Ester falling asleep. Set volume on high to fully enjoy the snorts.
Monthly Archive for January, 2009
Page 3 of 5
Mulberry Tree, 1889, by Vincent Van Gogh, at the Norton Simon in Pasadena. (Photo by C-M.)
- The McRib locator. Handy. (Coudal.)
- Art Fag City evaluates the worst of the web in 2008. It’s a juicy one, folks. Do not miss.
- Me, this morning.
- You’ve got through the weekend to sign up for the latest C-Mon Giveaway Extravaganza.
- Plus: More me…blogging on Art21 about the photographs of an Army serviceman in Iraq. Check it out.
- Beethoven, as interpreted by Charlie Brown. (Gracias, Big Papi G.)
- Love the caftan: A couple of pix from the Hirshhorn Museum’s opening, in 1974.
- R.I.P Andrew Wyeth.
- Nobody’s home.
- Vladimir Putin, (bad) painter. (Arts Journal.)
- Create your own Shepard Fairey-style Obamicon. (Hrag Vartanian.)
- Related: Shepard Fairey interviewed by Stephen Colbert, who confesses his admiration of the “Obey” posters because, without them, he’d “forget to obey.” (Fairey barely gets a word in edgewise.) Plus: The Philadelphia Inquirer tracks down the pic used as the basis for the famous poster.
- “7 Things I Learned From Working on a Pot Farm.” Plus: CNBC.com has a breathtaking gallery of medicinal weed. (World’s Best Ever; ackackack.)
- Balloon animals humping. Soooo Jeff Koons. (Kottke.)
- Today’s Graff: Dack and Fabula in Moscow.
- A trailer for a documentary about pixaçao, the São Paulo graffiti. (Só português.) (Ekosystem.)
- A building in Germany that looks kinda Star Trek.
- Archinect took the pulse of the architecture industry and it’s faint: “Unless one is happy and married to money this is going to be painful,” said one respondent to the survey. (architecture.mnp.)
- R.I.P. Jan Kaplický. A few more images of his crazy buildings here and here.
- Grist evaluates Obama’s urban policy picks. The reviews are mixed. (The Skyline.)
- Design Observer lists 10 objects in need of a redesign.
- Your moment of Dacron Polyester.
I linked to this a while back, but given the dire state of the economy, it seemed more appropriate (and fracking hilarious) than ever. Thanks, Adrienne, for reminding me of this.
System of Recovery, a sculpture made with First Aid tape, drinking straws, crinoline, cardboard and wood, by Kristina Lewis at Johansson Projects in Oakland, Calif. (Image courtesy of Johansson Projects.)
- In Oakland: Collective Compulsions at Johansson Projects, opens Saturday.
- In L.A.: Rob Sato, Dirty Paper Machines, at Giant Robot, opens Saturday.
- In L.A.: Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef by the Institute for Figuring and Companions at Track 16 Gallery in Santa Monica.
- In L.A.: Street Shots, by Martha Cooper, at Subliminal Projects, opens Friday.
- In L.A.: Donnie Molls, an American Heritage, at Carl Berg, through Feb. 7.
- In San Diego: Cerca Series: Javier Ramírez Limón at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, opens Sunday.
- In NYC: Delusional Downtown Divas, at the Art Production Fund Lab, through Sunday.
- In NYC: Delineations and Know Hope at Ad Hoc Art in Brooklyn opens Friday.
- In NYC: Things Fall Apart, curated by Joy Garnett, at Edward Winkleman, opens Friday.
- In NYC: Don Bachardy: Christopher Isherwood, Last Drawings, through Feb. 7. (ArtInfo.)
- In London: Voo-Doo: Hoochie Coochie and the Creative Spirit at Riflemaker, opens Monday.
Jeff Koons at Versailles. See the full slideshow over at Hustler of Culture. (Image courtesy of Hustler of Culture.)
- The best paintings ever. Only $49.99. (My favorite: the Carmen Miranda-influenced one, of course.) (museumy.)
- Good question: will the financial crisis do away with the phenomenon of hedge fund manager collectors? And more importantly, what will they do with all that art that they bought at ridiculously high prices when times were good?
- Americans for the Arts makes nine recommendations for art policy to the incoming Obama administration. Among them: allow artists to claim unemployment benefits and have access to health care. Extend that idea to freelance writers and I’ll pimp this package like a mutha. (Culture Monster.)
- The story of the man who has cared for Walter De Maria’s Earth Room in SoHo for 19 years. (Coudal.)
- The British Museum turns 250.
- The California Academy of Sciences: all about climate change. (Culture Monster.)
- This exhibit in Florence, about art and the art market, looked like a good one. We Make Money Not Art reports in one and two parts.
- Speaking of which, London’s art industrial average is in the crapper.
- Czech artist offends with piece intended to offend. Man, I love the news. (Thanks, Big Papi G.)
- Berlin, “hipper” than ever. (Not if it’s being written about by a financial news service.)
- Hiroshi Sugimoto photo will reportedly be used on the cover of U2’s next album.
- Some people have been getting their panties in a knot over the Brooklyn Museum’s paid Twitter feed, 1stfans. I personally don’t think it’s a big deal. It’s a fundraiser for the museum at a time when museums desperately need the dough. Plus, it’s not as if it’s a thousand dollars. It’s $20 — a.k.a. the price of five lattes. Besides, the museum has a free feed here.
- Plus: A Q&A with Victor Samra, the guy behind MoMA’s Twitter feed (which I have to confess is one of my favorites — just the right combination of weird and erudite).
- Newsflash: Stan Lee reportedly at work on the first gay superhero. Because lord knows all those other guys in ass-hugging tights were not gay. (Hrag Vartanian.)
- Today’s Graff: Yokone, GB334, Kazar, Osk, Swet, Bilos and Ioannina in Greece.
- Painted Brazilian trains.
- Everything’s bigger in Texas: The Bushes “modest” Dallas house.
- What will save the suburbs? Not much, it seems. Since they were designed with a complete lack of transformational flexibility.
- The solar energy supply chain: not so green. (architecture.mnp.)
- Your moment of 1970s Swedish dance bands. Oh, the clothes! (Coudal.)
The New York Post would probably like this better if it were a glass-walled high-rise. (Photo by F. Trainer. See it large.)
As a teenager, I had the visual misfortune to go to high school in Orange County, California, land of cookie cutter developments, cookie cutter strip malls, cookie cutter freeways and cookie cutter nose jobs. Which is why I’ve always appreciated the visual chaos of New York: from the blingarrific oversized billboards in Times Square to the polished chrome gates of row houses in Queens to the graffiti that covers just about every surface not policed by a business improvement district.
Which is why reading Lois Weiss’s real estate column in Rupert Murdoch’s mouthpiece today was such a complete and total buzzkill. Weiss picked on one of my most personally beloved buildings in the city: the Artkfraft Strauss building on the corner of 12th Avenue and 57th Street, where all the blingarrific lights that once illuminated Times Square used to be produced. Weiss reports that the building has turned into “a symbol of neglect and a mag net [sic] for petty crimes.” She describes the tags as “ugly” and the graffiti as “unwanted.”
Now hold on a minute there, Tex. Who said anything about “unwanted”? The Artkraft Strauss studios are inhabited by artists from chashama, who use the space to produce sculptures and paintings and performances. (See here and here.) The art on the building is a combination of graffiti that has accumulated over time, along with original pieces painted — with permission — from artists as far away as Spain and Germany. On a week-to-week basis, the walls are added to, by figures both renowned and anonymous.
There are many people who may not find the building’s exterior aesthetically pleasing. (It’s not as if I’m in love with every last piece.) It’s the gestures I find inspiring, especially in a city that, block by block, seems determined on becoming cookie cutter. Chashama: please don’t buff the art. The rest of the city can homogenize. Let the artists, freaks and weirdos have at least a corner.
SF MOMA: Now you see it.
Now you don’t. (Photos by C-M. Click on images to supersize.)
It’s the new year, which means it’s time for a new giveaway, this one from the delightful City by the Bay. C-Monster.net roving correspondent (and younger sibling) E-Monster, picked up this spectacular piece of museo merch during an afternoon of ogling Martin Puryears at the SF MOMA. Tilt the pen to one side, and you see the museum’s underarm-deodorant form proudly displayed against the city skyline. Tilt it to the other, and the building is enveloped in fog. (If they’d managed to work in a half-naked bear in leather chaps then I seriously woulda kept this little beauty for myself.)
Leave a comment (with valid e-mail) below to enter the drawing, and before you know it, you could be signing the back of your unemployment checks with this inspired piece of artsy plastic. As is the rule on these regional giveaways: no San Franciscans (or Oaklanders, for that matter), need apply. Estimated retail value: $4.95.
The winner will be announced Monday.
Curtis, in Brooklyn. (Photo by Luna Park.)
- Bible Bars: A Biblical Alternative to Junk Food. For reals.
- Everything you want to know about deaccessioning but were afraid to ask.
- R.I.P. Coosje van Bruggen, Claes Oldenburg’s wife and collaborator.
- Touching Strangers: The photographs of Richard Renaldi. (Eyebeam reBlog.)
- Hrag Vartanian has a round-up from the New Orleans Biennial over at Art21 in one and two parts.
- What is jazz?
- The WSJ profiles Italy’s new culture czar (and former McDonald’s exec) Mario Resca. This story brought to mind Richard Lacayo’s post, from Monday, that discusses the political issues that invariably become entangled in any government culture minister-like position. (Culture Grrl.)
- The Art Newspaper outlines ten steps that Obama could take to renew the arts.
- Galleries as soviets: Edward Winkleman picks apart Charlie Finch.
- A crocheted coral reef.
- Salvador Dalí bento. See the full set of pictures here.
- The internet says “no.” (Art Fag City.)
- Related: High caffeine intake linked to hallucination process. (Eyebeam reBlog.)
- The Shepard Fairey Obama poster as political branding: “If, in four years, or eight, this image is still in circulation, and its statuesque vagueness remains all we know of the man, then we will regret the day we first saw it.” (Modern Art Notes.)
- Today’s Street Art: The shadow paintings of Pablo Herrero in Salamanca, Spain.
- Hilarious: How to cut a Banksy off a wall.
- Prison architecture, video game edition.
- For the design- and font-heads: A killer pop-up book. (Thank you, Shane!)
- Stewart shreds Bush’s recent media blitz. Thank you.
- Your moment of dog training.
Andy Piedilato at English Kills in Brooklyn. (Image courtesy of Bloggy.)
- In NYC: Andy Piedilato at English Kills, in Brooklyn, through Feb. 15.
- In NYC: My Eyes: Ad Nauseum Lyceum at chashama UWS, opens Thursday at 6:00 p.m.
- In Palm Beach: Palmbeach3 Contemporary Art Fair, opens Thursday.
- In Colorado Springs: Designing Women of Postwar Britain: Their Art and the Modern Interior at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, through Jan. 25.
- In L.A.: Yoshitomo Nara at Blum & Poe, through Jan. 31.
- In L.A.: Ericailcane, Man is the Bastard, at the Carmichael Gallery, through Jan. 28.
- In Seattle: Scott Foldesi at James Harris, through Feb. 14.
Fire, 2005, by Teresita Fernandez at SF MOMA. (Photo by C-M.)
- Smell like Brooklyn. (Thank you, Joanne!)
- The Vatican to exhibit at the Venice Biennale in 2011 to counter “blasphemous” modern art. This should be good. (Art Observed.)
- The Getty Conservation Institute refines the art of dating photos.
- Museum reinvention continues: Museum heads attend session on how to turn their exhibits into, literally, video games.
- Speaking of which, 14 of the Prado’s masterpieces are now visible via Google Earth.
- Juicy profile of gallerist Jay Jopling, of London’s White Cube. (Art Observed.)
- Photos of empty theatres. Love the leopard print seats in image #9. (Edgar Gonzalez.)
- Bernie Sanders ran a factcheck on wall text for George W. Bush’s portrait at the National Portrait Gallery. And it’s generated a correction. (Modern Art Notes.)
- A painting of Yosemite will figure at Obama’s inaugural lunch.
- Looking Around argues against the idea of a culture czar.
- Photos of Maras by Isabel Muñoz.
- Vintage travel brochure graphics.
- Long-lost banners by Alexander Calder go on display in Philly. (Arts Journal.)
- The carbon footprint of a Google search. (jennydeluxe.)
- Dog of the Day.
- Graffiti report cards. (Hrag Vartanian.)
- Today’s Graff: LKSIR and HSH in Rouen, France.
- Benetton launches architecture competition in Tehran.
- A trippy (green) re-do of the Docks of Paris.
- Your moment of Thank God His Term is Almost Over.
