Art & the Opposites

What are artists doing in their work that people--including artist--want to do in their lives? The answer is in this great principle stated by poet and founder of the philosophy Aesthetic Realism, Eli Siegel: "All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves."

Chaim Koppelman, printmaker; Marcia Rackow, painter,
Dale Laurin, architect; Ken Kimmelman, filmmaker;
with Carrie Wilson, moderator

--will all give examples from their own work and that of contemporary artists showing how, for instance, surface and depth, space and matter, abandon and restraint are working vividly in contemporary painting, prints, architecture and the film.

All this will take place in the School of Visual Arts Amphitheater on Friday, January 21st at 7 PM at:

209 East 23rd St. (East of Third Ave.)

We invite everyone to come! Get there at 6:30 to be sure of a seat.


For further information visit the January calendar of the Artists Talk on Art and Aesthetic Realism Foundation









This talk by Marcia Rackow and Donita Ellison, first presented at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, looks at works by Alex Katz, Chuck Close, Duane Hanson, and others. The speakers say:

“Central in all realist art is the seeing that the common-place also has grandeur….And one of its great values is that it is critical, through form, of the ways we can lessen reality, divide it, be disproportionate.”


Further resources please see:

Donita Ellison, Art Educator and Aesthetic Realism Associate
Michael Palmer on John Sloan, reprinted from Journal of the Print World
The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method
A New Perspective for Anthropology: The Aesthetic Realism method
Aesthetic Realism vs. Racism
Photography Education: the Aesthetic Realism Viewpoint
Lynette Abel on Sargent's Madame X; or, Assertion and Retreat in Woman
Self-Expression and What Interferes: an Aesthetic Realism Discussion
"Is a Person an Aesthetic Situation?" by Eli Siegel, Founder of Aesthetic Realism
Aesthetic Realism Resources
The Terrain Gallery / Aesthetic Realism Foundation
The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known (TRO)
Rev. Wayne Plumstead on Aesthetics and Religion
Article by Rev. Wayne Plumstead, United Methodist minister, in the Circuit Rider
Park United Methodist Church, pastor Wayne Plumstead, presents Parenting Workshop
Article by Rev. Wayne Plumstead on on Cause of Columbine HS shootings