System3, at bottom, Burst*008 at MoMA. (Photos by C-M.)
I’m kinda buried under a couple of impending deadlines as well as an imminent vacation. So, no Digest. I do, however, have a photo report on the Prefab show at MoMA, which explores the history of the world of prefab housing. It’s definitely worthwhile if you’re into architecture. Among many other things, the exhibit on the 6th floor has an early model of Moshe Safdie’s Habitat ‘67. (Though, unless I missed something, I was bummed to see that Shigeru Ban’s cardboard houses were nowhere to be seen. What gives?) Of the new houses, situated in a lot by MoMA’s main entrance, I dug Burst*008 the most for, literally, doing away with the box. Plus, the daisy pattern was inspired. Rock on.
The show is up through October 20th.
Click on images to supersize. More after the jump…
Continue reading ‘Photos: The Prefab Show at MoMA in NYC.’
Reeds, by Dale Chihuly. (Photos by C-M.)
Last week, Kenneth Baker at the San Francisco Chronicle gave the Dale Chihuly exhibit at S.F.’s De Young Museum a serious inverted atomic drop. I figured that if the show was truly that bad, then I definitely had to check it out.
It was, indeed, a saccharine-fest. But it’s so over the-top that it’s worthwhile if you happen to be in possession of some Grade A Cali medicinal. There is so much color and so much light and it’s so relentless that you leave the exhibit feeling as if you just spent a binge weekend in Vegas: your brain is slightly numb and you can’t quite remember what happened, but you’re certain you had a very good time.
Chihuly is up through September 28th.
Click on images to supersize. More after the jump.
Continue reading ‘Photos: Dale Chihuly at the De Young in S.F.’
It gets even better once you go in. (Photos by C-M.)
Oh. My. God. Where do I start? I have seen some crazy museum stores, but this one is in a category of its own. S.F. MoMA has a temporary gift shop for their Frida Kahlo retrospective that has all the charm of an airport curio stand. Down to the ceramic tile coasters and Frida aprons. It was an orgy of folklore, set amid lots of brightly-painted everything. Seriously, the only thing this place needed to become a full-on Mexi-Disney was to have the cashiers wearing huipiles and braids. And why no mariachis? Or a taco bar? After standing in line to see the show, I sure coulda used a snack.
The show is up through September 28th.
Step inside, after the jump. Click on images to supersize.
Continue reading ‘See Frida. Buy Frida. Be Frida.: S.F. MoMA’s Kahlo gift store.’
Land of Retinal Stimulation: Mark Ryden’s The Creatrix is the painting at center, with Carlee Fernandez’s Buffalo-7200 in the foreground. (Photos by C-M.)
If you took a little Hieronymus Bosch, added a dash of R. Crumb, a pinch of California car culture, and folded in a heaping stack of late-night sci-fi, you’d end up with the Laguna Art Museum’s latest show, In the Land of Retinal Delights: The Juxtapoz Factor. This all-encompassing two-story survey takes a look at the fast-rising genres of pop surrealism, lowbrow and street art/graffiti as covered by Juxtapoz mag since its founding by painter Robert Williams in 1994. Featuring the work of 150 artists (including some fake dookies by Paul McCarthy), it’s an apocalyptic vision of America’s pop culture sausage factory turned inside out, revealing lots of gory, nasty innards.
The show is up through October 5th.
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Continue reading ‘Photos: In the Land of Retinal Delights at the Laguna Art Museum in O.C.’
Dia you understand me? (Photo by ricksterbot.)
Roving correspondent Mlle. Connasse finds herself stateside this week, so she popped in for a day-long visit of the Dia: Beacon over the weekend, where she encountered some terrific artspeak while admiring the Beuys, the Smithsons and the Serras. She was so moved by the mind-boggling quality of the prose, that she couldn’t resist cabling in some of the more eye-crossing delights. The following bits refer to a single artist:
In each of his works, [the artist] relentlessly examined issues of similarity and difference, likeness and identity.
The recognition of the specificity of each element informs the viewer’s appreciation of the relation of the individual to the collective, of the singular entity to the larger series, and of repetition to order.
Anyone want to venture a guess on which artist the writer might be describing? Get the list of artists here. No cheating.
Posted by C-Monster.
The Murakami Louis Vuitton boutique at the Brooklyn Museum. (Photo by Jason Lujan.)
Posted by C-Monster.
