This Means Nothing, by Le Bijoutier.
The other day I picked up this recently-released photographic tome on NYC street art to check out what got featured. There’s some good stuff in here, pieces – like Skewville’s Ride or Die sculpture (see it after the jump) – that have long been lost to the real estate developers glassifying downtown. There are a number of spots featured in the book that at some point or another, I’ve photographed myself, so I figured I’d do a small round-up. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pick up the book. Le Bijoutier has waaaaay more stuff than I feature here and it’s all very nicely showcased: just photos, and like the title implies, no long-winded essays about the meaning of it all.
Click to supersize. Images after the jump.
Continue reading ‘What I’m reading.’
Eli Baxter at the The Contemporary Museum Biennial of Hawaii Artists in Honolulu, through August 17. (Image courtesy of Baxter.)
Hey Kids: As we enter the summer I’m gonna cut back on Digest-ing. Starting next week, it’s Monday through Thursday only, leaving Friday open for very important posts about goodies like chocolate Boteros. xox, C.
- The hat-twirling GIF. (Via HV.)
- Preserving art that isn’t built to last. (Via AJ.)
- Jake and Dinos Chapman vandalize Hitler paintings and are now trying to sell them (via AJ). The Guardian has an image of one of the works here. They also ask: Is this all “a bit silly?” The answer: yes.
- Rich Russians buying art at the Moscow World Fine Art Fair. Plus: The Times looks at those Russian millionaires and billionaires that Western millionaires and billionaires are being all condescending about.
- Contemporary art prices are trending downward says curator Todd Levin.
- The Woodstock Museum. Groovy fact: Richard Lacayo went to Woodstock. Rock on!!
- Jeff Wall discusses five of his pics and how they came about (via AFC). That staged battle scene kinda reminds me in its ethos to those melodramatic, staged battle scenes that Meissonier liked to paint in the 19th century.
- Artist killed during peace pilgrimage.
- A profile of street artiste and Fulbright scholar Steve Powers, aka ESPO, in the New York Times. See the photo essay.
- Tobias Wolff’s short story Bullet in the Brain, about an art critic taking some hot lead to the head.
- A Portrait of Silvia Elena, a collaborative installation by Swoon and Tennessee Jane Watson, at the Honey Space in NYC. The piece honors one of the countless women killed in the Mexican border town of Juárez, whose murders have gone largely uninvestigated and unsolved.
- “Street art is gone…but I’m still here.”
- Book: Lost: Graffiti in the City of Angels, a compilation of ten years worth of graffiti photography in L.A.
- Enter the drawing to win a Skewville crate, covered in real, 100% authentic New York City grime!
- Our President is a douche. The Daily Show’s take here.
- Container-like, but modern: The Nomadhome by Gerold Peham.
- Keeping the footprint small: The Marfa 10 x 10 Lightbox House, which takes up only 320 square feet of land. (Via NotCot.)
- Little People. (Thanks again, TT!)
- Your moment of procrastination. (Thanks again, TT.)
Posted by C-Monster.
Mine, 2008.
Photos from Remembering to Forget, Charles Browning’s show at Schroeder Romero in NYC. A friend of mine described the work as “ironic Romanticism.” It seems an adept label. The show runs through June 21st.
Click on images to supersize. More after the jump.
Continue reading ‘Photos: Charles Browning at Schroeder Romero in NYC.’
A piece of Greg Lynn’s Blobwall. (Photo by virtual.architect.)
- In L.A.: Greg Lynn’s Blobwall Pavilion at SCI-Arc, opens tomorrow.
- In L.A.: Four, a group show at Corey Helford in Culver City, opens tomorrow.
- In S.F.: Eve Sussman’s Rape of the Sabine Women to screen on Fridays through June at S.F. MoMA.
- In Orange County, Calif.: Terracotta Warriors at the Bowers Museum (via O.C. Art Blog). Looking Around dissects warrior types.
- In Chicago: Jeff Koons at the Museum of Contemporary Art, opens Saturday.
- In NYC: David Byrne turns the Battery Maritime Building into a giant organ in Playing the Building, in lower Manhattan, opens this Saturday.
- In NYC: Emergence, on Governor’s Island, this Saturday.
- In NYC: Graffiti Research Lab, tagging the Peter Sharp building at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, tonight and Saturday.
- In NYC: Louise Lawler at Metro Pictures, through June 7th.
- In São Paulo: Cena7, Emol, Nick e, GEN and JoaoH at Qaz Urban Art.
- In Glasgow: Birth Rites at the Glasgow Science Centre.
- In London: Psycho Buildings: Artists Take On Architecture at the Hayward. (The best line from this story… Adrian Searle on Ernesto Neto: “The result is a sort of chill-out zone of swollen glands and dangling testicular bulges.”) More on the show here.
- In Liverpool: Speaking of testicular bulges, Gustav Klimt is now on view at the Tate Liverpool. More here.
Posted by C-Monster.
Tribute to the Best Mom in the World, 2008, by Andrew Sexton at Oliver Kamm, in NYC. Opening night featured an ice cream boar’s head that was quite delicious. Hopefully I won’t find out later that it contained the artist’s spit. The exhibit runs until June 21st. (Photo by C-M.)
- Jerry Saltz writes an elegy to the East Village’s Tower of Toys: “It wasn’t beautiful, but it was beautifully eccentric, part of a folk-art tradition put together from the detritus and wreckage of once-raggedy neighborhoods by individuals working on the edge of society.”
- Jake and Dinos Chapman are making a movie and it’s rumored to be about the art world.
- From the Department of No Duh: Coochie-covered chairs designed for a London park by painter Jonathan Yeo are rejected for being too pornographic.
- The Day in Art Merch: Alex Katz beach towels and Glass House Moleskine notebooks.
- Photos and Video: Josiah McElheny talks about Conceptual Drawings for a Chandelier.
- Art Basel shifts schedule to accommodate soccer tourney in Switzerland. Also part of the story: Gallerists beseeching various supernatural forces that collectors will still be dropping big bucks on contemporary art when the fair opens next week.
- Photo essay: Sony’s photographic archive, including pics of Dylan, Sly Stone, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk.
- The urban architecture of the upcoming Frank Miller flick, The Spirit.
- Video of Andy Warhol’s photos at Cal State Fullerton.
- Graff of the Day: Sums in Bristol.
- Photos from the Electric Windows show in Beacon, N.Y.
- CNN covers the story of KRink. (Via Supertouch.)
- Photo Essay: The Architecture of Authority.
- RIBA names the best buildings in Britain. The list includes buildings by Richard Rogers, David Adjaye, Norman Foster and David Chipperfield.
- It’s What’s For Breakfast: Renderings of the Egg Building in Mumbai.
- Richard Meier talks green. (Via Unbeige.)
- A lecture by Juan Freire at the Medialab Prado on the issue of managing public space. (Set aside some time for this one. It’s long, but worth it.)
- A giant wooden cactus. (If you live in L.A., you can see this on Friday: Info here.)
- Your moment of Fresh Prince, in Italian.
Posted by C-Monster.
Sixeart and JR on the side of the Tate. (Photo by Neloboix.)
The Tate Modern’s street art show went up in London last week, with pieces by Sixeart, JR, Blu, Faile Nunca, and Os Gemeos. The London Evening Standard wonders why the exhibit doesn’t include Banksy. It woulda been kinda funny to see a giganto rat on the side of this venerable institution.
See more pix by Neloboix on Flickr. See video of some of the installation here. The show is up until August 25th.
Posted by C-Monster.
Detail of a work by Rory Donaldson at Edward Winkleman Gallery, in NYC, through May 31st. (Photo by C-M.)
- Attention Art Handlers: You too can be a part of a hot art handlers calendar. (Brown people, please apply, or this is gonna be pasty.) In an unrelated call: animal art sought for O.C. Contemporary Arts Center exhibit.
- Milan Mayor wants to cancel film director Peter Greenaway’s Last Supper light show for fear that it may damage Da Vinci’s fragile painting. (A light show? For reals? Sounds totally Vegas.)
- The Brooklyn Museum has curated Hiroshige prints for the latest Add-Art ad blocker. See what the results look like here.
- The Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid gives the setting where Picasso’s Guernica hangs a freshening up.
- 11 Hot Art Cities, according to Forbes. (Via AO.)
- Good luck getting those dealers and auction houses to share the spoils: A group of artists in Britain want royalties off of sold works until 70 years after their death. (Via A.J.)
- Leonard Lauder steps down as Whitney chairman.
- Building Hong Kong’s art scene: Gagosian, Sundaram Tagore and Tang Contemporary.
- Beautiful photos of bankrupt offices.
- In light of the vandalism on Stonehenge: Nigel Tufnel and Eddie Izzard riff on Stone ‘enge.
- Seriously trippy: Flying man-made jellyfish.
- Paul Goldberger reviews Beijing’s Olympic Green: “In both conception and execution, the best of Beijing’s Olympic architecture is unimpeachably brilliant. But the development also exemplifies traits—the reckless embrace of the fashionable and the global, the authoritarian planning heedless of human cost—that are elsewhere denaturing, even destroying, the fabric of the city.”
- Philip Johnson house in Connecticut may be destroyed to make way for a McMansion if no one steps up to buy it. (Via architecture.mnp.)
- Portable stadiums. An idea the Chicago Trib says is bogus.
- Bomb It now available on DVD.
- Graff of the Day: Keos in Germany.
- A Q&A with painter Ryan McLennan.
- A Flickr set of lasered skate decks, by artists such as Fafi, Mike Giant and Estevan Oriol. (Via Juxtapoz.)
- Business in the front, party in the back: The Gunn Furniture Dream Desk, courtesy of Mlle. Connasse.
- Your moment of 1960s Mexican sci-fi ads for chocolate milk. (Via Closet Romantic.)
Posted by C-Monster.
Skewville Fresh.
To celebrate the upcoming debut of Skewville’s Brooklyn Gallery, Factory Fresh, proprietor Ad Deville has kindly donated an item for the first ever C-Monster giveaway.
Drop us a line in the comments section below telling us why you need a little freshness in your life (an incomplete sentence will do), and this Skewville crate could be yours. The piece comes complete with a layer of New York City grime, as it was recently rescued from the exterior of a condemned building where it had been installed.
Nicknames are fine (we’ll keep your identity private, if you want), just use a working e-mail address (so we can contact you) and be sure to tell us what city you’re based in. The winner will be announced the week of June 9th.
Offer not valid if you’re a cop.
Posted by C-Monster.
Supah-Stah by Celso. (Photo by C-M.)
- In NYC: The first ever chashama Film Festival kicks off with an opening reception party at chashama’s flagship space on East 42nd Street, Thursday at 6 p.m., that will feature Plexiglas pieces by my partner-in-crime, Celso.
- In NYC: Christina Mazzalupo at Mixed Greens, opens Friday.
- In NYC: The Bourne Trilogy gets deconstructed at MoMA, several evenings in a row, starting this Thursday. The film’s director, Doug Liman, will be present for a couple of the events.
- In NYC: Jackass, with Marina Abramovic, Sophie Calle, Vito Acconci and many others at Susan Inglett, opens Thursday.
- In NYC: The Telectroscope at the Fulton Ferry Landing in Brooklyn, through June 15th.
- In Washington, D.C.: Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul at the National Gallery of Art.
Posted by C-Monster.
Amelia Hannah, a yarn painting by Robert Forman. (Image courtesy of Robert Forman.)
- An absolutely gripping collection of 18 years worth of Polaroid pictures documenting one man’s life and death. (Thanks, Eugenio.)
- Chicago government types buff graffiti mural because it’s too “urban.”
- The NYC graffiti crackdown continues: Peter Vallone Jr. has introduced a bill that would require developers to remove vandalism from construction sites or face fines. (Does that include removing illegal advertising as well?)
- Hamptons cops arrest gallerist for serving champagne at an opening. Winkleman gives his take on the situation here.
- And ‘cuz today is a police-state kinda day: Cops raid Sydney gallery and confiscate photos of adolescent nudes by photographer Bill Henson. In related news: His former models are rallying behind the artist (via AJ). More here.
- Christie’s to auction Goya sketches that were rediscovered after 130 years. Jonathan Jones at the Guardian reviews the images: “I think that Goya is our conscience. He lived in an age of spiralling unreason, and so do we.”
- Artist needs your antidepressant pills more than you do. (Via Bloggy.)
- Photo Essay: Jacob Riis’s New York.
- The Huntington Library in L.A. gets a serious makeover. More here and here. Plus: A slideshow.
- A Q&A with Peter Schjeldahl: “Oh yes, curatorial babble. My distaste for that is well known. But you know I think there’s been a trend recently against that. I think there’s a lot less of that than there was, and it’s interesting, the New Museum has almost no wall text.”
- MAN has a good round-up of museo-related news, including an item about ducklings getting killed in the pool drain at the American Indian Museum in D.C. Harsh.
- Bo Diddley kicks ass.
- Back on the Block: Neutra’s Kaufmann Desert House sale will not take place because of buyer problems.
- Dezeen has a really good photo essay on Madrid’s Caixa Forum, designed by Herzog & de Meuron.
- How Youngstown, Oh. is trying to deal with all of that excess urban architecture cast aside by a declining population. (Via architecture.mnp.)
- Architectural asymmetry not so hot, says Slate.
- Jean Nouvel to design new Paris skyscraper. (Is it me, or does he look like Dr. Evil in the accompanying photograph?)
- The Day in Architecture Industry Gossip: The Dark Lord Foster has taken over a Melbourne gig previously assigned to Zaha Hadid. Plus: some nice photos of the Dark Lord’s Beijing airport. (Via NotCot.)
- Incredible photos of highway interchanges by Ken Ohyama.
- Your moment of break-dancing, crazy fingers edition. (Via Maykr.)
Posted by C-Monster.
