Lolcats stopped by the office today and asked the staff if they could write a review of a show. It was Friday and we thought … why not!?
Ben Valentine
Hailing from Indiana, Ben Valentine moved to Brooklyn a year and a half ago. Now working for Tara Donovan and Allan McCollum, interning for Creative Time and Hyperallergic, Ben has immersed himself in the contemporary art world. Ben is interested in public art, the internet's potential and in learning how to write and think about art without becoming a snob.
All articles by Ben Valentine
Ben Valentine
We’ve all heard the complaints about income inequality. And although how to actually solve the economic crisis is up for debate, we all agree that it’s a hard time to make a living. This is true for everyone, not just artists, but perhaps artists can lead the way in offering real alternatives to our flawed economic system. Artists, as creative people already faced with an extremely competitive market where success is hard won, are in a unique position to confront the issues of income distribution.
An online artwork by Emilio Gomariz makes you self conscious about enjoying the web.
Do children’s toys breed a culture of violence and war? This was one of the many questions you’re left to ponder when reading Miniscule Blue Helmets on a Massive Quest by Dutch artist Pierre Derks.
Renowned conservator Glenn Wharton recently released a new book, The Painted King: Art, Activism and Authenticity in Hawai’i, which he spoke about last week at New York University. Wharton’s book provides a captivating account of his years spent with the well-known statue of the 19th C. Hawai’ian King Kamehameha I and the surrounding community that became involved with it’s conservation. Although art conservation has historically focused its attention on the chemistry and original artistic intent of artworks, Wharton works to bring a social aspect into the practice.
Zimoun is a Swiss sound and kinetic artist whose installations incorporate hundreds of everyday objects and simple movements to create a foreign experience for the viewer. He asks questions like, “What are the aesthetic and tonal qualities of cardboard in motion?” Traveling recently to see Volume, his first solo show in New York, I was oddly excited to find out.
On Wednesday I attended “Social Media Week Edition: Social Media Art,” the newest in a series of Arts, Culture and Technology Meetups. These meetups, organized by Julia Kaganskiy, global editor for The Creators Project and co-director of Blue Box Gallery, are all about the potential for technology in and out of the art world.
While learning more about public art, I began to notice a startling trend; it appears that the public possesses an odd affinity toward public works. Aside from the common images of the Statue of Liberty or the popular monuments in Washington, DC, I found image after image of art lovers groping, humping, licking and kissing public statues in a trend I have come to refer to as Statue Porn.
