Hrag Vartanian is editor of Hyperallergic. His work has appeared in the Art21 blog, Brooklyn Rail, NYFA's Current, Huffington Post, and Modern Painters. He serves on the board of the Triangle Arts Association and blogs regularly at HragV.com.
Hrag Vartanian has written 60 articles on Hyperallergic.
Coming across a work by Gaia on the street is a special experience. His work is intelligent, emotional, well-executed, and informed by the wider world. He looks beyond pop culture, where most street art gets stuck. His linocut prints and drawings, often of animals, are beautifully rendered and react to the intensity of the urbanscape and its manmade fauna.
There is nothing more universal than nature, but the meaning of what constitutes the term may lead to disagreement. That perceptual ambiguity attracts Gaia, who navigates the boundary between nature and artifice carefully and with apparent ease. His latest artistic mash-up in Baltimore’s Reservoir Hill neighborhood, combines the myths of the Christian saint St. John the Baptist, the Babylonian general Holofernes, and a cock.
The unfortunately titled Skin Fruit has already opened on the platinum coast of downtown Manhattan, formerly known as the Bowery. And guess what, not everyone is happy.
Last weekend while avoiding the art fairs, I spotted a fantastic poster in Chelsea that lampooned the New Museum and its new found taste for caviar. I did some sleuthing and tracked down the creative geniuses behind the campaign and found out what they had to say.
It’s always fun to scrutinize the private tastes of far right pundits who make it a sport to attack the art world or anything they don’t understand. So, it’s with great joy that we cast our eyes on the garish penthouse of the loudest right winger of them all, Rush Limbaugh.
When Edward Winkleman offered his new storefront gallery on West 27th Street to artists William Powhida and Jen Dalton to “consider ‘alternatives/solutions’ to the market” they decided to organize a show titled #class. The hashtag in front of the name is a reference to Twitter and the communal tags that help users find related tweets on a given topic, event or idea. Like the online service, the #class exhibition — is it an exhibition? — is composed of crowd sourced content. Hyperallergic is taking part with $ECRET$ OF THE NEW YORK ART WORLD.
I love this line in Leon Nefayk’s latest article in the New York Observer, “Don’t Call It An Art Fair!”
Welcome to the New York art world in 2010, where it’s never about the money, even when it is.
How very true … and there’s more …
… P.S.1’s Brooklyn is Burning event gets out of control last weekend … #class gets invited to Pulse … a HUGE statue of Amenhotep III is discovered in Luxor, Egypt … Milan Fashion Week includes protestors peeved at Anna Wintour’s quick ditch.
If you don’t know Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles, you should. Its creator Neil Swaab is a genius … well, if you think genius involves illustrating a 3′7″ teddy bear who has been convincted of burglary, assault, posession, intent to cause distress on a senior citizen, arson, kidnapping, extortion, conspiracy, light treason …
I may have missed the Chocolate: The Exhibition at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences but their 15 second TV spot is the gift that keeps on giving.
Can someone please do a Freudian analysis of this thing and tell me why it’s…mmmmmmm good?
For a while now, people I come across here and there have cited Dan Bergeron, aka Fauxreel, as an example of a street art sell-out. Why? Because back in 2008 he partnered up with Vespa to post 324 seven-foot-tall Vespa Squareheads wheatpaste ads on the streets of Toronto and other Canadian cities as part of an ad campaign that combined his characteristic “photograffiti” style with a very commercial addition ― Vespa scooter handles. The works caused a backlash from people who thought he went too far. It is an approach to ad marketing that isn’t as original as it may seem and it even has its own name, murketing.
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Kelly Foote: Street art and especially guerrilla art always puts a smile on my face. When an artists takes the time to place a work in...
Muzi: who is the pink rabbit?
Lawrence Swan: The last sentence of Finch’s article is nice: “Either way, the art world, blind and uncurious about the way... Lawrence Swan: Only the last word of your question appears in the above comment box. There might be a relevant link on page three of the...
tskross: Charlie Finch wrote a short description of Joannou’s business activities over the past few years on Artnet magazine...
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