Hey readers, I’m Janelle, the managing editor of the Hyperallergic LABS tumblelog. For the un-initiated, “tumblelog” is the name for a blog hosted on the free platform Tumblr, which utilizes a fairly simple interface for short-form posts. Images are often the most popular posts on Tumblr, but text audio, and video formats are also very easily posted. On Hyperallergic LABS, our posts usually follow a weekly theme, mixed in with blog posts from Hyperallergic. Here’s a quick introduction to what LABS is all about and how Tumblr works.
Posted inNews
Fire in Smithsonian Facilities Building, Natural History Museum Safe
If you, like I did, logged on to the internets this morning and noticed something about the Natural History Museum being on fire, don’t worry: it’s not the museum that’s on fire, it’s their facilities building. Bad, but not catastrophic. Phew.
Posted inOpinion
Denver Museum Re-Install Heralds Rethinking of Native American Art
The re-installation of the Denver Art Museum’s American Indian art galleries has an important new feature: individual artist names are now included on its wall labels. The comprehensive re-installation heralds a new move towards recognition of the history of Native American art, as well as Native American artists’ contribution to a larger American art history.
Posted inOpinion
Required Reading
This week on Required Reading … William Powhida has devised a new power axis of art world affirmation … New York Observer explains the thing called the “professional collector” … at Idiom they ask an important question “Can an art experience be authentic even if the status of the work of art remains questionable?” … the NEA leaders gives signs that there will be cutting in the arts … Phong Bui chats with Joe Bradley … some mediations on Black History on Art:21 … and Iceland is digitizing ALL its literature …
Posted inArt
Graphic: How Art and Modern Dance Mixed in Manhattan
Following up on Merel van Beeren’s investigation into the future of Merce Cunningham’s Studio after its founder’s death, we bring you a graphic history of the intersection of visual art and modern dance. From Cunningham collaborating with John Cage, his life partner, and Robert Rauschenberg, to sculptor Isamu Noguchi’s work with Martha Graham, it’s all here.
Posted inArt
With Founder Gone, What’s the Future of Merce Cunningham’s Studio?
A small group of dance students recently gathered on the floor of the Cunningham Studio to try to save their dance program from an early death. “There’s no way the studio won’t make it,” Suzanne Thomas, a French student, said. She is passionate about preserving it for a reason: “Pure Cunningham doesn’t really exist anywhere else.” The community revolving around choreographer Merce Cunningham, a giant of modern dance, has been in a state of flux since his passing in 2009. Although the choreographer himself and the Cunningham Trust meticulously outlined a plan for both the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, which would come to an end after a final farewell tour, and the Cunningham Foundation for after Cunningham was gone, the fate of the Cunningham Studio’s educational program was not so clear cut.
Posted inNews
Are Plutocrats Collecting Art or Collecting Artists?
Felix Salmon just posted an incandescent piece on the State of the Art World seen through the lens of Davos. At a meeting of plutocrats and artists, Salmon sees collectors buying art not for its aesthetic quality but for its aura: the respect and awe that comes with owning something really expensive.
Posted inNews
James Kochalka Named Cartoonist Laureate of Vermont
Today’s cutest news of the day ever: superstar comic artist James Kochalka, of American Elf fame, has just been named the Cartoonist Laureate of Vermont. He is the second Cartoonist Laureate in the United States; the only other state to have one is Alaska. Random? Yes. Awesome? Definitely.
Posted inArt
Angry Art Letters on the Lower East Side
Ridykeulous, founded by artists Nicole Eisenman and A.L. Steiner in 2005, describes itself as an effort to “subvert, sabotage, and overturn the language commonly used to define feminist and lesbian art,” primarily through exhibitions, performances, and zines. Attacking the marginalization of queer and feminist art as “alternative” cultures, they insist upon participating in mainstream dialogues about art and culture; in adopting the role of curators and organizing exhibitions, Steiner and Eisenman forcefully insert themselves and their collaborators into the spaces, both literally and figuratively, of the art establishment. Though not all of the artists in Readykeulous are female, nor do all identify as queer, they share an interest in disrupting the status quo.
Posted inOpinion
Curator Paola Antonelli Talks Design and Technology
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If Hyperallergic was a teen magazine, Museum of Modern Art design curator Paola Antonelli would totally be our crush of the moment. In this video, from Vice’s Creators Project, see Antonelli discuss the “communication” that takes place between people and technology, through the medium of design.
Posted inNews
Flickr Images from Revolutionary Cairo
If Twitter has been dominating the discussion of social media and the current protests in Egypt, they aren’t the only social network filling the intertubes with oodles of information created by everyday people, media professionals, and governmental forces.
Sure the other social media channels have suffered because of the internet clampdown that made their use near impossible but now that the country of Egypt is (kinda) connected again to the World Wide Web, we can go beyond Twitter’s textual minimalism to explore more vivid realities, notably Flickr.
Posted inNews
Unverified Tweets: Egyptian Museum In the Middle of Turmoil [UPDATING…]
The information is coming fast and furious via regarding the Egyptian Museum and the attack of protesters by pro-government authorities in Tahrir Square. So we are compiling a list of tweets to keep you up-to-date on what’s happening on the ground. Many of these tweets are from Tahrir Square, and others, like @SultanAlQassemi, are from elsewhere but from people monitoring the situation very closely. We have also added some Twitter commentary from others. Here they are unverified and unedited, and (mostly) in chronological order.
[UPDATE]: Museum has been attacked with molotov cocktails, no verified reports of the museum actually on fire, though rumors fly.
