Kyle Chayka developed his contemporary art sensibilities protecting paintings at the Aldrich Museum as a fearless guard. He has since started writing about art instead of defending it with his body. Kyle has reported on Beijing’s contemporary art scene for GlobalPost and written for LEAP, a Chinese visual arts magazine. He blogs at Ahistoric and collages at @chaykak.
Kyle Chayka has written 15 articles on Hyperallergic.
You may have seen it on your friend’s Facebook pages or the screen of a mobile phone, on a Twitter image service or a Tumblr blog. An aesthetic rash has been plaguing popular photography as of late, but it’s not a new one. A slew of iPhone ‘Polaroid’ applications are turning people’s visual diaries into retro, oversaturated documents of social lives, friends and lovers. But what makes these applications so popular
This week on Work of Art, it’s the Garbage Project! Our artists have to make a sculpture … out of toss-offs. Wait, hasn’t this been done before? The same has been done on Project Runway and not to mention by John Chamberlain and countless others, but thankfully not Top Chef.
Last night marked a watershed moment for the art world: the first time that contemporary art was inducted in the burgeoning canon of reality TV. But the big question is: will it succeed in picking an artist the art world will accept or will the show turn out to be more of a Dadaist farce, too nonsensical to have any relevance?
Widely exhibited and praised, the work of the late Tobias Wong forced the design (not to mention contemporary art) world to reconsider art’s relationship to mass commerce and up-to-the-minute pop culture as well as face up to its own Ivory Tower insularity. Some of his objects will live on.
You know how everyone’s claiming to be an artist these days? Make-up technicians, hairdressers, gallerists, your kid sister, that crazy aunt who does crocheted landscapes? Yeah? Well now even plants are getting in on the game. British artist Tim Knowles attaches pens to the tips of tree branches and sets up an easel just within reach of the waving “paintbrushes.” As the tree branches sway and get blown around, the pens trace out black arcs and dots on the papered easels. There’s a minimalist poetry to the works themselves that’s pretty cool.
A fan of large run prints, Kyle senses something big — maybe “revolutionary” — about the Weiner print. He writes, ” … contemporary art can be dangerous; it can quietly change lives … Here’s to hoping ‘Head Over Heels’ is an invasion of contemporary art into the most ordinary of every day life.”
At times, the blogosphere can feel like a miniaturized version of academia. With so many voices competing over authority and pulling readers this way and that, fights are bound to break out. Just like any serious punditry, bloggers have healthy disagreements over what they cover as well as how they cover it — the etiquette of the developing world of online media. The recent spat between online art world figures Marc Schiller and Paddy Johnson is a perfect case study.
A new generation of websites selling prints by contemporary artists are emerging as the Ikeas of the art world — they sell editions, from large to small runs, of different kinds of work, from traditional prints to paintings and drawings. At high volume and low prices, these sites make the most of their populist position: buying art need not be hard!
Your favorite New Museum curatin’, balloon dog makin’, workshop ownin’ superstar contemporary artist, Mr. Jeff Koons, has now expanded his resume to include editorial photography for the New York Times Magazine.
Chances are if you’ve been following art news in the past few weeks, you’ve seen the name Ai Weiwei. Ai’s been all over the place lately, having a public conversation with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, getting interviewed on CNN about the role of social media in Chinese politics, and documenting recent artist protests in Beijing. The artist was even announced as the eleventh commission for the London Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall installation series, a run of exhibitions featuring such luminaries as Doris Salcedo, Rachel Whiteread and Olafur Eliasson.
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Holly Gover: The piece was meant to be light hearted, and yes, a little snarky. It is an issue that could be delved into deeper, but...
Veken Gueyikian: I think your anger and “offer to help” is a little misplaced. I say stuff like that all the time but have...
Tyler Zambori: Well Brittany, how does this bit: “Is this art?” … or did you just walk into Ikea? pan out to simply pointing out the...
Brittany worgan: Hm, interesting response, but I think you completely missed the point of this article. Rather than assume attack on... Tyler Zambori: I don’t find it insightful at all. The commentary on the tourist’s comments leans more towards the simply...
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