorating the city’s legendary nightlife scene as an economic engine. Included in the report were twenty-three recommendations, but one stood out from all the rest.