(Photo by Karin Dalziel.)
Hey Folks:
I’ve got deadlines coming out of my ears. No Digest today. I’ll see y’all next week.
In the meantime, Happy Halloween.
xox, C.
Monthly Archive for October, 2008
A Word Moves in the Shadows and Swells the Draperies, oil and enamel on wood panel, by EJ Hauser at Pluto Gallery in NYC. (Image courtesy of Brent Burket, aka Heart as Arena.)
- In NYC: Unbreak My Heart, curated by blogger bud Heart As Arena, at Pluto Gallery, in Brooklyn, opens Saturday.
- In NYC: Editions/Artists’ Books Fair at the Tunnel, Friday through Sunday.
- In NYC: Kehinde Wiley, Down, at Deitch Gallery, opens Saturday.
- In NYC: Zaha Hadid at Sonnabend, opens Saturday.
- In Pittsburgh: Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Architecture and the Spaces of the Imagination at the Carnegie Museum of Art, opens Saturday.
- In Pensacola: Jasper Johns at the Pensacola Museum of Art, opens Friday. (This is a great little museum. It’s housed in a vintage jail and there are old jail bars between the galleries.)
- In New Orleans: Prospect.1, the New Orleans Biennial, in various locations, opens Saturday.
- In L.A.: Lost: Graffiti in the City of Angels at Mid City Arts, opens Saturday.
- In Seattle: The art of the Coast Salish at the Seattle Art Museum, through Jan. 11.
- In London: David Altmejd at Modern Art, through Nov. 15.
- In Barcelona: The Condition of the Document and the Modern Photographic Utopia at MACBA, through Jan. 6.
An installation by Michael De Feo, at the old state penitentiary in Jefferson City, Missouri, a prison that at one point or another housed inmates such as Pretty Boy Floyd, boxer Sonny Liston and James Earl Ray, the man who assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. (Image courtesy of Michael De Feo.)
- The art of soap.
- The micro-industry of Obamart.
- “Bremer Walls.” (Tomorrow Museum.)
- Alaska’s Sen. Ted Stevens is gonna go to the pokey after being convicted of failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts. Among them: a fugly fish sculpture.
- The Smithsonian’s former Indian museum director to reimburse the museum almost $10,000 for payments he shouldn’t have received. (Is it me, or is W. Richard West a highly nucular shade of orange?)
- Rowdy MBAs from Northwestern’s Kellogg School got plastered and hurled inside Chicago’s Field Museum.
- Damien Hirst returns to the Emmanuel Perrotin gallery after 19 years.
- Jenny Holzer’s Twitter page: apparently, not for reals.
- Paddy Johnson on Gilbert & George.
- Some museums are embracing the great big Internets. More here.
- The art industrial average is sucking the big one. More here. (Arts Journal.)
- In Paris: Tom Sachs gets Kitty with it.
- Holy Bat-Manga!
- Robert Irwin’s work to get deconstructed by the likes of Vija Celmins, Michael Govan, Joel Meyerowitz and others, at the Chicago Humanities Festival on Nov. 9th.
- The Netherlands’ National Archive has begun posting its images on Flickr. (Coudal.)
- Stuff Journalists Like. (Fimoculous.)
- Today’s Graff: Bo130 in Italy. More here.
- 40 pixadores vandalized the 28th São Paulo Biennial on its opening day, reportedly as a protest against the commercialization of culture. Read a story (in Portuguese) here, complete with video. This comes a little more than a month after a group of pixadores did a similar thing at the opening of a gallery show, also in São Paulo.
- “Photographing graffiti: sampling or stealing?”
- Israeli court OKs controversial Frank Gehry-designed museum.
- Baconnaise. (Thank you for the sublime ridiculosity, ackackack.)
- Your moment of the weirdest drug song ever, courtesy of Mlle. Connasse.
More like “Democracy is scary.” (Photo by C-M.)
I am going to be so tricked out for Indecision ’08 now that I’ve got the Walker Art Center’s political art buttons (complete with obtuse slogans by Donald Judd and Joseph Beuys) in my hot little hands. Many thank to John Hoffoss in Minneapolis for taking the time and expense to send me the set. I will wear them pride. And a mild sense of hipster irony.
Also: I’m buried under deadlines. No Digest today.
xox, C.
A detail from I’ve Stuck Around, Through Thick and Thin, 2008 by James Gobel. Felt, yarn and acrylic on canvas. (Image courtesy of Steve Turner Contemporary.)
- In L.A.: James Gobel, Happy Hour at Steve Turner Contemporary, through Nov. 8.
- In L.A.: The California Biennial, at OCMA and various locations, through March 15, 2009. My incisive report here.
- In L.A.: Not Figments of a Madman’s Imagination: The Uncanny in Contemporary Romanian Video Art at Kontainer Gallery in Chinatown, through Nov. 15.
- In Seattle: Lauren Grossman at Howard House, through Saturday.
- In Seattle: You F#{%ING Look at Me!: Surveillance in the 21st Century at 911 Media Arts Center, through Friday.
- In Dallas: Brent Ozaeta, Super Market at the Public Trust, through Dec. 6.
- In Newark, N.J.: The Price of Freedom at cWow, through Nov. 26.
- In NYC: Wafaa Bilal, Marth Rosler, Sandow Birk, Hasan Elahi and many others in Sedition, at Whitebox, opens Wednesday.
- In NYC: Voiceover, a public intervention by Nayda Collazo-Llorens, at MediaNoche in Harlem. Projections on the building will be viewable from dusk until midnight Thursdays through Sundays through Nov. 16.
- In NYC: The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions at the Met, through Feb. 1, 2009. Plus: a Montebello Disco party, tonight at 8:00 p.m.
- In NYC: The Language of Angels, featuring the work of Lisa Alisa, Camilla d’Errico, Sarah Joncas, Simone Maynard, Mia and Mijm Schatje, at Ad Hoc Art in Brooklyn, through Nov. 24.
- In NYC: Ad Nauseum Lyceum’s Domestic Skin at chashama UWS, through Sunday.
- In NYC: A panel on street art at SVA, tonight at 7:00 p.m.
- In Santiago, Chile: The 16th Chilean Architecture Biennial begins on Thursday. There will be tours of Santiago architecture starting Monday. (Plataforma Arquitectura.)
- In Frankfurt: Peter Doig at Schirn Kunsthalle, through Jan. 4, 2009.
Madeline Tindall, age 9, at the Pensacola Museum of Art. (Photo by C-M.)
- America the Gift Shop. (Art to Go.)
- Like, OMG, total weirdness. Because of an L.A. Times Culture Monster post, C-Mon has been linked to by James Frey. Yes, that James Frey.
- In addition to Sarah Palin’s whoa-nelly clothing budget, the Republican National Committee spent $6,000 on art restoration during the month of October. (Art Fag City.)
- Damien Hirst on art dealers: “…the money men will tell you anything to not have you realise their real motive is cash, because if you realise – that they would sell your granny to Nigerian sex slave traders for 50 pence (10 bob) and a packet of woodbines…”
- The Warhol Family Album. (Hrag Vartanian.)
- The country that brought you the Marquis de Sade has censored photos of a Russian artist simulating bestiality.
- Art, these days it’s all about collecting.
- L.A. art continues to get a boost: Getty Foundation is expected to award $2.8 million in grants to support shows that explore the development of the city’s art scene after WWII.
- Vintage manga from 1967.
- Art review of the day: “The show here lacks this altogether, substituting swagger for judgment, bluster for nuance, and in art, as in politics and finance, we’ve had enough of that approach already.”
- Photo Essay: The revolutionary art of Emory Douglas.
- I want, I need, I have to have…a blendie. Don’t miss the video.
- Today’s Freight Graff: Gee-Wiz and Do-It in Atlanta.
- Sometimes it’s best to just accept the graffiti.
- Totally weird children’s TV. Seriously worth it for that first Teletubbies video. (ackackack.)
- Architectural ghosts: A photo essay on the last traces of the Old Hudston Terminal in NYC. (architecture.mnp.)
- Looks sorta neo-brutal: Milanese university faculty building by Grafton Architects wins World Building of the Year Award at the first World Architecture Festival in Barcelona.
- A Thai Buddhist temple made of beer bottles.
- A century and a half of New York Times presidential endorsements.
- Your moment of Wassup 2008.
Matt Lucero’s concrete boom box on OCMA’s front lawn. It works, using solar power. Even better: it was tuned to a Mexican radio station. My bad: the audio isn’t live radio. It’s a six-minute soundtrack. (Photos by C-M.)
California’s medical marijuana laws are clearly having an impact on the art that is being produced in the state, because the 2008 California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art in super-ritzy Newport Beach, is a veritable bonanza of art for stoners: things that spin, optical illusions and 14 minutes worth of atomic explosions. It’s enough to make a girl say, duuude. Not that there wasn’t a good dose of Whitney Biennial-style fare as well. Namely, piles of detritus that blur the line between avant garde art and garage-cleaning day at your parents’ house.
Unfortunately, the buzzkills at OCMA don’t allow photography in the galleries, so I have scant photo documentation. However, as part of the expanding line of services here at C-Monster.net, I would like to provide a rundown of the most stonerrific pieces in the show:
- Untitled, 2008 by Elad Lassry: a video that places live figures on a geometric optical illusion painting in ways that seem to defy gravity. Neat-o.
- Looking for Mushrooms, 1959-65/1996 by Bruce Conner: A near-quarter hour of mushroom clouds, one after another. Like, totally gnarly.
- Mata Crush, 2006 by Tony Labat: A 10-minute video of the artist’s Lincoln Continental getting smashed in slow motion. Better than any Monster Truck rally. For reals.
- Blur, 2007 by Tony Labat: More slo-mo, this time of a moving train loaded with crazy cargo. Pairs well with Hindu Kush and Fritos.
- Untitled, 2008 by Mark Hagen: A canvas with volcanic glass arrows arranged to look as if they are exploding. Or are they imploding? Look again. And then again and…
- Crushed by the Hammer of the Sun, 2008 by Kara Tanaka: A mesmerizing mechanical sculpture of a spinning silk skirt. Watching this could easily absorb an entire afternoon.
- Vanishing Intent, 2008 by Marco Rios: The press release describes this installation as a “minimalist room with a drop-ceiling at the artist’s height that creates an awkward space of discomfort and paranoia.” I describe it as trippy in a Being John Malkovich kind of way.
Click on images to supersize. Find a key to the ratings after the jump.
Continue reading ‘Photos: The 2008 California Biennial at OCMA.’
Skewville in L.A. (Photo by C-M.)
- The remains of the day.
- Me, me, me!…on the subject of street art in museums in ArtNews!
- McGuggenpalooza: A profile of the museum’s new director Richard Armstrong, in which board president Jennifer Stockman says that the Guggenheim Foundation is not currently planning on investing in a GuggenVilnius, nor are they looking to subsidize an expansion of the Bilbao branch into a nature preserve outside the city. Plus: Armstrong’s predecessor, the Krens-Master, allegedly overpaid for works in the museum’s Bilbao collection.
- “Pinocchio, Mendacious Boy Puppet, Plunges to Death at Museum.” More here.
- Financial trouble: bad for the art industry, good for art. Even Murakami says so.
- Earth works in the Western United States under threat.
- 1,000 artworks to see before you die, according to the Guardian.
- The sublime point where art and politics intersect: Donald Rumsfeld’s official portrait for the Pentagon is costing the public purse $46,000. And it wasn’t even painted by Julian Schnabel. (Thank you, dentist_tx.)
- L.A. artists are starting to get their due.
- The pop surrealism set to get its own fair during Basel in Miami.
- Andy Goldsworthy’s Presidio Spire in San Francisco. Kinda reminds me of the Texas A&M bonfire stack.
- The Seattle Art Museum is renting out its halls to purveyors of booze. (MAN.)
- Biology knitting.
- The Idea Conference: bursting with sausage.
- Speaking of sausage…American concept cars of the ‘50s and ‘60s. (NotCot.)
- Today’s Graff, On Fire Edition: Elfo in Italy.
- World’s Best Ever has a round-up on how “urban” art is faring at the auction houses.
- London city council votes to remove Banksy mural.
- The Vietnam Graffiti Project.
- Princess Zaha is designing shoes for Lacoste (Unbeige). Related: the architectural parallels between Hadid and Mike Brady. With lots of photos from inside Princess Zaha’s giant clam (Hrag).
- Sedimentary architecture: the Lavezzorio Community Center by Studio Gang in Chicago.
- Microterritoriality: Our islands of familiarity. On a related note: the parallel maps of Jorge Luis Borges and Lewis Carroll.
- Swinging Some Pipe: The Estonian pavilion at the Venice architecture biennale.
- Your moment of Obama/McCain dance-off. (Courtesy of San Suzie.)
A tantalizing combination of white and dark…chocolate. Found at Downey’s in Laguna Niguel, Calif.
October 2nd, 2008.
On Monday, my dad died. He had endured a bout with an incurable cancer that made his fate inevitable. Even so, I can’t say that I was prepared for the moment in which he took his last breath, a moment that came much sooner than any of us ever anticipated. During the last few weeks, after arriving in California, I made a habit (not sure why) of snapping pix of the sunrises with my cell phone whenever I could. Here’s the series, until the day of his death.
In case y’all were wondering: Felipe Miranda lived a pretty kick-ass life. He drank, he ate, he travelled the world and he had a good time wherever he went. He will be sorely missed.
Here is how I like to remember him.