Required Reading

This week, occupy design, Seven on Seven, Mr. Brainwash copyright case, brutalism’s savior, literary New York, Damien Hirst in London and more.

 Regarding Occupy and design the Design Observer has this to say:

“Sometimes, the key to political change isn’t designing a logo or poster. It’s simply having the courage to show up and make your voice heard, no matter what the cause —and no matter what the risk.”

 In case you couldn’t attend, this year’s Seven on Seven conference by Rhizome is on Vimeo.

 The estate of a photographer is suing street artist Mr. Brainwash for using his images as merchandise.

 The early reviews for the 2012 Frieze New York art fair are in. And most notably, Holland Cotter at the New York Times says it “feels a bit cooler than most” and then gives us context:

“Now artists, whether they know it or not, are worker bees in an art-industrial hive. Directed by dealers and collectors who dress like stylish accountants, they turn out predictable product for high-profile, high-volume fairs like Frieze.”

 Can Paul Rudolph’s Architecturally Vital Orange County Government Center Be Saved? Paul Goldberger explores the possibility in Vanity Fair:

“Rudolph buildings are like Mondrian paintings turned into space, and when you walk into them, if you can get beyond the fact that they are not warm and cuddly, they can thrill you and, at their best, ennoble you.”

 Ever wonder where some of the great New York literary works were written? Curbed has compiled a useful map that illustrates that that Tennessee Williams finished “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” on East 58th Street and Truman Capote wrote Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood in Brooklyn Heights.

 The difference between porn and art:

“The California obscenity statute defines ‘prurience’ as ‘a morbid, degrading, unhealthy interest in sex.’ But this sells all sexual minorities down the river.”

(h/t @Clancco_ArtLaw)

 According to the LA Times, the Italians really want the return of an ancient bronze statue of a victorious athlete and they appear to be in their legal right to do so:

“An Italian court has upheld an order for the seizure of a masterpiece of the J. Paul Getty Museum’s antiquities collection, finding that the bronze statue of a victorious athlete was illegally exported from Italy before the museum purchased it for $4 million in 1976.”

 Julien Bell writes about the major Damien Hirst show in London for the New York Review of Books. He says:

“But to step inside Tate Modern is to let economics make way for palpable, walk-roundable phenomena. Instead of sums with multiple zeros, we encounter physical objects with demonstrable holes. The question about the middle-aged Damien Hirst becomes once again the question that visitors to his now legendary undergraduate exhibition ‘Freeze’ had to ask themselves: the basic, default question, in fact, about art. Someone is urging me that these items are interesting to look at. But do I feel that they are interesting to look at?”

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

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