January 2011
Posted inArt

Art and Revolution During the Egyptian Protests [UPDATED]

by Danny Ramadan

Cairo — As I write this story, I am in my room overlooking the main square of Cairo, ironically called Tahrir Square, which means Liberty in Arabic. The square is buzzing with what news agencies estimate is as much as half a million protesters, chanting together. People want to overthrow the president.

Egyptian people took to the streets demanding the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, their president for the last 30 years. The demonstrations, which started five days ago, are becoming life-altering events to those witnessing it from the ground.

Posted inNews

Former Egyptian Museum Dir Says Looting Inside Job, Memphis Mus Looted [UPDATE 40] Damaged Mummy ID’d, Sinai Antiquities Robbed

Avatar photo by Hrag Vartanian

UPDATE 35: Sun Jan 30, 10:29am EST: … In a shocking development, the former director of the Egyptian Museum, Wafaa el-Saddik, in an interview published on German publication Zeit Online has said that the individuals responsible for the looting at the National Museum included the institution’s own guards, the fire danger at the NDP headquarters is now over after two days, and the most shocking revelation that the Memphis Museum in Memphis, Egypt, has been completely looted.

Posted inOpinion

Required Reading

by Kyle Chayka

This weekend’s Required Reading brings us up to speed on the situation of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, plus catches up on some of the things we missed while breaking the news, from movies demystifying the myth of the artist to video games histories and questions of morality and happiness.

Posted inNews

Breaking: Images of Egyptian Museum Damage [UPDATE 34] King Tut Objects Damaged?

Avatar photo by Hrag Vartanian

CONTINUING COVERAGE … UPDATE 24: Sat. Jan 29 12:43pm EST: Al-Jazeera has broadcast video of the damage at the National Museum, aka Egyptian Museum. The strange thing about these images is that they demonstrate that the damage is certainly more than a few mummies, which is what Reuters reported that Zahi Hawass, chairman of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, had said on state television.

Posted inNews

Is the Egyptian Museum Under Threat? [UPDATE 23] Looters Got Into Museum, Destroyed 2 Mummies

Avatar photo by Hrag Vartanian

Al-Jazeera is reporting a troubling development at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The Qatar-based news network has been extensively covering the political protests that have engulfed Egypt, causing the country to cut off the internet to those within its borders. Al-Jazeera has been showing images of the fires which are burning around downtown Cairo and they mention that the flames could spread to the world-renowned Egyptian Museum.

Posted inArt

An Office in Madrid Pairs Street Artists With Empty Walls

by Jorge Martin

The “Oficina de Gestion de Muros” (Walls Management Office) is an independent Spanish project that fills the empty spaces around the city of Madrid with art. WMO is putting the best street artists on the planet in touch with Madrid locals, neighbors, shopkeepers and businesses alike who have empty walls waiting to be filled with art. For their first project “Medianeras de Madrid”, or Joint Walls of Madrid, they worked with two amazing street artists: Blu and Sam3. Now, they are putting together a listing of artists to collaborate with other wall-owners. The person responsible for founding WMO is Remedios Vincent. I had a chat with Remedios to get to know a little more about this project.

Posted inArt

No Vacancy in Vintage Vegas

by Maro Hagopian

As an adult, I fly back to Las Vegas frequently and I relive my youth by driving around the city in a rent-a-car with my camera in tow capturing the city I once knew. In this piece for Hyperallergic, I am posting photographs from my ongoing photo documentary series consisting of Las Vegas hotel & motel photographs from 2007 to the present.

Posted inNews

WTF is ModernARTization at Davos?

by Michelle Vaughan

Davos, Switzerland — ModernARTization: Art and Philanthropy Changing Societies. Yes, it’s a mouthful, and I also don’t know what it means, and the presentation didn’t help. Organizer and philanthropist, Victor Pinchuk, hosted a gathering at the Morosani Schweizerhof Hotel in Davos, Switzerland to discuss how philanthropy can change and educate societies through art. I walked away with the impression that the rich were patting themselves on the back.

Posted inNews

Jan 31 Protest Will Confront Smithsonian Board Meeting

by Kyle Chayka

The Smithsonian’s Board of Regents, the highest administrative body of the organization, will be meeting on Monday January 31st with Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough to discuss his decision to censor David Wojnarowicz’s “A Fire in My Belly” from the National Portrait Gallery’s Hide/Seek exhibition. An anti-censorship protest will be held at 1 PM outside the Smithsonian’s headquarters.

Posted inNews

Sunflower Seeds at Sotheby’s: $120,000, Chinese Fakes: $.25

by Kyle Chayka

There’s a pile of sunflower seeds on sale at Sotheby’s upcoming February 15 Contemporary Art Evening Auction, and it’s going for an equally large pile of money. How does $120,000 for 100 kilograms of seeds sound? But these aren’t just any seeds: they’re the same hand-crafted porcelain replicas that Chinese artist Ai Weiwei had made for his Turbine Hall installation. The real joke is that a (presumably) fake version of the artist’s work is up on Taobao (the Chinese version of eBay) for only $.25 per seed. Get ’em while they’re dusty (and still online)!

Posted inArt

Performance Art Through the Lens

Avatar photo by Hrag Vartanian

MoMA photography curator Roxana Marcoci knows that we are experiencing a “renaissance of performance”. The show she has curated in collaboration with Eva Respini, Staging Action: Performance in Photography since 1960, will explore the role of the photographic image in this surge of performative work, both as a document of the performance and as art work on its own. The MoMA exhibition, which opens this Friday January 28, begins in the 1960s at a time when performance began to emerge as a singular field of art based on the carrying out of specific art actions.

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