By Randy Gladman A vast array of analytical essays exists in the blogosphere that seeks to explain why we collect art. Like trying to understand why we fall in love, the gamut of explanations is at once highly diverse yet difficult to nail down. The need for decorative embellishment, the expected investment value, the putting on of sophisticated airs, the desire for direct participation in culture… These certainly affect acquisition decisions and add fuel to the art market fire but they do not explain the emotional, cerebral pleasure collectors receive from their art trophies. Ask anyone who truly values the pieces they have acquired and...

By Randy Gladman The website of the Southeastern Centre for Contemporary Art (SECCA) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, recently posted a six-minute long time-lapse video of the production of an onsite mural painted by the artist Dalek (James Marshall) and his team of assistants. Created for the exhibition North Carolina New Contemporary, Dalek’s vibrant and kaleidoscopic abstraction of video-game aesthetics slowly assembles in front of the camera lens to the beat of a jazzy soundtrack. As I watched the video this past Saturday night, with a touch of cabin-fever inspired by the Hoth-like Toronto winter outside my window, I thought about how...

By Randy Gladman Contemporary culture is at its best when it is fresh and stuffed with wide-ranging and original ideas. Many of the most interesting contributors to the current arts have a fierce facility with extreme variety. While many of us get trapped in whirlpools where our bright ideas get replayed until they grow dull, great artists move from idea to idea, their notions adjusting in interesting ways at each pivot point. Sometimes the changes they push are vertical in that the artist dives deeper and deeper into a concept, unveiling ever-richer interpretations and aesthetics or carrying hot ideas across boundaries into new mediums....