Welcome to 2012! As soon as the clock struck midnight, not only did the new year begin, but the art world also got a shot of adrenaline as January brings in more exhibition openings than we can keep track of.
January 2012
Posted inOpinion
Clyfford Still Painting Gets Lap Dance in Denver
My Armenian Christmas present came one day early this year when someone emailed me this, “A 36-year-old Denver woman, apparently drunk, leaned against an iconic Clyfford Still painting worth more than $30 million last week, punched it, slid down it and urinated on herself…”
Posted inArt
Art, Science and the Bastardization of Nature
The Skybridge Art & Sound Space inside the Eugene Lang College currently has an installation on view until January 31, 2012. Artifix Mori, by John Ensor Parker and Jason Krugman, both visiting artists in the visual arts program at Eugene Lang, is paradoxically whimsical and ominous in its collision of science, nature, art and technology.
Posted inOpinion
Kids Transform Museum Into Dotted Wonderland
The Queen of Dotted Art, Yayoi Kusama gave young visitors to an Australian museum a chance to create art by placing dots in a pristine white room.
Posted inOpinion
Sneak Peak of Ai Weiwei on Art21
Today, Art21 released a sneak peak of their Ai Weiwei segment in Season 6 titled “Change.”
Posted inNews
Work Stolen from Woodward Gallery Project Space in LES
This morning, the owners of Woodward Gallery on Eldridge Street discover that one of the art works by artist Moody at their outdoor Project Space across the street at 132A Eldridge Street was missing. Valued at $5–6,000, according to owner Kristine Woodward, the roughly quarter inch-thick wood panel was part of a street installation that the gallery has supported for the last five years as a way to provide exposure to artists.
Posted inBooks
An Artobiography That is Personal, But Not Universal
Boulder bookstore owner David Bolduc said of artist and graphic designer Tina Collen’s “artobiography,” titled Storm of the i (2009) and published by Art Review Press, “I’ve been in the book business for thirty years and have seen a lot of books. But I’ve never seen anything like Storm of the i.”
I agree with Bolduc that Storm of the i doesn’t look like other books, but Storm’s uniqueness is also what hinders it most. The book defies traditional design and layout, like a watered down, less haunting version of American author Mark Z. Danielewski’s popular House of Leaves (2000), and it’s a confusing book formally and conceptually. It vacillates throughout all three hundred pages between various different styles—photo album, scrapbook, self-help, personal memoir, maudlin diary, autobiography—and none of them seem to help its author’s intent.
Posted inOpinion
Strange Protest by Old Skool Performance Artist Against Lady Gaga
Some peculiar things end up in our inbox on a daily basis but this one stood out. Performance artist Colette has staged a strange protest against Lady Gaga at Barney’s Lady Gaga windows.
Posted inOpinion
Babes in Museum Land (NSFW)
So we know that museums are filled with some of the world’s greatest art, but what about the people who attend museums? Are they artworks unto themselves?
Blogger Xavier Aaronson is out to prove just that with his blog Babes at the Museum. The site takes a cue from street fashion blogs likes The Satorialist and transfers it to the museum, where apparently some of the most babe-ilicious fashionistas can be found.
Posted inNews
Museum Troubles in Boston, City Wants More $$$
In the latest news in the battle for arts funding in the US, The Art Newspaper reported yesterday that the Boston Mayor has greatly increased payments under his Payment in Lieu of Taxes scheme that asks nonprofits, including museums to make “voluntary” contributions to city services such as the fire and police department.
Posted inArt
Did the Internet Make Fashion More Accessible?
High fashion used to be the terrain of the elite and fashion shows once welcomed only editors, buyers and VIPs but the internet has changed all that.
Posted inArt
Confused Clutter at the South African National Gallery
CAPE TOWN — What do Ghanaian photographer James Barnor, local Simonstown painter Peter Clarke, British superstar artist Richard Long and Russian World War II posters have in common? Aside from a show at the South African National Gallery, it seems nothing at all.
