GP/60!

I'm 10 days late but felt compelled to give a nod to grand old Gram....rest easy.

Schlock and Awe

After Iraq, Katrina and Abu Ghraib, what should we expect from US artists?
-the Guardian's Adrian Searle

The Guardian has a review of the new Saatchi show - USA TODAY. It features some favorite Chelsea stars such as Barnaby Furnace (above), Dana Shutz, and everyone's choice debutante, Dash Snow. If there ever has been a case to ban trust fund kids from art, Snow may be it. We see the affect trust fund kids have had on the White House -of course he does seem to go to some choice parties.

It is nice to see that Huma Bhaba gets a positive review - she's been going at this for awhile now and seems to finally be getting some deserved recognition. The conclusion is that the show isn't a stinker but rather acceptible, expected and middle of the road. Searle ends with this:

It may not be great art, but it doesn't need to be. That's the problem. I want an art more powerful - not just loud, not just blunt. Most of art's audience already know what they think about the state of America and the war on terror. The job of artists, novelists, film-makers, musicians and playwrights demands that they go further than stating the obvious. USA Today is an expression, more than anything, of impotence.

Something to mull over I'd say.

Dim in Dallas

For what ever reason I've come this story nearly 2 months late but it still has me rattled. The Times ran a story in September about the Dallas area school teacher of 28 years who lost her job do to some ingnorant evangelical scum. The crime - the Dallas Museum of Art, rather nudes on exhibit at the museum - time honored 'pornographic' works such as these. The action by the 'concerned' parent further illustrates just how childish and repressed our population has become.

Tyler Green has the latest critique of museum director Jack Lane who in a pathetic parallel of the Mapplethorpe scandal, shrunk from his responsibity as museum director and a member of the community by not defending the artworks on display and his institution. Not so much as even an op-ed to engage the philistines about why certain works belong to the collection. Not a peep as to why historical pieces have educational merit for a civilization. Instead the artworld proves again and again how seperate it is from the culture at large and continually shows how weak it actually is. We don't need to hear the 'art is good for you' rap but why not some dead on adult discussion about how art functions? About why it is critical. That it is not a therapeutic salve for the masses or just some exotic pretty shit shoved in an expensive building to make you feel 'cultured' for an hour or so. Art has a real function so why won't these administrators clue some people in? Are they above that? Do they think average people can't handle it?

There is an enemy out there - yes, a real firebreathing meta-physical enemy that wants art to go away - our Taliban, the religious right. Trust me, it is not post-modern in nature and can not be discussed away. For now they play by the rules, manipulating the system like getting qualified teachers fired through litigious threats. In the future they may be sending in thugs to 'purify' the place. Think it is a crazy minority? 40 million people is a pretty strong power block and their off spring are getting more 'crazy' - just watch JesusCamp- that is for REAL. For now it just may be a seed but more is on the way.

Artists and institutions need to get engaged soon because they are one of the first lines of defense for a democracy, and generally the first to be persecuted.

Pod Purgatory

So perhaps I'm getting into the Halloween spirit here, but this tale of ghosts in a pod city is great. Via Kazys, I checked out the (:- Electro*Plankton-;) site for more details and a very weird photo set. The location is an abandoned concept resort city - San Zhi, on the northern coast of Taiwan. The project was created by a group of anonymous architects (Govt. contract) and due to unnatural deaths, the project was abandoned mid-construction. What is left is a pod purgatory for wayward souls - and perhaps a great location for Tacita Dean!

so what does a big fat swollen tick look like?

So by now I know most people have seen the footage of Rush mocking Parkinson's Disease, but in case you haven't you really should take some time to view this footage at Crooks and Liars.

This folks is the nerve center for GOP smear tactics and the heart and soul of the party. The architect behind O'Reilly, Hannity and the other monsters. This is a man personally responsible for the reality of a GOP Congress - a man who was married by Clarence Thomas and routinely lunches with his good buddy Newt Gingrich. Lee Atwater would be proud.

meet the leader of the 'free' world.....

This made my day - thanks firedoglake!

Wicked Games

"When the 1960’s came along I was feeling split, schizophrenic. The war, what was happening to America, the brutality of the world. What kind of man was I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going into a frustrated fury about everything - and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue?"
- Phillip Guston, 1974. (something we should all be considering)

Seemingly out of left field comes some figurative art that is addressing the more sinister brutalities of today - Abu Ghraib by Botero. Yes, Botero. I confess, I associate Botero with art collectors who spend as much on their fumador and wine collections as their contemporary art collections. Yet here the Colombian born artist is addressing atrocities and pulling it off (I think) like Leon Golub. They have an intensity reminescient of Bacon and perhaps a little of Masaccio. I'm still digesting these and I'm sure scale (these are huge) plays a major part for these works. A visit to Marlboro may be necessary.

Botero has addressed violence in the past regarding the upheavals of Colombia so in some ways this isn't new territory for the artist but certainly for viewers less familiar with his engagements in Colombia - such as myself. It is worth noting that these works have been traveling throughout Europe but NO U.S. institution has agreed to show the paintings! That silence speaks volumes - you fill in the gaps.

My initial response (beyond historical and journalistic) was to compare this work to Jenny Holzer's last show at Cheim & Reid which focused on Gitmo. I was flinching abit as I was hoping that this was not some effort at relavancy through platform political/human rights subject matter. I detest profiteering like that in the artworld or Hollywood for that matter. I was relieved to read this:

Botero:

They are going to be donated to a museum eventually, I don’t know where. I’m not new to the principle of donating. I donated 200 of my paintings to Colombia, and I donated a whole series of paintings based upon the war in Colombia to the National Museum there. But I will donate these because I don’t feel like doing business based upon somebody else’s pain. That’s not my thing.

I have no proof to the otherwise, but I'm wondering if the Cheim & Reid show was strictly for profit on the shoulders of others agony. I'm not doubting the content but wonder about the back room business ethics surrounding politically senstitive works. It is a very sticky line to walk. Despite no US venue to have a discussion on America's role in torture, these Botero works will at least be part of the public record somewhere long after the journalistic images go into hiding.

Here is the complete ART INFO Interview:

Art Attack - Moscow

I am very disturbed by the recent posting over at Mark Vallen's Art For a Change. Mark details the recent mauling of gallerist Marat Guelman over an exhibition that many New Yorkers flocked to earlier this year at White Box - Russia 2: Bad News From Russia. An excellent show of contemporary Russian art that featured the artist team - The Blue Noses, one of Russias larger exports (very nice comical guys btw). It seems that Fascists/Nationalists still are threatened by art. Some things never go out of style it seems. As bad as things are here, we have yet to sink quite to this level of barbarity. Of course that could change easily - how would we respond?

More ArtWorld Life Cycle - the Art Adviser

There are a lot of novice collectors out there who don’t realize that you can’t run through the door and make your first purchase. You have to finesse your way to that. Primary market galleries like us often have three-year waiting lists. We’re very picky. - David Zwirner

Coming on the heels of the Saltz piece (see here) it was great to see this article by the Times posted by the Digging Pitt blog. For all the artists that feel humiliation at the hands of their coveted gallerist - meet the young collector who can't even buy respect :) Very informative for those not understanding the "business". It wasn't so long ago that the art adviser was more or less derided as bench player.

SPAM POEM [1]

“hi Alonzo i hope this is your mailbox”


I was happy to see you the other day. I hope you are truly had like the New York.
So much so much happening all the time, lots of great opportunities.

Hip Hop superstar Sean "P.Diddy" Combs sees a colossal prospect for his company in collaboration with Goldmark inc. Sean "P.Diddy" Combs tells that it is enjoyably to deal with these guys. They as anybody else know entertainment industriousness and exactly know what is necessary for the American spectators

TAKE GDKI and you will earn from every sale of that golden disc!

And speaking of opportunities,

Is your girlfriend as tight as Fort Knox?
Deliver the ultimate weapon and youre sure to slide in!

she would lose instead
reproduction of the actual object visible at
not, even if he wanted to, emigrate -

Have You Hugged Your Critic Today?

Never use your sales pitch on your peers – save it for the clients – Dave Hickey.

Having attended the Donald Kuspit lecture the other night (see Deborah Fisher) entitled Why Do Artists Hate Critics, I decided to add a different angle to the lecture discussion and what DF covers on her blog. I will say that I found my self interested in most of what was covered in the lecture but also felt a little bored. I guess for me I understand the historic binary of the critic and the cultural producer and the artist vs. artist mentality and was disappointed that we didn’t go beyond these things which frankly feel like a preamble to where we are today. I had hoped to get into the emerging role of artists speaking for themselves and filling some critical gaps in the contemporary landscape we find ourselves. I also wanted to get into why artists and critics are very similar animals in the end and what the critic means to the cycle of life in the artworld. Criticism seems to me to be a bit of a lonely practice not so indifferent from many studio practices. I’ve always felt some consternation as to why so many artists feel directly threatened by what ultimately is simply a larger discussion on meaning that can change and turn at any point by a myriad of varied catalysts. I can understand the raw feelings from a negative review (as if these even happen now) but ultimately these are tests to the practitioner to get out of their own skin from time to time and see how their works operate within the larger sphere of public engagement.

I was glad to find some thoughts on the role of the critic “these days” coming on the heels of this lecture. The Sept. issue of Modern Painters has a great little piece by Jerry Saltz that touches on this somewhat. It’s a great commentary on the role of the critic in a time where the market is so strong and global -frankly dictating more than most artists even comprehend. Saltz begins his respectful discussion with some of the sales pitch motifs he encounters from gallerists all the time. He cites that now the artist being exhibited is always described in terms of big name artists as if the work being viewed can not stand on its own without an associative qualifier. The current fashion is to say that this work is related to Warhol, Richter, Nauman, Kippenberger, Richard Prince, Mike Kelley or Jeff Wall (regarding emerging male artists). Or the trick is to say a famous artist “loves” this work, As in, “Well Kiki Smith really loves this work”. The reality of such assertions is that Kiki Smith probably said something along the lines of “congrats” on the show which ultimately gets spun into a celebrity endorsement. Saltz backs this up with an anecdote of such a case as told by Elizabeth Murray. The other slamdunk pitch is to say Saatchi is “interested”. I think we’ve all heard that! Or this piece is significant because Saatchi is buying it. I’ve heard this a few times as a pitch by the gallerist and the artist as well. My gut response is congrats on the sale but who cares abut the Saatchi part – it’s just as easy to view that as a negative. He buys every young artist and just for that reason – young. It’s a real estate speculation. If you own all the property you’re bound to make a profit – its basic monopoly not curatorial vision.

But back to the plight of the critic! Saltz continues with horror stories of dealers trying to hustle him and ultimately prevent him from seeing the actual art. He feels demoralized because in the current aggressive climate he is being told what to think. This should sound familiar to most artists. He continues that curators are now in the same act, pimping, pushing and plugging as if every interaction is a sales opportunity.

To look at art you need to get very, very quiet inside yourself. You must be able to hear your reactions. You can’t do this while someone is telling you what your reactions should be.

So what about the market and the role of the dealer, critic and artist? At no time in the last 50 years has what an art critic written had less of an effect on the market than now.
Many have hailed this as the death of criticism and that can be true, especially of the new breed of reviewer which seems more about networking and association into a preferred clique than critical engagement with art. Saltz wisely sights that it is really about the power of the market – the market is “smart” and is moving at its own momentum so no matter what anyone writes it doesn’t have a real monetary impact on what is collected.

This can be viewed as horrible but I’m willing to wager along with Saltz that it could actually free criticism to do what it needs to do – critique, and draw conclusions for the larger art equation that needs constant stewardship and rigorous review while being outside the market. It also frees artists to do what they need to do – their work, in terms of practice but also in terms of engaging criticism. The artist and the critic need each other now because the market is so forceful that without this reciprocal relationship of the “serious”, things may very well be reduced to hyped product and redundant drivel so associated with Chelsea and London right now - which ultimately insults Art.

Berliner; Travelogue

So finally back on board here, after a long patch of travel and work. When traveling, I always hold this fantasy that I will get ahead on some reading and thus bring along several thick books. Of course I never crack these but do manage to read the airline magazine and gift guide and generally suffer through some bad film on both legs of the journey. You’ll be glad to know I held to form with my Berlin trip. X-Men and Xanax or Michel deCerteau? Who’s gonna win that one right? I had hoped to blog but I found out quickly that it was not to be done with so many late nights and jet lag. Next time perhaps because I sincerely feel I missed something in not blogging on the run. At least I “finally” got to see Devil Wears Prada as a consolation prize...wretched.

Anywho, on to Berlin. Artists should be proud in the fact that I did not go to Art Forum art fair as planned (despite a free ticket) – we all hate the fairs so it seemed more appropriate to head to the Holocaust Memorial and the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum while there. The payoff was huge. I hit the memorial around 10:00 am so the crowd was small but enough to experience some of the intended tension and mystery of the site. The sun was really cresting at this time and shot through the concrete corridors with laser precision. Wandering the lanes of constantly shifting altitude, piercing sunlight and momentary glimpses of others in the periphery was quite intense on 3 hours of sleep. Ghostly and profound, my thoughts strayed to the narrative of the atrocities and the stories of several friends who had relatives directly involved. I also couldn’t help but think of the graveyards in New Orleans as well – the above ground tombs that create labrinyths of past lives. It was a striking connection about abandonment. The memorial is Peter Eisenman’s masterpiece and a real triumph of how art/architecture can convey the human experience, even a dark chapter with integrity, abstract beauty and solitude. I know what the critics think but I found it a place of reflection.

From there I made my way to the Mitte to hit some galleries, etc. Most of the offerings were quite dull and I was disappointed but happy to have some decent coffee. While in that area I did manage to see some video works by Mika Rottenberg and Jen DeNike at Kunst Werk, the Institute for Contemporary Art. Solid works by Rottenberg and DeNike but I was a little disinterested in the Aaron Young pieces. Great venue to see video though.

Building on the video theme, I was happily impressed by the shows at the Hamburger Bahnhof which is a former train station come art museum. Spectacular space and so many good shows I had trouble getting out of there. Imagine this list at any NY Museum: Joseph Beuys, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, The Atlas Group, and the best video show I have EVER seen in one place: “Beyond Cinema: The Art of Projection Films.Videos and Installations from 1963-2005”. The works primarily came from the Flick and Kramlich Collections It was such an expertly installed show expect for perhaps what may be a mistake with the Peter Campus piece. I don’t think I have ever dedicated so much time to viewing video, nearly 2 hours on a single visit with no sleep – that should say plenty. I’d love to recap each one but it’s impossible. I’ll just say that I did get emotionally swept up with Pipilotti Rist smashing car windows with a flower. I was tweaked enough to crave each and every blow to the unsuspecting autos. Awesome.

The rest of the trip was art related work. Long conferences, etc. I did get to meet and spend time with some great people along the way. So to name drop a few: Mathilde Rosier, Lu Jie, Kay Pallister, and many more. The social side was mostly a few random bars and a fairly delinquent night at the famed Paris Bar (and later King Kong). Perhaps past its prime but I’m a tourist sucker for history (and the free flowing wine) surrounded by donated artworks (some famous) from the past 50 years was too good to pass up. At moments you get that Cold War nostalgia mixed with the 19th century French Boheme mythology. Good stuff when you’re wasted!

So a brief taste, but Berlin seems to be a great place to be right now with tons of ex-pats from the US, France, UK, etc. -the hype may be true, Berlin is the new Center. The NY artists I met seem to be truly in love with place and want to stay for awhile. The support they are experiencing and the cost of living is too good to give up for that million dollar a month studio in Bushwick it seems. The best part is I never once was asked about or heard the word Chelsea!

Mouse Pad Pundit

Get your's today - and feel proud America.

Greenpoint meandering

Hey Taxi

In case you didn't know New York's iconic taxicab will be 100 years old in 2007. To mark this centenary, the Design Trust for Public Space has launched Taxi 07, a program of public events and publications to improve cab design and the entire taxi system.

The Taxi 07 Master Plan, to be published April 2007 in partnership with the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC), will outline the next decade of improvement priorities for New York cabs.

Make your opinions heard by taking our 20-question survey at http://www.taxi07.org -- every respondent also has a chance to win exclusive tickets to the Design Trust's gala cocktail event and benefit art auction at Rafael Viñoly Architects.

The survey is up for two weeks only, until September 30th, 2006. Shape the future of the New York City taxicab; take the Taxi 07 survey at http://www.taxi07.org.

New Yorkers (and anyone who has taken a cab) should get to know this great project and definitely do the survey. The Design Trust does great work and will certainly listen. My first suggestion would be give these cabbies some map training and provide rides home to Brooklyn once and while without the grimace!

Art Fund Chatter

Hyper busy these last days but I thought this was a mildy educational piece over at the Art Newspaper -- HLB

From Editorial & Commentary:
The implications of art fund collections shown in museums

By Adrian Ellis | Posted 14 September 2006

Art funds are investment vehicles, the return on which is linked to a portfolio of works of art acquired—as opposed to the stocks, bonds, property and commodities that are the usual components of investment funds. The return to the investor is determined, on the one hand, by the buoyancy of the art market or, more specifically, the bit of it in which the fund is investing (for example, contemporary, Asian or decorative arts) and, on the other hand, by the shrewdness of the decisions made by the funds’ managers with respect to specific acquisitions. The more buoyant the art market, the less shrewd the fund managers need to be to beat other financial instruments with which they are competing for investors’ attention and money.

Art funds are a relatively new phenomenon, spawned by the financial markets’ constant search for new gizmos and by the booming art market, particularly the contemporary art market. About 12 funds have been created in the past three years, playing off the contrast between the surging art market and the flat stock market. Those that have stayed the course include The Fine Art Fund and The China Fund.

Some have missions that seek to combine the power of the market with broader aims—in the case of the Artist Pension Fund, for example, the aim is to create a stream of income for artists in their retirement by cross subsidising less successful artists from the proceeds of more successful ones. Others, such as the Ellipse Foundation and the Wonderful Fund (see p6) have a for-profit framework but a rhetoric that combines commercial and non-commercial intentions in a way that is difficult to decode and disentangle.

Given the thin, lightly regulated and opaque nature of the art market compared with, say, the market for pork bellies or oil futures, art funds are usually aimed at the more speculative and affluent investor, who can afford to take a hit if and when the market implodes. To date, and notwithstanding the hoopla with which they have been launched, and the disproportionate coverage they get in the frothier parts of the financial press, they have not been notably successful either at attracting investors or at generating the sort of returns that appeal to a hard-nosed homo economicus.

One of the more noisily launched, Boston–based Fernwood Investments’ art fund—the subject, no less, of a Harvard Business School case study on alternative investment strategies—folded in 2005, less than two years after its launch; and others have been trailed but failed to launch, unable to attract funds sufficient to generate a diversified investment portfolio.

Notwithstanding their financial marginality, art funds raise interesting dilemmas when their holdings are shown in public museums. Whether or not the collector intends it, when works of art are lent to a museum, their value is usually enhanced. The collector can then realise that value through resale of the work with the beefed-up provenance and price that its stint in the public domain accrues.

The failed Fernwood fund explicitly embraced the technique in its description of its proposed investment strategy. Bruce Taub, the fund’s founder, told BusinessWeek in 2005 that the fund planned to lend pieces to museums or important exhibitions. That way, he said, “the value of the art will be enhanced through exposure”.

There is, of course, nothing new in museums borrowing from and displaying the works of private collectors. The development of art museums’ collections throughout the world can only be understood in the context of the relationship between private collectors and their complex motives on the one hand and museum administrators’ desire to harness those motives for the pubic good on the other. Directors, administrators and curators are acutely aware of the symbiotic relationship between public access to works of art that may not otherwise be seen, studied or enjoyed, and the private interest of the collector—sometimes wholly venal, sometimes wholly altruistic, and usually a deeply conflicted mix of the two.

The considerations that apply to art funds per se are exactly the same as those applying to any other private entity lending to a public museum, whether it is UBS loaning works to MoMA and Tate Modern or the Duke of Northumberland loaning the Madonna of the Pinks to the National Gallery. The Museums Association in the United Kingdom and the Association of Art Museum Directors in America have broad guidelines on the balancing of public and private interest, and the need for transparency, and accountability in circumstances where there is the possibility of private gain. They represent a pragmatic response to the reality that the public sector is and will remain critically dependent upon the private sector and indeed that the route to donations of work is usually through loans in the first instance. And that few public museums today have acquisitions budgets that allow them to neglect this vital source of new work.

Although the relationship between art funds and public museums is in principle no different from that between other collectors or dealers and museums, museums need to approach possible loans with particular vigilance and particular sensitivity to existing guidelines. While collectors have notoriously complex motives and psychologies, art funds do not: they are there to maximise the rate of return on their holdings, subject to the rule of law. (There is not yet a specific code of ethics for this class of investment vehicles.) This suggests they will take a fairly “instrumental” view of public museums’ potential contribution to asset appreciation and, unless they can attract more investors and demonstrate solid returns over the longer term, a fairly desperate one.

The writer is a regular columnist for The Art Newspaper and a director

of AEA Consulting (www.aeaconsulting.com)

post-thought

So I'm still finding myself somewhat washed out today. Distracted, thinking back still and wondering where "this" is all heading. Watching the lights last night with a friend of mine we couldn't help but wonder aloud and slander basically everyone in leadership - friend or foe - for being such incompetent, selfish and hateful men. So I thought I would link to this excellent commentary by Keith Olbermann. Also John Schaefer of NPR had an interesting program yesterday regarding the state of the arts and the response to disasters such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. Here's the discussion at Soundcheck. This is obviously a music slant but it applies to the visual arts.

911

Grand Opening :ChelseaMart

If you are in NYC you know that tonight is the deluge . Chelsea is open and ready for business! 4500 artists are currently "supported" by galleries in that special commerce zone we know and love. I read that we have 117 openings this week to choose from. For the willing, I'll let ArtCal do the guiding - check out the buffet. Bring comfortable shoes and leave your discerning taste at home.


image: Kent Parker, 2003

Adventures with Form in Space

I saw this interesting show posted over at Gravestmor. To quote:

“Adventures with Form in Space”is the theme of this year’s Balnaves Sculpture Project at the AGNSW. And it is a particularly good year.

Hot on the heels of NASA’s announcement that Dark Matter exists, comes Nike Savvas’s accurately title installation “Atomic: full of love, full of wonder”. It is an amazing room of freeze framed atoms that apart from some maverick dad letting his daughter play and tug at the sculpture, leaves the assembled viewers quietly agog. Suspended polystyrene balls held in place on nylon wire fill the room in a rough grid, running though the spectrum from reds to blues up the room with a few rogue orange balls escaping their hue, bubbling up into the cooler tones.

This work touches on what Steven Larose has been sorting through with his new works on paper series. Also this post on the "end" of string theory, by Bill Gusky comes to mind as it references a new concept, "braids". Bill links to this article: You are made of space-time. The braid theory, or rather "Loop Quantum Gravity", is in its early stages but may be able to merge general relativity and quantum mechanics into a single consistent theory. As Bill wonders - will this change our view of ourselves? How will it manifest in the art we make? I wonder if it will further underscore the growing divide between political will and scientific discovery? Perhaps a growing role for artists is to fill that gap in some way.