This line says it best: “Austrian artist Franz West, who died yesterday, was a sculptural jester, a provocateur, a maker of benign and threatening objects.”
July 2012
Posted inArt
Loving the Unlovable
Last weekend, while rummaging through the Lower East Side what I needed was a life boat, something to transport my mind away from the sticky, forsaken confines of my sweat drenched body. What I got was Someone Has Stolen Our Tent at Simon Preston Gallery.
Posted inArt
Northern English Museum Celebrates Ten Years
GATESHEAD, UK — I’ve visited 35 states in the USA since I moved to Chicago ten years ago, and I’ve been struck many times by the presence of high-quality art museums in out-of-the-way places, but it’smore surprising to see a comparable art space in England. But the Baltic Mill Art Museum, in the northeast of England, is just such a place, and it’s currently celebrating its tenth anniversary.
Posted inNews
NYPD Can’t Take Criticism, Censors Legal Mural
Proving that art does still have the power to be controversial, and that the New York Police Department pretty much does whatever it wants, the NYPD dispatched two officers on Tuesday to paint over a mural that it didn’t like.
Posted inArt
Hunters or Hunted? Reckoning with Sharks
When I arrived at the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale to see the current exhibition Shark, I was greeted with smiles and a sign: “Selachophobia is defined as the strong fear or dislike of sharks … “
Posted inBooks
Photographing Protest
What does protest look like? This was the question posed to over a dozen artists featured in Capricious Magazine #12 — Protest.
Posted inArt
Can a Blue-Chip Collector Go Against the Grain?
With the economy slowly creaking back to life and a good deal of speculation about an imminent art market bubble burst, the intrepid collector and writer Adam Lindemann has seen fit to open a brand-spanking-new gallery in the lap of luxury at 980 Madison Avenue.
Posted inArt
Not Feeling The Originals
The Originals, according to the PR statement, “features the first group of visionary artists to ditch the NYC scene to set roots at Mana Contemporary.” News flash: Mana Contemporary discovers Jersey City, which has been sitting across from Manhattan for 382 years.
Posted inArt
Let’s Play Google Art Critic!
Last week, I was playing around on my gadgets and inadvertently discovered that Google has an opinion on everything including art.
Posted inOpinion
Goal Setting and Art Making — Do They Contradict Each Other?
LOS ANGELES — I meet a lot of artists these days who have big goals. Some of the most successful ones even write them out, with specific numbers like a solo show and such-and-such gallery within three years. In a competitive art environment, it’s great to have goals, and it’s great to make progress toward them.
Posted inArt
Prisoner Fantasies
While I often feel that galleries and museums have overzealous security guards, I was not completely prepared for entering the Clocktower Gallery in Lower Manhattan, located on what feels like the forgotten 13th floor of one the city’s courthouses.
