PUNE, INDIA — Yet another “season” of American elections is at our doorstep. “Season” is well-accepted television jargon in India now. Many young, urban Indian tele-watchers have picked up the “season thing” easily. These young Indians also ardently follow and virtually participate in the very wellorganized, entertainingly televised and “branded” drama of American elections. Besides television, access to the internet with live information bombarding and constantly propagated graphical and video content has changed the scenario forever for our times. Staying updated about any specific domain or subject of your interest is click-easy.
Posted inArt
How Jonathan Safran Foer Taught Me About Roofies
LONDON — I thought I was going to see Jonathan Safran Foer live and in person Monday night. Sure, it seemed odd that he would randomly be in London with no very recently published book to tour, but who am I to know the details of an acclaimed author’s personal schedule? Literary fun plus art means I’m in.
Posted inArt
10 Underrated Artists From Brooklyn
Editor’s Note: We asked critic Howard Hurst to provide us with 10 Brooklyn artists he considers underrated. Here is his selection.
Ok, so it’s the middle of August. The art world has, as per usual, largely checked out for the month. What this means is that there are tons of smaller projects that get to claim part of the spotlight. While Chelsea may be asleep, I’ve always find that the end of the summer presents itself as a golden nugget of opportunity for lesser known artists and curators to take over unoccupied gallery spaces, and to garner publicity usually hogged by larger commercial galleries. In this spirit, and to help pass the hot summer hours, here is a list of my top 10 under rated Brooklyn artists presented in no particular order.
Posted inOpinion
The Museum In Your Video Game
Since 8-bit everything is so in nowadays, it should be no surprise that the geeks (I admit, I can be one) are combing over vintage (and more recent) video games to find glimpses of art and other visual treats. Here are some screenshots that would make the art set look twice when they partake in video gamery.
Posted inOpinion
How An Artist in 1881 Imagined the New York of the Future
“When cartoonist Thomas Nast drew this illustration of future Manhattan for Harper’s Weekly in 1881, Trinity Church was the tallest building in New York, with its spire and cross reaching 281 feet into the heavens.” [Paleofuture]
Posted inNews
Dutch Museum May Sell Art to Pay the Bills
You know the recession is getting bad when you read things like this: “Rotterdam’s Wereldmuseum plans to sell its African and American treasures to cover funding shortfalls … ” [Reuters]
Posted inArt
Franco Fatigue
Saturday, August 6, marked the opening of James Franco’s latest venture into the art world. High/Low Rob Lowe opened at Terence Koh’s Asia Song Society on Canal Street, but closed indefinitely the day after opening. We know many of you have been suffering from Franco fatigue. Thoughts are definitely mixed about the actor’s rise in the commercial gallery world. Is he the real deal or just an over privileged famous guy? Honestly, he seems genuine, but that doesn’t mean he deserves the coverage he has gotten. Whatever you think, this whole Franco art thing doesn’t seem to be going away.
Posted inArt
I Didn’t Hear The Revolution in Galapagos
Since their doors opened in 1995, Galapagos Art Space (aka Kunsthalle Galapagos) has been a place for musicians, performers and generally cool but poor artists of any kind. Enter their newest venture, Kunsthalle Galapagos, the organization’s brand new venue that is now hosting the group show Can’t Hear the Revolution. It was an interesting but overwhelming exhibition.
Posted inOpinion
T-shirts Are the New Galleries: Top 10 Artist Tees
The artist t-shirt is a development we’ve known here at Hyperallergic for some time, but we thought it’d be good to let our readers explore it further. The blurry line demarcating art and fashion is obfuscated when artists have a hand in designing clothes. Is it just a cheap ploy to stock the gift shop full of more merchandise? Probably. But bearing an artist’s creation in your personal presentation potentially imbues clothing with a lot of meaning.
Posted inArt
Easy, Breazy Art from the Aljira Collection
Aljira: A Center for Contemporary Art, has a delightful summer show, titled “Interstice & Emphasis: Artists from the Aljira Collection.” The exhibition, now on view till September 24, features artwork acquired over the institution’s 27-year tenure. The work on view is neither groundbreaking nor provocative, but it is appealing and downright charming at some moments, with the overall tenor of the show being low-key. As the song goes, it’s summertime and the living is easy.
Posted inBooks
Oh, Knitta Puh-leze
Urban Knits, a small book of colorful photographs, explores a relatively new kind of graffiti called “urban knitting,” self-proclaimed to be the most “inoffensive” type of urban graffiti. Like most books of its kind, a collection compiled by theme, Urban Knits unintentionally shows the wide discrepancies in quality that exist in all forms of art, but that are especially prevalent in graffiti and street art. When the impetus for making art is not exclusively about the quality of the work itself but rather about the act of leaving a mark, the results are often less than imaginative. This seems to hold true for tagging as well as knitting.
Posted inOpinion
Painter Chris Martin Goes Really Big in DC
I’m as big of a Chris Martin fan as vlogger and writer James Kalm (aka painter Loren Munk), so the video he just uploaded on YouTube of Martin’s new solo person museum show — his first — at the Corcoran Gallery of Artin Washington, DC, is a treat.
