commentary

Nice news to cheer these days, with the passage of legislation that makes health care a right (however imperfect) rather than a privilege, and in the same bill, improves the administration of student financial aid. It’s good to see good people making a genuine effort to do good things and getting results. I believe in a good government. Baby steps are fine with me; just do the best you can.

It would also be nice if only we could dismiss those re-load happy brick-throwing angry losers who want to “take America back”— they did lose the last election, right? — as fringe elements. But they’re not. This is prime-time stuff, and it’s the same raw material that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing. No doubt, the "angry" anti-government Timothy McVeigh would be embraced with open arms by this crowd of losers. Let’s not take America back, thank you kindly. I’m for civilization; I prefer “go forward” to “take back”.

In this month’s issue of M the great and cool artist Chuck Close invites us into his studio in New York for a friendly conversation about art, together with Dinorah Delfin, a promising artist he is helping to mentor in an exhibition taking place this month that dealer Björn Ressle organized (see Uptown Listings).

In the newly expanded San Francisco section of M our own Natane Takeda reviews a show by Brooklyn-based Japanese artist, Tomokazu Matsuyama at the Frey Norris Gallery. And writer Lynda Wellhausen, who covers the Chicago art scene for M, reviews a retrospective of William Eggleston’s work at the Chicago Institute.
In other M news, starting this month you can find artist interviews and great images documenting art world events online at: www.theMmag.com/blog

M. Brendon MacInnis
Publisher