A November 2, Supreme Court hearing attempted to answer the question of whether or not video games are free speech, reports the New York Times. How do we decide what constitutes violence in a video game, and who has access to it? Contemporary art often has the same problem when interacting with politics.
Opinion
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Artist Pads We’d Like To Hang Out In
With the news of Jeff Koons new mansion rising on the Upper East Side comes the tantalizing thought of what it would be like to hang out in some other superstar artists’ homes. Studios are cool and all, but the real fun would come with the art-installation living rooms and the nursery that looks more like a biomorphic amusement park. The possibilities are endless, though we wouldn’t want to be stuck at a Richard Serra tea party.
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Palazzo Koons Rises on the Upper East Side
It seems as though all those hanging hearts, flower puppies and porn paintings are finally paying off for Jeff Koons, as the superstar artist has begun to plan the renovation of two enormous Upper East Side townhouses into one giant SUPERMANSION! The artist purchased 11 East 67th Street in 2009 for a cool $12 million while its neighboring 13 East 67th Street came in at $20 million. Now, architecture firm Ennead Architects is requesting permits for a $5 million renovation that will make the two buildings one, Curbed reports.
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No Comment: US Arts Funding vs CA Gov Race
Some things leave us speechless and this bite of Twitter wisdom is one of them. There are no words for this ridiculousness though it really does put things into perspective.
For information on the history of US arts funding, visit a post I wrote last year for the Art21 blog.
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The Underbelly Project Wants to Create an “Underground”
Unbeknown to the vast majority of New Yorkers, a street art project has quietly been taking place under the streets of our fair city, artist by artist and flashlight by flashlight. The Underbelly Project is a reaction against the overwhelming commercialization of street art. Project organizers Workhorse and PAC called the fad for ripping off street objects “commercialism at its worst.” To rectify this supposed “commercial” situation being faced by street artists, Underbelly “safeguards” street art’s “integrity” by placing it where only the select few can get at it: in an abandoned, unused subway stations somewhere underneath the teeming pavement.
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Best Comments of the Week, Oct 29
Every week, we’ll recap the best comments we’ve received on Hyperallergic’s posts, whether that’s on the blogazine itself, on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook. Be sure to check in every Friday for new comments. This week, readers respond to the UK arts funding cuts, Hans Ulrich Obrist’s book reading extravaganzas and apartment exhibition vogue.
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Salander’s “Blameless” Victims?
The Washington Post, always the voice for the powerful, connected, and well-moneyed, has an article on the victims of art dealer Lawrence Salander. They’ve tracked down Earl Davis, the son of American modern master Stuart Davis, some psychiatrist whose father’s collection was entrusted to the dealer, and a few others.
What the Post “reports” is a tale of blameless victims taken advantage of by the big bad Salander. And trust me, I don’t have any affection for the bigwig dealer turned con man, but there are some questions that the Post doesn’t ask …
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Hot Celebrities Do Wonders For LA Art Museums
Did you know that Jeffrey Deitch is a celebrity? I bet you did. Did you know he lives in a “movie star mansion” in the “trendy L.A. neighborhood of Los Feliz”? I bet you didn’t, and I bet you didn’t care either. “Celebrity has become, for better or worse, an art form,” Deitch says. Well, the LA MoCA director must be a pretty great artist, or the LA Times wouldn’t be publishing his very own episode of Cribs.
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Art World Halloween Costumes
We at Hyperallergic know it’s close to Halloween because of all the articles giving us last minute costume ideas! Now, a slutty viking or a faux-Gaga meat dress might be fine if you’re just going to some random Halloween party with a bunch of normal people. But what if you’re going to that special Halloween benefit at MoMA? Or trick or treating up and down Chelsea? Here are a few costume ideas that will get you street cred in the art world.
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(International Klein) Blue Is In Fashion This Year
Fashion, as it so often does, just caught a rash from the art world. The color spreading through the cheeks of this season’s clothes is none other than International Klein Blue (IKB), the same unique hue dreamed up by the proto-postmodernist bad boy Yves Klein in 1962. Now, IKB is on your mom’s purse.
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What the New Museum Should Do With Its New Rose
As soon as we heard that Isa Genzken’s “Rose” will replace Ugo Rondinone’s “Hell,Yes” (2001) on the exterior of the New Museum … we immediately thought Photoshop!
Our little digital collage experiments suggest that fiction is often more exciting that fact.
A friend suggested that the New Museum amass them all, and I would assume it would eventually look like a child’s bedroom floor strewn with colorful toys.
Posted inOpinion
Picasso Would Be 129 Today
Picasso would have turned 129 today, if the polymath artist, sculptor and co-inventor of cubism hadn’t died in 1973 at the age of 92. Born in 1881, the artist rapidly commenced almost a full century of being awesome.
So today we will put this Jonathan Richman song on repeat and remember that Pablo Picasso was never, ever called an asshole.