Some of the most memorable experiences that I’ve had with art have come about by accident. Last Thursday was one such experience during Myla DalBesio’s “Young Money” performance.
Art
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White Male Artists Get Introspective in South Africa
When Apartheid was abolished in 1991, probably the worst thing to be symbolically in South Africa at the time was a white male, as it embodied everything associated with being the oppressor. With the abolishment of Apartheid came a number of important more subtle shifts.
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Social Media Street Art Responds to Chinese Train Disaster
A deadly train accident in China becomes a source of social media street art on the highly censored Chinese microblogging site, Sina Weibo.
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Courtney Love’s Hole Inspires Art Show
With the exhibition Pretty on the Inside, co-curators KAWS and Erik Parker reveal that they must be fans of the Courtney Love-led band Hole’s debut album and song for which it is named, but they also make us wonder about the show’s connection to the music.
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MoMA’s Paola Antonelli Imagines the Future of Objects
Last week, I visited MoMA’s new exhibition, Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Object and spoke to the institution’s senior curator of design and architecture, Paola Antonelli, about the show, some poignant objects, the American insecurity towards design, her online habits … among other things.
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Unexpected Artistic Wonders in Upstate New York
Lost in a Metro-North commuter train daze, I watched the Wassaic Project pass by the train window without recognizing it. But the giant slingshot and makeshift teepees that decorated the lush green grass next to a towering grain elevator hinted that artists and their ilk may be nearby. Inside, I would find works by Eric Fischl, Agnes Martin, Gary Hume, Richard Prince, Dieter Roth, Rebecca Horn, Gerhard Richter and Imi Knoebel … among others.
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A Taste of Beijing’s Large New Media Art Triennial
Last night, the National Art Museum of China (中国美术馆) launched Translife (延展生命), their triennial of new media art from around the world. Curated by Zhang Ga (张尕), Translife is divided into four parts and three floors: Sensorium of the Extraordinary, Sublime of the Liminal, Zone of the Impending and, outside, The Weather Tunnel.
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Understatement Surrounds City Hall
City Hall Park is an excellent venue for Sol Lewitt’s sculptures. In the white cube, the problem is that the artist’s three dimensional structures can blend in precariously well with the similarly minimal geometric space, camouflaging their distinctiveness from the viewer. It is good to see Lewitt’s work contrasted with the park’s lush greens and lavish beaux arts architecture. In this context, his works appear like precious and unique islands of understatement.
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Dispatch from Sheboygan: Week Three
On Wednesday evening at 6 pm CST I was standing in a domestic violence shelter introducing my project “Everyone We’ve Never Met from Memory and Imagination” to a group of about twenty women. They listened politely as I showed them drawings of people like Gene Simmons, Brittany Spears (Snarling, head shaved), 1950s Elvis vs Vegas Elvis, Martha Stewart, Oprah and shared some of the memories other people had written about the subjects. After I finished the introduction, I passed out some brainstorming worksheets. One woman completed her list almost immediately.
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At PizzArte, It Comes Down to the Hands
I understand why the metaphors between art and food work: art is “nourishing” to your soul; a chef is an “artist,” his plate the “canvas,” and so on and so forth. Unfortunately, these metaphors are such cozy bedfellows that they’ve all but become cliche. Which is why, when I first heard that a Neapolitan pizzeria/gallery had opened in midtown Manhattan — as in, an authentic, Naples-style restaurant plus a gallery space, so intertwined that the name, PizzArte, is a mashup of the two — my first thought was that this had to be a gimmick.
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The Summer Exhibition David Lynch Wishes He Curated
While exploring the New York Academy of Art’s 5th Annual Summer Exhibition at Flowers, all I could think about was one person: director David Lynch. Not only because I am a fan of the master of the surreal psychological horror, but many of the works in the exhibition featured a similar eerie atmosphere that pervades Lynch’s films and it wasn’t just the disproportionate amount of works with rabbits.
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Beijing’s Williamsburg, Caochangdi
If Beijing has a Chelsea, 798 Art Zone, then surely it has a Williamsburg. That “alternative” neighborhood is Caochangdi (草场地). According to legend, Ai Weiwei moved out here in early 2000 to set up his studio and the China Art Archives and Warehouse. It was a strange move at the time, but galleries and artists soon followed, and the area is now home to a number of well-known spaces.
