Williamsburg artist Joshua Abelow makes some pretty cool work. When he’s not in the studio he’s working on his website Art Blog Art Blog. Most of us now spend a great deal of our lives online, so its no surprise that the artistic process has begun to bleed over from the studio into the web.
Art
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Mail Art Bulletin: Return to Sender
It’s been nearly a month since we dismantled our mail art show, Presents: Three Months of Mail Art for Hyperallergic HQ. The show was a first in a lot of ways … but not all the mail art that was sent our way got to us …
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This Space Has Been Invaded
It was 1982 and it was just an ordinary night in the Bronx, Don with his wife Annie and I were sitting around talking and listening to music at their apartment. When the end of the record was over, Don got up to flip the side over. He suddenly turned toward us and we just stared at each other without saying a word. In this brief moment of silence, the future had just arrived. No, it wasn’t the sound of Springsteen, Michael Jackson, Grandmaster Flash or even the Clash. From the darkened bedroom next to us, came the sounds of smacking lips and bursts of ecstatic exclamations from Don’s kid Anthony and his stepbrother Danny. With bits of dribble and droll and tongues poking out from the corners of their mouths, they were feverously huddled in their pajamas staring at the screen of a Commodore 64 computer. It was 8-bit, hypnotic and all encompassing. The moths were caught in an overbearing and hypnotic light. The invasion had begun.
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POWHIDA Is a VIP Douchebag
The point of last night’s Marlborough Gallery show, POWHIDA, is probably that there are too many douchebags in the world, especially the art world. The character named Powhida, entered a Chelsea street-level Chelsea gallery and acted the part of a blue-chip contemporary artist.
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The Father of 视频艺术
Zhang Peili (张培力), frequently dubbed the father of Chinese video art, has a retrospective ongoing at Shanghai’s Minsheng Art Museum (民生现代美术馆). Dubbed Certain Pleasures (确切的快感), the show extends over two floors and three main gallery spaces, showing Zhang’s videos and high conceptual work.
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Brazil On the Rise
Brazil is one of the fastest growing economies of the “developing world.” In fact, so much so that it is now considered an “NIC” or newly industrialized country, a term used to describe being in between “developing” and reaching “fully developed” status. Today, Brazil is looking towards a future as host to major global sporting events, the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and the 2014 Soccer World Cup. Leading up to these events, global investment in the country is sure to rise, promising a healthy future for arts and culture on all levels of the spectrum.
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An Implied Critique of Sound Bite Society
Rackstraw Downes doesn’t seem like a radical. He is an understated Englishman who paints understated American landscapes. But when you think about how much of modern and contemporary art relies on juxtaposition or exaggeration for effects, Downes’s approach begins to seem downright revolutionary. “My idea is to paint the real nature of the world, which is always a complex mixture of things,” he told a packed auditorium at the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina, during a talk last month.
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What Do Chinese Artists Think About Chelsea?
James Cohan Gallery’s most recent show Catch the Moon in the Water is an unexpected and thought provoking riff on the summer group show. The exhibition reflects on the work of young Chinese artists. The show’s title refers to the impossibility of capturing the moon from its reflection.
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Helmut Lang Makes Me Hard
Few designers would be inspired when a fire nearly incinerates the archives containing their entire œuvre. But Helmut Lang, the Austrian-born designer who’s always been somewhat of an anomaly, didn’t waste the opportunity when his imagination was set ablaze.
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Hey Ho Let’s Go! DIY Culture Takes Over 23rd Street
Thirty-five years after the release of The Ramones’ debut album, a punk attitude has erupted on 23rd Street in the heart of Chelsea during the normally bleak and deserted summer gallery months with the Steven Kasher Gallery’s “Rude and Reckless: Punk/Post-Punk Graphics, 1976-1982” and the I-20 Gallery’s “MAKE Skateboards.”
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Where Art, Design & Tech Naturally Mingle, Xindanwei in Shanghai
It’s just a typical day at Xindanwei (新单位), a coworking space with a name that means “New Work Unit” in Chinese. Downstairs, Patrick Jost of vvvv.org is giving a talk … On the second floor, the EF Life Club are leading a workshop on self actualization through art, … On the roof is a meeting of marketing gurus enjoying the summer air. And in between can be found mini-meetings in corners, in hallways, on the stairs. Founded by Liu Yan, Aaajiao (aka Xu Wenkai) and Chen Xu in 2009 as a coworking space, Xindanwei has quickly become the center of Shanghai’s burgeoning technology and art community.
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A Visual Escape to Sarasota, Florida’s Ringling Museum
I resented Sarasota, Florida when I lived there because no one was young and no art seemed new … Now, I resent New York because nothing seems old … The Ringling Museum in Sarasota has since become my favorite place to escape when I visit Florida …
