Editor’s note: Vermin.me is a worldwide sculptural installation initiated by Jamie Burmeister. The Nebraska-bsed artist mailed us a box of three clay figures and we asked Janelle Grace, the London-based managing editor of Hyperallergic LABS, to take one of the figures on a trip.
Janelle Grace
Janelle Grace is the #TalkBackTuesday editor of our tumblelog Hyperallergic LABS. In some of her previous professional lives, she's written essays for the Studio Museum in Harlem, coordinated gallery talks at MoMA, and checked coats at the Museum of Sex. She's also known for her role as @RudyHuxtable on Twitter.
Posted inOpinion
Greetings from Hyperallergic LABS
Hey readers, I’m Janelle, the managing editor of the Hyperallergic LABS tumblelog. For the un-initiated, “tumblelog” is the name for a blog hosted on the free platform Tumblr, which utilizes a fairly simple interface for short-form posts. Images are often the most popular posts on Tumblr, but text audio, and video formats are also very easily posted. On Hyperallergic LABS, our posts usually follow a weekly theme, mixed in with blog posts from Hyperallergic. Here’s a quick introduction to what LABS is all about and how Tumblr works.
Posted inOpinion
Thoughts on the 2010 Turner Prize
The 2010 Turner Prize was announced last night, and Susan Philipsz was named the winner (against betting company William Hill’s unlikely odds of 16/5). Her piece, “Lowlands Away” (2010), has been much ballyhooed as the first sound installation to win the award for UK artists under the age of 50. The piece, a critic favorite before the announcement, is an easily digestible recording of the artist singing a traditional Scottish folk song. It was originally installed along various river-adjacent alleyways in Glasgow, re-contextualizing the spaces with the lament of a man whose lover had drowned.
Philipsz’s work is considerably less politicized than that of her fellow nominees …
Posted inArt
5 Observations from London’s Frieze Art Fair
This past weekend was the annual Frieze Art Fair, held in London. Featuring over 150 galleries from all the best Western nations (and maybe a few others), the Frieze Art Fair is one of the largest and most notable in the world. This was my first outing to Frieze, and people keep asking me “How was it?” I think “how it was” can best be summed up as the top 5 parts of Frieze I actually remember (presented here in no particular order).
Posted inArt
Peeking Behind the Veil: Princess Hijab
I sit down with my laptop in a quiet, central Brooklyn café, not far from Prospect Park on a slightly overcast day in August to interview the mysterious Parisian street artist Princess Hijab. I order a San Pellegrino with lime; she abstains from any snacks or beverages. Despite the time difference from France, she’s alert and ready to engage with me. I go into the interview knowing how she guards her anonymity, and the concrete details of her identity remain elusive — this is an email interview after all.
Posted inArt
Honoring US Freedoms Through Dissent: Interview with Dread Scott
In recognition of the Fourth of July, I interviewed groundbreaking artist “Dread” Scott Tyler, whose work is directly engaged in challenging public perception of and reactions to US politics and history. He answered my questions about his desire to engage, America’s relationship to freedom of expression today, nationalism, and the lack of critical discourse around his work.
Posted inArt
Examining the Aesthetic Response to the BP Oil Spill
The BP Deepwater oil spill disaster has sparked a tremendous amount of creative outrage, some of which we’ve been exploring on Hyperallergic LABS all week. In addition to various protests and performances, not to mention some satirical Twitter feeds, there have been numerous attempts to critically appropriate BP’s logo.