Piotr Uklanski’s Dancing Nazis at the Palazzo Grassi, during the Venice Biennale. (Surreptitious video by San Suzie.)
Archive for the 'Italy' Category
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Obey Biennale: Taste the hype. (Photos by San Suzie.)
We are just back from the City of the Doges where this summer’s artapalooza kicked off with the 53rd Prosecco-soaked edition of La Biennale di Venezia. The show, which bore the very important title Making Worlds consisted of 38 exhibit spaces in the Arsenale and Giardini, plus a whopping 45 collateral event sites scattered throughout the city’s labyrinthine streets. This was in addition to numerous must-see museums, including the fabulous Pinault Collection at Palazzo Grassi and its new contemporary art venue at Punta della Dogana.
We spent at least a third of the preview days simply trying to get from one place to another, searching the maze of alleys and canals for obscure out-of-the-way locales like the Palazzo Rota Ivancich, the official venue of the Mexican Pavillion. But, all in all, we we were nicely surprised by the offerings: free food, art swag, yacht-and-people-watching, and, oh yeah, the city itself, which was once the wealthiest in all of Europe — and is therefore filled with masterpieces by 16th century heavyweights such as Titian, Veronese, Bellini and Palladio.
Of course, no artapalooza comes without annoyances, ironies, ridiculosity and even a few moments of sheer, breathtaking joy. Therefore, we present you with the First Annual C-Mon awards to celebrate the mother-of-all biennales, highlighting the good, the bad, the ugly, the incomprehensible and the just plain too damn much.
The envelope please…
Pass the bath salts: Martyrdom, Santo Stefano style. (Photos by C-M.)
Of all the churches I genuflected at while in Rome, my absolute favorite was the Basilica di Santo Stefano al Monte Cielo (more commonly known as Santo Stefano Rotondo). It is a graceful circular structure (parts of which date back to 500 AD) with a lovely skylight at center. But it’s best asset is the art. Lining the walls of the church are some impressive 16th century murals of martyrdom that serve as a visual compendium of truly imaginative deaths. You’ll see people being boiled, burnt, flayed and chopped — some of them upside down. Yet, because they depict the fleeting moments of spiritual ecstasy that accompany a good martyrdom, everyone kinda looks like they’re having a really great time. The overall effect: disturbing and hilarious. Kinda like the Catholic Church.
Click on images to supersize.
Continue reading ‘Martyrdom Makes Me Happy: Santo Stefano Rotondo in Rome.’
In recovery at the Academy.
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. Continue reading ‘What I did During Spring Break: The American Academy in Rome.’
Detail of a Roman-era micro-mosaic of a satyr and a nymph, unearthed in Pompeii, at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. (Photo by C-M.)
- In L.A.: Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture Around the Bay of Naples at LACMA, opens Sunday.
- In L.A.: Gary Baseman, La Noche de la Fusión at Corey Helford, opens Saturday.
- In Long Beach: Novel Constructions: Contemporary Artists Create Monumental Books at the Long Beach Museum of Art, opens Friday.
- In Long Beach: Open Studios at the Angels Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro, this Sunday, starting at 10 a.m.
- In Seattle: The stitched paintings of Sabrina Small at Grey Gallery, through May 9.
- In Chicago: Art Chicago, at the Merchandise Mart, starts tomorrow.
- In Chicago: Martha Cooper signs copies of her new book, Going Postal, at 1114 Ashland, Friday beginning at 5 p.m.
- In Philadelphia: Zoe Strauss will be exhibiting her photos under I-95, this Sunday, beginning at 1 p.m.
- In NYC: Boxed In: A Group Art Exhibit by Plaztik Mag at Factory Fresh in Brooklyn, opens Friday.
- In NYC: Wild Things: Photography for Animal Lovers at Stricola Contemporary in SoHo, opens Saturday.
- In NYC: The Great outDoors: Street Artists Illustrate Doors at ArtBreak Gallery in Brooklyn, opens Saturday.
- In London: Cindy Sherman at Sprüth Magers, through May 27.
Kaf in Naples. (Photo by C-M.)
- A coat of many Kermits.
- James Rosenquist loses his studio to a devastating fire. (@artnetdotcom.)
- Guy suing L.A.’s MOCA over Murakami handbag art gets one of his cases tossed out of court.
- An awesome, awesome, awesome photo essay on motels by Magnum photographers.
- El Schnabel seeks renters at Palazzo Chupi — only $40,000 to $50,000 per month. A bargain…if you’re Damien Hirst. (@theartmarket.)
- Con Artist, a new doc about Mark Kostabi.
- Turner Prize nominees announced. And Bloomberg signals this as a return to the “visual” arts. More at the Times of London and the Guardian.
- LACMA picks up a gigantor painting by Roberto Matta. Cool!
- The art industrial average is plunging. Layoffs hit Aperture and the Getty. More here. Plus: Isabella Stewart Gardner museum lays off staff as it pursues a Renzo Piano-designed expansion. (AFC.)
- God told me to give you the finger.
- A list of artsy fartsies on Twitter. I’m one of the fartsies. (@hragv.)
- A belated R.I.P. for Bea Arthur, dirty public reading edition. (Mercy, Mlle. Connasse.)
- Suburban Slovakia. (Coudal.)
- And the award for most creative use of tape in a music video goes to… (Grazie, Least Wanted.)
- I want, I need, I have to have…a cryptozoological play set. Seriously.
- Four arrested during NYC’s billboard takeover this past weekend.
- Today’s Street Art: TitiFreak in Osaka.
- The Day in Graff Merch: Augor spraypaint and Cope2 vinyl skins for your iPod and computer.
- Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity temple named one of the most endangered places by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. L.A.’s Century Plaza Hotel in Century City also makes the list. See the rest of the list here.
- Your moment of Ocean’s Eleven, Muppet style.
Oh, baby.
I recently spent a week in Italy with San Suzie, pillaging the local gelaterias and skulking around the American Academy in Rome. (More on that later.) But if there was one thing I was absolutely determined to do while I was there, it was pick up a pair of the above shorts, which feature the full monty belonging to none other than Michelangelo’s David. (San Suzie did a story on ‘em back in September.)
Now, lucky readers, these sausagerrific 100% polyester shorts could be hugging your privates. Leave a comment below, and before you know it, you’ll be impressing the world with your perfectly chiseled dong and rock-hard derriere.
Winner takes the shorts, but not the man inside. He’s mine — all mine.
A nymph takes a satyr to task at the National Archeological Museum in Naples; Herculaneum, circa 1st century A.D. (Photo by C-M.)
- Hilarious!! Damien Hirst, the man who brought the world the diamond-encrusted skull, says that the recession will be good for artists: “The reason why you make art is not financial… It’s not about how much something is worth or how much it costs, it’s about whether it’s good or not.” Plus: Win a painting by Hirst. For reals. (@theartmarket, AO.)
- More on the Brandeis/Rose Museum smackdown: the museum’s trustees ain’t happy.
- These days, rich people are trying to sell their art as quietly as possible.
- Vanity Fair has an interesting book excerpt about the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. (AO.)
- Trippy stop-motion of Tokyo.
- Dot Earth, a NYT blog dedicated to the limits of what the Earth can take. Underlying message: Stop making babies. This isn’t gonna end well.
- Photo Essay: The work of Danny Lyon.
- Chinese public health posters.
- Artists spent the weekend rubbing out illegal billboards in NYC. More here and here. (@bhoggard.)
- Chaka, on tagging, in a lengthy profile in the L.A. Times: “I wasn’t doing anything artistic. It was just getting my name up there.”
- Today’s Street Art, swine flu edition: Roa in Belgium.
- An interesting video profile of José Parla, a.k.a. Ease, on how the layers of the city inspire his work.
- The Day in Graffiti Merch: Dondi Stussy tees. And architectural merch: A Princess Zaha floor lamp.
- A Texas legislator wants to treat graffiti as organized crime. Um, don’t you clowns need to be doing stuff like fixing the economy and getting people health care? (Gracias, Johnny.)
- A frilly chair. Me like.
- ¡Architecture world smackdown! Prince Charles versus Everybody!!! More here.
- Speaking of things Prince Charles would hate: Photos from the Rem Koolhaas/Prada Transformer launch in Seoul. The building kinda looks like a satellite that crash landed into Earth. Life Without Buildings tries to figure the thing out.
- More ruminating about “showy” architecture. (Arts Journal.)
- Your moment of John Waters, on smoking in theatres. Plus: The John Waters art tour. (AFC.)