LOS ANGELES — Unlike the bright cities that surround them, rivers are usually dark spots at night, recognizable only as absences between well-lit buildings and highways. That’s what makes the image of 100,000 LED lights floating on Tokyo’s Sumida River so evocative. Installed during the Tokyo Hotaru festival, these “prayer stars” are powered by solar energy and light up when touching water.
The saga of Alice Aycock vs. the food stands continues as the artist and JFK’s Terminal One Group Association (TOGA) head to arbitration to settle their dispute.
CHICAGO — The National Governors Association has just issued a report titled “New Engines for Growth: Five Roles for Arts, Culture and Design.” I decided to read the whole thing, a task that I approached with some dread, given the prospect of wading through 45 pages of corporate art-speak. In fact, it turns out that the report is written in a refreshingly clear style, and it lays out a set of concrete proposals that make sense to anyone who has thought about this subject.
Oy! The Terminal One Group Association (TOGA) at JFK airport wants to dismantle and remove a work inside that terminal, “Star Sifter,” by renowned American sculptor Alice Aycock.
Attention street art aficionados: a new public work by Faile has landed in Williamsburg! The piece, helpfully titled “104 N. 7th,” departs from the pop-art collage aesthetic the duo’s best known for and features instead thousands of hand-painted, sculpted ceramic tiles covering the facade of a commercial building. The project seems like a descendent of “Temple,” an arresting and meticulously designed modern-day ruin that Faile built two years ago for the Portugal Arte 10 Festival.
Today, join the Art Gallery of Ontario and Hyperallergic at 11 am EST for an hour-long Twitter discussion about public art.
CHICAGO — The LA Times reported on February 20 that there’s been a bit of a kerfuffle about a public sculpture in Wasilla, Alaska, the town that will forever be associated with ex-mayor of Wasilla and former half-term governor Sarah Palin, though it turns out that the story has absolutely nothing to do with Palin.
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.
BBC reported this morning that a sculpture by sculptor Barbara Hepworth has been stolen in South London. Scrap metal thieves are suspected to be behind the theft, indicative of a growing problem with scrap metal theft in the UK. The bronze sculpture, titled “Two Form (Divided Circle)” from 1969, was pulled from its plinth on Monday night.
It’s the centennial of the birth of the 40th US President, Ronald Reagan, and coast to coast statues of the Old Gipper are making news but for very different reasons.
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Graffiti Writer Gets Pwnd by Marc Jacobs
A Truly Subversive Artist Is Not Necessarily Someone Who Is Theatrical or Gimmicky
Brooklyn Designer Held Without Bail for Hanging Plastic Bags from Trees
Gay Life Portrayed in Traditional Chinese Paper-cuts
North Korea's New Website
The Daily Practice of the Impossible
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Release Takeshi Miyakawa Now! [UPDATED] He's Free!
The Stellar Fucking Growth of Fuck Yeah Tumblelogs
