Today’s protest at the Sotheby’s corporate offices on York Avenue was enlivened by dozens of people from #OccupyWallStreet who joined the Sotheby’s art handlers in their efforts to get a fair agreement with the auction giant.
Daily Archives: October 20, 2011
Dear MoMA, Don’t Tease Me
So … by now we are all familiar with the critical fanfare surrounding MoMA’s de Kooning retrospective. Jerry Saltz is a big fan of the exhibition, Peter Schjeldahl thought it was awesome, Tyler Green keeps writing about it, even MSNBC covered the opening. I’m going to go ahead and agree with the common wisdom on the show. The exhibition, which is organized chronologically, takes the artists career as a whole, for better or worst. Apart from a slightly out of place wall of abstractions from the 1930s in the first room (small and gemlike) the whole show flowed intuitively and easily from development to development.
I’ve Been to Small Black Door
Sometimes art happens by accident, like teenage pregnancy. On occasion the mishap can be fortuitous.
Art That Requires More Time
Last week I had the pleasure of checking out Step and Repeat at Toomer Labzda gallery on Forsyth Street in the Lower East Side. The space is new, and this is their first attempt at a group show. As I’ve written before, I am often skeptical of the whole commercial gallery thematic show thing. I was pleasantly surprised by the exhibit, which features the artwork of Marin Abell, Ivin Ballen, Alisa Baremboym and Leah Dixon. The first thing I realized when I walked into the gallery was how much I love small spaces. I think that gallery goers often take the large caverns in Chelsea for granted. I for one, find it difficult to actually be reflective in Gagosian or Pace. Instead I rush around on their polished concrete floors like a wanton six year old lost in his parents snack cupboard, gorging and sampling, but always short of reflection. On the flip side, the physical constraints of Toomer Labzda gallery are pretty extreme, it’s super tiny, but the husband and wife team have put that to good use. In a one room gallery there is nowhere to hide weak ideas, or b-list artworks.
Demystifying #OccupyWallStreet’s Arts and Culture Meetings
Last night, I sat in on an Arts and Culture meeting at Occupy Wall Street to check in on what the group has been up to. After keeping track of and participating in their Google group for the past couple of weeks (I currently have over 400 Arts and Culture threads crowding my inbox) it was good to finally put faces to certain names. The meetings take place every night at 6:00 PM at 60 Wall Street in the building’s pristine atrium complete with palm trees and tweeting birds. The building, which serves as the American headquarters of Deutsche Bank, is taken over by several of Occupy Wall Street’s working groups by night where they meet to hash out ideas and discuss administrative tactics.
Work of Art Recap: Jerry Saltz Touches Wooden Balls, Simon de Pury Talks Bowel Movements
Bravo’s massively entertaining (at least to us) Work of Art is back! Or at least it came back last week. Apologies for the lack of a recap; we were too distracted by Sexy Ugo to write anything down. But since he was eliminated, it’s no longer an issue! We can focus on the art! And Jerry Saltz fondling wooden testicles!
Your Weekly Art Rx
Here at Hyperallergic we are allergic to a lot — dust, nuts, cats, insipid art criticism, bad art shows, people who suck. Enter our weekly remedy: a list of exhibitions and events that will serve as your weekly dose of art medicine. Here is this week’s prescription …