Last Year, by JBird, in Brooklyn. (Photo by Luna Park.)
Happy New Year!
xox, C.
Monthly Archive for December, 2008
Robert De Niro is waiting… (Photo by C-Mon.)
Engorged with lots of holiday cheer (and too many empanadas), Celso and I decided to watch Michael Cimino’s 1978 Vietnam drama, The Deer Hunter. If you haven’t had a chance to see the picture, here’s what you need to know: it’s got lots of bleak footage of Pennsylvania mills, one loooong-ass wedding scene, oodles of Vietnamese jungle shots and more Russian roulette than a freaked-out Christopher Walken can handle.
My favorite visual comes towards the end of the movie. It’s a simple shot of Robert De Niro arriving at a veteran’s hospital, to visit a buddy who was maimed in the war. The moment is rather unremarkable. What got my attention, however, were the luscious colors of that ’70s wallpaper in the hallway, a saturated rainbow sherbet of hues such as tangerine and papaya. It’s as if De Niro (in full-blown intensity-mode) is emerging from a tropical womb. All I’d like to know is: Who was the set decorator for this? And can someone please give him a job decorating real hospitals? I’ve had it with all the beige.
One of these is not like the other: From a distance, they look the same… (Craptastic camphone photos by C-M.)
The other night, waiting (an eternity) for the train at the Morgan Avenue stop in Brooklyn, we noticed what must be the MTA’s latest money-saving ruse: Those old subway mosaic signs aren’t always mosaics. They’re photographs.
See below:
The real deal: a vintage tile mosaic with the station’s name.
Not-a-mosaic: A high-res shot of a mosaic, pasted into the subway column wall.
Giving to the Poor, by Above. (Image courtesy of Above.)
I’m officially off for the holidays, but I have a coupla quick things to keep you busy. One, L.A.’s MOCA is taking the Broad offer. Director Jeremy Strick has resigned and taking over, as the museum’s chief executive, will be UCLA Chancellor Emeritus Charles E. Young. The official announcement will be made today at a press conference, at MOCA, at 10:00 am Pacific Time. Two: in keeping with the spirit of supporting the disenfranchised, street artist Above is selling the above image as a print, with all proceeds going to two homeless shelters, one in S.F., the other in London.
Happy Holidaze.
xox, C.
Starting with…election coverage of any kind. (Photo by mlitty.)
- Obamart and Obamerch. Please stop. He’s a politician, not the second coming.
- Ironic mustaches.
- YouTube graffiti-making videos set to hip-hop soundtracks. Like watching paint dry. Literally.
- Stories about the death of print.
- Stories about the death of blogging.
- Self-designated architectural movements.
- Any art involving excrement or bodily fluids. If we wanted to admire turd logs, we’d get a dog.
- Bailouts.
- The use of the word “intervention” in art or architecture. Unless it’s describing some burned-out celeb and a gram-bag, put it to rest.
- Artist-led auctions.
– with reporting by San Suzie and Yvonne Connasse.
Celso. (Photo by Punk Dolphin.)
Hey Folks: After today we’re shuttin’ down the taco stand and taking some much-needed time off for the holidaze. See you after New Year’s! xox, C.
- Knitting for psychos. (Hrag Vartanian.)
- The art industrial average is so far down the crapper it’s gonna take a Trainspotting-like move to dislodge it. And it ain’t any easier for museums. Related: Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin in Miami to close. (Art Observed.)
- MOCA’s problems aren’t just financial. They’re architectural, reports the LA Times’ Christopher Hawthorne.
- Dear NYT Arts Section: For the love of all that is sacred, please hire someone to make your Twitter feed at least mildly interesting.
- Late addition: Art Fag City is having a fundraiser to keep her site going. (It’s a non-profit donation, under the umbrella of Momenta Art — so it’s tax deductible.)
- The hanging of President Bush, National Portrait Gallery edition.
- The map quilts of Leah Evans. (NotCot.)
- Art Merch Alert: Tom Sachs has an online store. And he’s selling hand-embossed skateboard wheels and custom sharpies (???) for $12. (Art Observed.)
- The (Exhausting) Day in Year-End Round-Ups: New York Mag‘s Saltz-master and Modern Art Notes‘ Tyler Green give us their top ten, the LAT’s Christopher Knight gives his best and worst, Richard Dorment at the Telegraph rounds up the worst, and Holland Cotter and Roberta Smith of the NYT do their year-end thing, as does Martin Gayford at Bloomberg. Last, but not least: Peter Plagens picks the most representative work of art of the Bush era (and it’s a Koons!…which he describes as “a cloying cliché presented as profundity”). Stay-tuned for my obligatory year-end list this afternoon!
- If you’re in SF and you have nothing to do over the holidays, hit Gallery Paule Anglim to check out Bruce Conner’s Looking for Mushrooms, one of the most stonerrific pieces of video art ever. And don’t forget to pack the Maui Wowie.
- Lovin’ Design Observer’s weekly image picks.
- A 1950s illustration Flickr pool. Love the German Pez ad. (NotCot.)
- Today’s Graff: Slow in Budapest.
- Thanks to Wooster Collective for the nice year-end shout-out! Sweet…
- The joy of not being sold anything.
- Princess Zaha’s giant clam will tour the world no longer due to financial troubles. (Hrag Vartanian.)
- Related: The NYT reports how starchitecture was all fun and games, until the money ran out.
- An inventive reuse of Israeli military architecture. Think bingo.
- Photo of the Day: The Sydney Opera House under construction in 1973.
- Trippy floors: the Casa Yaya in Madrid.
- Your moment of Jingle Bells played on 49 microwave ovens. (Coudal.)
“Dude, you were supposed to bring a dish.” (Photo by Yvonne Connasse.)
- Congrats to Amy from Seattle for winning the C-Mon Holiday Giveaway Extravaganza! The glittery brutalism is all yours!
- 100 cereal boxes. Love that there were once cereals called Corn Crackos and Wackies. (Coudal.)
- MOCA Mess-a-palooza, Unnamed Sources Edition: Museum director Jeremy Strick allegedly resigns, Mayor Tony wants this to be a public process and the NYT reports that the museum is leaning towards accepting the Broad deal, but the LACMA offer has not been completely discarded.
- Late addition: Interview Magazine‘s Dec./Jan issue is devoted to art and features Q&As with, among other high profile ah-tists, William Eggleston, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Richard Prince and Raymond Pettibon, who says that Gumby appealed to him as a subject because “he could go into books and become part of the story.”
- The International Asian Art Fair, which was scheduled for March in NYC, has been cancelled.
- Sketches may be Leonardo Da Vinci’s.
- Blagojevich’s hair inspires ironic tee.
- Richard Dorment at the Telegraph lists his top 10 favorite exhibits.
- And Damion Hayes lists 5 artists he likes.
- Art on billboards, Moscow edition.
- Bushwhacking.
- Today’s Graff, Trailer Style: Elfo in Italy.
- Holiday Street Art. (Hrag Vartanian.)
- Looking Around lists the worthwhile architecture books of the season.
- Your moment of Please, Please, Please.
Hunter Cross and Jared Steffensen Jared Steffensen and Hunter Cross (foreground), at La Antigua Aduana, in Nuevo Laredo. (Image courtesy of artcrush.net.)
- In Nuevo Laredo: Hasta la Basura Se Separa, curated by Salvador Castillo, Michael Anthony García and Hector Hernandez, at the Galleria del Espacio Cultural de la Antigua Aduana, through Jan. 16.
- In Lancaster, Pa.: Theresa Kereakes, Unguarded Moments: Backstage and Beyond, at Metropolis, through Jan. 31.
- In Miami: The Prisoner’s Dilemma: Selections from the Ella-Fontanals-Cisneros Collection, through March 1.
- In L.A.: The Arts and Crafts Movement: Masterworks from the Max Palevsky and Jodie Evans Collection, at LACMA.
- In NYC: Calma at Jonathan LeVine, through Dec. 20.
- In London: Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin’s Listening Post at the Science Museum, through Feb. 19. (NotCot.)
- In Berlin: Anish Kapoor at Deustsche Guggenheim, through Feb. 1.
High School #9 by Coop Himmelb(l)au in Los Angeles. (Photo by F. Trainer.)
- A poem for L.A. (Thank you, Michele!)
- Me, me, me… guest blogging for Art21!
- The Hirst Industrial Average is Down: Only two of the artist’s eight works at Christoph Van de Weghe’s booth sold during Miami Basel. “The feeling is that the Hirst market has been stretched a bit too far, almost as if it snapped and backfired.”
- The SF MOMA collection, in pairs.
- MOCA MESS-o-palooza: The board is to meet today. And Eli Broad is supposed to attend! Oh joy!! First up: The L.A.T.‘s Christopher Knight, who says that the museum should take the Broad offer and get back to work. And that museum director Jeremy Strick and board co-chair Tom Unterman should get the heck out of Dodge. Next: The NYT reports that the board is divided. (No, really?) Plus: Tyler Green reports that California’s AG could be in a position to block the transaction. (And, just in case you were wondering, he doesn’t at all like the idea of a merger.) Related: Looking Around coolly weighs the options. In the meantime, here’s a little ditty we here at C-Monster.net would like to dedicate to all our homies on the MOCA board!
- In other news: The Getty Trust’s endowment is in the pooper. More here.
- The Seed Magazine bacterial portfolio. Beautiful. (Kottke.)
- Sarah Vowell guest DJs on KCRW. First song up? Loretta Lynn’s The Pill. Nice.
- The “Impeach Bush” ornament that the Bushies didn’t want, is now available for free download.
- More Obamart. (Gracias, Big Papi G.)
- Today’s Graff: Yisa in Chile.
- Flying Fortress has a book.
- A nicely-done essay by Ana Ferraz on juxtapoz.com that explains the recent origins of pixaçao, a São Paulo style of graffiti. (Scroll down. The essay begins after the second photo.”
- The Bat Mobile has lost its wheels in Bushwick.
- Urbanism lede of the Day: “There will surely come a day when Dubai runs the world’s reserves of hyperbole dry.”
- Case Study House No. 9, by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen, is on the market! (But is now reportedly relegated to servants quarters status behind a McMansion-ish bunker.)
- A trippy, caterpillar-like pavilion, by Explorations architecture, at Versailles.
- The U.N.’s stalactite ceiling in Geneva.
- Global warming could lead to the underwater fossilization of our cities.
- Your moment of Ode to Joy, Beaker style.