Archive for the 'The Digest' Category

The Digest. 03.30.11.

By c-monster on March 30, 2011 in C-Monster, Photography and The Digest. Closed

Shinjuku, 6:43, by Joseph O. Holmes — to benefit the Japan Society’s Earthquake Relief Fund. (Image courtesy of Holmes and 20×200.)

Things that are brilliant: Hennessy Youngman — explaining relational aesthetics, and how to be a successful black artist.
Even more: Youngman interviewed in Art in America — showing a keen understanding of what it means to be an art writer: “Like you as an arts writer, you gotta feel the same way, dedicating yourself to elevating the critical understanding of art, but getting paid crap and busting ass to make ends meet. Meanwhile Rachel Harrison can fart in a jar and make Scrooge McDuck scrilla.”
From the Department of Crazy Border Politics: An essay on the Erez Crossing, by Richard Moore.
Plastic: The diet of sea turtles. (Cool Green Science.)
Parsing the summary judgment in the Patrick Cariou versus Richard Prince copyright case: Art Fag City, Photo District News, New York Times. But, if you really want to dig deep on this, check out this post by Greg Allen. He’s combed through all of the available legal materials, including interviews, and organized them into a book. Should come in handy during the appeal…
Artists versus Gugg Abu Dhabi: Artists threaten boycott over working conditions at museum site. The museum fires back, saying they’ve made substantial progress in assuring workers’ rights. See the Guggenheim’s full statement here.
This is sooooo rad: LACMA has created an image database of unrestricted works from their collection. Digital nerds, have at it!!
Things that are ?!?!??!?!?!?!?: Maine governor wants to remove a mural from the state’s Department of Labor because it reflects labor history.
“Jeff Koons Must Die!!!”
From Russia with Love: The photographs of Andreas Neumann.
How role-playing games have permeated the world of art. (@jomc.)
From the Department of Me, Me, Me: I’m interviewed on the Dead Hare Radio Hour and talk way too much. Best to fast forward to the second half of the show, to listen to Duncan McKenzie from Bad at Sports, who is all kinds of funny.
A Disneyland fashion spread. Not sure which piece I love more: the embroidered sweater-vest paired with the Bertha Mae steamboat or the turban with Sleeping Beauty’s castle. (Dinosaurs & Robots.)
A fascinating piece by critic Jeet Heer on race and racism in vintage comics, in one and two parts.
Maps that turn in on themselves.
C-Monster Est: Ancient Graffiti in Context. This story is amazing. And I would loooove to see this book. Too bad it’s $95. For the Kindle version. NUTS. (Thank you, Robin, for the heads up.)
Today’s Graff: Crin’s knotty tags in Berlin.
“A mauve zone of pseudo-familiarity.” The world of airport carpets. (@nicolatwilley.)
Fascinating piece by Justin Davidson on New York’s relationship to its waterfront.
“We are an insatiable oasis of Gullivers in a shrinking, Lilliputian world of technology.” William Shatner explains microprocessors, circa 1976.

Tags: 20x200, japan, joseph o holmes, shinjuku 6:43.

The Digest. 03.23.11.

By c-monster on March 23, 2011 in Architecture, C-Monster, New York and The Digest. Closed

Eero Saarinen’s TWA Terminal at JFK. Now slated to become a boutique hotel. (Photo by C-M.)

A hack that allows you to play Katamari Damacy with any website. Duuuude. (@starwarsmodern.)
Akira Kurosawa on earthquakes. Plus: Studio 360 has a great segment on Japan’s artistic legacy of destruction and rebirth. Worth a listen.
The caretaker of Chernobyl’s sarcophagus. (BLDGBLOG.)
Striking photos of the Libyan uprising by Gabriele Micalizzi.
This Janet Malcolm piece about Sarah Palin’s TV show is pretty dang rad. Related: Palin hates the NEA.
The neuroscience of art — and whether humans are hardwired to have an appreciation for Henry Moore. Seriously. (@mrjohnflowers.)
Choose your favorite masterpiece from among a lengthy, unimaginative list of white guys from the U.S. and Western Europe. Two Coats of Paint responds here.
The Good, the Bad, and the Colen: William Powhida’s guide to New York art critics. I made the list and just wanna know if there’s some sorta Kaplan program I can do to improve my “criticality” score.
Stephen Colbert’s art-on. Co-starring Simon de Pury.
No Grupo, a Mexican conceptual group that patented the act of appreciating the taco. All I have to say is: Yes.
Ben Davis on the aesthetics of “bling conceptualism” and Terence Koh’s on-his-knees performance art piece at Mary Boone.
Speaking of bling: curator Dan Cameron defends friend-of-Miuccia-Prada Francesco Vezzoli. In case you want to take a walk down memory lane: San Suzie’s coverage of Vezzoli’s ridonkulous cologne show in Rome in 2009 — a piece that is now part of the permanent collection at MoCA in L.A. Is it possible to snort-laugh and gag at the same time? (Art Fag City.)
Jean-Michel Basquiat once smoked pot in Eli Broad’s bathroom. Plus: Broad thinks La Cicciolina is “rather unusual.” He also thinks he’s spent up to $400 million on art (more than the GDP of Tonga).
On Lynd Ward’s 1930s woodcut comics.
David Lynch’s hair as guide to art history. Handy. (Eyeteeth.)
Kyle Chayka’s piece on video games and abstraction in Kill Screen makes me think Malevich shoulda made video games.
Sorta related: Malevich as inspiration for contemporary Barcelona street art.
Today’s Train Graff: Super cuteness by Lunar in Kosovo.
The art of Argentinean bus and truck paintings. Love how rococo this is. (Thanks, Ries!)
I’d be so gangsta if I had a Volkswagenball.

Tags: Architecture, eero saarinen, jfk, twa terminal.

The Digest. 03.14.11.

By c-monster on March 14, 2011 in C-Monster, Painting and The Digest. 3 Comments

What My Mother Doesn’t Know, a painting by Hector Hernández, spotted at Curbs & Stoops in Brooklyn. (Photo by C-M.)

A map of science fiction. (Roger Ebert’s Journal.)
Sort of related: The 10 Most Awesomely Terrible Sci-Fi/Fantasy Paperback Covers. (Thank you, @mrjohnflowers.)
On the ethics of displaying the dead. Interesting piece, though I would have loved to have seen the issue of displaying Egyptian and Andean mummies addressed.
Somehow, this had eluded me all of this time: Hunter Thompson’s epic 1971 essay on the Chicano Moratorium and Ruben Salazar’s death at the wrong end of an LAPD tear-gas canister. Thompson spells vato wrong, but otherwise an excellent piece. Consider this required reading if you live in Southern California.
Censorship at Austin’s Arthouse?
Italian government not so keen on restitutions that might require a work to leave Italy.
Gago is getting sued.
Trafficking in Digital Art: How does one sell or buy a GIF? Hyperallergic and Tom Moody (in one and two parts) discuss. (Art Fag City.)
A digital “poem” with endless clicks.
Cease and Desist: That sublime point where the art industry and the legal industry intersect.
Copying in the World of Art: It ain’t new.
Glad This Has Been Cleared Up: Study reveals that it is possible for people to tell the difference between an abstract expressionist work produced by a monkey and one produced by a human. (@MrJohnFlowers)
Streisand doing the Philly Museum. Gotta move!
Make your own Dan Flavin light sculpture. (Sort of.)
Flashback: Patti Astor’s Fun Gallery from the ‘80s. All kinds of groovy psychedelic.
Shane McAdams picks apart street art and Exit Through the Gift Shop at the Brooklyn Rail. (Hyperallergic.)
5 Pointz, the graffiti hub in Long Island City, Queens, may be going condo.
Today’s Street Art is all about paper: Laguna in Spain.
JR’s Ted Project: To have the world put up JR posters. What a spectacularly weak concept (and one that is unavailable to the two thirds of the planet that doesn’t have access to the internet).
Nice piece on the fading tradition of Chilean sign painting. The video is in Spanish, but the visuals are universal. (Thanks to Paty for the link.)
Best Mars Images from Orbiter’s first five years. (It’s Okay to Be Smart.)
Back to the future, in photos.

Tags: curbs and stoops, hector hernandez.

The Digest. 03.02.11.

By c-monster on March 2, 2011 in C-Monster, Photography and The Digest. Closed

Martin Juarez, an absolutely stunning image given to me by my pal Least Wanted, aka Mark Michaelson. Buy his book.

Congrats (I think) to Moses Hawk for winning the C-Mon Giveaway Extravaganza, Jeff Koons doing it edition.

Awesome wedding cakes.
Joanne McNeil and her various online selves. Interesting story.
The Day in LOL Politicians: Queens Congressman wants to sell “sexist” work of public art on Craigslist.
Remember those historic hanging-by-a-thread Haitian murals my pal Rosa Lowinger wrote about for WNYC’s Gallerina last summer? They finally made the NYT. (Though the paper neglects to mention the conservators doing the actual work. Boo.)
An album inspired by Hieronymus Bosch.
Gary Panter on Jack Kirby. Plus: Panter’s advice to young artists.
What it’s like to have your painted mug featured in the New Yorker.
Lights.
Annie Philbin of the Hammer Museum guest DJs at KCRW.
Fake vintage Japanese ad mascots.
The CIA has a Flickr feed. And it’s pretty damn weird.
A Q&A with photographer Malick Sidibé.
Clemens Behr: The Merzbau meets street art in stonerrific ways. (IKilledJackJohnson.)
A graffiti analysis sculpture.
Things That Are Meta: Cleaning graffiti off graffiti.
Today’s Street Art, Chuck Norris edition.
“How can you criticize an artist who gets into the limelight by staying out of the limelight, has a healthy secondary market, has good politics — I think — and seems to be slamming both the art world, and casting doubts upon every other street artist in the universe?” Artopia on Exit Through the Gift Shop, making me rethink Banksy.
Paper dresses. I want the gold one.
A building with an integrated skate ramp. Smart.
Zaha Hadid’s new Guangzhou opera house. (kateopolis.)
The Best Picture on the Internet. (Art Fag City.)

Tags: least wanted, mark michaelson, martin juarez.

The Digest. 02.18.11.

By c-monster on February 18, 2011 in Art for stoners, C-Monster, Graffiti and The Digest. Closed

Smells on a freight car. (Image courtesy of Smells.)

Sculpture you can shred on. (Eyeteeth.)
Atonement via smartphone app.
The five worst gallery websites.
The world needs more video interviews with Tracey Emin.
Jasper Johns to receive Presidential Medal of Freedom.
NEH and NEA likely to get hit with brutal budget cuts. In NYC, the Department of Cultural Affairs is about to get hit with some serious slashing, too.
Opponents of Barnes Foundation move are attempting to get the judge reopen the case. (@KnightLAT.)
Iowa Republicans really really really want to sell Jackson Pollock painting at the University of Iowa. I mean, like, really.
Crowd-sourced shows: Kyle Chayka is over them. So am I.
Groday: Wafaa Bilal’s body rejects camera implanted in his head.
‘Cuz They’re Old? Why Van Gogh’s sunflowers are turning brown. (Arts Journal.)
New York Times photographer criticized for taking award-winning pix with smartphone app. He responds.
The Day in Art Merch: The Damien Hirst bling skull hoodie. For when Ed Hardy is not douche enough.
Ruins Porn: Gary, Indiana edition.
Aerial shots of Germany. (Eyeteeth.)
Today’s Graff is all about being green: Mosone in Italy.
For sale: Subway station.
Eero Saarinen’s TWA terminal at JFK to serve as the entrance to a boutique hotel.
I want it big and brutal and with a lot of windows: Cosmic Communist Constructions.
What Eli Broad can learn about urban planning from The Grove.
From the Department of Holy Crap: The five strangest shows on Latin American television. The Peruvians take the prize for scary surrealism, while the Argentineans win for nasty sexual harassment. (@giovannigf.)

Tags: freight graff, smells.

The Digest. 01.31.11.

By c-monster on January 31, 2011 in C-Monster, Painting and The Digest. 3 Comments

Soap Bubbles, after 1739, by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin. (Courtesy of LACMA.)

“How abstract can a landscape become while remaining a landscape?”
Hyperallergic has done an incredible job keeping tabs on damage to the Egyptian National Museum and other Egyptian museums during the demonstrations. More here.
Al Jazeera’s Flickr feed. (Fast Company.)
Portraits of the tortured: This looks like a can’t-miss exhibit in L.A.
And the Super Bowl bets are on: This year it’s the Milwaukee Art Museum versus the Carnegie Museum of Art. Up for grabs: French impressionist paintings.
Best. Artist Profile. Ever.: The Rembrandt of Riyadh.
Ai Weiwei ceramic sunflower seeds to be auctioned at Sotheby’s. (Arts Journal.)
If this isn’t a clusterfuck of art world ridiculosity, I don’t know what is.
Mothers, the harshest art critics. (This story is hilarious.)
Tattooed ladies. (Marshall Astor.)
If you live in NYC: Take the Artist Cost of Living Survey. It’s to help a new foundation determine grant awards. (Art Fag City.)
VHS.
Photographer Phillip Toledano, reimagined as one of many dictators.
The perils of appropriation: Mr. Brainwash getting sued by photographer Glen E. Friedman for copyright violation on a Run DMC image.
Today’s Graff: ESPO (aka Steve Powers) in Syracuse. (Scroll down.) Plus: A photo tour of his studio.
On the financials of the urban art market: A profile of Steve Lazarides. (Ekosystem.)
Nest factories. (BLDGBLOG.)
Some great pix of Pritzker Prize winner Peter Zumthor’s Bruder Klaus Field Chapel in Germany.
One of the most ridonkulous, excessive museum schematics I’ve seen in a loooong time. And it’s in Miami, of course.
An action movie sequence that will make your day. (@mltb.)

Tags: jean baptiste simeon chardin, LACMA, soap bubbles.

The Digest. 01.26.11.

By c-monster on January 26, 2011 in C-Monster, Photography and The Digest. Closed

L’il B, by Zoe Strauss. Part of her shrimp and petroleum series on the U.S. Gulf Coast. (Image courtesy of Strauss.)

Congrats to Mel for winning the C-Mon Giveaway Extravaganza, LP Costa Rica edition.

A Monopoly House, life size.
Author Nick Flynn, on why it pays to have a Protestant family when writing a memoir. (Thank you, Liz.)
“The World is dividing into two blocs—the Plutonomy and the rest.”
William Donohue of the Catholic League has been so busy sweating the Smithsonian over David Wojnarowicz, it appears he hasn’t had time to read through all his commandments. Namely, the one about lying.
Related: Jeffrey Goldberg has a good take on the whole controversy and Clough’s cluelessness over at The Atlantic. Plus: More on Clough’s inconsistencies here.
In which Village Voice art critic Christian Viveros-Faune dismembers Jeff Koons. (Interventions.)
At Davos: The Damien Hirst spin class.
Me, me, me on VIP, the online art fair. Plus: An excellent take on all the tech problems from Paddy Johnson. The part about the e-mail addresses is MESSED UP.
I’m with El Saltzino’s take on Whitney’s Singular Visions show. It is all kinds of fantastic. (Stand-outs, in my mind, include AA Bronson, Eva Hesse and Robert Grosvener — the latter of which looks like it wants to stab you in the heart.)
A nice review of The Woodmans, the film about photographer Francesca Woodman, who killed herself at 22.
On art and pranks.
“So much ruin photography and ruin film aestheticizes poverty without inquiring of its origins, dramatizes spaces but never seeks out the people that inhabit and transform them, and romanticizes isolated acts of resistance without acknowledging the massive political and social forces aligned against the real transformation, and not just stubborn survival, of the city.” An excellent essay in Guernica lays out a taxonomy of Detroit coverage.
Related: The case against economic disaster porn. (@felixsalmon.)
The Day in Art Merch, Francophile Edition: Manet high heels and Versailles “Let Them Eat Cake” vanilla candles.
Which brings me to a story about what some European museums are doing to make money.
The World of Soviet Groceries.
Like, whoa: Photos from the Tokyo Auto Salon. Here’s the one I want. (Marshall Astor, via Pink Tentacle.)
Revok and Insa, gif style.
Today’s Graff, mellow yellow edition: Eron in Athens.
Handy: An architectural guide to LA — with map.
“Up or Down? A Male Economist’s Manifesto on Toilet Seat Etiquette.” (@Atul_Gawande.)

Tags: li'l b, shrimp and petroleum, Zoe Strauss.

The Digest. 01.19.11.

By c-monster on January 19, 2011 in C-Monster, Graffiti, Luna Park, Street Art and The Digest. Closed

Jeff Soto, in Miami. (Photo by Luna Park.)

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.)

Tags: jeff soto, Luna Park.

The Digest. 01.14.11.

By c-monster on January 14, 2011 in C-Monster, Graffiti, New York and The Digest. 1 Comment

The Smart Crew, in NYC. (Photo by C-M.)

Congratulations to knonos for winning the Stikman calendar giveaway!

Theories of Gchat. (Gracias, @jennydeluxe.)
Telegenic acts of iconoclasm: A post mortem on the toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein in the early days of the Iraq War.
On the Detroit ruins porn phenomenon. Joerg Colberg makes a good point about it all here. (Hyperallergic.)
Felix Salmon gives this week’s art funds story in the New York Times a searing elbow drop: “These ludicrous creatures have strong claim to being the most ridiculous asset class in the world, no one should ever invest in them, and they invariably fail.” (Hat Tip, @MrJohnFlowers.)
Parsing the Armory Show 2011 line-up. (Art Fag City.)
And because the world doesn’t have enough art fairs: Brooklyn will now have its own.
Ai Weiwei’s studio razed by Chinese authorities.
MoMA acquires controversial David Wojnarowicz video, the first institution to do so. It’s the 13th piece by Wojnarowicz to enter the collection.
The Civil Rights Movement…in Second Life.
On the trail of an elusive forger.
Things that look like art.
Two words: Basquiat Couture. (@ARTnewsmag.)
Speaking of which…A Marina Abramovic dessert. A follow up to her chocolate lips. Which makes me think, I really need a signature art-dessert.
Brujas.
Ed Ruscha guest DJs at KCRW.
The Week in Anti-Climactic Resolutions: Shepard Fairey and the AP settle their dispute. Though still at issue is a copyright infringement lawsuit involving all of Fairey’s “Hope” merch.
Photos of Swoon’s completed Konbit Shelters in Haiti.
Today’s Graff: Keim & Znjojmo in the Czech Republic, geometry and reflection. Nice.
This promises to be all kinds of interesting: The Pruitt-Igoe Myth: An Urban History, a film that examines the social and architectural history of one of St. Louis’s most notorious housing projects.
Blah blah blah. (Rhizome.)

Tags: smart crew.

The Digest. 01.11.11.

By c-monster on January 11, 2011 in C-Monster, Photography and The Digest. 1 Comment

Walter Gropius on TV, at the Bauhaus, in Dessau, Germany. (Photo by Jenn Hsu.)

Cyberspace, when you’re dead.
Julian Barnes, on the issue of translation and Madame Bovary, which he describes as “the first great shopping and fucking novel.” (This is a long one, but for nerds like me who like exploring the complications of translating meaning from one language into another, quite fascinating.)
Timbuktu: Trapped in time for the sake of tourism — and the honorific of UNESCO World Heritage status. A highly interesting debate about what the limits of historic preservation should be.
John Baldessari wants to put your name in lights. (Modern Art Notes.)
“So far: I must say that Twitter is more like cocaine than the wonderful opium or psilocybin mushrooms of Facebook.” Yes folks, Jerry Saltz is on Twitter.
Criticism is dead (okay, “in eclipse”), says Ben Davis. We’ve heard this story before, says Paddy Johnson.
Constructive criticism: 10 artists who deserve shows at the New Museum.
Some lovely photos of Spiral Jetty in winter.
Plans for mega-collector Eli Broad’s museum unveiled. It looks like a giant sponge.
Jeffrey Deitch’s latest: I feel a “Scene & Heard” coming on.
It seems that if there’s one thing a Warhol is good for, it’s generating lawsuits.
The world of art funds. Looking forward to a future in which the word “Picasso” and “securities” are used regularly in the same sentence.
Damien Hirst offending parenting groups by bedazzling an infant’s skull.
Kanye West was desperately hoping his George Condo-painted album cover would be banned. Nice try. (Full story in the New Yorker; subscription required.)
Inside the mind of an art guard.
Love these: The street photography of the barely-known Vivian Maier — nanny, photographer, artist. See a video about her life and work. (Mercy, Yvonne.)
Mary Louise Schumacher reviews Steve Martin’s art world novel.
Czech and Polish posters for Kaiju films.
Today’s Street Art: Geometry gets blue, in a piece by Gais Ama in Rio de Janeiro.
Justin Davidson at New York Magazine proposes a new use for the Whitney’s Breuer Bunker: Architecture Museum.
Forgotten monuments of communist-era Bulgaria.

Tags: bauhaus, dessau, walter gropius.

Archive for the 'The Digest' Category

The Digest. 03.30.11.

The Digest. 03.23.11.

The Digest. 03.14.11.

The Digest. 03.02.11.

The Digest. 02.18.11.

The Digest. 01.31.11.

The Digest. 01.26.11.

The Digest. 01.19.11.

The Digest. 01.14.11.

The Digest. 01.11.11.

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