On Public Housing

A view of the Marcy Houses. (Photo by NYC-Metrocard.)

Michael Kimmelman has an interesting piece about large-scale housing developments in the New York Times. He takes a look at the fate of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe projects in St. Louis and draws a comparison to the Penn South buildings in New York’s Chelsea, which have been largely successful as a housing development. He discusses how economic and other urban development factors can affect the success or failure of architectural design. All around an interesting piece. But while I dig Kimmelman’s focus on publicly-minded design (a breath of fresh air after Ourossoff’s era of mega-projects), it seems like a bit of an oversight to pen a very long story about these types of constructions and not even mention places like the Marcy Houses in Bed-Stuy or Red Hook Houses in Red Hook — two places with a history that is infinitely less rosy than that of Penn South.

Linkage

• In an essay in Vanity Fair, Kurt Anderson says we are in a period of cultural stasis — relentlessly remixing everything that came before, but not necessarily adding anything new: “In our Been There Done That Mashup Age, nothing is obsolete, and nothing is really new; it’s all good. I feel as if the whole culture is stoned, listening to an LP that’s been skipping for decades, playing the same groove over and over. Nobody has the wit or gumption to stand up and lift the stylus.” Sure explains a lot of the art I see…
• Holy Shit: Dude surfing a 90-foot wave.
• Interesting essay in the Atlantic on how much information is too much for Google to have.
• Bytebeats: music from the programming language C.
• That point where Tony Curtis and Christopher Wool intersect.
• A proposed turn-of-the-20th-century reconstruction of the Venus de Milo. Amazing and weird. (@giovannigf.)
• The New York Observer profiles the life and times of artist and ArtNet editor Walter Robinson.
• And the Wall Street Journal mag takes on Anne Pasternak, the director of Creative Time.
• The Day in Art Merch: Private jets decorated with graffiti by RETNA.
• Plus, speaking of airplane graffiti: The Boneyard Project. Making airplane hulls all pretty-like.
• There’s nothing like a book review that revels in a little dismemberment: Heather Havrilesky on Caitlin Flanagan’s Girl Land. Yowza. (@embeedub)
• “The main thing to remember is the sunlight, and the immense expanse of sky and earth that it illuminates: it sucks the color out of everything that it touches, takes the green out of leaves and the sap out of twigs, makes human beings seem small and of no importance.” — Mystery writer James Cain, on California in the 1930s.

• 15 pictures from Glock’s official Facebook page.
• Dear Apple Computers: WHAT. THE. FUCK. You guys let Rupert Murdoch (purveyor of Glenn Beck) establish a subscription model for the iPad but you don’t let any other publishing company do the same? Gross.
• Smithsonian chief to make first public appearance in L.A. this Thursday since the David Wojnarowicz brouhaha began. Plus: His latest e-mail to staff.
• Finland announces that it will likely be the home of another likely never-to-be-built Guggenheim Museum. (The accompanying image of art suits pretending to throw snowballs is pretty spectacular.)
• “Gallery rage.”
• The many incredible uses of DC motors, by Swiss artist Zimoun. Best when paired with ping pong balls and cardboard. Whoa.
• Surreal babies.
• On poop in art: Harvard art historian combs through the defecation in Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. (ARTnewsblog.)
• This slideshow makes me want to tease out my hair and write bad checks.
• Farhad Manjoo argues that it’s wrong, wrong, wrong to use two spaces after a period. Tom Lee rebuts. (@gelatobaby, The Atlantic.)
• For the typography nerds, Mexican edition: The El Vética T-Shirt. (20×200.)
• Swoon’s speech at TEDxBrooklyn, discussing the flotillas and the Haiti project — and the concrete things artists can do.
• Today’s Urban Installation: Felice Varini’s painted optical illusions. (Contemporary Art Truck.)
• Edward Lifson tracks a connection between architect Louis Sullivan and sculptor Tony Smith.
• A museumy architecture round-up.
• 36 versions of the Internationale. Includes a rendition by Pete Seeger — in French. (@ubuweb.)

• Chocolate Pentagons.
• A staggeringly wonderful essay by Kathleen Alcott about her father and the writing life.
• Because what you need to start your day is a totally frightening environmental story: One third of U.S. counties will experience high or extreme risk to their water supply sustainability by 2050.
• Sorta related: June was the 304th month in a row of above average temperatures.
• More evidence that one day Google will own all our asses: The company is now in the energy market. Their first big investment: wind.
• The Day in Reductive Statements: Following random strangers on Twitter can help us escape clichés.
• This is depressing: The UK Times’ pay wall has killed 2/3 of visitor traffic.
• Art that must travel through the demilitarized zone: Videos on making pizzas in North Korea.
• A 100-part Andy Warhol group portrait.
• Put this on the list of things I’ve GOT to do: Get a buzz off of Brion Gysin’s Dream Machine.
• Photo Essay: Otto Dix was seriously gangsta. (@giovannigf.)
• Hyperallergic is hosting a PBR and mini-golf fundraiser for the Jersey City Museum this Thursday.
• Plus: Joanne Mattera is seeking a little dinero to pay for her coverage of the Miami art fairs. (Art Fag City.)
• Space porn.
• Vandalog has a photo essay from Viva La Revolucion, the street art show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego – including a section devoted to the outdoor installations.
• Today’s Graff: Zukclub does Batman in Ekaterinburg.
• MoCA Cleveland’s new building design.
• Weirder than the Gherkin: London’s new tower with wind turbines. That looks like a giant electric razor. Photo essay here.
• Designing an aging-friendly city, including a great anecdote about a fake bus stop geared at Alzheimer’s patients.
• The best of Star Wars architecture.

• In NYC: Royce Bannon and Anera of the ELC at Southside Speakeasy, opens Sunday.
• In NYC: The Threat of Chance, with Josh MacPhee, Bill Mode, Chris Stain and the Polaroid Kidd, at Ad Hoc Art, opens tomorrow.
• In NYC: Graffiti Research Lab at MoMA, Sunday at 8 p.m.
• In NYC: Milton Resnick at Cheim & Read.
• In NYC: Rory Donaldson at Winkleman, opens tomorrow.
• In NYC: Chthonic Youth at Cavin Morris, through this Saturday.
• In NYC: Jonathan Lethem and DJ Spooky at McNally Robinson, tomorrow at 7pm.
• In NYC: Powerhouse Books holds a portfolio review in Brooklyn all day Sunday.
• In Newark: The work of Grace Graupe Pillard, plus Surfactant, a group survey, at Rupert Ravens.
• In Albany: John Anthony Fredericks at Romaine Brooks.
• In San Jose, Calif.: CALMA at Anno Domini.
• In Santa Cruz, Calif.: Derailed, a custom all-city style train show at Cardboard Spaceship.
• In Paddington, Australia: Ai Weiwei: Under Construction at the Campbelltown Arts Center, opens today.
• In Tokyo: History in the Making: A Retrospective of the Turner Prize at the Mori Art Museum.

Posted by C-Monster.

C-Monster.net photographer-at-large Luna Park was recently in San Francisco to have a little fun and pay a visit to mustachioed artist extraordinaire Gore-B. During her visit, she stayed at S.F.’s Hotel des Arts, where the more than three dozen rooms have each been done up by artists such as David Choe, Maya Hayuk, Buff Monster and Dave Kinsey – among many others. Luna sent along pics of some of the rooms she was able to get into. (Unfortunately for us, the hotel was largely booked during her stay there.) She also reports that the staff was friendly, the beds were comfy and the showers had good water pressure. And it all starts at at $88/night in the low season. Sounds like a deal.

Click on images to see ‘em big. Money shots after the jump.

Sam Flores.

Hotel des Arts, right in the middle of it all.

View to a room.

Chor Boogie, on the hotel’s exteriors.

S.F. skyline detail in the Sam Flores-decorated room.

Another view of the Flores room.

Shepard Fairey on the hotel’s exterior.

The Kelly Tunstall room.

Mural detail by Tunstall.

Posted by C-Monster.