Brooklyn-based artist William Powhida takes down the New Museum‘s super cozy, highly-questionable relationships with some big-time collectors and gallerists in the upcoming cover of the November Brooklyn Rail. And C-Mon gets a passing mention for being “ethically outraged”!!! (In the future, Mr. Powhida, if you ever want to draw me, here’s what I look like. As you’ll see, I’ve got a much better rack than Tyler Green.)

Sorry I’m not in town for the NuMu pile-on (I’m working on cultivating a veritable constellation of bug bites here in Costa Rica), but you can read all about the brouhaha here, here, here and here. At posting time, I was waiting for the NY Times Artsbeat blog to get on the case. C’mon dudes: this is home turf. Come out swingin’!!

As part of our ongoing mission to make art more accessible to a wider audience, the staff here at C-Mon recently went into mind-meld mode to produce this handy new taxonomy that categorizes all art into one of two easy-to-understand categories: stoner and douche. So the next time you find yourself at a high-falutin’ Chelsea cocktail party and someone makes a tangential reference to Fluxus, you’ll be able to add to the discussion by stating, “Hey, that’s stoner and douche!”

Special thanks to Ben B, El Celso and San Suzie for their contributions to this important scholarly project.

If there is one recommendation I can make to anyone in the art industry at this moment of global doom, it is: Become really good friends with a fellow at the American Academy in Rome so that you can stay there. Located on a hilltop, above trendy Trastevere, the Academy houses more than two dozen fellows, who live in a McKim, Mead and White building and dine on a local foods menu inspired by Alice Waters. After long days of work and study, they retire to the well-tended garden, where they reflect on the day’s drinking thinking. It’s like a 19th century sanatorium for the nervous children of the well-to-do. I kept expecting to see a nurse rearranging patients in wicker wheelchairs on the patio. 

I made it into the Academy as a free-loading guest of San Suzie. For a whopping seven days I hung out in what is effectively academia central, a geek’s wet dream of artists, architects and writers (many with advanced degrees) working on ambitious projects and thinking deep thoughts. There were recitations in Latin. A speech-laden meal that celebrated Thomas Jefferson’s birthday. And a champagne cocktail party for visiting artist Jenny Holzer. Party on, dudes! Any other spare moments I may have had were spent drinking cappuccinos in the company of a barista who told me I looked like Salma Hayek. Clearly, the Academy is an oasis from reality. Kinda like a Canyon Ranch for Ph.D.’s, but with open bar. All I gotta say is that it’s the bestest, smartest hotel I ever stayed at. Though some alum really needs to think about funding a hot tub. 

Grazie, Academy and San Suzie! (And to Brad and Dona for loaning us their space.)

xox,

C.

Click on images to supersize.

The venerable academicians are housed in this stately manse designed by McKim Mead and White, designers of New York’s old Penn Station.

The rear of the building at sunset.

The building is littered with plenty of spolia, the fragments of ancient ruins that are frequently recycled as decorative elements in buildings all over Italy.

The interior courtyard, with an ornamental fountain by Paul Manship, the same guy who did the Prometheus in Rockefeller Center.

Days at the Academy begin with a peek at the International Herald Tribune and a leisurely cappuccino in the private cafe. The wall behind our barista (loved him!) is decorated with the vintage portraits of fellows past. One can only imagine some of the stories behind the faces…

“After a short spell as a model for Tom of Finland, Chet gave up on the arts entirely and decided to accept his father’s offer of a position at the family firm in Greenwich.”

 
“A renowned residential architect in his native Palm Springs, Snowden never met a girl and a martini he didn’t like.”

“Known around the academy as ‘Bucky,’ the adventurous Ward Walker Choate IV would die in a tragic incident involving a python and a syphillitic prostitute during an extended deployment in Burma.”

In the afternoons, Rome Prize winners retire to the garden to ponder several millennia worth of historical events.

Then there’s a little bocci on the Academy’s private court.

The daily allotment of drinking can never come too soon. On this particular evening, we sipped champagne and munched on olives in the company of artistes Jenny Holzer and Carrie Mae Weems.

Rome Prize winners don’t eat without engaging in deep thought: A presentation on  Jefferson and macaroni. It turns out that the President was responsible for bringing it to the U.S., making him the Godfather of Mac & Cheese.

The Academy’s two-headed seal: Janus.

Arrivederci to all the fellows, old and new!

Do you have a pile of degrees and a burning interest in studying all things Rome? You can apply to the academy here.

My people are so enterprising. Or they just have an incredibly morbid sense of humor. There’s already a slew of influenza-related Latin songs out there, and they are all delightfully low-brow. The above video, for example, has a reggaeton vibe, lots of amateur booty shaking and an inexplicable shot of a rapping guy dressed as Osama bin Laden. (WTF???)

Music blog Sound Taste, run by an esteemed colleague mine, has the scoopy scoop on all the latest Latin music tributes to the swine flu, including a trombone-laced Duranguense bit (video #4), an acoustic ballad set to the tune of the Cure’s Monday, I’m in Love (video #5) and a punk corrido that channels Iggy Pop, with accordions (video #6). Sublime!

If humanity is left standing after this little pandemic, I’m hoping that Time-Life will be thoughtful enough to issue these as a compilation.

Ever since the Guggenheim and Frank Gehry managed to turn a not-particularly-interesting regional capital into a must-see art destination, cities major and minor have been clamoring for their own contemporary art palace designed by a starchitect. Rome’s contribution to the trend is the Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo, or MAXXI, a colossus of glass, steel and concrete designed by the prima superstar del momento, Zaha Hadid. Several weeks ago we were fortunate to horn in on architecture writer and Rome Prize winner Cathy Lang Ho‘s tour of the unfinished building. The 20,000 square meters of exhibit space (more than 200,000 square feet) were still full of forklifts, cables, and bellissimi Italian construction workers; nonetheless, we have to admit that we were head over heels for the clean, open spaces, curved walls, and louvered ceiling panels of Ms. Hadid’s “Cultural Space for the [sic] 21st Century Arts.”

The only problem, as we can see it, is that the museum doesn’t have much 21st century art. Or much art of any century for that matter; its collection is tiny. We are hoping that the €80,000,000 price tag (that’s $108 million greenbacks) of the building hasn’t eaten up the entire art budget. If it has, they might consider turning the museum — chock full of graceful ramps — into the world’s most spectacular skatepark.

Click on images to supersize.

MAXXI: Where concrete meets… more concrete.

The colossal entry way. The museum has oodles of big spaces for exhibiting BIG ART. They just have to get some.

The beautiful cantilevered Gallery 3, on the third floor, overlooks historic army barracks that Zaha was reportedly overheard saying she wished she could have torn down.

Said barracks. The rectangular windows were apparently put in after the museum was built.

Staircase to the loading dock. But what’s there to load?

Come si dice “skatepark” in Italiano?

The sculpture galleries, featuring the smart ceiling louvers.

No wonder they can’t afford much art: Recessed hand rails (we were told that Zaha hates handrails) were all custom made.

But, really, who needs art with a space is this beautiful?

A very long and elegant ramp. Perfect for shredding.

More ceiling louvers.

My kingdom for a can of spray paint…

One of our favorite spaces is the escalator down from the sculpture gallery.

Even more louvers.

It’s like getting sucked into an Escher drawing.

The concrete, close up.

We don’t quite get the tubular columns, in stainless steel that’s… painted.

One day, this doorway is likely to be besieged by fanny pack-toting tourists.

Another view.

Guess where all that graffiti will be sprayed once they remove the barrier?