For the third and final installment in his series of YouTube Essays, called YouTube Archive + Anarchy, blogger and curator Brent Burket pretty much goes for broke. If this doesn’t get you pumped about YouTube, or at least disturbed enough to stop using it for a few days, there’s no hope for you. From black metal to necrophilia, surrealism and Alice Cooper, these are the YouTube videos you only find at 2 in the morning after a night of heavy drinking. Also, Jeffrey Deitch gets punched and bitches out his attackers like Woody Allen in a pink suit.
Posted inArt
Seychelle Allah Talks Space Slave Trade & His Aggregate Style
One of the figures behind Space Slave Trade, Seychelle Allah discusses his brand of afrofuturism that layers the visual culture around him into a world in which the aggregate plays an important role.
Allah’s relationship with social media has been complex. Space Slave Trade, named after a friend’s band, started after he was kicked off Facebook for sharing images deemed inappropriate by the service. The resulting blog is NSFW and careens from porn-like images with young Asian girls to absurd representations of starving Africans. The aesthetic is young, fresh, and aggressive without being violent.
Posted inArt
Sound of Art is Loud, Sound of Partying Louder
Last Thursday, Paddy Johnson (AKA ArtFagCity) held a debut party for her ambient sound-collecting DJ battle record Sound of Art at Santos Party House, and I think our small sector of the art world collectively took the morning off on Friday. This short vacation ended with your humble writer as well as the Hyperallergic editor stumbling into work around 11am accompanied by groans and sensitivity to light. Thanks to the musicians that spun the album in their sets that night, the conclusion after the party, and post-copious LP and vodka sales, was that art sounds pretty loud, but art-partying sounds louder.
Posted inNews
Charlie Rose + Jay-Z Roll With Assyrians at Brooklyn Museum
Yesterday, PBS talk show host, Charlie Rose, interviewed musician Jay-Z at the Brooklyn Museum. The hip hop star is promoting his new book, Decoded, which, in addition to telling his personal story and decoding his lyric, includes unconventional typography, line drawings, and photographs, which according to a review emphasizes “the author’s message that rap is a form that transcends and defies easy categorization.”
Posted inArt
YouTube Archive + Anarchy, Part 2
For the second in his series of YouTube Essays, YouTube Archive + Anarchy, blogger and curator Brent Burket selects a mix of art and music, collecting YouTube music videos, amateur documentation of video art pieces and performance art. Check out a Katy Perry introduction and feminist firecracker Karen Finley invading a Sinead O’Connor song, to disastrous and hilarious effect. Click through for the complete VJ set.
Posted inNews
Italian PM Gives Roman Statue a New Penis
It somehow seems fitting that the womanizing Prime Minister of Italy has suited an ancient Roman statue with a new penis: “Government officials confirmed today, however, that a valuable statue of the god Mars, on loan to the prime minister’s office, had been fitted with an artificial penis … La Repubblica said the transplant was carried out at Berlusconi’s “express request” and … it had cost the Italian taxpayer €70,000 (£60,000).” [Guardian]
Posted inOpinion
Artist Replicates Missing Penis, Puts His Package On Display
Mark Billy’s penis once got stolen, but that didn’t bother the intrepid artist. After the sculpture went missing, Billy just made a new one! The replica is on display at #TheSocialGraph, and this time, Billy used some extra protection.
Posted inNews
Breaking: Great News For “Watercolor Graffiti” Artist
MY BOGUS ‘GRAFFITI’ CASE, IN WHICH I WAS ARRESTED AND IMPRISONED FOR 23 HOURS FOR PAINTING ON MY OWN WATERCOLOR PAPER- WAS DISMISSED TODAY!!
julie torres
julieannetorres
You will probably remember the wrongful arrest of watercolor artist Julie Torres on a ridiculous charge of graffiti. We last reported on her court appearance last month, but now this great news. Congratulations, Julie!
Posted inOpinion
Why the Hell is Rob Pruitt Giving Out Art Awards?
Last year, when they announced this ridiculous thing called the Rob Pruitt Awards I thought it was a joke: the justification was that it was conceived as a performance-based art work. Come on, give me a break, we’re not idiots.
First off, an artist slapping his or her name on an award is just bizarre, particularly an artist whom I don’t think is all that great or renowned (maybe if Koons or Hirst or Murakami did it, the award would at least be more reputable). But I do think some kind of art award was inevitable as the art industry continues its march toward greater “professionalization” and toward reinforcing the equivalent of a 21st century art academy mentality.
Posted inArt
YouTube Archive + Anarchy, Part 1
For a fan of art like me, YouTube is a gold mine. I remember when I was in college about the only access I had to the art and music scene in New York City was pouring over the New York Times in the library. The rest was imagination. YouTube brings art and music closer, no matter where you are or when you are. It’s a crazy archive that holds art, new and old. Sometimes its been sanctioned by the artist. Sometimes, not so much. The best thing about art on YouTube is the access that it allows for the viewer and also because of the exposure for artists. Some artists and gallerists might have an issue with that last point. But quite frankly, that’s their problem. Click through for a journey into YouTube’s anarchic archive of art and artistic materials.
Posted inOpinion
Can Video Games Be “As Glorious as Chartres Cathedral”?
In the Guardian, Sam Leith writes an essay on the online multiplayer role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft, comparing the free experience of wandering through the game’s created universe to “a medieval cathedral, and a magnificent one: it is the Chartres of the video-game world.” Video games are often compared to narrative movies, controlled trips through a written plots. But Leith turns that on its head, suggesting instead that games are better characterized by the slow structural growth of a building.
