Archive for the 'The Digest' Category

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The Digest. 01.06.10.

By c-monster on January 6, 2011 in C-Monster, Land Art, Sculpture and The Digest. 3 Comments

Canoe, WH ’10, a found-wood sculpture by R.L. Croft at Occoquan Creek in Prince William County, Va. See a local story on another work here. Or better yet, visit Croft’s website. (Image courtesy of R.L. Croft.)

Must. Get. These boots. (Thank you for this amazing discovery, @giovannigf.)
How Peruvian hair ends up on the heads of ladies in Brooklyn. (Things I loved learning: Orthodox women consider curly hair to symbolize an “unruly” spirit.)
Are you wiping your butt with old growth forests? (Cool Green Science.)
“Income inequality in the United States is higher than in any other advanced industrial democracy and by conventional measures comparable to that in countries such as Ghana, Nicaragua, and Turkmenistan.”
There’s an all kinds of interesting story in the New Yorker about the recently refurbished Vatican Library. (Subscription required.)
Between a Cross and a Hard Place: Excellent piece on the Wojnarowicz controversy (with hstorical context) in ARTnews.
“Thus, my five-year long trial ended without judgment—neither condemnation nor vindication, a reality hard to accept, given the distorted and slanderous allegations against me.” The Getty’s former antiquities curator Marion True, on the ambivalent end to the charges filed against her in an Italian court for allegedly conspiring to receive illegally excavated antiquities. Read her full statement here. (L.A. Times.)
Stonerrific: The eCloud sculpture at San Jose International Airport. Watch the video.
Awesome: The “Is This Art?” iPhone app I helped work on (with the Mattress Factory and Deep Local and the awesome Jeff Inscho), made Technology in the Arts year-end Top Ten!! Don’t have the app? Find it here.
¡Art World Smackdown, Super Duper High-Brow Edition! The Met vs. The New York Review of Books.
The Day in Super Rich Artist Lawsuits: Jeff Koons goes after San Francisco shop for selling balloon dog bookends. Up next: Koons sues guys who make balloon dogs. (Eyeteeth.)
William Powhida’s guide to the art market, as explained by Felix Salmon.
Speaking of which… Things you can buy if you have crazy amounts of money: A bullet-scarred Warhol that once belonged to Dennis Hopper.
A thoughtful essay by Sharon Butler on James Panero’s “Jerry Saltz problem.”
Exit Through the Gift Shop could just be an Oscar contender. Sorta related: Let the fight for credit begin! Swiss filmmaker says his work was used in the film, yet went uncredited.
What a difference just a couple of years makes. An incredible photo essay documents lightning speed change in Mongolia. (Gracias, Big Papi G.)
Manga farming.
Street artists protest the removal of Blu’s mural at LA MoCA with lasers. Video here.
Today’s Street Art: Fighmoen in Mexico City.
The Day in Awesome Graffiti Music Finds: The World’s Best Ever has audio of REVS’s 1993 punk album.
The Architectural Industrial Average Is Up: Billings at their highest since 2007. (@Architizer.)
The stunning world of tampon cozies.

Tags: canoe, occoquan creek, R.L. Croft, virginia.

The Digest. 12.20.10.

By c-monster on December 20, 2010 in C-Monster, Costa Rica, Installation, Sculpture and The Digest. Closed

Huellas del silencio, 2003 by Paulina Ortiz, in the spa at the Four Seasons, Costa Rica. (Photo by C-M.)

A history of words and language, via Google Books. (@stevesilberman.)
Virgencita.
On surveillance. A fascinating episode of Studio 360 — which includes a segment with Trevor Paglen.
AA Bronson asks to have his work removed from the National Portrait Gallery’s Hide/Seek exhibit in the wake of the Wojanrowicz controversy. The NPG says no way. Tyler Green has an interview with the artist.
Related: Hyperallergic reports on yesterday’s protest in NYC against the censorhsip. And Modern Art Notes has a helpful links round up on the latest surrounding the controversy.
Blu, on the removal of his mural from MOCA in L.A. The museum’s board members don’t appear too concerned about the whole fracas. Related: Ayatollah Deitch.
The European Commission has ruled that Dan Flavin’s art isn’t art. It’s “light fittings.”
The Best in Food-Art, 2010.
Speaking of which: Steak sandwich à la Richard Wentworth. Looks tasty.
Bad at Sports has an interesting audio interview with Julio Cesar Morales, talking 19th century food and California history, among many other interesting things. Set aside an hour for this.
Want to understand that Paul Thek show at the Whitney? Read John Perreault’s informative essay.
Jeff Koons, shopping.
Play chess with Marcel Duchamp. Or at least his bot likeness.
The Day in Art Merch: a Josef Beuys-inspired Cape Coat — as worn by a hot chick. And Tracey Emin stationery.
Vogue magazine, in abstraction. Weirdly fascinating. (ackackack.)
Today’s Street Art, anteater edition: Ovbal and Sego in Mexico City.
3-D animated graffiti. Very Transformers. (The Smithian.)
“I hate the word starchitect. Stuff like that comes from mean-spirited, untalented journalists.” — Frank Gehry, on everything.
Mies’s Farnsworth House, filled with butterflies.
For Sale: Slightly Used Apocalyptic Warning Sign.

Tags: Costa Rica, four seasons, papagayo, paulina ortiz.

The Digest. 12.13.10.

By c-monster on December 13, 2010 in C-Monster, Graffiti, Street Art and The Digest. Closed

Eko. (Image courtesy of Eko.)

Fake Criterions. (Grazie, @mrjohnflowers.)
Steven Soderbergh’s Spalding Gray doc screening at LACMA tonight; will be at IFC this Friday.
The 2010 Art World Census. Take it.
Another Bouncing Ball does a round up of David Wojnarowicz’s writings. Well done.
In related news: the National Portrait Gallery’s commissioner resigned to protest the removal of Wojnarowicz’s video. In addition, NYT columnist Frank Rich takes the Smithsonian and the D.C. establishment to task over the issue.
Speaking of censorship, a MOCA-commissioned mural by Blu in L.A. was immediately buffed by the museum shortly after being painted. The museum has failed to provide any good explanation for why it removed the work. Hyperallergic has updated coverage here and here.
And since we’re talking about MOCA: Word has it that the staff at the museum is grossly unhappy under Il Deitcho.
In London: A very surreal Turner Prize ceremony: Protestors on one side of a barricade, celebrants on the other. (Arts Journal.)
El Saltzino’s Top Ten. #class makes the list.
On the Machu Picchu/Yale debacle: “It seems more interesting to see antiquities restitutions not as an emptying out of Western museums but as part of a larger trend—the reverse migration of objects, from the West to the regions and cultures from which they came, along with the flow of Western art to new centers of power.”
The Museum of Arts & Design to have a center devoted to olfactory art. This could be all kinds of bizarre-interesting.
The Basel Frazzle, the morning after.
Rock band T-shirts for arthouse film directors. Can’t decided between the Herzog or the Ingmar Bergman…
Today’s Street Art: Geometeric abstraction meets naked dude. (Ekosystem.)
What kind of house would a confined man dream about? Find out here. Do not miss the trailer at the bottom.
The Architectural Industrial Average is low: Looks like Santiago Calatrava’s Chicago skyscraper is dead as a door nail. (Cityscapes.)
Inside Wikileaks Headquarters. Which reportedly resides, literally, inside a bunker.
Google beatbox.

Tags: eko, geometric abstraction.

The Digest. 11.22.10.

By c-monster on November 22, 2010 in Architecture, C-Monster, Photography and The Digest. Closed

Toma Puerto Viejo. (Photo by p.a.t.i.t.a.)

On the accidental poetry found in the Chicago Manual of Style. For the word nerds, an amazing essay. (@giovannigf.)
OMG, I need a foam printer.
Like a cake made of dirt.
16 Miles has pictures from the brand spankin’ new New Jersey Museum of Contemporary Art.
The Art Industrial Average is in the Pooper: LACMA laying off the construction until its finances recover and Guggenheim’s tax filings show that its net assets have slipped by a gnarly 25%.
Italian art historian claims that figures in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, inside the Sistine Chapel, are based on male prostitutes. Painters painting hookers? Get out. (Arts Journal.)
In sort of related nekkid man news: Silvio Berlusconi fits ancient statue with artifical penis. (Hyperallergic.)
From the Department of Grody: Artist Wafaa Bilal embedding a camera in his head.
The Muybridgizer.
When I worked at Time, our crazy-people mail used to look just like this.
An interesting review of Luc Tuymans at Zwirner. I gotta get over there to check it out.
Something to get lost in: Prism, a multimedia art project (writing, music, film shorts). I discovered this moody animated video about a rock star and a crazy chimp by Carson Mell and Grant Farlardeau.
And since we’re talking about primates: tracing the footsteps of the Museum of Natural History’s gorillas.
The Day in Art Merch: Artist dog bowls. For $2500.
The City is a Playground, the photographs of Alex Bartsch.
Today’s Street Art: spacemakeplace’s geometric floor in Vancouver. Whoa.
Ultra-small houses in Tokyo — including one the size of a parking spot.
Architecture amid the ruins: A pretty dang amazing structure by João Luís Carrilho da Graça at the Castle of São Jorge, a historic site in Lisbon that dates back to the Iron Age.
The Road Printer. Crazier than a foam printer. But less ethereal.
Modern art, explained. Finally. (Contemporary Art Truck.)

Tags: chile, puerto viejo.

The Digest. 11.15.10.

By c-monster on November 15, 2010 in C-Monster, Graffiti, Italy and The Digest. 1 Comment

Train graff in Naples, Italy, 2009. (Photo by C-M.)

“This is serious. We could make you delirious.” Effing amazing.
On procrastination.
Dogs that take the subway. (A story I never tire of.)
When nothing remains of our civilization but ashes, this is how we will be remembered.
Help Catherine Opie make a really important film.
Michelangelo’s David, as the sculpture was originally meant to be displayed. (ArtsJournal.)
Nothing Lasts Forever: In an interesting piece in the Telegraph, Mary Beard discusses the prohibitive cost of maintaining ruins.
“Shocking news from Oxford: You can’t play flute with your bottom.” (Hyperallergic.)
The Yale School of Art has a wiki website. And yes, it’s hard on the eyes.
There’s all kinds of hijinks afoot with the intended sale of some Clyfford Still paintings by a budding Denver museum intended to protect the artist’s legacy.
Gagosian’s Robert Rauschenberg show looks all kinds of interesting. Fred Kaplan does it up as a slideshow for Slate (and makes an interesting point about Gago’s installation of the White Painting).
The little stoner that lives inside of me loves any art installation made with cotton candy.
JOMC (aka Joanne McNeil) turned me on to the photography of Vanessa Winship. (She has an absolutely extraordinary series on schoolgirls in Eastern Anatolia.) Lucky for me, it turns out Conscientious interviewed the photographer about this series, and other things, last year.
Posing with the Dead: Victorian mourning photography. So messed up.
Photos that are too hard to keep.
When an art critic loses his ability to conjure words. (Find the full diary entries here.)
Bravo’s #workoFart gets officially renewed for a second season. I’ve had many suggestions for the show in the past. My latest: Get Lorenzo Lamas as a judge. What this shit needs is a B-grade actor with a laser pointer!
Today’s Street Art Animation: infinity in NYC.
Rediscovering Cambodian Modernism: The architecture of Vann Molyvann. Find images here.
This Tampa church designed by Alfonso Architects looks pretty dang rad. My favorite feature: an offerings ledge where you can burn real candles. And since we’re talking about Houses of Worship: Check out this cool-looking mosque in Indonesia which has an interesting typography treatment on the façade.
I want. I need. I have to have…a fish coffin. Yes I do.

Tags: naples, train graffiti.

The Digest. 11.08.10.

By c-monster on November 8, 2010 in C-Monster, Peru, Photography and The Digest. Closed

Rain Delay, by Celso. Shot in Cajamarca, Peru. (Image courtesy of El Celso.)

Comparative nipple anatomy. (Get the full post here.)
An ode to donuts.
“Since 1980 the economy has also continued to grow handsomely, but only a fraction at the top have benefitted. The line flattens for the bottom 90% of Americans. Average income went from that $30,941 in 1980 to $31,244 in 2008. Think about that: the average income of Americans increased just $303 dollars in 28 years.” Bill Moyers, killin’ it. Long but worth it. (joshsternberg.)
Ai Weiwei placed under house arrest in Beijing for staging a party to mark the destruction of his studio by authorities. Despite his arrest, the party went on without him. Update: Ai has been released.
A state of the arts in Syria.
From the Department of Is It Done Yet?: Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia causing consternation on the eve of the Pope’s arrival.
The rock walls of an Italian church have been found to contain the skull of a dinosaur.
Conceptualist Hans-Peter Feldman takes home Hugo Boss Prize.
An extraordinary piece on Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth is available for your listening pleasure at Studio 360.
Photographing the narcowars in Juarez.
Annie Liebovitz: Popular with magazine editors. With collectors, not so much. (It Really Makes You Think.)
Ansel Adams’ 1940s pix of L.A.
The Jeffrey Deitch home tour. I don’t know about Jesus over the bed.
Have really been enjoying El Saltzino’s “Ask an Art Critic” feature. But as Tyler Green points out: Cremaster IV? 75 times? For serious? That’s like Star Wars level fantacism. If he did see it, it took up 59 hours of his life.
Art that makes you go, Duuuuude: Federic Diaz’s Geometric Death Frequency at MASS MoCA. Sorta related: A non-billboard on the U.S.-Canada border by Seattle’s Lead Pencil Studio.
French street artist JR takes the 2011 TED prize.
Today’s Graff: With a whole lotta love, from Sencer in Mexico.
An Os Gemeos poster, for one cent. (World’s Best Ever.)
NASA has close-up images of the comet fly-by. (Cool Green Morning.)
Fiorruci Made Me Hardcore. Awesome. (16 Miles.)

Tags: cajamarca, el celso, rain delay.

The Digest. 10.11.10.

By c-monster on October 11, 2010 in C-Monster, Installation, Mexico, Sculpture and The Digest. Closed

Cocoon, by Kate Browne, in Mexico City. Part of a series of public cocoon sculptures she has constructed in various locations around the world. See the building of the Mexico City project here. (Image courtesy of Browne.)

The Starry Night bra.
New York Times, busted. Though, I have to say, this guy gives pretty good soundbite. (Art Fag City.)
Can birds fall in love?
New species discovered in New Guinea. Complete with awesome photos. (Cool Green Science.)
Border Bodies: Attempting to identify the remains of those who cross. Amazing piece. (Eyeteeth.)
Nut job attacks a piece by Enrique Chagoya with a crowbar at a Colorado museum. The work will not be returned to display.
“The exhibit is a mess, an extravagant hair ball of coughed-up references.”
Ignoring reality at its peril: An essay by Ben Davis on art in the time of austerity and the art world’s increasingly polarized economics.
Leather: The latest in important art collector wear. (Modern Art Notes.)
Slate does up MoMA’s Ab-Ex show in a slideshow. Plus: Look Into My Owl has some AMAZING close-ups of the paintings. If you can’t make it to the show, definitely check these links out.
Helpful advice to the internet generation, visual arts edition.
St. Mark’s Place, 1967.
The Day in Art Merch: The Yayoi Kusama Coke machine. I want, need, have to have…one of those dot cans.
Banksy’s Simpsons opener.
Today’s Graff: Hour and Horfe in Paris. Nice placement.
Trespass: A History of Uncommissioned Urban Art. Definitely a worthwhile street art/intervention book to have. On a related note: Urban Interventions: Personal Projects in Public Spaces is also good in terms of the comprehensive/experimental nature of the work it features.
Great if your stoned. Watch it full-screen. (Coudal.)

Tags: coccoon, kate browne, mexico city.

The Digest. 10.05.10.

By c-monster on October 5, 2010 in C-Monster, Photography and The Digest. 1 Comment

Somewhere in the vicinity of Check, Virginia. April, 2010. (Photo by C-M.)

Money.
On the nature of language: A podcast that picks apart some of the universal orthodoxies about language (i.e., certain aspects of it are innate) by focusing on an Amazonian culture that doesn’t have words for numbers or colors.
Speaking of language, one of my very random Tweets got sketched.
An interesting review of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom by William Deresiewicz in Bookforum. (Registration req.)
Fascinating story about Somalia and piracy. Interesting fact: Pirates do indeed have pirate names.
Plastic bags may never actually decompose. (Cool Green Science.)
Because pomegranates can’t protect you against lawsuits: The namesakes of LACMA’s shiny new wing are getting sued by the FTC over health claims related to their POM juice line.
It’s Turner Prize Time!!! The BBC’s David Sillito reports. Love the dry delivery. (Arts Journal.)
Rob Pruitt appropriated a screaming panda T-shirt design from Threadless for his current show at Gavin Brown. Last Thursday, Threadless supporters staged a panda intervention at the gallery. More on that here. (@artfagcity.)
Conflicts arising between U.S. museums and the restitution community on how to handle Holocaust-era art claims.
The New Republic’s Jed Perl not digging MoMA’s Ab-Ex show. In related news: Modern Art Notes has been chronicling the cranky ways of Clyfford Still, in one, two and three parts. That letter to Harold Rosenberg (linked to in Part 3) is indeed EPIC.
Filling all those architectural nooks and crannies: Andrew Russeth’s very awesome photos of Will Dorner’s Bodies in Urban Space.
How toxic is your studio? Featuring quotes by C-Mon’s own Art Nurse, Rosa Lowinger. Holla!
Wayne Thiebaud, explained.
Things I learned in Parents magazine: Slap a doily on your kid and he/she can be considered an artist.
Today’s Street Art, abstract edition: Graffiti Removal, courtesy of SpY, in Madrid.
Zaha Hadid’s MAXXI pad wins the Riba Stirling Prize.
The Art Institute of Chicago files a lawsuit against the engineering company behind Renzo Piano’s Modern Wing, which alleges that “woefully inadequate” engineering sent the project into cost overruns. (ArchDaily.)
“Hitler was an astonishing walking encyclopedia of architecture.”
Hermit dwellings.

Tags: #roadtrip2010, check, potatoheads, virginia.

The Digest. 09.27.10.

By c-monster on September 27, 2010 in C-Monster, Installation, Photography, Sculpture and The Digest. Closed

Climate Change Expedition, 2009, by Isaac Cordal. Part of the series Cement Eclipses. (Image courtesy of Cordal.)

Punk tea cups. Seriously. (Thank you, Alex.)
Ta-Nehisi Coates, on the bigoted legacy of The New Republic’s Martin Peretz.
Is Arianna Huffington a parasite? (My two cents are in the comments below the story.)
On writing that becomes what it is intended to critique, from the ‘80s to the present. (@giovannigf.)
The difficulty of understanding hipsters.
You’ve sold the work. Now try getting paid.
The art world universe of Terence Koh.
From the Department of Look-What-I-Found-in-Storage: The Prado uncovers a Breugel the Elder after giving it a cleaning. How comes this never happens to me?
The New York Times highlights a few videos from the Guggenheim’s YouTube Play project. And all I can say is that they are…crazy bad. I haven’t seen all of them, so I probably shouldn’t be lobbing opinions, but still…
On being a hyphenate (and kissing Sean Penn): John Perrault on James Franco.
Relational dogsthetics, courtesy of Martin Creed. (FYI: The story is good; photo is better. Click through.)
Diaphanous membranes.
Why I love reading about art conservation: You learn about stuff like the Pondovac 4 Pond Vacuum.
Thing That Are Freaky: A map of all the oil rigs on the Gulf Coast. (Cool Green Morning.)
The Biggest Marker in the Universe. (The Rumpus.)
Today’s Street Intervention, Toothpaste Edition: Goro in Poland.
The difference between art and street art, explained. Now it all makes sense.
Longer than 16 miles of string: 30 Miles of Yarn.
How segregated is your city?
An idealistic city that is also walled off from the rest of the world. Interesting story by Nicolai Ourossoff on a so-called “zero-carbon” Abu Dhabi development that is all suburban gated community – a style of urban development that he likens to “a cancer.” In relation to this, Alexandra Lang asks a smart question (not answered in the piece): How much carbon does it take to build a carbon-free city?
The Nixon Family vacation album.

Tags: cement eclipses, isaac cordal.

The Digest. 09.20.10.

By c-monster on September 20, 2010 in C-Monster, Photography and The Digest. 2 Comments

Untitled, 2010, by Jeff Williams, in Chilchota, Michoacán. (Image courtesy of Williams.)

Blog posts about not posting, courtesy of Cory Arcangel.
Help Paddy Johnson at AFC fund her record album. It’s got my heartbeat in it!
The Economist opens up the can of whoop-ass on Dinesh D’Souza. Righteous. (Mark Coatney.)
21st century mental states. I think I may be guilty of de-selfing.
The artifacts of Christian hipsterhood. (It Really Makes You Think.)
John Cage’s 4’33” — as YouTube mash-up, by Dick Whyte. His reconstruction of Andy Warhol Eats a Hamburger can be found here. (16 Miles.)
“[Paglia’s] prose style is bloody and lurid and sometimes effectively comical, like a Rob Zombie-directed horror movie; it’s hard to turn away.” In which Ann Powers dismembers Camille Paglia’s take on Lady Gaga and goes on to say some super smart stuff about women, sexuality and the music industry.
The Tchotchke Stacks of Patrick Jackson. Whoa.
Marie Lorenz charts some of the unusual spots she’s visited in her art boat over at the New York Times. If you haven’t seen it, check out the video piece Jenn Hsu and I did on our adventure with Lorenz over at WNYC. A truly memorable experience.
Alberto Burri’s Grande Cretto is now on Google Streetview. (Even better: San Suzie’s 2009 report.)
A couple of relative unknowns will be repping the U.S. at the Venice Biennale.
Ben Davis on the “celebreadymade.” He asks: “Is this a brilliant new way to pierce the pretensions of the art world—or just star-fucking raised to sublime dimensions?” I vote for the star-fucking.
Sorta related: The New York Times has been on an all-candy-all-the-time diet with its one-two profiles of Dan Colen and Rob Pruitt. (The latter of which fails to make mention of the totally crazy-honest Jack Early piece at Daniel Reich.) Seriously, y’all are making my teeth hurt.
In a related story: La Smith thinks Colen needs to grow the hell up. Love her.
Work of Art tryouts will be at the Brooklyn Museum, this Saturday, September 25.
Plus: Me Me Me talkin’ about girls and art in NYC on the radio. Be sure to watch that kitchen video in the post. It’s pretty spectacular.
I have an affinity for suitcases.
A sculpture for bats. (Cool Green Science.)
The NYPD is now seeing fit to go after watercolorists. Way to support the arts, New York.
L.A. MoCA to do a show on the history of street art. This could be fascinating if it’s thorough and includes more than just the same ten names you tend to see in these types of shows (Swoon, Barry McGee, Steve Powers, etc.) I’d be particularly interested in seeing artists highlighted who have turned their street art into a form of architectural intervention (I’m thinking El Tono, Skewville, Darius & Downey). And, for fuck’s sake, keep the Banksy to a minimum. ‘Cuz Blek Le Rat did it first.
Today’s Street Art: Lignes Rouge gets red-and-white in Belgium. Speaking of which, Ekosystem has a totally awesome end-of-summer round-up of some of his best shots.
Replicating a Sol Lewitt wall drawing in the comfort of your own home.
Marijuana, a global price index. Helpful. (Gracias, John.)

Tags: chilchota, jeff williams, michoacan, purple chalk.