Occupy Museums thinks the art fair model needs to be reworked. Occupy Wall Street’s art offshoot has announced a new initiative, DebtFair, which seeks to radically deconstruct the commercial art fair. After essentially sunning themselves in a distant corner of Frieze New York last May, distributing flyers for Un-Frieze and other protest literature, the activists have decided to go for a more radical overthrow of the heavily commodified fair model. Whether or not this alternative has legs remains to be seen.
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Upheaval Galvanizes Cooper Union
In a memorable appearance at St. Mark’s Bookshop in the fall of 2011, Slavoj Zizek held forth on the importance of saving the bookstore from its then-impending eviction from a Cooper Union-owned building, referring repeatedly to the predatory landlord as “the Union Cooper.” The mangy Slovenian’s malapropism seems downright prescient these days, as the university’s community of students, faculty, and alumni looks inward to rebuild the century-old promise of their institution.
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Totally Uncool Jokers: Barbara Kruger’s Conceptual Comeback to Supreme Lawsuit
Earlier this month, Complex covered Supreme’s hitting Leah McSweeney of clothing line Married to the MOB with a $10 million lawsuit for copyright infringement, as McSweeney did a parody of the streetwear label’s logo as “Supreme Bitch.” Rightly, Complex wondered what the conceptual artist who inspired the logo in the first place thought about it, namely Barbara Kruger with her red and white sans serif text work. Here’s her response.
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Thorncrown Chapel’s Ozarks Oasis Under Threat
The architecture of Thorncrown Chapel, with its soaring windows inviting the verdant depths of the Ozarks, is a study in instilling peace. Yet a new plan may shatter the tranquillity by installing invasive power transmission lines just outside its pine and glass walls.
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Pussy Riot Member Denied Early Release for Dumb Reasons
Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova was denied early release from prison last Friday, with a Russian judge saying that Tolokonnikova had “not always followed the rules of behavior” in custody, according to the AP.
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Australian Artist Might Be a Terrible Person, Has Show Vandalized
Police in Torquay, England are investigating a local branch of the Triton Gallery, the Independent reports, after their windows were smeared with black paint early Tuesday morning. The work on display included paintings by Rolf Harris, an 83-year-old Australian painter best known for his work as a television entertainer, who was arrested and questioned last month as part of a series of inquiries into allegations of sexual abuse against the late television presenter Jimmy Savile.
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Cookie-Cutter Modernism: License Your Own Neutra House
“Build the Past Today” crows the brochure for a new licensing project for architect Richard Neutra’s mid-century modernist house designs. Announced earlier this week, it’s an intriguing approach to commercially continuing Neutra’s vision in new construction.
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Long-Disputed Stieglitz Collection To Be Unveiled This Fall
Fisk University in Tennessee came up against a tough decision: faced with financial struggles, they saw an opportunity to keep the school afloat by selling their impressive collection of art, including work by Renoir, Picasso, Diego Rivera, and Cézanne. However, all of this work had been given by Georgia O’Keeffe, who donated the collection, her late husband’s — the photographer Alfred Stieglitz — under the agreement that it never be sold or separated. After years of legal battles, those works will be going on display this fall at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.
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Court of Appeals Reverses Ruling on Cariou v. Prince
The United States District Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit handed down a 23-page decision today in the case of Patrick Cariou v. Richard Prince, in part reversing and vacating the District Court’s prior judgment in favor of Cariou.
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Who Do You Think Should Win the 2013 Turner Prize?
We round up the Turner Prize shortlist (Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Tino Sehgal, Laure Prouvost, and David Shrigley) and turn it over to you. Who do you think should win?
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First Photography Museum Joins Google Art Project
By now, we’re used to museums partnering with the Google Art Project and sharing selections of their popular or less known collections online. However, this month a photography museum finally got into the mix, with the George Eastman House, the oldest photography museum in the world, offering an initial 50 images from its extensive collections online.
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Cooper Union Students React to Drastic Tuition Increase
Cooper Union is not reeling in the wake of today’s historic board announcement, but it is hurting. The beleaguered institution’s decision to scrap its founder’s vision for free education was a long time coming, borne on the back of a boom-time cupidity that has crippled many university endowments. This evening, Hyperallergic sought to get a feel for the student reaction and the way forward.
