"A Post-Human 3D Printed Piece of Art" is the title of an article on Whitaker's CAD models (blobs) and 3D printed sculpture. The author, Brian Krassenstein, has written an insightful description of the work.

If you have not already, it may be time to familiarize yourself with the work of distinguished artist Manfred Mohr. Since late in the 1950's, Mohr has occupied himself with rigrously strict and minimalist images, their apparent simplicity accompanied by a rhythmic pattern. Roaming through this site will afford you much information about him and his philosophy.

35,000 year old cave paintings recently re-examined in Indonesia have forced historians to push back their dating of the earliest human art. Originally thought to be younger because the oppressive heat at the site would preclude a longer existence, the paintings of wild animals and hands have now been dated to roughly 39,000 years ago. This suggests to scientists that cave art created when modern humans arrived from Africa was being done in Asia as well as Europe.

Grey Art NYU Gallery is featuring an exhibition called Global/Local 1960-2015: Six Artists from Iran. Click on "Images" to see some of the works, which are well worth your viewing.

The Guerilla Girls shocked the art world in the mid 1950's with their angry protests against the treatment of women artists in museums and galleries. Their campaigns unfortunately did little to change the gender bias of major museums but at least brought to the public's attention the shameful lack of importance given to women artists. Now they are reviving their presence in the art world, graphically and strikingly insisting that art made by women be allowed to take its rightful place now and in accounts of art history.

My 23-year-old granddaughter is volunteering to help refugees on the island of Lesbos just off the coast of Turkey. Lesbos, with a normal population of about 25,000, has been inundated by people from Syria, Afghanistan and Iran seeking escape from the violence in their countries. They flee through Turkey across the treacherous seas hoping to reach Europe. Many of them, including young children, do not survive the journey. Their stories are heartbreaking.

The Science Museum, London, treats us to an exhibition of the photographs of Julia Margaret Cameron. Cameron received a camera as a gift from her daughter at the age of 48 and then embarked on her career. She was sharply criticized in the press for her emphasis on soft focus. Most of her career was spent on the Isle of Wight; she moved to Sri Lanka four years before her death.

Researchers at the Cambridge Archaeological Unit in the U.K. have unearted an entire house destroyed during a Bronze Age fire. Rather than artifacts in bits and pieces, this find illuminates the life of a family as it was struck by an unexpected disaster and fled the site, never to return. The rarity of such a find has excited archaeologists, some 14 of whom have been working on a nearby settlement.

If you enjoy abstract art, you will want to look at the work of Rouzanna Berberian. Her colorful and playful compositions have a marvelous rhythm. You can see more of her creations here, as well as her statement about using technological symbols to represent an iconography of human life today.

Watercolor paintings by a Pueblo artist are being shown in a 3-room exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. Awa Tsireh (also called Alfonso Roybal, in Spanish) portrays American Indian rituals and dances of the Santa Fe area where he grew up. Ranging from detailed to more abstract, these watercolors are both playful and sophisticated.

With so many human beings over-running their places of habitation, architects in Japan have designed some futuristic micro-homes that have become very popular. Some 400 of these now fill the dense urban and even suburban landscapes of Japan. One look at these will convince you of their importance, especially when you think of the kind of dreary residences usually available in tiny spaces.

Join me at an exhibition called "Encountering Vishnu" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Included are five rare sculptural masks carved of wood used in religious dramas in Southern India. The masks range in date from the 6th to the 18th centuries. A further link takes you to some additional examples.

Perhaps like myself you are familiar with the Bird of Paradise flowers, but here is a rare opportunity to see the actual Birds in their native habitat of New Guinea. They are quite extraordinary, and can be see in no other area of the world.

Goya's searing historical scenes are well-known to most art lovers. Seen less frequently are his portraits, recently exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Setting up the exhibit required the loan of over 70 pieces from all over the world. Check out "Ferdinand VII in Court Dress" - he looks ready to leap off the canvas.

c. Corinne Whitaker 2016