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.
November 3, 2010
Posted inBooks
Reading New Museum’s “Free” Catalogue
The New Museum’s “Free” exhibition is based on the freedom of cultural exchange that has followed the advent of the internet and digital technology. Following up on that emphasis on online activity, the exhibition’s catalogue is entirely digital as well, a website-hosted document that’s somewhere between an online PDF and an interactive vertical blog.
If you’re wondering why I’m reviewing a digital catalogue as a book, it’s because this is a book — it’s just online.
Posted inNews
Modigliani Hottie Sells For $68 Million
A rare Modigliani nude hit the auction block at Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern sale last night, and the painting didn’t disappoint. Bidding opened at $38 million and skyrocketed from there: five telephone bidders pushed the price up to a record-breaking $68,962,500, Artinfo reports.
Posted inArt
Anselm Kiefer Talks Religion, Politics, Ruins at 92Y
When Anselm Kiefer took the stage at 92nd Street Y last night, it wasn’t as the artistic-political bad boy the artist became famous as in the 60s and 70s, nor was it the epic mythologist of the 80s and 90s. Now, Kiefer cuts a figure of mischievous respect, a patrician of the contemporary art world whose work, unlike most of his peers, has actually retained its vitality and provocative nature over the years.
Kiefer’s conversation covered everything from the influence of religion on his work to the inspiration of ruins, the artist’s birth in a cave during World War II, and his opinion that all art produced during the Third Reich is “shit.”
