Monthly Archive for August, 2010

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The Digest. 08.18.10

By c-monster on August 18, 2010 in C-Monster, Sculpture and The Digest. 4 Comments

Deck Unit, 2008, by Matthias Merkel Hess. This sculpture was disassembled after its display and pieces of it were reincorporated into Merkel Hess’s piece in Wet Paint 2, at Steve Turner Contemporary in L.A., currently on view. (Image courtesy of Merkel Hess.)

A brief history of art.
Christopher Walken, radio host. (I love the part where he says he hates other people’s punctuation.) Plus: David Itzkoff interviews Walken on what it was like to be on the other side of the mic.
From the Department of Me: Talking about the unnamed television show that is destroying art in America, and climbing Big Bambú. Plus: I also write about strollers. White strollers.
On a sorta related note: Infant stool illustrations. (I was excited to see that Martin Bromirski is tangentially connected to at the center of this.)
An atlas of anatomy.
Okay, here’s a trippy one: a lost Warhol that isn’t really a Warhol, in Queens.
The latest in crowd curating, of sorts. (Arts Journal.)
What we talk about when we talk about art. A lengthy but worthwhile essay by Tom McCormack, on the dilemma of art — an area of human production from which we demand purity but suspect corruption. Highly interesting. (Art Fag City.)
Sorta related: William Powhida’s significantly more rambling #workoFart rant, in which I am name-checked in a not-good way. (In my defense: Yes, I’ve watched and covered the show with the same prurient interest typically reserved for a car crash. But the program is in keeping with my abiding fascination with art merch, a way of seeing the art industry reflected in the funhouse mirror of mass culture. Also, to be clear, I’ve also said that Work of Art would be much better if it employed Chuck Barris and a gong. I mean, seriously, just think about that…)
Even more #workoFart: Judge Bill Powers is giving contestant Miles Mendenhall a show. The announcement of which generated the following message from my friend Marshall Astor: “It’s like a Deepwater Horizon of bad art. Even though the leak stops with the end of the season, the tarballs will be washing up on our shores for years.” (@KnightLAT.)
Speaking of which, THE END IS NEAR, or so says The Prospect, which reports that we are in the dustbin of art history. (Thank you, San Suzie.)
Pulp fiction meets Robert Motherwell.
Slideshow: The ‘60s Brazilian sex comics of Carlos Zéfiro. Read more on him here.
Art as dog park. (Modern Art Notes.)
The scrawl says it all: Post-Katrina graffiti in New Orleans.
“Graffiti writers need to start using bit.ly.” (@fi5e.)
Today’s Street Art: Futura and Os Gemeos paint a school in NYC. See photos of the finished mural here. (@PD_Smith.)
Shepard Fairey’s last campaign.
I don’t know about y’all, but I think these electrical tower design schematics look totally Wicker Man.
Concrete wallpaper.

Tags: deck unit, matthias merkel hess.

Photos: Andy Warhol, The Last Decade, at the Brooklyn Museum.

By c-monster on August 17, 2010 in C-Monster, Museums, New York and Silkscreen. 2 Comments

I spent a better part of Saturday afternoon wandering around Andy Warhol: The Last Decade at the Brooklyn Museum. I’ve long felt ambivalent about Warhol as an artist. I love the ways in which he innovated the use of commercial imagery, but get worn out by the relentless rich-people portraits cranked out factory-style. I like the way he could play the media, but the hijinks can grow tiresome. Some pieces are clever, others too self-aware. But the gathering of silkscreens and paintings at the Brooklyn Museum, all produced during the last ten years of the artist’s life, contained a number of works that genuinely moved me — from the whoa-nelly-this-shit-is massive Last Supper (the middle shot above) to the maligned collaborations with Jean-Michel Basquiat (there’s a hopefulness and a darkness to Sin More that I find really compelling). I was totally absorbed — primarily by the works on the fifth floor portion of the exhibit.

But above all, I learned one important lesson: It might occasionally behoove me to clean the lens on my camera.

Continue reading ‘Photos: Andy Warhol, The Last Decade, at the Brooklyn Museum.’

Tags: andy warhol, brooklyn museum, jean-michel basquiat, the last decade.

Calendar. 08.17.10.

By c-monster on August 17, 2010 in C-Monster, Calendar, Museums and Sculpture. 2 Comments

Flag, 2008, by Leo Villareal. From his solo exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Art, opening Wednesday. (Image courtesy of the San Jose Museum of Art.)

Long Beach: My partner-in-crime Rosa Lowinger is giving a talk on Cuban Modernism at the Museum of Latin American Art, this Sunday at 2pm. Check it!
L.A.: The 2010 Vice Photo Show at Scion Installation L.A., through Sept. 4.
L.A.: Wet Paint 2: Nine L.A. Artists, with Matthias Merkel Hess, Joshua Nathanson and Patricia Fernandez, at Steve Turner Contemporary, through Saturday.
L.A.: Todd Gray and Kyungmi Shin at the See Line Gallery at the Pacific Design Center, through Sept. 10.
L.A.: Ryan Trecartin, Any Ever, at MoCA at the Pacific Design Center, through Oct. 17. (Can someone please explain Trecartin to me? ‘Cuz I just don’t get it.)
S.F.: The August Group Show, featuring Eddie Martinez, Conrad Ruiz, Kristine Moran and many others, at Guerrero Gallery, through Sept. 4.
Cincinnati: Mark Harris and Barry Van Boekels at Country Club, Cincinnati, through Oct. 2.
NYC: Lee Bontecou: All Freedom in Every Sense, at MoMA, through Sept. 6.
NYC: Rineke Dijkstra at Maria Goodman, through Saturday.
Paris: William Kentridge: Five Themes, at the Jeu de Paume, through Sept. 5.

Tags: leo villareal, san jose museum of art.

The Digest. 08.16.10.

By c-monster on August 16, 2010 in C-Monster, Photography and The Digest. 3 Comments

Tricked-out rides: A lady and her fancy wheels, taken sometime around the turn of the 20th century, as archived by the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia. (Image courtesy of the Powerhouse Museum’s Flickr feed.)

Pickle Surprise!
A TED talk on how different cultures regard the act of choice. This is fascinating. (Freakonomics.)
Almost half of all bottled water in the United States comes from a tap. (Cool Green Science.)
Riffing on disco balls.
Chuck Close on Colbert.
Who owns looted artifacts? (Arts Journal.)
The story behind the Ansel Adams negatives gets even murkier.
Ai Weiwei reportedly beaten by Chinese police – again.
Louise Bourgeois sculptures vandalized for scrap metal in New Orleans. I’d love a copy of that reward poster. (@frieze_magazine.)
Peeing performance artist Ann Liv Young fights to return to PS1 by calling director Klaus Biesenbach “lame.”
Walking as art. Not really related: Drawing while driving.
A slideshow of North Korean propaganda art.
The line between celebrity and performance art is indeed a thin one.
In which Christopher Knight takes down Jerry Saltz’s last #workoFart recap without deigning to mention his name. (I see Knight’s point, but…meow!) Plus: Looks like Bravo is casting for Season 2.
The Day in Frida Merch: Fridaritas! A perfect follow-up to Frida real estate advertising and Frida museo-merch. (Thank you, Jeff.)
Today’s Truck Graf, Totally Meta Edition.
London’s Strata Tower wins Carbuncle Cup, “architecture’s least sought-after prize.” (Arts Journal.)
Boxes as gnarly pavilion architecture.
An architectural boat tour of NYC.
Books. And mushrooms.
Things I need: A tampon cozy.

Tags: australia, bicycle, phillips glass plate negatives, powerhouse museum, sydney.

Nature break.

By c-monster on August 13, 2010 in C-Monster and Nature Break. 1 Comment

Shiprock, N.M. Click on the image to see it large. (Photo by C-M.)

Tags: navajo territory, new mexico, nm, shiprock.

Find me at Gallerina. Plus: #workoFart, the last one!

By c-monster on August 12, 2010 in Announcements, C-Monster, Sublime ridiculosity and TV. 1 Comment

El Saltzino with Work of Art contestant Peregrine Honig’s nails, which read “Jerry Saltz.” Awesome. Click on the image to see it large. (Photo by C-M.)

As is customary, you can find my New York City Datebook over at WNYC. (Don’t miss the kissing skeletons.)

Plus, the Not at all Brief #workoFart Recap: Lordy, they saved the drama for last. Though maybe it all just seemed more intense because I was watching the whole mess in the Brooklyn Museum’s lobby, with the contestants running around getting schnockered in the background. Anyhow, onto the recapping business…

In the final episode of the season, Simon de Pury toured the country in a puffy parka visiting contestants. The three finalists toured “the world famous Brooklyn Museum” visiting art. (A friend commented after the show that the museum’s lawyers must have had a requirement in the contract that every episode contain at least ten uses of the phrase “world famous.”) Each finalist — Peregrine, Miles, Abdi — was given $5000 and three months to work on a show that would be shown at De Pury’s auction gallery. It was the most interesting episode out of the bunch, showing a less frantic, more personal process — and more of my new boyfriend Simon de Pury (Be Bold!). The gallery show at the end was all kinds of awesome, mainly because Sarah Jessica Parker ran around clutching her head as if it might fall off and groaning “wow” repeatedly. In the end, Abdi won.

El Saltzino has an extensive recap over at New York Magazine, in which he has some interesting things to say (towards the end) about how the show — for some viewers — may have pried the lid off of the insular, self-involved art world. While I think the program overall could have been waaaaay more interesting (the judging panel desperately needed an artist and the challenges needed to be a lot smarter), overall I’d have to agree.

Beyond that, I found Work of Art interesting because it was a reflection of the art industry in more ways than anyone would probably care to admit. First, it showed that being a socialite with connections is more important than being articulate about art (China). Two, that half the battle of art these days is being able to come up with a good story to go with it (Miles, Nicole). Three, performance artists are crazy (Nao). Lastly, it showed that the process of creating and showcasing art isn’t as pure as anyone would like to believe it is. There is a vast art world bureaucracy of art dealers, public relations specialists and art writers who create storylines around art and artists. And ultimately, it’s these storylines, not necessarily the art, that the vast majority of people are following.

This was a point that painter Richard Phillips made in a really smart way when I interviewed him for my article in Time. (Unfortunately, his quote ended up on the cutting room floor.) But he put it this way: “I’ve been to the Venice Biennale and there are always these huge displays where the artists seem like subcontractors to the celebrity curators in charge,” he explained. “Their work is being seen in this falsified synthetic world. What’s exciting about the show is that we are seeing this process in action.” And with that, I couldn’t agree more

Hasta pronto and see y’all at the world famous Brooklyn Museum…

Tags: bravo, gallerina, jerry saltz, work of art.

Ask and ye shall receive.

By c-monster on August 11, 2010 in C-Monster and Sublime ridiculosity. 10 Comments

This morning in the Digest, I said I really really really wanted a “Celestial Soul Portrait,” in which you can submit a photo to an artist and have your image celestialized. Thankfully, my good friend The Weary Gunfighter heard my pleas and produced this hallucinogenic soul portrait just for me. And all I gotta say is: Somebody call motherfucking Yanni, because I am now ready to rock the Acropolis.

Tags: celestial soul portrait, fuck yeah, weary gunfighter.

The Digest. 08.11.10.

By c-monster on August 11, 2010 in C-Monster and Watercolor. 3 Comments

Big K Parking Lot, 2009, by Buddy Bunting. (Image courtesy of Bunting.)

Must. Get. A Celestial Soul Portrait. (Thanks for the turn-on, Weary Gunfighter.)
There’s a mosque inside the Pentagon. It’s been there for years. (ackackack.)
A car powered by human waste.
A vast chunk of ice, four times the size of Manhattan, broke off of a Greenland glacier in the past week.
Stacks.
Developers to recreate Salvador Dalí’s hometown of Cadaqués, Spain…in China.
16 Miles comes through with another tantalizing museum cake report. That citrus/polenta number looks right up my alley.
On those swanky — and, in many cases, tax-free — museum-director pads.
The Art Industrial Average is Low: The American Folk Art Museum in New York is fighting for survival.
Agreed. I dig Rainn Wilson. And I dig LACMA. But together, oof. (The same goes for much of the rest of the Twitter/Cell Phone Stories programming.)
The Museum of Bad Art: 15 of the worst. I love the pissed-off cat at the end. (@stassaedwards.)
The New York Post is in love with Simon de Pury, collector of Rembrandt and Godzillas. (@ARTnewsmag.)
The first line of the first story of James Franco’s upcoming book.
The Day in Art Merch: Art Fag City’s artist sneaker round-up. Related: Shoes made from paper.
Now this is public art.
Another installment of Flaming Pablum’s New York pix.
Today’s Conceptual Street Art, courtesy of Brad Downey.
Japanese subway manners posters. ‘Cuz if Hitler rode the subway, you know he’d be a spread-leg seat hog.
Design conscious plastic crate furnishings. I have to say, these are pretty dang rad.
A list of films that most frequently use the word “fuck.” Handy. (The Rumpus.)

Tags: big k parking lot, buddy bunting, lowrider, Watercolor.

Calendar. 08.10.10.

By c-monster on August 10, 2010 in C-Monster, Calendar, Fashion and Photography. 2 Comments

Veruschka, in a dress by Kimberly, as photographed by Richard Avedon in 1967. Part of the exhibit Avedon Fashion 1944-2000 at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, which opens today. (Image courtesy of the Boston MFA and the Richard Avedon Foundation.)

Congrats to Marshall for winning the C-Mon Giveaway Extravaganza, Girls, Girls, Girls edition. These leggy ladies are all yours.

Newport Beach, Calif.: Ed Templeton, in conversation with Greg Escalante and CR Stecyk III, at the Orange County Museum of Art, this Thursday, at 6pm. Free with museum admission.
L.A.: Summer Drawing Show, with Geoff McFetridge, Meryl Smith, Ben Jones and many others, at Family’s Back Room Gallery, through Sept. 7.
L.A.: John Divola at Laxart, through Aug. 21.
L.A.: Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze at Family, on Fairfax, in celebration of the new McSweeney’s books, this Saturday, at 8:30pm.
S.F.: From the Street to the Cube, with Above, Eine, Shepard Fairey, C215 and many others, at 941 Geary, through Aug. 28.
Seattle: Orange Crush, PUNCH artists explore the most awesome color in the world, at the PUNCH Gallery, through Aug. 28. Criticisms of cutesy curatorial stunts be damned, I love orange. (Another Bouncing Ball.)
Miami: ArtLab @ The Lowe: The Changing Face of Art and Politics, at the Lowe Museum of Art, through April 4
Princeton, N.J.: Starburst, at the Princeton Museum, through Sept. 26.
London: Joseph Cornell and Karen Kilimnik at Sprueth Magers, through Aug. 27.
London: Gabriel Specter at the Pure Evil Gallery, through Aug. 24.
Antwerp: American Documents, at the Fotomuseum, through Sept. 5. (This looks amazing.)
Berlin: Unbuilt Berlin, at the Café Moskau, through Aug. 15.

Tags: avedon fashion 1944-2000, museum of fine arts boston, richard avedon, veruschka.

The Digest. 08.09.10.

By c-monster on August 9, 2010 in C-Monster, Sculpture and The Digest. Closed

Cans, 2010, by Sean Tully. (Image courtesy of Tully.)

Literary last words. (The Rumpus.)
“And there I lie: trussed, myopic, and motionless like a modern-day mummy, alone in my corporeal prison, accompanied for the rest of the night only by my thoughts.” – From Night, Tony Judt’s essay on living – and sleeping – with ALS. Find his NY Times obit here.
The view from Orhan Pamuk’s window.
Vogue Italia turns the oil spill into fashion.
“Twitter made me hate you.” (Art Fag City.)
Eli Broad’s museum gets approval from the L.A. City Council. Two more approvals and Big Eli and his downtown show palace should be good to go.
It seems those Ansel Adams garage sale shots have been debunked.
Jerry Saltz and Roberta Smith want your art criticism. In 100 words.
In which everyone and their mother gives the Brooklyn Museum some advice. Very disappointed that the Times didn’t use a Powhida/cocaine shot.
“Geography is a little like art in the sense that nobody really knows what it is, including the people who do it.” Trevor Paglen, in an interesting conversation with Joerg Colberg over at Conscientious.
Dennis Hopper’s pictures, a slideshow.
Kanye West makes a “painting.” And it’s kinda like a Victoria’s Secret advert with some Renaissance-y stuff thrown in.
Rearranging chairs in the L.A. River.
The Day in Art Merch: A Basquiat inspired candle. For fuck’s sake. (@streetartblog.)
Some tightly-wound types think Rome’s graffiti needs to be buffed. Thankfully, Italian bureaucracy is getting in the way. (Arts Journal.)
Sorta related: Whole Foods manager in D.C. has a Gaia piece buffed. Because really expensive organic chickens for yuppies are okay, but paintings of them are not.
Today’s Graff: Klone in Israel.
File this under things I’d like to see: Architect Peter Zumthor’s religious museum in Cologne. The pattern on the brickwork is downright musical.
St. Petersburg, Fla.’s Dalí Museum, in progress. The staircase is nuts.
What the fuck is my social media strategy?

Tags: cans, sean tully.