High Low and in Between

Love Crowd

2011-02-14T17:44:00.003-05:00

Upcoming show at Roger Williams University

2011-02-10T12:19:00.005-05:00

This is a two person show featuring myself and Hiroyuki Hamada. It opens on 2/23/11 and runs through 3/30/11. It’s organized by curator Jess Frost from Art & Estate Archive, NY. I am excited to show with Hiroyuki and expect some interesting discussion at the university . Jess will be speaking about the show on 3/23/11 at the university. Details below.

Greenpoint Open Studios

2010-08-26T10:59:00.003-05:00

Greenpoint is having another round of open studios this October 1 - 3. So if you are a local artist or just want to support them please contribute to this fundraiser.

Details:

Greenpoint Open Studios
October 1 – 3, 2010
greenpointopenstudios.org

Greenpoint Open Studios is a weekend long event celebrating a burgeoning art scene in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It is a collaborative effort between artists, organizations, businesses and volunteers to build a creative platform in which all members of the community can foster and contribute to a support system that encourages the sharing of ideas and relationships. As artist studios and exhibition spaces continue to emerge in the neighborhood we hope to facilitate the growth of a thriving art community.

Programming throughout the event include art exhibitions at Greenpoint Gallery and Yes Gallery, a one night public art festival courtesy Bring to Light, a food infused round table discussion and feel good celebrations! We will need funding (our goal is to raise $2000) to cover all operational costs from promotional material and rental equipment to refreshments and graphic designers.

We are grateful for generous donations and support from local businesses as they show their love and support for the local art community. Similarly, you funding will allow us to continue to strengthen and cultivate a growing community of artists and harness relationships, collaborations and creative dialogue.

On the Beach w/Zoe Strauss

2010-08-03T18:13:00.005-05:00

I've been on a hiatus for a few weeks. Just painting and such, nothing exciting. One of the highlights though has been following Philly based photographer Zoe Strauss on her blog as she documents the BP disaster down in the Gulf. She's provided compelling images but has also been a sort of on the ground surrogate for me and I assume many others as we watch from afar. This is what artists do of course and it helps to have honest commentary about her inner dialogue as she engages this calamity.

Tyler Green has an interview with Zoe at Artinfo. com: Q & A One and Two.

image: Zoe Strauss

Artists Responding to the BP Disaster

2010-06-29T18:43:00.006-05:00

I've been coming across some sites and news about artists addressing the BP sponsored disaster in the Gulf Coast. These are small actions but they matter.

The Tate Britain has recently "celebrated" 20 years of sponsorship by BP which has to be the most ill timed celebration in museum history. The sadness of this is beyond words. Platform reports on a group of artists denouncing the event and the practice of BP sponsorship. Some major names on the list are Hans Haacke, Lucy Lippard and Rebecca Solnit.

A letter today was published in the Guardian today signed by 171 figures from the art world condemning BP’s sponsorship of cultural institutions in the UK. The letter has been published on the day that Tate Britain is hosting a party to celebrate 20 years of BP’s sponsorship. [1] A group of artists under the banner of ‘The Good Crude Britannia’ are planning on protesting outside the event, and will be handing out the “Licence to Spill’ briefing to people attending the party.[2]

Arts/activist organisation Platform [3] has gathered 171 signatories from the international arts community, for a letter that says:

“As crude oil continues to devastate coastlines and communities in the Gulf of Mexico, BP executives will be enjoying a cocktail reception with curators and artists in the Tate Britain. These relationships enable big oil companies to mask the environmentally destructive nature of their activities with the social legitimacy that is associated with such high profile cultural associations.”[4]
continue here

Also, I've just come across Poets for Living Waters which describes itself as a poetry action in response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. There is a call for entries and I thank Poet Brett Evans for leading me to the site.

image: Poets for Living Waters

Call for Entries: INDEX: Design Challenge - Designing for Education

2010-06-22T22:05:00.002-05:00

This looks like an amazing opportunity!

Via CORE 77:

INDEX: Design to Improve Life has just opened the doors to their 2010 challenge with the theme "Designing for Education," in partnership with the children's rights organization UNICEF. If you are a student, a recent grad, or faculty, you are invited to submit in the following three areas: improved educational facilities, sanitation and hygiene, and gender parity in education.

Here's an excerpt from the brief:

According to UNESCO's 2010 Education for All report (EFA), the number of children out of school has dropped by 33 million worldwide since 1999. South and West Asia more than halved the number of children not in school - a reduction of 21 million. But the latest numbers show that 72 million children are still out of school, and if the trend continues, 56 million children will still be out of school in 2015. Equally important, besides ensuring more children enroll in school, those children already in school must get a good education.
Literacy remains among the most neglected of all education goals, and millions of children are leaving school before acquiring basic skills. In some countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, young adults with five years of education have a 40% probability of being illiterate. About 759 million adults lack literacy skills today. Two-thirds are women.

The gender disparity in education is another problem in developing countries today. Even though the share of girls out of school has declined from 58% to 54%, and the gender gap in primary education is narrowing in many countries, the difference is still a problem. In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, almost 12 million girls may never enroll. In Yemen, nearly 80% of girls out of school are unlikely ever to enroll, compared with 36% of boys.

Submissions are due by November 26, 2010. Click here for guidelines.

image: Cy Twombly

Twitter as Hangman

2010-06-22T21:47:00.002-05:00

I'm for a transparent bureaucracy but this isn't what I had in mind. Social media as medieval spectacle. More death tweets at Infocult.

Tracking BP's Disaster

2010-06-16T09:58:00.004-05:00

If you're looking for a map that really puts you there and helps with understanding this ever changing oil spill then check out the following from NOAA.

An interactive map with information about the oil spill’s trajectory, the position of NOAA’s research ships, spilled oil’s coastal location and the areas closed to shipping and more.

hat tip: Cheryl Rofer

Sigmar Polke RIP

2010-06-11T10:05:00.004-05:00

Ok so yet another titan of the post-war era has passed. Its getting out of hand. Bloomberg reports that Sigmar Polke has lost his battle with cancer.

June 11 (Bloomberg) -- Sigmar Polke, one of Germany’s best-known artists, died last night from cancer at the age of 69, his dealer Erhard Klein said in a phone interview.

Polke, a painter, graphic artist and photographer, was “one of the most important and most successful representatives of German contemporary art,” Culture Minister Bernd Neumann said in a statement. “He was a critical, ironic and self-ironic observer of postwar history and its artistic commentators.”

Born in 1941 in eastern Germany, Polke emigrated to the west in 1953. He settled in Dusseldorf, where he studied at the Art Academy. In 1963, he founded the “Capitalist Realism” painting movement with Gerhard Richter and Konrad Lueg. The three artists mocked both the realist style that was the official art of the Soviet Union and the consumer-driven pop art of the west. Polke moved to Cologne in 1978.

He experimented with a wide range of styles, subject matter and materials. In the 1970s, he concentrated on photography, returning to paint in the 1980s, when he produced abstract works created by chance through chemical reactions between paint and other products. In the last 20 years, he produced paintings focused on historical events and perceptions of them.

Here's a nice slide show at the NY Times.

image: Sigmar Polke

Andrei Tarkovsky's Polaroids

2010-06-11T09:41:00.006-05:00

I've had a love for Polaroid film since I first saw the magic unfold as a small child. In addition to a Walker Evans book, a book on Tarkovsky's Polaroid photos is among my prize possessions. A continual yet subtle influence on my painting palette. The book is difficult to find so I am very happy to learn that the works have been digitized by a Russian blog. If you are unfamiliar with the great Soviet director and his particular genius for color and light, please see the following films - Solaris, The Mirror, Nostalghia, and The Sacrifice.

via: flavorwire

WC2010

2010-06-11T09:37:00.004-05:00

World Cup starts today and the majority of the world goes nuts! Congrats to South Africa for being the host country and go team USA.

For an innovative graphic on the teams and matches, see here.

Sites to stay on top of the action (besides ESPN):

official FIFA World Cup site,
The Guardian (though a bit slow thus far),
L'Equipe (French),
TNR World Cup blog.

hattip: helmut

YOU are responsible for spills

2010-06-09T11:00:00.001-05:00

Some irony from BP stations around the country. Climate Progress is asking people to send in more images.

Save NY Libraries - Read In

2010-06-08T08:42:00.004-05:00

It always seems to come down to an assault on the humanities. NYC as you may know is suffering more than its share of economic woes and the cuts are coming. One thing on the chopping block is the public library system where job cuts have begun. This comes at a time where the high number of unemployed need library resources more than ever. According to the Library Journal .com the Mayor's office issued his Executive Budget, and the cuts are even worse, nearly 25 percent, representing a 30 percent reduction over two years. That would lead to perhaps 1500 layoffs (30 to 40 percent of staff), some 40 closed libraries, and drastically curtailed hours and materials.

In addition to calling elected officials, here is another way you can try and stop these cuts.

Read-in coming June 12
Library workers and advocates gathered under the Save NYC Libraries banner are backing that call with a series of actions, notably a 24-hour Read-In to be held in front of the Brooklyn Public Library's Central Library at Grand Army Plaza beginning at 5 p.m. on Saturday June 12.

Details:

Start Time:
Saturday, June 12, 2010 at 5:00pm

End Time:
Sunday, June 13, 2010 at 5:00pm

Location:
Steps of BPL Central Library

Street:
10 Grand Army Plaza

City/Town:
Brooklyn, NY

From the organizers:

Come out and support libraries during the 24 hour We Will Not Be Shushed Read-In. This is going to be a unified libraries effort with readers and library workers from all three tri-li systems. We already have the full endorsement of Brooklyn Public Library and Queens Library administration. This is going to be a huge event in support of libraries.

To Volunteer: savenyclibraries@gmail.com

We need volunteers for the event, not to read though. No we need people for the hard boring work, to get petition signatures and make sure that people fill out postcards and sign petition and then sign another, then another. We need people who will work the crowd and man the tables. We need people to do the heavy lifting.

the gender and geography of (un)employment

2010-06-02T12:31:00.004-05:00

The above employment map comes from Stuart Staniford, representing trends in the United States by county. Lot's of data and resulting questions regarding gender and geography in the US. Outstanding map design as well.

hat tip: Kevin Drum

Louise Bourgeois 1911 -2010

2010-06-01T11:01:00.003-05:00

Yet another light has gone out. I think everyone was wishing she would continue making art into her second century. Here's a good bio from Art 21.

Louise Bourgeois was born in Paris in 1911. She studied art at various schools there, including the Ecole du Louvre, Académie des Beaux-Arts, Académie Julian, and Atelier Fernand Léger. In 1938, she emigrated to the United States and continued her studies at the Art Students League in New York. Though her beginnings were as an engraver and painter, by the 1940s she had turned her attention to sculptural work, for which she is now recognized as a twentieth-century leader. Greatly influenced by the influx of European Surrealist artists who immigrated to the United States after World War II, Bourgeois’s early sculpture was composed of groupings of abstract and organic shapes, often carved from wood. By the 1960s she began to execute her work in rubber, bronze, and stone, and the pieces themselves became larger, more referential to what has become the dominant theme of her work—her childhood. She has famously stated “My childhood has never lost its magic, it has never lost its mystery, and it has never lost its drama.” Deeply symbolic, her work uses her relationship with her parents and the role sexuality played in her early family life as a vocabulary in which to understand and remake that history. The anthropomorphic shapes her pieces take—the female and male bodies are continually referenced and remade—are charged with sexuality and innocence and the interplay between the two. Bourgeois’s work is in the collections of most major museums around the world.

More on the artist's life here and here.

image:Louise Bourgeois, Femme Maison, 1947, ink on paper, 9-15/16 x 7-1/8 in.,Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, photo by Eeva Inkeri, © Louise Bourgeois.

Dennis Hopper 1936-2010

2010-05-29T19:29:00.003-05:00

Land Art Road Trip

2010-05-26T10:02:00.015-05:00

I've always wanted to do a cross country trip that involved exploring the wide range of land art across our country. Then a couple weeks back my friend, artist Megan Vossler, emailed saying see was embarking on such a trip with her friend Rhamy. They have a website recording this adventure called land land land ART ART ART! The duo are currently in Marfa. Be sure and check it out.

Destinations:

About the project:

We are two California-to-Minnesota transplants (one an artist and teacher, the other a medical resident), chronicling a road trip we will take in May 2010 through the southwestern United States. Our purpose is to record our experience of the changing landscape, through drawings, photos, video, writing and sound. We’ll also be visiting as many of the major American land art sites as we can, to see how they’re holding up 30-plus years after their completion.

This trip has been partially funded by a generous travel and study grant from the Jerome Foundation in St Paul, MN.

image: Spiral Jetty, Robert Smithson

Molly's River coming to Times Square

2010-05-25T11:46:00.005-05:00

This summer, Times Square is getting a river! Brooklyn-based artist Molly Dilworth (a hard working friend) has landed the the commission to paint the pedestrian plazas on Broadway from 47th to 42nd Streets. Her piece is titled "Cool Water, Hot Island," a graphic representation of NASA's infrared satellite data of Manhattan.

from the DOT:

The artist's concept focuses on the urban heat-island effect, where cities tend to experience warmer temperatures than rural settings. The proposed design's color palette of striking blues and lighter hues reflects more sunlight and absorb less heat - improving the look of these popular pedestrian plazas while making them more comfortable to sit in. The color and patterns evoke water, suggesting a river flowing through the center of Times Square, and they also provide a compelling visual counterpoint to the reds, oranges and yellows of the area’s signature marquees and billboards.

Molly's river will begin flowing by mid-July, and is expected to run about 18 months. If you want some early Manhattan geography check out this site for an interactive map. Additional history here.

via: Gothamist

BP's shit show from Space

2010-05-24T16:18:00.002-05:00

image:NASA

Gulf plume -live stream

2010-05-21T17:41:00.003-05:00

Live Broadcasting by Ustream
The live footage of BP's underwater black hole is now up.

Via FDL:

Note: The video seems to be coming in and out, so if it appears to be down just give it a few minutes and a couple of old fashioned refreshes and it should come back.
I encourage you to bookmark it and monitor the leak’s progress (or lack there of) for yourself. After all, we can’t really depend on anyone else to do it for us.

volunteers wanted in the gulf coast

2010-05-03T19:43:00.004-05:00

If you are looking for a way to contribute towards the unfolding catastrophe in the Gulf, here are some options.

The National Wildlife Federation is soliciting donations and volunteers to fight the oil spill through the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana:

... We do not know the location or the extent of impact to birds, wildlife, and habitat at this time. What we do know is that we need to be ready with on-call volunteers in the event that they are needed. National Wildlife Federation, National Audubon Society, the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program and the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana are building a list of volunteers prepared to help with this response.

Volunteers can fill a variety of needs, from oiled wildlife recovery, to monitoring and photographing oil movement, to providing a boat and driver for response activities. No specific training or experience is necessary, although you must be at least 18 years old to volunteer. Some tasks, such as food preparation, may require no training. Other tasks, such as washing oiled birds, may require specific certifications or skills. We encourage pre-veterinary students, veterinary technicians, and anyone with HAZWOPER training to volunteer. Anyone with experience in dealing with wildlife handling, rehabilitation, or hazardous materials clean up is also strongly encouraged to register…
[...]
Once you have registered, we will contact you as soon as opportunities arise. The severity of this spill may require a long-term and ongoing response, so if you don’t hear from us immediately, it doesn’t mean you won’t be contacted or that your efforts won’t be needed. With your help, we can meet this challenge and reduce the impacts of this spill to habitat and wildlife.

Note: If you encounter oiled wildlife, please call 1 (800) 557-1401. Please do not touch or disturb oiled wildlife, for your safety and theirs.

image: Boston.com
hat tip: Balloon Juice

Escape from New York - May 15-June 19

2010-05-02T12:42:00.004-05:00

Escape From New York
Opening Reception Saturday, May 15, 3:00 - 9:00 PM.
Shuttle buses running from Chelsea arts district to 24 1/2 Van Houten Street across from Federici Park in downtown Paterson. Click here for a detailed map.

Our heroine runs with purpose through the darkened streets of Chelsea, looking for a way out. At every corner she's met with roadblocks. Turning down 24th Street, racing past Feuer, Boone, and Gagosian, she sees a clearing. She leaps across 11th Avenue without a thought, spotting the Hudson! "If only I can make it!" Darting through the traffic of the West Side Highway, she leaps over the concrete barrier. Herein lies the pier. Out of breath, she looks up. Spotting lights in the distance, New Jersey's glacial cliffs taunt her, their lights of shimmering color bouncing off the water's edge. A sirensong like Gatsby's eyes, she walks to the end of the path. She has no vessel. "How will she get there?"

Throughout American history, the concept of Manifest Destiny has greeted us with a newfound optimism for the future of what COULD BE versus what IS. "Go west, young man" held true for generations. Escape From New York concentrates specifically on the breaking free of long-held notions and beliefs that Manhattan only can be the center of the art world. An active experiment in reverse bridge and tunnel, Escape From New York highlights Paterson, NJ-- a historic community in transition with massive venues less than a 15 minute drive from the George Washington Bridge. Ready and waiting with open arms to help reignite a cultural renaissance, the city has given us heretofore unheard of space to showcase contemporary art in a former silk factory.

Escape From New York spotlights the work of 45 top contemporary artists. Running weekends through June 19th, the exhibition includes a broad breadth of genres-- from painting, to video, photography, installation, sculpture, performance and social media-based art. Leaving behind the cramped spaces of Manhattan, for the broad horizons of New Jersey.

For additional information, please contact curator Olympia Lambert at olympia.lambert@gmail.com, or 646.642.4393.

Participating artists:

2010 Whitney Biennial selectees
*The Bruce High Quality Foundation
*Kate Gilmore

Robert Aitchison
Robert Appleton
Man Bartlett
Adam Bateman
Jason Robert Bell
Alison Blickle
Boyce Cummings
Jennifer Dalton
Vicki DaSilva
Sumner Dilworth
Debra Drexler
Murray Dwertman
Richard Eagan
Jeremy Earhart
Agnes Eperjesi
Stephan Fowlkes
Nicholas Fraser
Angela Freiberger
Micah Ganske
Alex Gingrow
Dean Goelz
Grant Haffner
Iliyan Ivanov
Kezam
Daniel Leeb
Thomas Lendvai
Julie Lohnes
Michelle Manley
Jason Metcalf
Michael Paul Miller
Laelia Mitchell
Laurel Nakadate
Mia Pearlman
Rafael Perez
Don Porcella
William Powhida
Christopher Saunders
Robert Schatz
Emil Silberman
Sean Slemon
Peter Soriano
Tamas Veszi
An Xiao

A collaboration with the Paterson Arts Council. Click here to learn more about the city and its rich history of involvement in the arts.

(Above, Julie Lohnes, Tug of War, 2009, video still)

Business and Climate Change

2010-04-19T17:25:00.002-05:00

I realize we're all supposed to wait for the market (whether art or financial) to reveal its wisdom and future plan for us all so it's good to read the following:

This article by Clive Thompson basically makes the case that such claims in support of climate change inaction are obsolete.
...there's one area where doubt hasn't grown—and where, indeed, people are more and more certain that climate change is not only real, but imminent: the world of industry and commerce.
Companies, of course, exist to make money. That's often what makes them seem so rapacious. But their primal greed also plants them inevitably in the "reality-based community." If a firm's bottom line is going to be affected by a changing climate—say, when its supply chains dry up because of drought, or its real estate gets swamped by sea-level rise—then it doesn't particularly matter whether or not the executives want to believe in climate change. Railing at scientists for massaging tree-ring statistics won't stop the globe from warming if the globe is actually, you know, warming. The same applies in reverse, as the folks at Beluga Shipping adroitly realized: If there are serious bucks to be made from the changing climate, then the free market is almost certainly going to jump at it.
This makes capitalism a curiously bracing mechanism for cutting through ideological haze and manufactured doubt. Politicians or pundits can distort or cherry-pick climate science any way they want to try and gain temporary influence with the public. But any serious industrialist who's facing "climate exposure"—as it's now called by money managers—cannot afford to engage in that sort of self-delusion. Spend a couple of hours wandering through the websites of various industrial associations—aluminum manufacturers, real estate agents, wineries, agribusinesses, take your pick—and you'll find straightforward statements about the grim reality of climate change that wouldn't seem out of place coming from Greenpeace. Last year Wall Street analysts issued 214 reports assessing the potential risks and opportunities that will come out of a warming world. One by McKinsey & Co. argued that climate change will shake up industries with the same force that mobile phones reshaped communications.

via: phronesisaical

more ash cloud

2010-04-19T17:23:00.002-05:00

Some great images of the ever moving ash cloud can be found here.

Record Store Day - Today!

2010-04-17T11:20:00.003-05:00

Growing up, my local record store was a big part of my cultural education. Be sure to support your local today. You check on participating venues here.

The original idea for Record Store Day was conceived by Chris Brown, and was founded in 2007 by Eric Levin, Michael Kurtz, Carrie Colliton, Amy Dorfman, Don Van Cleave and Brian Poehner as a celebration of the unique culture surrounding over 700 independently owned record stores in the USA, and hundreds of similar stores internationally.

This is the one day that all of the independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music. Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day and hundreds of artists in the United States and in various countries across the globe make special appearances and performances. Festivities include performances, cook-outs, body painting, meet & greets with artists, parades, djs spinning records and on and on. Metallica officially kicked off Record Store Day at Rasputin Music in San Francisco on April 19, 2008 and Record Store Day is now celebrated the third Saturday every April.

Record Store Day is currently managed by Eric Levin, Michael Kurtz, Melanie Nipper, and Carrie Colliton. Folks wanting to contact Record Store Day are encouraged to email us at information@recordstoreday.com

NOTE:
A Record Store Day participating store is defined as a physical retailer whose product line consists of at least 50% music retail, whose company is not publicly traded and whose ownership is at least 70% located in the state of operation. (In other words, we’re dealing with real, live, physical, indie record stores—not online retailers or corporate behemoths).

Iceland's Ash Cloud

2010-04-15T18:04:00.004-05:00

Here's a satellite view of the volcano eruption Iceland.

These images come from satellites which remain above a fixed point on the Earth (i.e. they are "geostationary"). The visible images record visible light from the sun reflected back to the satellite by cloud tops and land and sea surfaces. They are equivalent to a black and white photograph from space. They are better able to show low cloud than infrared images (low cloud is more reflective than the underlying land or sea surface). However, visible pictures can only be made during daylight hours.

Coast-lines and lines of latitude and longitude have been added to the images and they have been altered to polar stereographic projection.

The visible images are updated every hour. It usually takes about 20 minutes for these images to be processed and be updated on the web site. The time shown on the image is in UTC.

via: UK MET Office

New York City expands recycling

2010-04-15T17:56:00.002-05:00

Great news for the Bad Apple.

New York City will soon move into modern times with an updated recycling program that will increase plastic recycling, place more recycling bins around the city and add drop off locations in the boroughs for household hazardous waste. The legislation has been written and that is left is for NYC Mayor Bloomberg to sign the law into effect, which is expected to take place on Earth Day, April 22nd. New Yorkers will finally be able to recycle many different types of plastic – even yogurt containers!

via: inhabitat

Art and Money Again

2010-04-08T09:37:00.007-05:00

A few weeks back some friends and I viewed and discussed a short doc. by Robert (2009)about the decline of art and the rise of the market. (see above). I'm nut-shelling it but that is the basic premise that Hughes argues. There are plenty of broad strokes and convenient omissions but its a generally sound argument and overall fun to watch, if for no other reason than to see old footage of the "glory days" of 1960's New York.

Anyway, Peter Plagens has apparently viewed the film parallel to our little round table and has some good observations at the National Arts Journal blog.

Hughes--for those of you who've been serving on the Texas School Board for the past forty years or who write exclusively for TMZ--is the former Time magazine star who a) probably seduced more average punters (as they say in Hughes's pre-New York-home of London) into reading about serious contemporary art than anybody, ever, and b) has famously fulminated against artists, styles, impenetrable artcrit argot, and various art-world practices. One of those in the last of the latter is what he roars against in "The Mona Lisa Curse." I disagree.

The shipping of Leonardo da Vinci's painting, the Mona Lisa, to New York for exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1963 was, according to Hughes, the beginning of the descent of the art world--particularly the contemporary art world--into today's big-money morass (as Hughes sees it) of collecting for profit, naked speculation, insincere or wrongheaded or diabolical reasons behind big-time collectors saying how they just love art, undeserved celebrity for mediocre-or-worse artists, and a general vulgarity and crassness among art-world players (especially those hand-holders to the rich connoisseur wannabes, art consultants). The downward slide was supposed to have worked something like this: Showing the Mona Lisa at the Met to long lines of people who could only glimpse it from a distance for a few seconds catered to unwashed pseuds who only wanted to "get it seen"; that led to a bunch of superficial, unsophisticated people flooding into an art world that consisted theretofore of a bunch of integrity-ridden bohemian artists, several dealers more interested in determining art history than making a profit, and a few enlightened, altruistic collectors; those ambitious vulgarians, who liked the parties and the "action" as much if not more than they actually liked art, started to take over; meanwhile, the advent of Pop Art and particularly Andy Warhol and his flaunted permissiveness, propelled the takeover to warp speed and near-total control.

continue reading here

Mona Lisa Curse parts 1 - 12

Authority, Beuys and the Public Image

2010-04-02T09:00:00.001-05:00

Useful read for those trying to place Beuys. I also recommend Joseph Beuys: The Reader.

The Boss: On the Unresolved Question of Authority in Joseph Beuys’ Oeuvre and Public Image [Jan Verwoert]

An unconditional acceptance of Beuys’ interpretive authority over his own practice has caused the discourse surrounding the oeuvre to fail to touch on a central unresolved question within it: the question of authority itself. In order to understand the significance of Beuys’ work in the context of the artistic and political debates of the 1960s and 1970s, however, it is crucial to grasp the inner conflicts and unresolved contradictions that run through it, as well as the way Beuys publicly performed the role of the artist with regard to this question of authority. On the one hand he incessantly attacked traditional notions of the authority of the work, the artist, and the art professor, with his radical, liberating, and humorous opening up of the concept of art with regard to what a work, an artist, or a teacher could still be and do beyond the functions established by tradition, office, and title. On the other hand, however, it seems that in the presentation of his own interpretative discourse, Beuys regularly fell back on the very tradition of staging artistic authority with which he was trying to break.

While he abolished the common understanding of the artist’s role and demonstrated in his own practice that an artist could be not only a sculptor or painter but also a performer, politician, philosopher, historian, ethnologist, musician, and so on, he nonetheless had recourse to a traditionally established role model when projecting an image of himself to the public through the role of a visionary, spiritual authority or healer in full agreement with the modern myth of the artist as a messianic figure. While at one moment he provoked free and open debate through perplexing, if not deliberately absurd, actions that left himself open to attack as an artist, at the next moment he would bring a discussion on the meaning of these provocations back to orderly paths by seeking the seamlessly organized worldview of anthroposophy as an ideological justification for his art practice. On the one hand, he gambled on everything that traditionally secured the value, claim to validity, and hence authority of art and artists, while on the other hand he assumed the traditional patriarchal position of the messianic proclaimer of ultimate truths.

(....)
The crucial thing, however, is that Beuys did not simply produce an aura of authority but that he also exhibited the material conditions of its production in all their crudity, and exposed the contradictions inherent in this process in all their obvious absurdity. In this way, Beuys simultaneously constructed and dismantled an aura of authority. The performance constituted an event. Its eventful qualities were, however, simultaneously also reduced to a minimum—not much happened. A man lay wrapped in a blanket between two dead hares and made strange noises for hours. The scaling down of the performance to an activity that could scarcely be perceived as an activity at all, the stretching and expanding of time, the death rattles from under the blanket, and the overall gravity of the mise-en-scène in general creates a peculiar regressive atmosphere. Very much in line with the analysis of auratic authority that Werner Herzog developed in his films, Beuys here too foregrounds the peculiar regressive pull (Freudians would call it the “death drive”) inherent in the peculiar gravitas of auratic authority—a pull that equally also creates its limitation, in that its own weightiness sooner or later weights auratic authority down and brings it to the point of collapse. And indeed, in Der Chef Beuys staged the mechanisms producing this auratic authority together with the event of its slow collapse....(more)

via eflux/wood s lot

image:I Like America and America Likes Me, 1974
_{_{Photo Copyright Caroline Tisdall / Courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York}}

Mod spot

2010-04-01T00:12:00.002-05:00

Sharon Tandy signing with the Fleur De Lys. Quite a heavy track for the time. Hold On indeed!

internet/data 'Cloud" fueled by coal

2010-03-31T11:23:00.001-05:00

You have to appreciate the symbolism here despite the bad news.

SAN FRANCISCO - The 'cloud' of data that is becoming the heart of the Internet is creating an all-too-real cloud of pollution as Facebook, Apple and others build data centers powered by coal, Greenpeace said in a new report to be released on Tuesday. Facebook facility being built in Oregon will rely on a u utility whose main fuel is coal, while Apple Inc is building a data warehouse in a North Carolina region that relies mostly on coal, the environmental organization said in the study."The last thing we need is for more cloud infrastructure to be built in places where it increases demand for dirty coal-fired power," said Greenpeace, which argues that Web companies should be more careful about where they build and should lobby more in Washington for clean energy.The growing mass of business data, home movies and pictures has ballooned beyond the capabilities of many corporate data centers and personal computers, spurring the creation of massive server farms that make up a "cloud," an emerging phenomenon known as cloud computing.

via:commondreams.org

National Gallery of Art in 365 days

2010-03-30T13:36:00.003-05:00

365 days of exploring the National Gallery of Art, one artwork at a time! sounds like an incredible project and certainly a test of stamina. If you've never been to the NGA this is a virtual treat for you. Art 2010 is a blog project on Head for Art, that’ll run from January 1 to December 31, 2010.

image:Willem van Aelst :Still Life with Dead Game (1661)

Concept Horror

2010-03-30T13:17:00.002-05:00

Citing another case of the investigation of Horror. Check out the Collapse series at Urbanomic.

Collapse Vol. IV: Concept Horror

Editorial Introduction [pdf]
Robin Mackay

Surveying a century in which experience has taught us that man is capable of inventing ever more atrocious forms of violence and horror, is it necessary to remark that much of modern thought offers little to soothe, and much to exacerbate our disquiet? Nietzsche famously observed that the psychic well-being of the human organism is predicated, minimally, upon a drastically partial perspective, and ultimately upon untruth. Human cognitive defaults continue to cry out against the insights which modern physics, cosmology, genetics, neuroscience, psychoanalysis and the rest seem to require us to integrate into our worldview. As for philosophy, it has largely replaced wonder, awe, and the drive to certainty with dread, anxiety and finitude. Moreover, despite the diverse technological wonders they have made possible, the modern sciences offer little existential respite: There is no consolation in the claim that (for instance) I am the contingent product of evolution, or a chance formation of elementary particles, or that my ‘self’ is nothing but the correlate of the activation of neurobiological phase-spaces. Yet mundane thought, whether through obstinacy or inertia, maintains its stubborn course regardless, as if oblivious to their consequences, or at most allowing them to subsist at a safely delimited, solely theoretical level.

What if, prising the more disturbing elements of modern thought loose from their comfortable framing as part of an intellectual canon, we were to become fully attentive to their most harrowing consequences? What if, impatient with a consideration of their claims solely from the point of view of their explanatory power and formal consistency, we yielded to the (perhaps ‘unphilosophical’) temptation to experiment with their potentially corrosive effects upon lived experience? If the overriding affect connected with what we ‘know’ – but still do not really know – about the universe and our place in it, would be one of horror, then, inversely, how might the existing literature of horror inform a reading of these tendencies of contemporary thought?

via:wood s lot

summing up the MTA

2010-03-27T16:05:00.005-05:00

A great public intervention, well done.

via Luna Park/Hrag

Polaroid is back

2010-03-25T10:24:00.004-05:00

A few years ago Polaroid went out of the instant film biz which created a vacuum within the possibilities of photography.

Lucky for us, a couple of artists bought the Polaroid plant in Holland and started The Impossible Project, an effort to resurrect that plant and create new instant film.

They have announced their first new product - a line of black-and-white film that fits in old SX-70 and Polaroid 600 cameras. Color is next.

via: The Consumerist/Balloon Juice

@

2010-03-22T19:59:00.003-05:00

Apparently MoMA has acquired the @ symbol for its permanent collection.

from their blog:

Contemporary art, architecture, and design can take on unexpected manifestations, from digital codes to Internet addresses and sets of instructions that can be transmitted only by the artist. The process by which such unconventional works are selected and acquired for our collection can take surprising turns as well, as can the mode in which they're eventually appreciated by our audiences. While installations have for decades provided museums with interesting challenges involving acquisition, storage, reproducibility, authorship, maintenance, manufacture, context--even questions about the essence of a work of art in itself--MoMA curators have recently ventured further; a good example is the recent acquisition by the Department of Media and Performance Art of Tino Sehgal's performance Kiss.
The acquisition of @ takes one more step. It relies on the assumption that physical possession of an object as a requirement for an acquisition is no longer necessary, and therefore it sets curators free to tag the world and acknowledge things that "cannot be had"--because they are too big (buildings, Boeing 747's, satellites), or because they are in the air and belong to everybody and to no one, like the @--as art objects befitting MoMA's collection. The same criteria of quality, relevance, and overall excellence shared by all objects in MoMA's collection also apply to these entities.

For more on the story and history of the symbol. Read here.

via:CORE 77

2010-03-22T19:51:00.004-05:00

The Oldest Trees on the Planet
Tia Ghose

Pando

While Pando isn’t technically the oldest individual tree, this clonal colony of Quaking Aspen in Utah is truly ancient. The 105-acre colony is made of genetically identical trees, called stems, connected by a single root system. The “trembling giant” got its start at least 80,000 years ago, when all of our human ancestors were still living in Africa. But some estimate the woodland could be as old as 1 million years, which would mean Pando predates the earliest Homo sapiens by 800,000 years. At 6,615 tons, Pando is also the heaviest living organism on earth.

image:“Clonal Quaking Aspens
(80,000 years old, Fish Lake, UT)
Rachel Sussman

via: Wired/wood s lot

Ginger breaks

2010-03-22T19:42:00.000-05:00

Ginger Baker in Africa

36 Shades of Prussian Blue

2010-03-19T09:09:00.004-05:00

For all of us who enjoy the history and use of materials, the new issue of Triple Canopy has something just for us. "Thirty-six Shades of Prussian Blue" by Joshua Cohen, collects historical and scholarly observations on the origins, production and uses of Prussian Blue: the world's first artificial color.

Cohen:

Artists in the West had no reliable blue until the early eighteenth century. Ultramarine, extracted from the blue stone called lapis lazuli, was said to have once been more expensive than gold, and Renaissance artists had to negotiate with their patrons for individual drops of blue upon receiving their commissions (ultramarine means, literally, "over the sea," because most lapis was imported from Afghanistan).

Full text here.

via: Triple Canopy/CORE77

Rest in peace Mr. Chilton

2010-03-18T08:47:00.001-05:00

I think I'll listen to Big Star all day today.

Essential reading on the Lehman Brothers scandal

2010-03-16T10:34:00.004-05:00

Looks like the criminality is finally seeing the light. Wonder how Geithner will survive now.

Blogs Beat the Press on the Lehman Brothers Scandal
Columbia Journalism Review
Economic Crisis, The Audit -- March 15, 2010 04:20 PM
Monday, March 15, 2010
Last Update: Mon 7:38 PM EST ...Look, I know that Lehman collapsed a year and a half ago, but this is a major story--one that finally gets awfully close to putting the crimes in the crisis. I'll go ahead and say it: If you've wanted to know about the Valukas report and its implications, you've been better served by reading Zero Hedge and Naked Capitalism than you have The Wall Street Journal or New York Times. This on the biggest financial news story of the week--and one of the biggest of the year. These papers have hundreds of journalists at their disposal. The blogs have one non-professional writer and a handful of sometime non-pro-journalist contributors...

Also here:

Wray: Timmy-Gate: Did Geithner Help Hide Lehman Fraud?
Naked Capitalism
Monday, March 15, 2010
By L. Randall Wray, a Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City who writes at New Economic Perspectives

hat tip: daily kos

shaped by our shipping

2010-03-13T12:31:00.004-05:00

Here are a couple of good reads on the nature of shipping containers (historic/contemporary) and their silent role in within the fabric of a consumer society.

Part 1
Part 2

via: CORE 77

Escape from New York

2010-03-09T18:20:00.006-05:00

I've been asked to participate in the proposed art exhibition - Escape From New York. More importantly though is the project behind the show. A great group of artists have been lined up by Olympia Lambert so please read the proposal.

Here are the details:

Do you have $5.00 (or more) to support a proposed art exhibition as hopeful as it is handsome?

Curator and freelance arts writer Olympia Lambert aims to turn a former silk factory in Paterson, New Jersey, into a noted art destination. Unfortunately, Lambert doesn't have the capital to make the project happen. Thus, she's turned to KickStarter, a terrific website and "funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, explorers," and other folks trying to bankroll a good idea.

On the KickStarter page for her project, Lambert writes:
"2010 has brought with it many changes and challenges, and with it a newfound enthusiasm and excitement for New York artists. In many ways, the art world we once knew and loved has come to pass. Artists are being pushed out left and right, publications folding, galleries closing, all while more and more MFAs continue to be churned out than can possibly be hired on by Manhattan’s service industry. Space is at a premium. Do we continue to go even further east into the cramped, treeless, concrete, PCB-infested jungle of Bushwick? [...] Or do we begin to explore other venues west of the Hudson?"

"This project is specifically designed to raise financing for a print and online media advertising campaign for the group art exhibition, "Escape From New York," held in the Fabricolor Building on Van Houten Street in Paterson, NJ. [...] We will be placing a full-page ad in the second week of May 2010's edition of 'New York Magazine' and run online banner ads on ArtForum, Culture Pundits, and other art media."

Image credit: ripped from Olympia Lambert's Kickstarter project page

David Foster Wallace audio project

2010-03-07T23:00:00.003-05:00

Haven't downloaded these audio files yet but this looks like a great resource.

The David Foster Wallace Audio Project

This collection of David Foster Wallace MP3's was lovingly collected by Ryan Walsh in early 2009. Included herein are many, many files under the following category headings:

Interviews & Profiles
Readings (Now includes the BIwHM audiobook!)
Eulogies & Remembrances
'Brief Interviews' Staged Readings

hat tip:Simplistic Art

Art Blogging Panel at SMartCAMP this Sunday

2010-03-06T12:20:00.005-05:00

This looks quite good so head over to the Lab at Roger Smith Hotel tomorrow.

It’s art fair week in New York but this year Gotham’s art market orgy will coincide with SMartCAMP, which is a two-day conference jointly organized by #artstech and the Roger Smith Hotel in midtown Manhattan.

A social media bootcamp of sorts, the conference is designed to:

…help those who are new to or skeptical of social media put together a course of action with the help of presentations and case studies from some leading figures working at the intersection of art and social media. For those who have already been engaging in social media, SMartCAMP offers an opportunity to deepen their knowledge, hone new skills, refine social engagement strategies and gain inspiration for future social campaigns from distinguished peers and colleagues. For social media professionals looking to work with arts organizations, SMartCAMP offers an opportunity to learn about the challenges unique to the cultural space.

For my part, I will be moderating a panel on art blogging — FINDING A VOICE IN THE ART BLOGOSPHERE — and I’m very lucky to have the following panelists in attendance:

Tyler Green of Modern Art Notes;
Carolina Miranda of C-Monster & WNYC; and
Andrew Goldstein, the new executive editor of Artinfo.
read on

Secrets of the New York Art World

2010-03-05T10:19:00.003-05:00

The above proposal from Hyperallergic is part of the ongoing think tank experiment at Edward Winkleman's new storefront gallery on West 27th Street with artists William Powhida and Jen Dalton. The artists were asked to “consider ‘alternatives/solutions’ to the market” and decided to organize a show titled #class. You can follow events via their live web cam, which broadcasts whenever the gallery is open (find it on the #class blog).

The Hyperallergic proposal:

Help Us With Our Project

When the buzz began, Hyperallergic decided to join the mix by submitting a proposal called, “$ECRET$ OF THE NEW YORK ART WORLD,” which involved placing a ballot box in the gallery for the duration of the event that simply asked if people were owed any money from someone in the New York art world (artist, dealer, publication, etc.).

Where did the idea come from? Well, after hearing about all the heinous amounts of money that The Project and Salander-O’Reilly Galleries owed people before they closed up shop (or were forced to close, in the case of the latter), we guessed there had to be some doozies out there. While, I don’t expect that we will uncover millions of dollars owed to individuals, we want to document the stories that eat at us and frustrate us to no end. We want to hear from you about the $40 you were owed and never received. That artist who promised you an art work but never came through, or that critic who took a work from your studio with a promise of something that never happened. Consider this your confessional, and everything will stay confidential … unless you don’t want it to.

So, if you or someone you know would like to submit to our project, please fill out the form below:

DOWNLOAD THE FORM & SUBMIT YOUR $ECRET$ NOW

All submissions will be published April 1, 2010, in the form of a PDF which you will be available for download from this website.

Feel free to fill out the form in color (any color you wish) and submit via email or snail mail (all instructions are on the PDF download).

Ivory Tower w/Sharon Butler today

2010-03-04T10:47:00.002-05:00

If you are attending previews today, you may want to stop by Winkleman Gallery at 4 pm for this discussion.

TODAY: The Ivory Tower

Today at 4pm!
Winkleman Gallery, 621 West 27th Street, New York, NY 10001. If you're interested in the discussion but can't come to the gallery, check out the live streaming video and the #class feed on Twitter.

Everyone is welcome, but confirmed participants include:
Greg Bailey--Connecticut College
Mia Brownell--Southern Connecticut State University
Peter Dudek--Hunter College
Rico Gatson--New York University
Ethan Ham--City University of New York
James Holland--Eastern Connecticut State University
Brece Hunnicutt--Non academic, MFA Columbia
Clint Jukkala--Yale University
Kate Kretz--an academic who (gasp) quit teaching
Martin Kruck--New Jersey City University
Kevin McCoy-New York University
Joanne Mattera--Director, Monserrat Encaustic Conference
Tom Micchelli--Cooper Union
John O-Donnell--University of Connecticut
Cathy Nan Quinlan--Non academic
Austin Thomas--Camp Pocket U

Here are the topics we'll be discussing:

• Art schools have drawn heavy fire recently for churning out young artists driven towards quick commercial success at the expense of their long term artistic development. Yet most artist-academics do not consciously try to instill in their students an impatient mercenary sensibility. Where, then, does it come from?

• Artists who are lucky enough to find full-time teaching jobs have to find a way to fit into conventional university systems that don't understand anything about art. Promotion and Tenure Committees, comprising professors from all departments, may understand the importance of gallery exhibitions, but are completely baffled by relational aesthetics, new media distribution, and other contemporary art practices. How do artists maintain their identity and artistic integrity while working within the traditional academic system?

• The corporatization of education has led to a bureaucratic environment in which we are asked to participate in efforts like “Outcomes Assessment” and “Academic Program Reviews” that contradict the open-ended nature of artistic investigation. Are we guilty of maintaining the status quo by seeing our institutions simply as paycheck providers rather than art communities? Why are our teaching and art practices two separate and distinct activities? Are we failing to think creatively?

• How do you feel about the Bruce High Quality Foundation University's critique of traditional art school?

Overview of the #class project:
#class, organized by William Powhida and Jen Dalton, has been selected as a Critics' Pick in ArtForum. Bill and Jen have turned the gallery into a 'think tank' for guest artists, critics, academics, dealers, collectors, and anyone else who's interested to examine the way art is made, seen, and sold in our culture. Their goal is to identify and propose alternatives and/or reforms to the commercial model and attendant commodification of art, but also the unquantifiable, intangible, unpaid aspects of participating in the art world. They transformed the gallery from a showroom into a conference room, where discussions and events will take place from approximately Feb 20 - March 20, 2010. For a full list of events and video feed, click here.

urban field manual

2010-02-26T13:41:00.005-05:00

Check out BEYROUTES from onlab. Fanatstic idea and design. Would love for a whole series of these exploring the different nature of urban environments around the world.

Beyroutes, a guidebook to Beirut, one of the grand capitals of the Middle East. Beyroutes presents an exploded view of a city which lives so many double lives and figures in so many truths, myths and historical falsifications. Visiting the city with this intimate book as your guide makes you feel disoriented, appreciative, judgmental and perhaps eventually reconciliatory.

Initiated by Studio Beirut
Supported by Partizan Publik, Archis, Pearl Foundation

HCR Zombies

2010-02-26T10:32:00.003-05:00

Image: Tim Eagan

John Chiara and process

2010-02-25T12:14:00.004-05:00

I've been looking at a lot of John Chiara's photography of late and came across this excellent video piece on his photographic process. Really fascinating and such a great body of work.

Vampires and Zombies: Transnational Transformations

2010-02-25T00:06:00.001-05:00

Saw this and just had to re-post for the sharper minds that walk among us.

A call for proposals for an exciting anthology has crossed our transom:

Vampires and Zombies: Transnational Transformations (working title)

Editors: Dorothea Fischer-Hornung (Heidelberg University, Germany), Timothy Fox (National Yilan University, Taiwan), and Monika Mueller (University of Stuttgart, Germany)

The undead are very much alive in the contemporary cultural imagination. Vampires and zombies have garnered a generous amount of attention in print media, cinema, and on television. The vampire, with its roots in medieval European folklore, and the zombie, with its origins in Afro-Caribbean voodoo mythology, find multiple transformations in global culture and continue to function as monstrous representatives of zeitgeist.

A publisher has expressed interest in a volume examining the phenomenon of vampires and zombies as transnational cultural icons. Contributors are invited to submit papers on aspects of zombies and vampires as they relate to texts and media across cultural boundaries. Approaches and topics that papers may address, but in no way are limited to:

Readings of individual texts, authors, and media
Histories and anthropologies of the zombie and the vampire
Genre, gender and sexuality, class, and race/ethnic interpretations
Comparative, transnational, and translingual analyses (traveling tropes, cultural diffusion, mapping translations)
Globalizations and cultural contexts (economies of power, colonialism, post-colonialism)
Terrorism, modern warfare
Migrations, creolizations, hybridizations, the cyber-undead
Xenophobia: the Other, the alien, the invader, the intruder
Horror, fear, anxiety, paranoia
Encounters with Thanatos
Tainted blood, disease, pandemic, viruses and other biological agents of infection
Formation of inhuman Communities
The postmodern, the posthuman, apocalypse and post-apocalypse
The pop culture industry and consumption (series and sequels, slapstick, satire, the “mockumentary”)
Video gaming and clubbing
Graphic novels and comic books
Self-publishing technologies (digital books, print on demand), the Internet (YouTube, social networks, blogs, e-zines)
Interviews with authors or filmmakers

Please submit a 500-word abstract and a CV, including contact information, to: (vampzomb at mesea.org)

Deadline: March 15, 2010.

To facilitate procedures, we request that in the Subject space of the email you write: Abstract-[contributor’s name].

The editors will select from among the submitted abstracts according to suitability for the project and contact submitters by April 1. Successful abstract submitters will be requested to submit a full paper (approx. 7,000 words) by August 1.
via: infocult

bunkART

2010-02-23T23:57:00.004-05:00

I was a massive fan of Wacky Packages and Weird Wheels as a kid. If you're like me, you should be pleased to learn that Tom Bunk has a blog with tons of great stuff - bunkART. enjoy.

Bruce Sterling on Atemporality

2010-02-19T11:38:00.003-05:00

Another great discussion regarding Atemporality and Network Culture. Strangely absent from the visual art discourse.

If progress is to go beyond the banal indulgences that give rise to a never-ending array of car shell designs then we need to analyse our present time with regard to its aesthetics and its media.

Watch Bruce Sterling's keynote on Atemporality at Berlin's Transmediale.

via: Core 77

Defending the Enlightenment

2010-02-19T11:33:00.003-05:00

A good discussion via Eurozine between AC Grayling and Tzvetan Todorov.

How to defend the Enlightenment

"To say that reason is only desiccating and too dry is a dangerous caricature. No less dangerous is to eliminate the place for arts, for myth, which is a different kind of knowledge of the world. We have to be cautious about both dangers, both reductions." On the publication of his new book In Defence of the Enlightenment, Tzvetan Todorov tells British philosopher AC Grayling why the Enlightenment must be separated from scientism and cultural chauvinism.

image: Nicholas Hughes

The Sacred Comic Book (final show @ Jack the Pelican)

2010-02-18T20:01:00.005-05:00

I received the press release this week, and sadly it appears that one of the remaining iconic galleries of Williamsburg is closing.

From Jack the Pelican Presents:

It breaks my heart to announce Jack the Pelican is closing our space at 487 Driggs Ave. in Williamsburg. It is our hope to re-open some months in the future at another location. But where and when, we cannot say.

But we are saying goodbye for now on a bright note, with one final show that is dear to our hearts...

THE SACRED COMIC BOOK
by anonymous, ca.1921
This is a beautifully drawn, 40-page comic book about an artist, his seedy existence, his community, and his struggles. A single narrative, extending over 30 years, it was completed anonymously in 1921, which makes it the earliest document of its kind. What we're showing here are the original drawings in watercolor and ink.
This comic book belongs to Jack the Pelican and all our artists and also everyone who struggles against the odds and the day-to-day adversities of being an artist. It's central message is Just Keep Pecking Away, and it's dedicated to "the down and outs, the never-was-its and the also-rans (sic), in the Year of our Profits 1921.

In the early days of Jack the Pelican, we invited all our artists to read it. It was akin to an initiation. We always called it "The Sacred Comic Book." It's not really much of a mission statement for a gallery, but it was the closest thing we had. We are happy now to have this last chance to share it with all of you.

THE SACRED COMIC BOOK
by anonymous, ca.1921

opens this Saturday
February 20, 7 - 9pm

February 20–until the marshal comes (1, 2, 3... weeks?)

Opening:
Saturday, February 20, 7–9pm

Location:
487 Driggs Ave, bet N. 9 and N. 10

Directions

Hours:
Saturday–Sunday, 12–6pm, or by appointment

Art: Charles Nicholas Sarka (1879 1960)

minimalist television

2010-02-17T18:34:00.011-05:00

These minimalist television show posters are so good I'm tempted to buy the whole set!

Designer Albert Exergian's TV show posters "created out of a love for posters, modernism, and television.

hat tip: boing boing

The Hoggard Wagner Art Collection

2010-02-16T10:09:00.004-05:00

If you follow art blogging then you are likely to know Bloggy.com and JamesWagner.com as well as their collaborative arts calender artcat.com. You may not however know them as prolific art collectors and supporter of living artists. Now you can. Their personal collection is now online and open to the public: The Hoggard Wagner Art Collection. I hope this is a trend that will catch on.

The Collection

Hoggard and Wagner began collecting art as a couple in the mid 1990s, and some works were acquired by Wagner prior to their partnership. This web site is intended to publicize the collection and the artists within it. They have never sold a work of art from their collection and they do not intend to do so. Their hope is that this site will present it to a wider public than the relatively few people who are able to see it in a private home.

Image:
optimism Metrocard, 2009
Reed Seifer
New York MTA Metrocard
2.125 x 3.375 inches
Edition: 14 million
Image(s) via Yana Paskova for The New York Times

Carlo Farneti's illustrations for Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal

2010-02-16T10:00:00.004-05:00

These are pretty great - Carlo Farneti's illustrations for a 1935 edition of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal. (From the collection of Richard Sica)

via: A Journey Round My Skull

r.i.p. Dale Hawkins

2010-02-15T23:39:00.002-05:00

Rock'n'roll pioneer Dale Hawkins has passed. See the obit here.

Roberta's rant

2010-02-15T18:19:00.003-05:00

Last week Roberta Smith had a great piece on the crisis of curating within the contemporary museums here in NYC. It is a thoughtful complaint and poses strong questions for our arbiters of public display. Also, good to hear someone stand up for painting for a change. Why has painting become the ugly stepchild, yet again?

Here are some clips:

How did we get to this point? In the 1970’s the Whitney used to be committed to showing artists from across the United States; they were called regional artists in those days. That term has thankfully fallen out of fashion, but the artists have all but disappeared from museum walls. The Modern, for its part, used to present several works each by 10 to 15 artists under the rubric of its “Americans” show.
But a combination of forces threatens to herd all of our major art institutions into the same aesthetic pen. The need to raise and make money sends curators hunting for artists with international star power who work big at least some of the time, deploy multiple entertaining mediums and make for good ad campaigns (like the self-portrait featured in the MoMA ads for its coming exhibition of William Kentridge). The small show devoted to an artist who doesn’t have an immense reputation and worldwide market becomes rarer and rarer.
The consistent exposure to the big-statement solo exhibition becomes self-perpetuating, as these shows condition not only curators but the public to expect more of the same. I realize to my horror, for example, that the idea of seeing a survey of contemporary painting at the Modern makes me squirm. It would look — I don’t know — too messy and emotional, too flat, too un-MoMA.
But shows where we encounter an artist’s single-minded, highly personal pursuit that proceeds one object at a time tend to feature past masters. The Guggenheim’s recent, fantastic Kandinsky exhibition was an example (as was the Modern’s Ensor show). Yet there are plenty of artists working this way now. They may not be making history (or entertainment, either), but they are still making really good art whose very unfolding has its own integrity and is exciting to see.
Museum curators need to think less about an artist’s career, its breakthroughs and its place in the big picture and more in terms of an artist’s life’s work pursued over time with increasing concentration and singularity.
They have a responsibility to their public and to history to be more ecumenical, to do things that seem to come from left field. They owe it to the public to present a balanced menu that involves painting as well as video and photography and sculpture. They need to think outside the hive-mind, both distancing themselves from their personal feelings to consider what’s being wrongly omitted and tapping into their own subjectivity to show us what they really love.

studio of light

2010-02-15T18:16:00.003-05:00

This is hilarious. A wonderful addition to the Studio Visit.

hat tip: Tim Buckwalter

iheart

2010-02-14T14:49:00.000-05:00

for our mindless holiday

via: thisisnthappiness

teenage riot

2010-02-13T12:40:00.006-05:00

flag photographed by raymond jacquemyns antwerp 2005.

via: Nick Drake

studio view

2010-02-10T14:14:00.002-05:00

Thought I would share some working images of one of several new paintings.

on cloud-based calamity

2010-02-08T12:04:00.003-05:00

Haven't read the current issue and full print article by Jaron Lanier but this quote seems right for our moment.

From Jaron Lanier, The Serfdom of Crowds, in the Jan/Feb issue of Harper’s Magazine:

The wave of financial calamities that took place in 2008 was cloud-based. No one in the pre–digital-cloud era had the mental capacity to lie to himself in the way we routinely are able to now. The limitations of organic human memory and calculation put a cap on the intricacies of self-delusion. In finance, the rise of computer-assisted hedge funds and similar operations has turned capitalism into a search engine. You tend the engine in the computing cloud, and it searches for money. In the past, an investor had to be able to understand at least something about what an investment would actually accomplish. No longer. There are now so many layers of abstraction between the elite investor and actual events that he no longer has any concept of what is actually being done as a result of his investments…

The Facebook Kid and the Cloud Lord are serf and king of the new order. In each case, human creativity and understanding, especially one’s own creativity and understanding, are treated as worthless. Instead, one trusts in the crowd, in the algorithms that remove the risks of creativity in ways too sophisticated for any mere person to understand. A hedge-fund manager might make money by using the computational power of the cloud to create fantastical financial instruments that make bets on derivatives in such a way as to invent the phony virtual collateral for stupendous risks. This is a subtle form of counterfeiting, and it is precisely the same maneuver a socially competitive teenager makes in accumulating fantastical numbers of “friends” through a service like Facebook. But let’s suppose you disagree that the idea of friendship is being reduced. Even then one must remember that the customers of social networks are not the members of those networks. The real customer is the advertiser of the future, but this creature has yet to appear in any significant way. The whole artifice, the whole idea of fake friendship, is just bait laid by the cloud lords to lure hypothetical advertisers—we might call them messianic advertisers—who could someday show up.

via John Cole/Anne Laurie

heading to New Orleans

2010-02-07T23:09:00.003-05:00

The above Turner is heading to New Orleans from the Indianapolis Museum of Art as tribute for the Saints Super Bowl victory tonight. Tyler Green take a bow.

from the IMA:

The Fifth Plague of Egypt
Artist Turner, Joseph Mallord William
nationality British
birth-death April 23, 1775-December 19, 1851
Creation date 1800
Materials oil on canvas
Dimensions 48 x 72 in.
Location Charles O. McGaughey Gallery
Credit line Gift in memory of Evan F. Lilly
Accession number 55.24

Gallery Label

This dark, tempestuous painting marks the rise of Turner as a full-fledged Romantic painter. Relying on vast scale, dynamic movement, and dramatic subject, his composition appeals primarily to the emotions to communicate its message. Turner's motive for painting this canvas, which he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1800, may have been a desire to impress British critics and viewers with his ability to handle serious themes. However, it does appear that the young painter mistitled his picture, as this canvas actually depicts the seventh plague of Egypt, when Moses stretched his arms toward heaven, and thunder, hail and fire rained on the pharaoh and his people.

Indianapolis Museum of Art: Highlights of the Collection (2005)

the past decade as Horror

2010-02-04T23:13:00.004-05:00

Weeks into 2010, the final year of our first decade into the new century, and I’m just now getting around to assimilating all the year-end lists of 2009 and for that matter decade-end appraisals of the "aughts" floating about. There has been much to gleen, but a few commentaries have really stood out as being quite prescient for the strange time we now live. I assume that these lists are basically an attempt to model our contemporary world . For the most part we're handed consumer lists or within the arts another incrongruous helping of post-modernism for our reflection. So consider this post as the first of a series of attempts at highlighting some places that perhaps speak newly about our contemporary condition.

Our horribly distorted world...

Infocult, which at the close of 2009 pointed out the persistence of gothic rhetoric in current American culture. I knew the obsession with vampires had substance behind it! They’ve done a wonderful job of rounding up examples of commentators referencing horror for their political-historical meditations.

via Infocult:

The world in 2010 is a Gothic world, says Bruce Sterling. Monsters roam the scene:

People have stymied sense of denial about the situation. It's very neurotic, anxious, and repressed. It's feeding into a strongly Gothic political temperament where popular culture is haunted by vampires and zombies. The population *identifies* with vampires and zombies, wants to marry them, settle down with them.

There's an autumnal hush over the cultural landscape. People really hope they won't be hit between the eyes with the two-by-four again, but they also know that they are helpless to defend themselves against the sources of the blows.

RJ Eskow adds some horror movie tropes:

It's that final plot twist, the last horrifying revelation that wrings a final scream out of the exhausted audience. You've seen it a hundred times: The ambulance driver taking the battered victims to the hospital grins ... and he has fangs. A close-up shows that the shambling, good-natured GI taking the townsfolk to safety has the marks of alien spores on his neck...

all is not well in Happy Ending Land. The invaders of our civil liberties are being protected. A pointless war drags on. Health reform is being co-opted by cynical politicians and special interests. What else can it be but a Horror-Twist ending to a Horror-Movie Decade?

Jules Crittendon: "God Damn the Naughts,".

He starts off by describing Christmas in Armageddon - the town, that is. And has fun with strangers: “Look, it’s the Angel of Death,” I said. “Let’s go get him.”

image: Carl Dreyer's Vampyr

Gandhiwarmer

2010-02-01T17:08:00.004-05:00

This past Saturday I had the pleasure of attending the Gandhiwarmer event at Union Square which was a memorial to honor the great peacemaker on the anniversary of his death. There was sitar music, rose petals, and hats and scarves for those in need. The event was conceived by an old peer from art school, Tippy Tippens. Personally this proved one of the better interactions with public sculpture I've seen of late. Despite the frigid temps their was much warmth in the air. For more pics and details head over to the official site.

image: Tippy Tippens

for Salinger fans

2010-01-29T09:50:00.003-05:00

At this point everyone knows of the passing of J.D. Salinger yesterday. Honoring the literary great, The New Yorker has published the 13 stories which it ran from 1946 - 1965. Note, you do need to subscribe online to access the texts.

J. D. Salinger has died. From 1946 to 1965, Salinger published thirteen stories in The New Yorker, including such classics as “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” and “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters.” There will be much more to come online and in next week’s magazine, but for now, read Salinger’s stories, available to subscribers through our digital edition:

“Slight Rebellion Off Madison” (December 21, 1946)

“A Perfect Day for Bananafish” (January 31, 1948)

“Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut” (March 20, 1948)

“Just Before the War with the Eskimos” (June 5, 1948)

“The Laughing Man” (March 19, 1949)

“For Esmé—With Love and Squalor” (April 8, 1950)

“Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes” (July 14, 1951)

“Teddy” (January 31, 1953)

“Franny” (January 29, 1955)

“Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters” (November 19, 1955)

“Zooey” (May 4, 1957)

“Seymour: An Introduction” (June 6, 1959)

“Hapworth 16, 1924” (June 19, 1965)

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/backissues/2010/01/postscript-j-d-salinger.html#ixzz0e0tLNY2n

hat tip: Rachel Maddow

Howard Zinn

2010-01-28T10:40:00.001-05:00

Another legend passes.

Boston Globe story here.

Babybot from Hell

2010-01-27T20:27:00.001-05:00

Clearly a doomsday sign, and perhaps the creepiest.

Copenhagen reconsidered

2010-01-27T19:53:00.003-05:00

I realize the climate summit was a zillion years ago. However if you want a break from the vultures circling the DNC, this interview between Lindsay Beyerstein at UN Dispatch and Tom Hilde may provide some perspective on that other crisis.

The Copenhagen Accord was a disappointment to many who believed that the conference would result in firm commitments to emissions reductions, climate aid, and maximum temperature increases. Nevertheless, Hilde argues, real progress was made during the final days of negotiations. He believes that Copenhagen may have laid the groundwork for a binding agreement next year at COP16 in Mexico City.

UND: The media have painted the summit as a failure because the Copenhagen Accord was not unanimously adopted. You have argued that real progress was made in Copenhagen, nevertheless. Can you elaborate?

TH: The Copenhagen Accord is admittedly vague. It is nonetheless an agreement between all of the major emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs), nations that are essential to any effective climate treaty. That in itself is crucial – this is a global problem requiring a near-global effort among parties who disagree on many issues. This is also the first time since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 that generated the UNFCCC that the US has committed to anything concrete in the United Nations climate change regime. The countries have agreed to implement emissions reductions targets for the year 2020, which are to be listed by each party in the appendices to the Accord. The deadline for this is January 31st. Brazil paved the way by recently announcing a significant emissions reductions effort. We’ll have to wait until the end of the month to see what other countries will do.

Disappointment with the Accord stems in part from expectations that Copenhagen would yield a legally binding agreement as outlined at the Bali meeting in 2007. In the run-up to COP15, however, Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen outlined a two-step process. Copenhagen would be a “political agreement.” COP16 in Mexico City in a year’s time would draft a legally binding agreement, which UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has said he will push. This may seem like a constant deferral of real action, but it’s not that extraordinary if you look at other international environmental treaties.

Continue reading here

Tom Hilde is a professor at the School of Public Policy, University of Maryland. He attended the Copenhagen Summit as a delegate with the Heinrich Böll Foundation and covered the conference for the Center for American Progress and Climate Progress. UN Dispatch caught up with him in early January.

2009 - second warmest year on record

2010-01-26T10:42:00.003-05:00

Maybe someone in your life recently has cited the cold winter weather as a "sign" about the question of climate change. I mean it is winter and how strange it is to have winter weather right? In case you feel the need for recent evidence (to share the obvious to these dear deniers), the Goddard Institute for Space Studies confirms that 2009 was the second warmest year on record and the 2000s the warmest decade in modern recorded history.

Continue reading here.

hat tip: Phronesisaical

your State by the population numbers

2010-01-26T10:38:00.002-05:00

I new call for the popular vote and a new mapping of population trend in the U.S.

The electoral college is a time-honored system that, has only broken down three times in over 200 years. However, it's obvious that reforms are needed. The organization of the states should be altered. This Electoral Reform Map redivides the territory of the United States into 50 bodies of equal size. The 2000 Census records a population of 281,421,906 for the United States. The states ranged in population from 493,782 to 33,871,648.¹ In this map, new states have formed, all with equal populations of roughly 5,617,000.²

hat tip: Timothy Buckwalter

the known universe

2010-01-03T15:06:00.005-05:00

I promised myself that in 2010 I would think big. So why not start with a tour of the known universe.

The movie titled "Known Universe" takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world's most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas that is maintained and updated by astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History.
Every satellite, moon, planet, star and galaxy is represented to scale and its correct, measured location according to the best scientific research to-date.

Watch the video below.

hat tip:

information aesthetics.Where form follows data.

the art market's neo-liberalism

2009-12-23T12:10:00.003-05:00

I've lamented for some time to friends about the nature of the market side of the visual arts. Specifically that it resembled neo-liberal economics too much to square with its crafted self-image of progressivism. LA Times art critic Christopher Knight expresses this sentiment in a a recent look at the last decade - L.A.'s growing pains, status. Reaganomics, 30 years later still runs the show.

Something else also happened a generation ago that tossed-and-turned the cultural life of the Aughts in ways we have yet to sort out. Reaganomics, the trickle-down fairy tale that says economic growth is most effectively created by dismantling corporate regulation and slashing top tax-brackets, began a massive, upward redistribution of wealth. It went into hyper-drive in the new millennium. The once-secure American middle class got shredded, while the richest got the gated precincts of a new Gilded Age.

The last time that happened, late in the 19th century, extravagant displays of New World wealth included amassing great collections of Old World art and artifacts. Now, with most of that art long-since spoken for (and transferred into museums), the super-rich angle for what's left: Modern and, since those gems are mostly gone, contemporary art.

There's nothing wrong with a robust art market. Rather, market gigantism is what's dysfunctional, pushing everything else aside. In 2007, Damien Hirst's tacky, diamond-encrusted platinum skull, with its phony-baloney $100-million price tag reportedly paid by a consortium of investors that included the artist, became its farcical symbol.

hat tip: Hyperallergic

the under-valuation of art blogging

2009-12-16T11:26:00.003-05:00

Sharon Butler has an interesting post about the recent writing grant recipients for New York's Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation. It seems art bloggers are not fairing well in requests for funding.

It turns out, however, that over 150 bloggers actually found the time to apply, but only one, Greg Cook (New England Journal of Aesthetic Research), was selected. In the LA Times blog, Christopher Knight wonders why.

In fact, in the four years that Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grants have been awarded, only three have gone to writers who produce blogs. Given a total of 87 grants since 2006, bloggers have racked up less than 4%.That's not a very good ratio.

diagnosing symptoms of anti-science syndrome

2009-12-16T11:11:00.003-05:00

This is an old post from Climate Progress but worth reading again as the attacks against Gore get dusted off one more time.

One tell-tale symptom of ASS is that a website or a writer focuses their climate attacks on non-scientists. If that non-scientist is Al Gore, this symptom alone may be definitive.

The other key symptoms involve the repetition of long-debunked denier talking points, commonly without links to supporting material. Such repetition, which can border on the pathological, is a clear warning sign.

Scientists who kept restating and republishing things that had been widely debunked in the scientific literature for many, many years would quickly be diagnosed with ASS. Such people on the web are apparently heroes — at least to the right wing and/or easily duped (see “The Deniers are winning, but only with the GOP“).

If you suspect someone of ASS, look for the repeated use of the following phrases:

Medieval Warm Period
Hockey Stick
Michael Mann
The climate is always changing
Alarmist
Hoax
Temperature rises precede rises in carbon dioxide
Pacific Decadal Oscillation
Water vapor
Sunspots
Cosmic rays
Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark
Ice Age was predicted in the 1970s
Global cooling

Owning the Weather

2009-12-12T16:45:00.003-05:00

“Owning the Weather,” which is being screened in Copenhagen, tomorrow, Sunday the 13th.

OWNING THE WEATHER tells the story of weather modification in the United States, from Charles Hatfield’s infamous rainmaking days to modern plans to engineer the climate.

There are more than fifty active weather modification programs in the United States alone. Through the eyes of key individuals on the front lines of a crucial but largely unknown debate, the film introduces the cloud seeders struggling for mainstream recognition, the “legitimate” scientists who doubt them, and the activists who decry any attempts to mess with Mother Nature.

continue reading at Climate Progress

Following UNFCCC COP15 in Copenhagen

2009-12-11T11:23:00.005-05:00

With the Copenhagen meetings starting, the mainstream news coverage in the US is already focusing principally on the sensationalistic aspects of the climate talks. We've seen orchestrated break ins at the University of East Anglia and the media allowing flat earthers like Sarah Palin have the lion share of the spotlight. Even the Saudis have chimed in as if there is no self interest on their part to see that the conference fails.

What if you want to follow the reality of the conference instead of a fictional horse race?

ClimateProgress will be reporting from the inside on the actual political debates and nuts-and-bolts negotiations, the concerns and perspectives of the diverse participants at the COP15 meetings and in Copenhagen.

image: Christo and Jeanne-Claude (via Carol Diehl)

blue jay way

2009-12-10T18:32:00.002-05:00

image: Simon Bliss

Living the permanent recession

2009-12-09T11:21:00.002-05:00

Over at NYFA Current, Hrag Vartanian has a group of interviews with artists regarding how the "great recession" has affected them and their work. Artists reading this will likely find that their personal experience in this downturn is shared by many in the field. Despite many diminishing returns, perhaps things aren't quite as bad as they seem.

We are in the midst of one of the worst economic recessions in living memory. As a result, there has been a great deal of talk about gallery closings and plummeting art market prices as the barometers of the economic affects on the art world—but what about the artists themselves?

I reached out to dozens of artists in New York and was initially surprised that many artists I spoke with seemed unfazed by the recession, though many expressed anxiety about the future. When I posted my request on Twitter for stories from the frontlines, I received a tweet from Brooklyn-based video painter Jason Varone who summed it up best, "...most artists I know live in a permanent recession."

My conversations with artists highlighted the fact that most of them do not support themselves exclusively through their art. Their personal finances are not as deeply effected by the downturn in the art market as much as the general economic malaise that has caused lay-offs in all fields. I was struck by the general optimism shared by most artists, who are appreciative of having more time to concentrate on their work. What follows here are their stories of navigating the current economic maelstrom. (Vartanian)

10 minutes de silence pour John Lennon

2009-12-08T20:12:00.001-05:00

29 years ago

film: Raymond Depardon

Jack Rose RIP

2009-12-06T11:47:00.005-05:00

A friend of mine who is a founding member of Pelt, gave me the news yesterday of the untimely death of van guard musician Jack Rose.

Jack Rose (February 16, 1971 – December 5, 2009) was an American guitarist Virginia and later based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A founding member of the drone/noise band Pelt, Rose is best known for his solo acoustic guitar work. n 1993, Jack Rose joined the noise/drone band Pelt, releasing a handful of albums and EPs on various labels. Although Pelt frequently went on and off hiatus during Rose's most involved periods in the band, he didn't begin to concentrate on his own recordings until the early 2000s. He first released two CD-Rs, Hung Far Low, Portland, Oregon and Doctor Ragtime, which featured a mix of country blues and ragtime originals, as well as covers of artists such as John Fahey and Sam McGee. He followed up with his first proper full-length, Red Horse, White Mule, which was released on CD and vinyl by Eclipse Records in 2002.

Rose's first three consecutive releases on Eclipse Records -- Red Horse, White MuleOpium Musick (2003), and Raag Manifestos (2004) -- were met with praise by critics and contemporaries alike. "Finally," said Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance, referring to Opium Musick in an interview with Pitchfork, "somebody has something to say on the acoustic guitar that hasn't been said before." [1] originally from (2002).

Raag Manifestos was named one of 2004's "50 Records of the Year" by the UK avant garde music magazine The Wire in January of 2005^[2], following a feature on him in issue #241^[3]. Rose's rise in popularity in the UK during that time coincided with his Peel Session on May 20th, 2004^[4]. (wikipedia)

In 2005 he released Kensington Blues on Tequila Sunrise records. Featuring ragtime, ragas, country blues and lap steel, this was his most accomplished record to date, earning high marks from such media outlets as Pitchfork^[5] and Dusted Magazine^[6] Rose was considered instrumental in bringing ragtime into the modern era and transforming it into something that was both referential and original. But as a self-taught player proficient on the guitar, including the 6-string, 12-string and lap steel, he brought a wide range of influences to his music.

Explaining his process in a 2007 interview, Rose said his favorite music was "anything that's pre 1942; Cajun, Country, Blues, Jazz all that stuff... that's my favorite kind of music." Rose also pointed to later musicians, such as John Fahey and Robbie Basho, as influences. (Spinner)

If you are unfamiliar with his music you should get to know it. Here's a sample.

Old Masters

2009-12-05T13:51:00.003-05:00

I just came across Old Masters/New Perspectives which has been online for over a year. Haven't spent that much time with the site yet but it seems promising. Might be a nice counterpoint to frenzy of the contemp. scene.

Bruce Davidson

2009-12-04T16:52:00.002-05:00

You won't find this in Miami. A must see at Bryce Wolkowitz - closing Dec.19.

the artist as public intellectual

2009-11-25T11:39:00.005-05:00

I received a blurb about the upcoming fairs in Miami that went something like this:

" the return of decadence to Art Basel Miami Beach this year just might signal the economy’s comeback"

I'll pass on the decadence and the spin that this is a good thing for us. I would rather have more of the following on display in Miami.

The essay puts [Edward] Burtynsky’s work not in the context of art history, but in the context of research on recent environmental scholarship. It indirectly makes a powerful case for including artists among the ranks of our most significant public intellectuals. It aggressively pushes art out of the contemporary art ghetto and places it in the mainstream of discourse on the future of our planet. (MAN)

Via Hrag Vartanian

Significant Objects

2009-11-18T11:30:00.006-05:00

I'm betting that the plastic bottle may be the greatest signifier of our lost age. I hope I'm wrong but the ubiquity of the form says it will be major player for future archaeologists as they formulate their past.

Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker created the Significant Objects project earlier this year to prove the theory that a writer could invest an otherwise worthless object with value by making up a story about it. The objects are sold on Ebay and the proceeds go to the writer. Some have chosen to give the earnings to a favorite charity or cause. Reading the provenance of these odd artifacts of our consumer history is quite entertaining and gives a solid example of how alternative histories can easily make their place.

Prior Significant Object contributors include Maud Newton, Colson Whitehead, Aimee Bender, Jennifer Michael Hecht, William Gibson, Laura Lippman, Lizzie Skurnick, Nicholson Baker, Stephen Elliott, Todd Levin, Ben Greenman, Terese Svoboda, Shelley Jackson, Rosecrans Baldwin, Katharine Weber, and Matthew Battles.

hat tip: Maud Newton
image: Pink Horse
[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Kate Bernheimer,
has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $104.50.]

how does your state compare to CA?

2009-11-16T18:33:00.003-05:00

Here's a Pew map comparing California's economic disaster with the rest of the union. Not positive news for the South West.

Via Kaus, Kevin Drum

Shockwave Riders: Collective Intelligence & TransDisciplinary Pedagogy

2009-11-11T11:07:00.005-05:00

The following is being hosted by Parsons this weekend. An incredible list of participants. I'm going!

Shockwave Riders: Collective Intelligence & TransDisciplinary Pedagogy

A symposium on technology and education organized by the
School of Design Strategies (SoDS) Parsons The New School for Design

NOVEMBER 14, 2009, 12 Noon – 7 PM; Open to the public

“…cultural delta can be loosely described as the rate of change imposed
upon culture/society by the speed and depth of new technology.”
-from an online exegesis of Charles Stross’ novel Accelerando

Contemporary models of systems and cities rely increasingly on ‘multi-agent based’ modeling tools and theories, using digital techniques to analyze real world situations and propose design solutions. At the same time, radical and unanticipated forms of public space, communication, and subjectivity are emerging in the technologically mediated spaces of today’s cities.

It can be argued that an information and economic revolution is taking place due to these theoretical and practical changes, through the emergence of crowd-sourced collective intelligence, global swarm urbanisms, new disruptive economics ['wikinomics'] and ultimately the formation of a global political ‘multitude’- with commensurate revolutions catalyzed by these changes cascading across all cultural and political domains.

This symposium marks a continuation of the School of Design Strategies’ work to map out the ways in which emerging forms of social media, global information exchange and new models of pedagogy meet, and it brings together thought leaders from architecture and urban design, the business world, new media entrepreneurs, and media / culture theorists, to discuss and dispute the consequences of technological change in the next decade and outline strategies for developing a design and design-education models that can meet the challenges ahead.

Participants
• Ed Keller, Parsons SoDS, organizer and moderator
• Ben Bratton, UCSD & the Culture Industry
• Jamer Hunt, Parsons SoDS, Chair of Urban and TransDisciplinary Design
• Katherine Von Jan, KvJ & Co
• Mark Leiter, Nielsen, President of Professional Services
• Geoff Manaugh- BLDGBLOG and Contributing Editor WIRED UK
• Warren Neidich, TU Delft
• Daniel Perlin, Artist, Writer and Sound Designer
• Roland Snooks, Columbia GSAPP, UPenn and Kokkugia
• Cameron Tonkinwise, Parsons SoDS, Chair of Business Design and Sustainability
• Kazys Varnelis, Columbia GSAPP Network Architecture Lab and AUDC

Time & Location:
12 Noon – 7 PM
School of Fashion, Parsons The New School for Design
560 Seventh Avenue, NY NY 10018

regarding the artist's exhibition postpartum

2009-11-09T18:15:00.003-05:00

Christopher Reiger has some substantial thoughts about dealing with feelings of disconnection after a solo exhibition.

I discussed my condition with a writer friend, and her hypothetical explanation of the solo show funk is convincing, at least with respect to my experience of the malady. She contends that, before the solo show, the artist works happily in the studio because he is fully present in his creative labor. In this "process mode," the artist understands the artwork and the art-making as an extension of self, a soulful and intimate activity. Once the artwork is displayed in a commercial gallery, however, the artist must conceive of the artwork anew. In the "product mode," the art is commodified and abstracted, effectively reduced to paper currency, worthless without social consensus. In transitioning from studio space to market space, the artist has crossed over a Hermetic boundary, leaving behind the eroticism of Eros for the commercial quantification of Hermes.

Continue reading at Hungry Hyaena

Image: Christopher Reiger

Why Are Artists Poor ?

2009-11-02T18:36:00.007-05:00

I’ve been trying to read more sources regarding notions of value and systems of exchange in both expired societies and our own. A year of scraping by can remind you about the importance such primary questions.

Most artists assume that economic success will be fleeting if not outright unattainable. The current economic downturn after the gilded oughts serves as a stern reminder to the vast majority of artists. If you’ve been an artist for any amount of time you must have come to the cynical observation that the economics feel more like a pyramid scheme than a means to earn a living. A very small number at the top seem to hold almost all of the wealth. The tens of thousands of practitioners who keep missing the booms and bubbles are often waiting for the trickle down affect. It’s an ugly reality that contrasts sharply with general assumptions that the Arts represent progressive values and open mindedness. The Artworld likes the idea that it is a platform for societal critique, boundary breaking and intellectual rigor but often these aspirations appear to be nothing more than window dressing for an economic structure that creates more destruction than anyone wants to admit to. Although many of us have more than enough anecdotal evidence of economic disparity, there seems to be little factual analysis on the subject despite the fact that billions of dollars are generated annually.

Why Are Artists Poor? (authored by Hans Abbing), a visual artist and professor of Art-Sociology at the University of Amsterdam. The basic premise of the book is timely: in the world of contemporary art, the poverty of artists is misunderstood. This isn’t just some starving artist cliché perpetuated by the society at large but a blind spot within the community itself.

excerpt from the book review:

“Why Are Artists Poor?” explores the panoply of truisms about the art market, the role of the state, the public, and the attitudes of artists themselves. Abbing proposes a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing on the insights of economics, sociology, and psychology. Briefly, he argues that art is shrouded in a pervasive mystique, but that the economy of art is also unique, resembling no other sector of production. The argument is based primarily on a study of the West (Europe, U.K., the Americas), though Abbing feels that his broader conclusions apply equally to the situation in Asia.

In fact, the poverty of artists is a recent phenomenon, with numbers increasing dramatically since WWII. A study of Holland indicates that the vast majority of artists (77%) are living at or below subsistence levels, and cannot make a living from art alone. A second job is necessary, and it typically generates twice the income of the art job. A graph of total income distribution of the artists in Abbing’s study resembles an asymptotic curve, with fewer than 1% at the top who are extraordinarily well off. Paradoxically, with the increase of prosperity in the industrialized nations, the number of impoverished artists has increased as well. Abbing argues that these developments are, in fact, connected.

In economic terms, this suggests an oversupply of artists, but unlike other sectors of the economy, artists do not quit. That they seemingly “cannot do otherwise”, leads Abbing to his first claim: the economy of the arts is exceptional. The usual mechanisms of supply and demand do not function. The question is: why not? Why do people become artists, knowing their compensation will be poor, and why don’t they quit when they have trouble surviving?

A dizzying number of reasons are interrogated and, unsurprisingly, money, fame, and recognition are not decisive factors. The most fundamental explanation for Abbing turns upon a sense that “art is special”, i.e., that to be involved in the art world with a capital-A is a special activity, that artists are driven not merely by their urge to create, but almost by a sense of social obligation. Since the nineteenth century, the practice of art has become a mode of authenticity. Many non-artists tend to see artists as somehow more authentic than themselves. This desire to give expression to an “authentic self” seems to be one of the main forces that attract young people into the arts.

Logically, one would expect that putting more money into the arts, either via state support or other forms of subsidy, would alleviate the poverty of artists. In fact, the opposite seems to be true: the number of poor artists actually increases. To understand why, Abbing distinguishes three groups: a small group who are not poor; second, poor artists, but seen from outside, seem that they “could have” avoided poverty; third, artists who are altogether poor, with the majority belonging to these latter two groups. The third is in the danger zone, but both second and third share a common work ethic: when money comes in, they invest it into their art, buying more equipment, putting more hours into their art job, etc. Their economic condition remains unchanged.

Continue reading at Tokyo Art Beat

Review by M. Downing Roberts

Artists and the Economic Recession

2009-11-01T17:35:00.003-05:00

I saw this item last week over at Winkleman's blog regarding the recession and the numerous takes on "where are we now". Some positive observations on the fairs and the gallery situation here in New York. What interested me the most however is the survey Ed linked to. I took the survey and found it comprehensive so I've pasted below the relevant details and encourage artists to take the survey and pass it along to others.

via Winkleman:

Enter Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC) [link via the Chronicle of Artistic Failure in America] who have posted an online survey to help gather exactly such data:
Welcome to the Artists and the Economic Recession Survey

Is the recession over for you, or still going strong? As an artist, the conditions you face in this current economic climate should be heard and addressed. The Artists and the Economic Recession Survey invites you to share your experience. This survey is being conducted by Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC), a ten-year national initiative to improve conditions for artists, and supervised by Helicon Collaborative and Princeton Survey Research Associates International.

There is strength in numbers.

LINC has been working with organizations around the country to distribute the survey…but we want to make sure we reach the widest range of artist voices possible, especially artists who may not be part of formal organizational networks. Reaching as many artists as possible improves the quality of this important research, and better equips everyone who advocates for artists and the arts.

In addition to completing the survey yourself, could you forward this to every artist you know?

Completing the survey takes about 15 minutes, and it is offered in both English and Spanish. All responses will be completely anonymous. If you have already taken the survey, please do not take it again. If you complete the survey, you will have the opportunity to enter a drawing for one of four $100 prizes.

Letters of Note

2009-10-30T08:00:00.002-05:00

I'm very excited to have been introduced to Letters of Note. Letters of Note is a blog based archive of correspondence - an attempt to gather and sort fascinating letters, postcards, telegrams, faxes, and memos. A fantastic idea and contribution to us all - well done Shaun Usher! The site accepts contributions so if you are a holder of letters you have an audience now. In looking through the site (which is updated several times a day) I'm moved by the scope and historical reach of the content. Truly fascinating stuff.

The above is a rejection letter from MOMA's Alfred Barr to an unknown but not entirely off the radar Andy Warhol.

Transcript
THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART NEW YORK
19 THE MUSEUM COLLECTIONS 11 WEST 53rd STREET
TELEPHONE: CIRCLE 5-8900 CABLES:
MODERN ART, NEW YORK

October 18, 1956

Dear Mr. Warhol:

Last week our Committee on the Museum Collections held its first meeting of the fall season and had a chance to study your drawing entitled Shoe which you so generously offered as a gift to the Museum.

I regret that I must report to you that the Committee decided, after careful consideration, that they ought not to accept it for our Collection.

Let me explain that because of our severely limited gallery and storage space we must turn down many gifts offered, since we feel it is not fair to accept as a gift a work which may be shown only infrequently.

Nevertheless, the Committee has asked me to pass on to you their thanks for your generous expression of interest in our Collection.

Sincerely, (Signed) Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Director of Museum Collections

Mr. Andy Warhol
242 Lexington Avenue
New York, New York

AHB:bj

P.S. The drawing may be picked up from the museum at your convenience.

Hyperallergic: the 20 most powerless people

2009-10-29T09:10:00.003-05:00

Riffing on Art Review's top 100 power players in the art world, Hyperallergic presents the 20 least powerful. I think most of us can identify with this list.

My personal fave:

8 – Anyone living in only one place, as opposed to “between Berlin and Beijing,” or “based in London, Amsterdam, Sao Paolo, and Los Angeles.” Where have you been, mono-urbanity is so 20th century. How do you expect to address globalism by staying put? You probably feel even more like a failure if you were born and grew up in the same city that you currently live in. If that’s the case, you should just fake an accent.

continue reading

(Image via Plugimi Photostream.)

Maya Pindyck - Friend Among Stones

2009-10-27T16:58:00.004-05:00

Here's a friendly plug for poet and artist Maya Pindyck. She has a new book out - Friend Among Stones - and some local readings in our fair city.

Wednesday, 10/28, 7:30pm
Guerilla Lit Readings
Bar on A: 170 Avenue A at 11th St.
with Yvonne Garrett & Elizabeth May

Here's a sample:

The Lesson

A certain bird used to make the wrong sound.
Her keeper cried, Go lower, lower—your pitch
feels uncontained. The bird pressed her beak
to the keeper’s cheek, puncturing his flesh
until a spot no bigger than an ant’s abdomen,
no bigger than the period concluding his command,
appeared. The keeper mistook the act for kindness
and crooned, My love, my infant—try again.

www.mayapindyck.com

Untitled - Jack the Pelican Presents

2009-10-24T10:59:00.004-05:00

Brea Souders,Untitled # 7, 2009, C-print, 20 x 20" ed. 1/5

Featuring works by:

Justin Adian
Gina Beavers
Eduardo Cervantes
Marika Kandelaki
Brea Souders
Christopher Saunders
Davis Schild
Rachel Schuder
Eric Shows
SEE IMAGES

I currently have 2 pieces in the following show. at Jack the Pelican Presents. Stop by if you happen upon Williamsburg.

Outside In exhibition extended until Oct.22

2009-10-13T12:47:00.011-05:00

Great news on the self promotion front! The group exhibition Outside In has been extended until Oct.22. So if you haven't seen the show you have plenty of time to get down to East Broadway. It is worth the trip. Here are the show details again.

Outside In (curated by Mary Dailey Pattee)

From the press release:
LaViolaBank Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of “Outside In,” a group exhibition curated by Mary Dailey Pattee and featuring the work of six artists: Daphne Arthur, Marina Berio, Diane Carr, Mira O’Brien, Leighton Pierce and Christopher Saunders.

Outside In is a multi-media exploration of the connection between real space and the landscape of the subjective mind. Drawing on land, sea, sky and the atmosphere of imagined vistas, the artists in this exhibition engage the landscape tradition as a means of addressing broader questions related to entropy, destruction and renewal in the contemporary world.

LaViola Bank Gallery
179 East Broadway NYC 10002
September 16 - October 22, 2009

Some selected installation views:

Artist: Christopher Saunders (and above selections)

Artist: Mira O'Brien

Artist: Leighton Pierce

Artist: Marina Berio

Society of the Query

2009-09-30T10:32:00.003-05:00

This is new to me as I just learned about (via Geert Lovink) the upcoming conference in Amsterdam on the Society of Inquiry. The event is organized by the Institute for Network Cultures. This is incredibly timely for anyone concerned with data, knowledge, access and creativity.

Here's a little about the purpose of the conference (Nov. 13-14, 2009):

With the Society of the Query conference -stop searching, start questioning-, the Institute of Network Cultures aims to critically reflect on the information society and the dominant role of the search engine in our culture. What does the dependency on the engine to manage the complex system of knowledge on the Internet mean? What alternatives exist? How can the increasingly centralized web be regulated? What is the future of interface design? By bringing together researchers, theorists and artists, the conference will examine the key issues that are emerging around web search, and contextualize developments within the fields of knowledge organization and information design.

This two-day Query conference aims to examine the key issues that are emerging around web search, and to contextualize developments within the fields of knowledge organization and information design. The Institute of Network Cultures aims to do so specifically by bringing together researchers, theorists and artists, creating room for speculation and open questions, as well as concrete projects and research. The questions this conference raises are:

How does the idea of machine understanding influence the fields of knowledge organization and information retrieval?
How is the legal framework surrounding search engines changing shape?
Is Google’s increased ubiquity affecting the production and dissemination of art and cultural practice?
What influence does the existing hegemony of a few large search engines exert on the traditional flow of knowledge and the diversity and accessibility of web content, and in what way might regulation be possible?
Considering developments in the fields of art and information architecture, how can we get to more sophisticated ways of interface design and the presentation of search results?
What alternative ways of search are visible on the software level, the network level and the user level that challenge the engine as the major search paradigm?

Conference themes

Society of the Query
Digital Civil Rights and Media Literacy
Alternative Search (1 and 2)
Googlization of Everything
Art and the Engine

For more information and registration for the event, please go to http://www.networkcultures.org/query

Greenpoint Open Studios - this weekend 9/25-27

2009-09-22T13:06:00.004-05:00

So this weekend begins the first open studio event for our little corner of Brooklyn. I'll be opening my space to show mostly works on paper and a few paintings that have just started so if you come you'll get to see some of the process. It looks like just around 90 artists will be participating which is incredible for a first effort. Also the local galleries will be hanging some works of those opening their doors to the public.

Here is the general program:

OPENING LAUNCH at TRANSMITTER PARK
Sept 25 7 - 9pm
AFTERPARTY AT COCO66
OPEN STUDIOS:
Sept 26 - 27 Noon - 6pm
OPENINGS AT PARTICIPATING GALLERIES:
Sept 26 6 - 8pm
AFTERPARTY AT GREENPOINT GALLERY
ARTISTS TALK AT GREENPOINT GALLERY
Sept 27 6 - 8pm
CLOSING PARTY AT COCO66

For the map and a complete directory of all artists please go to the Greenpoint Open Studios site. Pdf's are available there. See you this weekend.

image: HLIB

Start Time:	Saturday, June 12, 2010 at 5:00pm
End Time:	Sunday, June 13, 2010 at 5:00pm
Location:	Steps of BPL Central Library
Street:	10 Grand Army Plaza
City/Town:	Brooklyn, NY

February 20–until the marshal comes (1, 2, 3... weeks?)
Opening:		Saturday, February 20, 7–9pm
Location:		487 Driggs Ave, bet N. 9 and N. 10
		Directions
Hours:		Saturday–Sunday, 12–6pm, or by appointment