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W.S. Di Piero

W.S. Di Piero

W.S. Di Piero is a recipient of Guggenheim, Lila Wallace-Readers Digest awards, and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. He lives in San Francisco and is the author of numerous books of poetry and essays. He wrote an essay on his father in June of 2000.

His recent books include Nitro Nights (2011, Copper Canyon) and TOMBO (2014, McSweeney's). Prior to that was When Can I See You Again: New Art Writings (2010, Pressed Wafer), which contains many of his Reader columns.

Articles by W.S. Di Piero

Grounded in Charles White

The African-American artist Kerry James Marshall, whose retrospective in Los Angeles I reviewed here in 2017, says that his mission and aspiration is to create “a grand, epic narrative with black figures in it.” The …

April 25, 2019
Sally Mann wanted imagery that looked bruised by history

The history of photography tracks the cultural history of childhood and the innocence we like to think abides there. When the inventor of photography, Henry Fox Talbot, made images of his family in the 1840s, …

January 16, 2019
A certain kind of God

A certain kind of God

September 5, 2018
Burgled secrecies

The first photograph I saw by Brassaï, many years ago, was a 1948 portrait of Jean Genet. Hands in pockets, slight of form, his face an ambiguous index of skittishness and cunning, Genet offers and …

July 25, 2018
Beauty built on blood

In 2003, an archaeologist digging near the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, one of the grand structures at the ancient city of Teotihuacan in Central Mexico, felt a soft spot in the earth that turned out to …

March 28, 2018
Familiar muralists, but a lot unfamiliar

One pleasure of anthology exhibitions is discovering pictures by unfamiliar artists. The English-born artist Leonora Carrington was new to me when I saw a small picture by her in Modern Masters from Latin America, currently …

January 3, 2018
Deep, unusual Mexico in photos

Modern Masters from Latin America reminds us, if we need to be reminded, that Modernism knew no borders. Point/Counterpoint, a compelling selection of 19 contemporary Mexican photographers currently at the Museum of Photographic Arts, has …

January 3, 2018
Twelve Bellini holy pictures at the Getty

Pictures sometimes become devotional objects or pilgrimage destinations. Their contents have the feeling of secular-sacred spaces. The room called the Living Hall in New York’s Frick Collection houses several robust portraits, Titian’s force-of-nature Pietro Aretino …

November 29, 2017
Kerry James Marshall addresses the absence of blackness

Slinky, unfurling forms run around and through many of Kerry James Marshall’s paintings. They frame individual pictures’ contents and rope together serial canvasses into a narrative of styles and scenes. In his 1993 De Style, …

May 31, 2017
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4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
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