According to the Loveland Reporter-Herald, the Christian fundamentalist trucker who damaged artist Enrique Chagoya’s “The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals” at the Loveland Museum Gallery in Loveland, Colorado has been “ordered to pay $2,991 in restitution — less than half the amount requested by prosecutors.”
Posted inOpinion
Bringing Pop Art to Life
Artist Pantonio has transformed the scene of a car crash in Lisbon into a Pop Art-style explosion reminiscent of Roy Lichtenstein. The street “tribute” seems appropriate considering Lichtenstein freely transformed the imagery he found in comic books into fine art.
Posted inArt
My 168 Hours of Fame in the New Yorker and the resulting Gush of “Like” Letters
Beginning on Wednesday, the emails and text messages started pouring in. “You’re in The New Yorker!” was the notion of the generally congratulatory remarks. This was not untrue. But, it also wasn’t entirely accurate. My friend and former studio neighbor, Hope Gangloff, painted a portrait of me painting for her new current exhibition and a reproduction of it appeared in the “Goings On About Town” section. Although she adeptly captured my likeness, the portrait is very much Hope’s world. Granted, I am more or less wearing what I paint during the sultry New York summer months — cut-off skinny jeans, black socks, beige suede loafers (basically ragged clothes) — and it’s my lanky contrapposto.
Posted inOpinion
Does the Younger Generation Have a New Attitude Toward Museums?
In an essay for Paper Monument‘s third issue, Timothy Aubry writes on his view of youngsters’ behavior in museums, temples of art that were previously bastions of quiet respect and contemplation. Now, they may as well be amusement parks! Aubry points to the pajama-party vibe of Pipolotti Rist’s “Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters)” (2008), installed in MoMA’s atrium, to speak on our cultural lack of reverence for museum spaces. No longer content to be in awe, we now argue with our museum experiences and adapt them to our own ends. Does a younger generation have a different attitude towards museum-going?
Posted inArt
WTF is… an Art Fair?
Okay, so, this week is New York City’s art fair week. This may sound like a carnival replete with Ferris wheels, clowns and cotton candy, but it’s not, at least in the literal sense. An art fair is like a carnival in that there’s a lot of excess noise, visual information and people yelling over each other. But an art fair is actually a clearinghouse for art works, a pow-wow of dealers, galleries, curators and collectors that’s part tribe meeting and part shopping mall. n the US, the major players are basically Art Basel Miami Beach, a sister fair of Art Basel founded in 2002 occurring annually every December, and New York City’s Armory Show, founded in 1994 and taking place in March.
Posted inArt
After the Financial Collapse, Help Support a Fascinating New Photo Project
While the visual associations with Jacob Riis’s famous series How the Other Half Lives are inevitable, artist Robyn Hasty ambitious new photo essay using the wet-plate collodion process is very very different. Titled “Homeland,” Hasty’s current project aims to document grassroots efforts to rebuild and re-envision life after the collapse of the American economy a few years ago.
Don’t expect this series to be an exploration of poverty as the young artist sees great social potential in these American visionaries that live in cities, farms, and almost anywhere you can imagine.
Posted inNews
Banksy Loses Documentary Oscar to Inside Job [UPDATE]
As soon as the announcement came that Banksy’s documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop was nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar, a churning online rumor mill debated if he would accept the award in person or remain anonymous. No one had a chance to find out what Banksy would do, though, because last night the artist’s film lost to a documentary about banking and the financial crisis.
Posted inArt
The Quiet of Hermann Nitsch
Hermann Nitsch’s performance at Mike Weiss Gallery on February 15th and 16th was a historical moment, summoning the exuberance of his context while disintegrating the mystery shrouding his practice. After stalking Nitsch’s every movement for close to fourteen hours, the legend was humanized. Yes, this is a natural occurrence, but one may expect someone who has made slaughtering animals and organizing group blood orgies a natural part of his practice to be a little … off.
Posted inArt
My Very Personal Beat Nite in Photos, Part 2
… Half the night was already over and we had the daunting task of seeing the other spaces in the midst of all the buzz of Beat Nite with only a few hours left. Art hopping in Bushwick isn’t always easy. With no real density of art spots, you end up darting around the neighborhood by foot or train. Sure there are surprises along the way but all I could wonder as we wandering through seemingly abandoned blocks was “is this what Soho felt like decades ago when it was mostly abandoned buildings and industrial spaces?” On a map Bushwick always looks more compact than it feels like on the ground.
Posted inOpinion
Madrid’s (Holy) Version of the Watts Towers
In LA, the Watts Towers are a homemade monument by Simon Rodia, pointed cylinders of steel decorated with found objects that stretch over 99 feet tall. In Madrid, Benedictine monk Justo Martinez has constructed his own cathedral of a scale and complexity to rival Baroque architecture. Built over the past five years and rising over 131 feet, the cathedral is an enormous monument to perseverance.
Posted inNews
Voina Art-ivists Free, Still Face Court Date
Things are looking up for artists of the radical Russian art collective Voina, who had been languishing in jail for months. They were just released on bail but the duo still face a future court date & they may have inspired other inmates to pursue a life in art.
Posted inNews
Ravishing Shakespeare Portrait on View in NYC
Even though we all think we know what Shakespeare looks like from our middle school Hamlet textbooks, only one portrait was (probably) painted in the writer’s lifetime. In this singular work now on view at New York City’s Morgan Library, Shakespeare is a total 17th century hottie with glowing skin, a stylish goatee and overwhelmingly large collar. Sexy. Unveiled in 2009, the quality and age of the portrait means it is now believed to be the original in a long line of Shakespeare portraits, the ancestors of our textbook copies.
