Biking down the boardwalk in the Rockaways, Queens, I glanced behind me at the storm clouds approaching fast. Thunder ripped loudly, and lightning began to flash with increasing regularity. My friend and I had been riding for 15 miles already. We were on our way to Boggsville Boatel and Boat-In Theater, part of art collective Flux Factory’s summer-long extravaganza, Sea Worthy. The show features artists making work “about, around and on the waterways of New York City,” and includes water excursions, processions and boat-building workshops.
Posted inArt
Why So Serious? A Marriage of Theory and Commerce
So, I have to be honest, I don’t know if I am totally sold on the whole group show thing. It makes sense within the scope of the art center, alternative space or museum, but I sometimes question its benefits in the commercial art world. I think the point of the theoretical, thematic or art historical exhibition, should ideally, be just that, an end into itself. What I am suspicious of are the sorts of “group show” exhibitions that serve as a thinly veiled gathering of gallery stable artists.
Posted inOpinion
Joining A Contemporary Art Biker Gang With John Waters
Pope of Trash, filmmaker John Waters, who is known for his filthy classics like Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble and Hairspray, has joined a biker gang. Surprisingly, it is a contemporary art biker gang.
Posted inArt
Cheryl Means Camp, Bling, Parties & Garfield Tattoos
This is the last weekend to visit performance art/party collective Cheryl’s show on Williamsburg’s Bedford Avenue, where they have set up shop in the Rawson Projects. This quirky group of artists with an obvious affection for glitter, masks and videos are silkscreening tshirts and totes and selling the artifacts from their parties over the years.
Posted inNews
Artists Launch Offensive Against San Diego
SAN DIEGO — Ahead of the upcoming Art San Diego Contemporary Art Fair, the Periscope Project, a collective of artists, architects and urban planners, are taking to the streets of San Diego with a project that confronts the city’s military complex, conservative politics and its reputation as a non-cultural hot spot.
Posted inArt
The Plastic Bag as Artistic Muse
In Patrick Griffin’s recent exhibition at The Journal Gallery in Williamsburg, Common Courtesy, he focused on an unusual subject matter: the plastic bag. If you live in a major city then you are more than familiar with these little guys; they accumulate under your sink, get stuck in that storm drain you always walk by on your way to work and blow urban tumbleweeds across the street at all hours of the day and night. Though the artist’s focus is playful and somewhat off kilter, his approach to this body of work seems almost scientific. Griffin collected, catalogued and scanned an army of plastic bags into the computer. Using this databank as his starting point, the artist made paintings directly from the two dimensional planes of these photographs.
Posted inArt
A Letter to Merce Cunningham
Dear Merce Cunningham,
As your company comes to a close this winter, I have been on the look out for all things Merce. Wanting to understand you better and hoping that I could still understand you even after you have passed, I visited Charles Atlas’s video tribute to you now at the New Museum not just once, but twice.
Posted inNews
Indy Airport May Remove Public Art in Favor of Ad Wall
The Indianapolis Business Journal reports that this week the Indianapolis airport should be deciding if it will remove a site-specific work by local artist James Wille Faust, “Chrysalis,” in favor of a video wall that will feature advertisements.
Posted inArt
You Said What? A Week of PC Blunders
BERN, SWITZERLAND — This has been a week of blunders. At an art conference in Switzerland a debate began amongst fellow participants about the content of a drawing, which could either be considered bad taste or ironic. The conversation expanded to talk about politics in South Africa, more specifically the demographics of voting, which resulted in the comment “but most of the people who voted for that political party were non-white”. What had been intended from the speaker was to say, “not white.” This may appear as a minor letter error however this discrepancy is critical.
Posted inArt
Anselm Kiefer Channels Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard
Sophie Fiennes’ new film, Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow, is a record of German-born artist Anselm Kiefer as he transforms the grounds around his sprawling hilltop-studio in Barjac, a town in southern France. The film is as much about Fiennes adulation of the artist as it is about Kiefer.
Posted inArt
Crack Epidemic Hits Washington Icon
WASHINGTON, DC — The crack epidemic in the Nation’s capital reached new heights yesterday when the news came out that the Washington Monument has a crack problem. The monument has been closed indefinitely and rumors are that the Congress is attempting to secure a room at Betty Ford for the 555 foot object. [SPOOF]
Posted inArt
The Kickstarter Art Project Goes Meta
Jason Eppink has gone and done it. First, he started a water gun fight in a museum, and now he’s taken the beloved Kickstarter art project to a whole new — and very meta — level. He’s not fundraising for a project, he’s not gathering money for some event, he’s not even using Kickstarter … yes, Eppink has launched an art project called Kickbackstarter — emphasis ours — which is designed to help him fund the projects of all his friends.
