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How to Be a Freelance Art Writer

Being a freelance art writer in New York is as outwardly glamorous as it has ever been; that is, not glamorous at all. Sure, I have the freedom to wake up at 10:00 am everyday and traipse around Brooklyn armed with a carton of 27’s, my laptop, and $8 for four cups of coffee and several bananas. A the same time, I also have the freedom to make very little money. Here are some lessons learned while writing about art.

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A Monument for Transition

There is something beautiful and haunting about Wouter Klein Velderman’s monument in Moengo, Suriname, which is a South American nation that never seems to be in the headlines and 99% of people outside the country probably couldn’t even place it on a map. In his photos, the giant sculpture, titled “A Monument to Transition” (2011), appears to be bathed by a magical light and strangely feels a part of the landscape, even though it is obviously manmade.

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The Post-Postmodern Artist

Yasmeen M. Siddiqui is an itinerant curator and critic currently based in Louisville, Kentucky. Last year, she curated Do Ho Suh’s A Perfect Home: The Bridge Project at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in Soho and this year she returns to New York for a new project at the Americas Society featuring a mini-retrospective of Miami-based Cuban artist Consuelo Castañeda.

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Origami v Morris: When Paper Folders Strike

In the latest who’s-suing-whom story, six origami artists have filed suit for copyright infringement against artist Sarah Morris for jacking their crease maps to use as a basis for her colorful Origami series of thirty seven paintings.

My first thoughts: Morris cannot lose this one. We have mass-marketed two-dimensional recipes for creating three-dimensional folded paper items, and these recipes have been used as the formal basis for multi-colored two-dimensional paintings. What of it?

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Seven Artists Meet Seven Technologists, But Who’s Who?

Seven on Seven is an annual conference hosted by Rhizome and the New Museum that pairs seven artists together with seven technologists to collaborate on projects created in a 24-hour period. The event’s second outing was last Saturday, May 14. The first question that came to my mind while attending the event was — what exactly is a technologist? Through the presentation speeches and Q+A sessions that showed off the series of thought-provoking collaborative artworks, I began to get an inkling of what the word might mean, and what its implications could be. But at a time when new media artists are technological innovators and software developers are artistic creators, where do we draw the line?