Is there such a thing as "Meta-Art"? Ward Shelley delves into the aestheticization of art history, mapping movements and individuals from art and pop cultural history. Despite his neutral approach, these works tend to show how the narrative is shaped, bent and fitted.

James Kalm catches up with conceptual artist Ward Shelley on the closing day of his exhibition “Who Invented the Avant-Garde and other half truths”.

On July 30, President Obama bought a round of beer for Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge, Massachusetts police, in an attempt to heal feelings in the aftermath of the arrest and alleged racial profiling of Mr. Gates earlier this month. VP Joe Biden also attended the informal gathering around a picnic table in the Rose Garden.

I didn’t know Dash Snow. Like a lot of the New York art world, I became acquainted with him after the feature article that appeared in New York Magazine in 2007. Due to the hyper-competitive nature of so many here, Dash became the butt of nearly every young artist on the make, less a person than a target, a symbol of all the reasons the scene sucks. Now, with his passing, we’ll see what the long term value of his art really is. After this visit to the memorial, the thing that is most striking and sad is how young he was, just a kid. How will his family and young child carry on without him? Sometimes the life of an artist is brutal. Let's try to take better care of each other.