If looking at art is fun, watching it burn is great. There’s something cathartic about attending an event dedicated to the destruction of art in the middle of the world’s largest art fair bacchanalia.
Attack of the Miami Art Fairs: Art Basel Miami 2009
In the belly of the art market beast, Hrag is wandering Miami in search of the ultimate art fair experience. First up is the landmark Art Basel fair in South Beach.
Look & Destroy: Art Burn Miami
While the players in the global art market descend on Miami to scoop up artistic baubles and all the prestige associated with it, some people have arrived at this international art orgy for less consumer driven motives. Enter Celso and his Art Burn event.
We’re Off to Miami!
Why haven’t we been posting much recently? Well, the short answer is MIAMI! Yes, we’re off to the fairs and we’re bringing you along with us. Expect many musings from the front lines of the art world’s greatest clusterfuck.
Just Say No: Santiago Sierra Takes Manhattan
What happens when in the name of art you ride through Manhattan in a truck hauling ginormous letters that spell the word NO? Lyra finds out.
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
Recently on Hyperallergic, An Xiao’s “Cover Art, or Vito Acconci Gets a Follow Back,” made the case for artists who choose to directly reference or re-stage existing artworks. She draws a comparison between derivative works and cover songs. This may be an apt comparison, but she glosses over an important fact: most cover songs are terrible.
China Establishes Contemporary Art Academy, Tyler Revitalizes N. Philly, Brooklyn Girl Faces Fine for Chalk Drawings
… an art exhibit for the blind … do the recent art auctions point to a possible surprise at the Miami art fairs … North Carolina Museum of Art is gearing up for its new building … Toronto is hosting a King Tut blockbuster … the Taubman Museum of Art realizes that a splashy new building doesn’t ensure success … LACMA’s poorer than it was last year.
Anxious Freedom: After the Berlin Wall
It has been 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the popularized images of people cheering and celebrating in front of the greatest symbol of the Cold Wall tells only part of the story, says Daniel Larkin. The day after was filled with more anxiety than recent media narratives would have you believe.
Corin Hewitt & Molly McFadden Play Double at Recess
Recess opened on Grand Street in September as a storefront artist residency space open to the public, and their inaugural show by Corin Hewitt and Molly McFadden, Double Room, tackles questions of replication, authorship, documentation, labor-as-performance, and collaboration.
Cover Art, or Vito Acconci Gets a Follow Back
An Xiao organized a 40th Anniversary tribute to Vito Acconci’s “Following Piece” (1969) for @Platea, the social media art collective she performs with. She likes to call what she did a form of “cover art” and she explains why.
Looking for Genghis Khan’s Tomb, SFMOMA Preps for Fisher Collection, 73-Year-Old Arrested for Tagging in LA
… a lull in Iraqi violence helps spur cultural activity … homeless artists in Austin, Texas, have an art show & benefit … art mogul Eli Broad is scouting for a museum location … artist Sam Bassett is arrested for trying to make New York’s Sotheby’s building into art.
Brent Owens Gets a Woody at English Kills
Daniel Larkin reflects on Brent Owens’s solo show Gnastic Pursuits, which took place earlier this fall at the English Kills Art Gallery in Brooklyn. Describing his work, Larkin writes, “Owens likewise takes the rich tradition of wood carving and melds it with that millennial taste for biting wit and quirks of fate.”