A good segment by The Glass House invites 1980s art superstar David Salle to the compound in New Canaan, Connecticut to explain how his works got into Philip Johnson’s collection.
December 2011
Posted inArt
Colorful Street Art Gives Rio de Janeiro a Fresh Look
Graffiti in Rio de Janerio is some of the most festive, whimsical and lighthearted graffiti I’ve seen anywhere. Though the street art feels like it’s being taken seriously, the pervasive style is bold, playful, colorful, and full of bizarre scenes, stylized characters and undecipherable situations.
Posted inArt
Monastic, Psychedelic and Party Time
Mark Warren Jacques’s paintings are equal parts pop and mysticism; they linger between the monastic the psychedelic and party time. A Portland-based artist, his works assert themselves with a clearly defined West Coast swagger. They beam light straight into your head, they knock you down with colorful brilliance only to offer you a leg up and a wholehearted wink.
Posted inArt
Weekly Art Rx: Holiday Overdose
Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Festivus (Cristivuskwanzakkah?) is upon us, but that’s no excuse to miss your weekly dose of Art Rx. In fact, we’re forcing a spoonful of holiday spirit down your throat with a selection of events for everyone, no matter what holiday you celebrate …
Posted inNews
Does Lacoste Hate Palestinians?
A controversy is brewing in Switzerland, where French luxury label Lacoste has attempted to strong arm a museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, to exclude Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour from the Lacoste Elysée Prize.
Posted inOpinion
The Leaked 2012 Whitney Biennial List [UPDATED]
Gallerist NY got a hold of a leaked version of the 2012 Whitney Biennial artist list and they’ve posted it online. There’s no big surprises here.
Posted inArt
The Faraway Kingdom of North Korea
The death of Kim Jong Il has reinforced the feeling that North Korea may just be one of the most remote places on earth, yet it is a distance not based on geography but psychology. Looking at the retro-seeming images from this faraway land makes me think its population of 24 million has been trapped in amber for decades.
Posted inNews
Public Sculpture Is Latest Victim of Scrap Metal Theft Epidemic
BBC reported this morning that a sculpture by sculptor Barbara Hepworth has been stolen in South London. Scrap metal thieves are suspected to be behind the theft, indicative of a growing problem with scrap metal theft in the UK. The bronze sculpture, titled “Two Form (Divided Circle)” from 1969, was pulled from its plinth on Monday night.
Posted inArt
A Print-based Resistance Movement
One of the most difficult things to evoke in an art show is a snapshot of a culture. On the other hand, when I write about zines, I find it difficult to separate the object itself from the ephemeral culture that surrounds it. In Samizdat: The Czech Art of Resistance, 1968-1989, curator Daniela Sneppova brings American viewers in to the heart of a print-based resistance.
Posted inArt
What Does it Mean to Win in Video Game Art?
Until this Thursday, an arcade of interactive artistic video games is up at Postmaster’s Gallery in Chelsea. This mix of lo-fi and hi-res graphics, raw exposed circuit boards and games with clever gotcha moments, was a jolt of quirky joy on a cold Saturday afternoon.
Posted inArt
Patti Smith, MoMA and a Revolutionary Year
On December 19th of last year, Patti Smith and Michael Stipe gave a “walk-in performance” in the atrium of the Museum of Modern Art to celebrate the centennial of Jean Genet — poet, playwright, novelist, radical leftist, hustler and thief.
It was also the final day of the uprising in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, which started three days earlier when Mohamed Bouazizi, a street vendor, set himself on fire and burned to death to protest the confiscation of his merchandize by the police. The timing of the performance and the Tunisia riots were, of course, purely a coincidence.
On December 19th of this year, alone with her guitar, Patti Smith returned to the same place — now occupied by an enormous obelisk holding aloft Sanja Iveković’s golden, hugely pregnant “Lady Rosa of Luxembourg” — to mark Genet’s 101st birthday.
Posted inOpinion
Remaking Favorite Art Works
Booooooom invited their readers to recreate their favorite paintings or photos using photography. The results are pretty creative.
