Required Reading

Here are this week’s links from around the web that includes — among other things — the limitations of relational aesthetics, thoughts on post-Katrina New Orleans and Google Street View as art and China’s pixelated version …

Over at the Huffington Post, Daniel Grant considers the age-old question, what makes an artist a professional?

The Census Bureau (whose data on artists is extrapolated by the National Endowment for the Arts), for instance, claims that there are something over 100,000 visual artists in the country.

… The Internal Revenue Service, on the other hand, does not consider someone a professional artist — able to deduct art-related expenses from gross income on tax forms — unless that person made a profit on the sale of his or her work in three out of five years. The government, therefore, may deem someone an artist on one hand but a rank amateur on the other hand.

In New York Magazine, Jerry Saltz writes about two Gavin Brown gallery goers who took artist Rirkrit Tiravanija’s relational aesthetics for a joy ride [in Gavin Brown’s car]. Though the best part of Saltz’s story is artist Rob “what-does-this-have-to-do-with-me” Pruitt’s attitude:

Gavin Brown walked into a meeting upstairs from his gallery and announced to his artist Rob Pruitt and Public Art Fund director, Nicholas Baume, “My car was just stolen.” (In classic artist concern-for-the-work-first fashion, Pruitt asked, “This is not going to interfere with our meeting, is it?” Brown looked around, said, “I guess not,” and sat down.)

BONUS LINK: WTF is Relational Aesthetics?

In the London Review of Books, Peter Campbell reviews Jan Gossaert’s Renaissance at London’s National Gallery, which is on display until 30 May:

Very little is known about the detail of Gossaert’s life and character but he was a court painter and never established a large studio. One must assume that the taste of his patrons is legible in his work no less than his own.

Nicholas Lemann writes for the New York Review of Books about the recent crop of movies that explore post-Katrina New Orleans and the cultural and racial politics of the Crescent City. This article should interest anyone who wants some insight into the current situation in a city that some people thought (hoped?) might turn into an artist mecca.

A fascinating video that explores the history of title design in cinema. Chances are that if you enjoyed Christian Marclay’s “The Clock” than you’ll like this.

Le dernier cri, twitchy GIFs made from stereoscopic photos.

Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad talks to the Los Angeles Times about how he built is blue-chip art collection with his wife, which includes about 2,000 works, including 120 by photographer Cindy Sherman, 33 by Jeff Koons (who is also a good friend), and pieces by Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, David Smith, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cy Twombly, Leon Golub, Luc Tuymans, Marlene Dumas, Chuck Close, Susan Rothenberg and Ed Ruscha … thought they also own “a vintage Calder mobile, a 1939 Dora Maar portrait by Picasso and a colorful 1933 dreamscape by Joan Miró.” Broad estimates that he has spent $200 – $400 million on art over the years.

Ever since Google Street View launched in 2007, artists and filmmakers — and everyone else — have been obsessing over it, but did you know that China’s version of Google, Baidu, has chosen to go pixel-rific rather than photo-based for their maps? [via Metafilter]

Required Reading is published every Sunday morning at 7am-ish EST, and it is comprised of a short list of art-related links (10 or less) to long-form articles, videos, blog posts or photo essays worth a second look.