Surfer Blood at the Brooklyn Bowl. (Photo by timnyc.)
Nice Pants, by Landon Nordeman. (Image courtesy of Jen Bekman and 20×200.)
Late update: The WNYC/Whitney Biennial Twitter tour is on NYT Artsbeat. If you’re in NYC, you can sign up for the tour here. It’ll be good, geeky fun.
- Chat Roulette Piano Improv with Merton. (Coudal.)
- In his screed against critics of the NuMu’s Skin Fruit show, “art collector, heir” Adam Lindemann forgot to disclose that he’s a big-time investor in Urs Fischer’s work and that he supported Fischer’s solo at the museum. Now that’s a typo!
- “The show looks like a yard sale of pushed buttons, or more to the point, given the emphasis on grotesque figuration, like the cantina scene from Star Wars.” That’d be Time Out New York’s Howard Halle on Skin Fruit. Daaaaaang.
- Speaking of which, what happens when you show up at the NuMu with an over-sized, stuffed pink penis and stand in the lobby? You get thrown out, natch. (@russelltrombone.)
- MoCA is gonna be doing a fundraiser at a gallery. And Christopher Knight ain’t happy.
- Richard Lacayo’s top three Whitney Biennial faves. (Art Fag City.)
- Brent Burket provides Twitter-esque reviews of every last work in the Brucennial in one and two parts, with more on the way. Best line: “The color. The line. Purple mountains majesty, motherfuckers.”
- Dubai art fair, like the emirate, not as hot as it once was. (Arts Journal.)
- Wow! ArtInfo is now linking off their site. Welcome to the new millennium, guys!
- Meditating with Marina. Not. (A Flower Every Day.)
- Free museum podcasts, in iTunes’ Museum Room. (@museumnerd.)
- Artists never to hire as a keynote speaker: Kiki Smith. (Modern Art Notes.)
- Art Merch: The R. Crumb Wallet.
- The NYT gives William Kentridge’s production of The Nose a thumbs up. I gotta be honest, as much as I love Gogol’s story and I dig Kentridge’s animations for the opera — as well as the giant papier-mâché nose (complete with pimple) — the staging felt kinda flat. In a related piece: a video report in which Kentridge talks about the opera, and his funny chat at the New York Public Library about what it’s like to carry a giant nose.
- Vintage tornado pix.
- Tempt1, an L.A. graffiti artist afflicted with ALS, “tags” by using special eye-writing glasses.
- Today’s Street Art: ReFreshInk in Italy.
- The carbon emission toll generated by a single page-view of Tree Hugger. Extrapolating that figure against the page views Perez Hilton gets makes me realise that he is, indeed, going to be the death of us all. (Cool Green Science.)
- Yes, it’s pointy: Daniel Libeskind’s new Dublin theatre.
- Paul Goldberger on rebuilding at NYC’s World Trade Center. Basically, he tells us it’s gonna be the same shit (offices), different look. God forbid someone in New York do some innovative urban planning.
- Waterfalls.
Draper style. (Photo by F.Trainer.)
- You too could be the proud owner of a giant Canadian beaver. Inflatable, of course.
- It’s all about performance. At least in NYC’s major museums. Plus: An audio slideshow devoted to the female artists of the genre.
- The Marina Abramovic cam. In related news: I stared at Marina Abramovic and all I got was this lousy T-shirt. And: Audio of Abramovic’s press conference, earlier in the month. (@gregorg.)
- Child performers at the Gugg’s Tino Sehgal show didn’t get paid. Instead, they got a hat, a bag and a museum membership. What, no key chain? Sehgal’s performers also report that American college students are the rudest of all museum-goers.
- Could be interesting: The Tate is inviting producers, poets and hip-hop musicians to react to Chris Ofili’s work.
- Christopher Knight likes Luc Tuymans, he really really likes him.
- Nazi-looted Corot to go to auction.
- A biennial grows in Denver. ‘Cuz what the world really needs is another biennial. (Though I have to confess, I’m digging the North/South America angle on this one.)
- Kathy Grayson, a director at Deitch’s gallery, to take on a bunch of the soon-to-be MoCA director’s artists.
- Alexandra Peers goes to the NY Observer. (@russelltrombone.)
- Art by telephone: authenticating Andy Warhol.
- Please don’t lick the art. Shit, I coulda used this shirt on Saturday night. (Eyeteeth.)
- From the Annals of White People Hijinks: Having chickens in NorCal is now a movement known as “femivorism.” In the rest of the world (and among the poor and in agricultural/rural societies), this important movement is known as “having chickens.”
- The rare black penguin.
- Rednecks and cars.
- Photo Set: New York in the ’60s and ’70s. (Flaming Pablum.)
- RIP photographer Charles Moore. Renowned for dramatic civil rights era photographs such as this. (Thanks for the heads up, Bill.)
- Today’s Graff: Arp in Naples, Italy.
- Jean Nouvel’s latest. Ourossoff describes it as having a “rough-edged sex appeal.”
- I love me some taxidermy. (Coudal.)
Supply and Demand, by Skewville at Factory Fresh. (Image courtesy of Factory Fresh.)
- The Art Industrial Average seems to be showing signs of life — at least when it comes to the old school stuff. Plus: Sotheby’s returns to profitability. (Arts Journal.)
- On the New Museum controversy, “art collector, heir” Adam Lindemann takes to the Observer to announce: Get over it whiners, it’s a rich person’s world — and y’all just live in it. A coupla things: One, Lindemann forgets to inquire how the Joannou show fits in with the New Museum’s mission of ‘new art, new ideas.’ (As far as I can tell the only thing ‘new’ in the show is the paint job on the museum’s walls.) Secondly, he says that as long as “the public gets a great show” then that’s all that matters. Um, except the show isn’t great. It’s kind of a hot mess. Top floor reminds me of standing in line at Universal Islands of Adventure…except I don’t get the joy of riding the Hulk roller coaster when it’s over. (@hragv.)
- ¡Celebrity Curator Smackdown! Jeff Koons versus Shaquille O’Neal. Thank you, Ben Davis.
- Marina Abramovic, the minimalist. Holland Cotter at the NYT reviews the show here.
- In related news: Jerry Saltz makes “genital contact.”
- Harry Benson totally annoyed to see one of his pix “appropriated” by Whitney Biennial artist.
- A profile of Christophe de Menil in W — aka Dash Snow’s grandma.
- Booby-trapped art work. (@KnightLAT.)
- Plus, in NYC: Sculptures that look as if they are about to leap to their death.
- Man Bartlett’s balloon pile.
- Abstract expressionist stamps.
- Create your own Chiquita Banana’s stickers.
- Photo Essay: Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta.
- Welcome to Your Parents New York. (Flaming Pablum.)
- Today’s Street Art: Stinkfish in Bogotá.
- RIP Bruce Graham, the architect who designed the Sears Tower in Chicago.
- Sorry Wallpaper, you have it wrong: This is not the world’s first artificial floating island. These have been around for hundreds of years.
- The Big Lebowski morality continuum.
Bunny Bread. (Photo by Alex Gaidouk.)
- Chile, nine days later. (Coudal.)
- An unofficial ad campaign for the New Museum highlights the institution’s ethical challenges.
- Speaking of which, the NuMu has a forum about art museums, private collectors and the public going down this Saturday…that costs $10 per person to attend.
- “You must ask him to get down. I know better than anyone what that is like, and even I can’t take it!” Marina Abramovic to a New Museum curator, on Pawel Althamer’s sculpture, Schedule of the Crucifix — after a performer’s legs began to turn blue while hanging on a makeshift cross in the galleries. (@ARTnewsmag.)
- Jerry Saltz seems to love anything as long as he’s featured in it. (@TylerGreenDC.)
- Obligatory Whitney Biennial round-up: Christian Viveros-Faune is ambivalent — likening parts of the show to Tylenol PM and others to the bitchslap of a new beginning, Paddy Johnson is a like, and Kriston Capps is of a mixed view. (Modern Art Notes.)
- Tino Sehgal, a kid’s take. (Art Fag City.)
- Yosi Sergeant talks about the out-of-touch NEA.
- Elisabeth Eaves on the gaps in Patti Smith’s memoir.
- This looks super-cool: Felix González-Torres pieces grace billboards in Texas. (Modern Art Notes.)
- Annie Liebovitz’s new creditors. (@russelltrombone.)
- L.A.’s Brody art collection worth big bucks.
- Ansel Adams’ photographs of Japanese internment camps.
- Jörg Colberg describes the art fairs as a place “where your soul is not only crushed, it’s actually slowly and steadily ground into a fine powder.” Yup, sounds about right.
- A visual summary of The Big Lebowski.
- Nice online piece from the Guggenheim for their Contemplating the Void exhibit, which examines the architectural/installation possibilities of the museum’s atrium. Can someone please scrape up some budget to let Arne Quinze build a stilthouse in the rotunda? Also digging the proposals by Andy Goldsworthy, Mass Studies, Martha Rosler and Amanda Levete’s rotunda reflection.
- Today’s Street Art: Jan Vormann’s Lego fixes in New York City. (@russelltrombone.)
- Extinction outpaces evolution.
Evening Cocoon, by Kate Browne, in Cragsmoor, New York. Beginning today, Browne will be building a large cocoon in the Plaza Tlatelolco (sight of the infamous 1968 massacre) in Mexico City. It will be lit on March 21st, the first day of spring. (Image courtesy of Kate Browne.)
Anti-Mass, 2005 by Cornelia Parker a the DeYoung Museum of Art in 2008. (Photo by C-M.)
Today is Art Yoga with C-Mon Day at Ed Winkleman. You can participate via the live web stream at the official #CLASS website, starting at 2pm ET.
Tone, Cense and Skrew in North Philly. (Photo by Luna Park.)
- Today’s post-apocalyptic animated video: Future Man by Ryo Hirano.
- Jeff Koons, art collector. My favorite line: Randy Kennedy describing Koons’ studio as having “the bright, hygienic aura of a pharmaceutical lab or a high-end car-detailing shop.”
- Sorta related: An adulatory profile of New Museum trustee and Jeff Koons boat-owner Dakis Joannou. Interesting fact: Koons designed his daughter’s wedding cake.
- Plus, more rich-people folly: Elton John’s shower art.
- Museums see rise in attendance. But bigger crowds don’t necessary translate into more revenue. (Arts Journal.)
- Lost Haitian Art: Writer Amy Wilentz gathers images of destroyed Haitian cultural treasures on Flickr. Join the group if you have pix. (Intelligent Travel.)
- Laser surgery technique used for tattoo removal is now being used to clean sculptures. (Arts Journal.)
- Marina Abramovic has a pimple. (Would that make a great name for a band, or what?)
- The case of David Burdeny and Sze Tsung Leong: Did one photographer plagiarize the other?
- Sepia Town.
- How the brain processes sarcasm. Or why you need both sides of your brain to understand C-Monster.
- Awesomely Groovy Photo Essay: The Mali pix of Malick Sidibé.
- The Boneyard.
- Wiping turtles butts — and other things National Geographic photographers do.
- There’s a free screening of Whole Train tonight at the Goethe-Institut in L.A. at 7pm.
- Today’s Street Art: Luz Interruptus, Literature versus Traffic, in Brooklyn.
- A house floats out to sea following the quake in Chile. It pains me to see this. Plus: the earthquake released 50 gigatons of energy.
- Aggrandizing architecture porn alert!!! The trailer for How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster, a new flick about the Dark Lord Norman Foster, which seems to be equal parts Raise the Red Lantern and Koyaanisqatsqi – without any disagreeable-looking sweaty labourers, of course. (Coudal.)
- Very cool: The VitraHaus, an architecture museum in Germany designed by Herzog & de Meuron.
- Ice skating!!! Makin’ me wish I had a spangly body suit.
Trapped Sky, by Elisa Jensen. Part of the 185th Annual: An Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary American Art at the National Academy, through June 8th. Read the New York Times review here. (Image courtesy of Elisa Jensen.)
- Vintage Japanese industrial posters.
- Whtiney Biennial Reviews are starting to roll in. A round-up: Jerry Saltz loves it, Sebastian Smee hates it (in fact, his review is so scathing, I”m wondering if he forgot to take his happy pills), Charlie Finch is a like, Holland Cotter is another like. Plus: I’ve got a list of three of my favorite pieces over at WNYC. Sort related: Cotter on the Brucennial.
- The Art of the Steal, a doc about the struggle to control the Barnes Collection, is set to debut in theatres today.
- If only more collectors/patrons thought this way: “A museum is about curators actively engaging art and the audience over an extended period of time. It shouldn’t be about my prowess at shopping.”
- The Seven Richest Artists. Mr. Blingy Skull is on top. (WSJ; @russelltrombone.)
- Jeff Koons collector and Stephanie Seymour ex-husband-to-be Peter Brant has filed for bankruptcy.
- The opposite of ArtForum’s Scene & Herd: An Xiao’s Photoglam.
- The Getty Conservation Institute to look at Disney animation cels as part of a study on the deterioration of plastic.
- Artists respond to their critics.
- The Day in Art Merch: Kehinde Wiley sneakers. Sorta related: Karl Lagerfeld’s designer safe (last item). Seriously. (@artfagcity, @interviewnews.)
- Louise Nevelson + Anselm Kiefer = Leonardo Drew.
- La Debacle.
- Forensic astronomers seeking clues to historic events in art and literature. Geoff Manaugh further explores the idea here. (BLDGBLOG.)
- Awesome: L.A. billboards get an artsy makeover. (Flavorwire.)
- Today’s Street Art: Roa in Paris.
- The latest design schematic from La Zaha, the King Abdullah II House of Culture in Jordan.
- A building that grows its own skin. Sorta. (architecture.mnp.)
- A village unvanishes. (@nicolatwilley.)
- Now I know what to do with all those paper towel tubes.
- Urban decay, former Soviet Union style.
- Granta gets coochie-rrific.
Brick Wall, by Jules de Balincourt. From the new online archive of the Hoggard Wagner Art Collection. (Image courtesy of the Collection; see many more pix of the works en situ at The Flog.)
