Posted inArt

Flawed Diamonds: Recent Painting at Exit Art

Avatar photo by Daniel Larkin

Jesse Chapman’s painting of the struggle to stick a contact into an eye, “The Lens” (2009), strikes me as an apt allegory for recent painting. It is one of the gems from Exit Art’s shinning survey of contemporary painting, NEW MIRRORS: Painting in a Transparent World, that is set to close this weekend.

Much like this uncomfortable morning ritual, painting is caught in an awkward moment. Like the nearsighted allegory looking in the mirror, it is keenly self-aware of its need for a new way of seeing and a new lens through which to gaze. With scowling lips, it begrudgingly prepares for the many vain attempts it takes on a rough morning (or try a rough decade) to get that lens in properly.

Posted inArt

Rebooting Boston’s Art Inferiority Complex

by Kyle Chayka

Is it possible for an entire city to have an inferiority complex over its own art and artists? At times it certainly seems like Boston does. Between ignoring traveling retrospectives of local artists, devoting gallery space to art world circuit card-holders, and hemorrhaging curators, this city’s scene sometimes looks a lot like a branch office of New York: understaffed and passing on its best to the mothership.

In my previous article on Hyperallergic, I discussed Greg Cook’s view that Boston’s contemporary art scene lacks ambition and a drive to push itself further. I believe that what we need to overcome in this city is not just this inferiority complex but a specific Boston identity.

Posted inArt

Worst. Press. Release. Ever. is Baaack… & It’s a Battle!! Paddy Johnson Vs. Lyra Kilston

by The Editors

Today, we announce that our quest to find the worst piece of art PR in the universe has become a contest decided by our loyal readers and fellow netizens. For the first ever Worst.Press.Release.Ever. match up we’ve called on two friends of Hyperallergic to battle it out in a contest that will bestow on the winner bragging rights for eternity.

So, without further ado, I’d like to introduce the luscious Lyra Kilston, who is no stranger to Hyperallergic fans, and the ambrosial Paddy Johnson, aka Art Fag City, to rumble it out in a contest decided by your votes as to which is the WORST.PRESS.RELEASE.EVER!?!?

Posted inArt

Pittsburgh: The Great Deceiver (Part Two)

by Brent Burket

The next morning I took the T (aka, the trolley) into the city, and walked across the bridge to The Warhol. I love The Warhol. (Hate the NO PHOTOS policy though.) It never lets me down. Feels a bit like Mecca to me. Even when I know what’s on, I always come across surprises. The first one greeted me in the 1st floor museum intro room. For the first time, I saw the “Album of a Mat Queen” (1962), Warhol’s silkscreen of the writer and painter Rosalyn Drexler from her days as a professional wrestler. (SORRY. NO PHOTOS.) A huge fan of Drexler, I had only read about this image. This is standard operating procedure at The Warhol. Surprises from their deep collection around every corner. (SORRY. NO PHOTOS.)

Posted inArt

Pittsburgh: The Great Deceiver (Part One)

by Brent Burket

On April 29, 1974, the prog rock masters King Crimson played a famously furious gig at the Stanley Warner theatre in Pittsburgh, later immortalized as part of the band’s towering 4-disc live set, The Great Deceiver. In 1974, the steel industry was wheezing its way out of town, and the city was careening toward a difficult decade filled with a shifting economy and populace. The malleability of the Crimson dinosaur was exactly what the city was going to need to recover. And they have, thanks to the medical and tech industries (And ROBOTS!).

In the 70’s, out of the ashes and soot of the crumble came something extraordinary for the art world. In 1977, Barbara Luderowski founded The Mattress Factory, an installation space that is the highlight and anchor of every visit I make to the city. Yet, too many people I know still think of Pittsburgh as it was in the famous painting by Aaron Henry Gorson pictured here. Let’s work on that. Starting with the fact that a visit to the ‘Burgh is almost always a galvanizing one.

Posted inArt

Beautiful Disaster: Sasha Bezzubov’s “Wildfire”

by Elizabeth Spier

The Front Room gallery in Williamsburg can be easy to miss if you aren’t looking, though the current show, a selection of images from photographer Sasha Bezzubov’s latest series Wildfire, is certainly worth seeking out. The work documents ravaged landscapes on the West Coast following devastating wildfires. That is, rather than capture the fires themselves, these images show what is left in the wake of such trauma — charred remains of homes, smoldering tree trunks, scorched earth.

Posted inArt

Sourcing Local for Boston Art

by Kyle Chayka

Greg Cook is proud to be a yokel. As an art critic for The Boston Phoenix weekly, an independent blogger and artist, Greg is a staunch fan and supporter of the Boston contemporary art community. What bugs him about this city’s art scene is that he might have a better opinion of the scene than it does of itself. In a series of blog posts on his New England Journal for Aesthetic Research, Greg has outlined a Yokelist manifesto for a Boston art community with enough confidence to drive itself to greater heights, art world capital or not.

Posted inNews

An Extensive Roundup of Haitian Art in Jeopardy, London ICA’s Budget Crisis

Avatar photo by Hrag Vartanian

… Florida’s Dail Museum needs money to complete its new building … a woman fell into a Rose Period Picasso last Friday at the Met and ignited some of the funniest blog comments I’ve ever read on a New York Times blog (don’t worry, both the woman & the Picasso will be fine) … Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario receives its biggest contemporary art donation ever … and a list of all the biennials you can look forward to in 2010.

Posted inArt

A Gallery Grows in Bushwick, Storefront Appears on the Scene

Avatar photo by Hrag Vartanian

It’s obvious that Jason Andrew and Deborah Brown don’t like to sit around waiting for things to happen, which may explain why they have become cornerstones in Bushwick, Brooklyn’s art scene. Andrew is the driving force behind Norte Maar, an apartment cultural space on Wyckoff Avenue that has played host to some impressive visual arts, musical and performance shows over the past five years, while Brown helped organize the first Bushwick Open Studios and sits on local Community Board #4 as a constant cheerleader for all things culture and Bushwick. The two have joined forces to create Storefront gallery with the mission to promote emerging Bushwick artists and to revisit the work of established talents.

Posted inArt

Available Online for Free

by Artie Vierkant

One of the most important social, political, and artistic concerns facing us today is the question of access: our ability to share media, our ability to take ownership of or simply to view films, music, and other forms of art. In the past, non-digital and only finitely reproducible media created a certain type of economic exchange and ownership which has long been upended by file sharing. Every day millions of people download and stream films on the Internet in an alternative form of exchange more related to cultural capital than economic capital. This is a political action accomplished as easily as downloading the flat version of Avatar.

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