Required Reading
This week, is it art (again), Toyo Ito wins Pritzker Prize, debating the creative class, Penn Station & LA MOCA problems, 20 Top Artist Grants and Fellowships, heavy metal in a London museum, how Iran censors the web, and more.
This week, is it art (again), Toyo Ito wins Pritzker Prize, debating the creative class, Penn Station & LA MOCA problems, 20 Top Artist Grants and Fellowships, heavy metal in a London museum, how Iran censors the web, and more.
MoMA design and architecture curator Paolo Antonelli wades into the problems of the “is it art” debate, specifically in relation to the question of video games:
We are testing something new, exposing new ideas to criticism and scrutiny, trying to move us all a bit towards a deeper public understanding of design through great examples. In other words, we — curators and critics alike — are doing what we think is our job.
Toyo Ito has won the most important award in architecture, the Pritzker Prize:
Throughout his career, which has spanned over four decades, Ito has experimented with a wide variety of forms such as the ribbed structure of the large multipurpose Dome in Odate and the undulating white roof of the Meiso no Mori Municipal Funeral Hall, both in his native country. “I will never fix my architectural style and never be satisfied with my works,” he said in response to the announcement yesterday.
Dezeen has compiled a slideshow of some of his key buildings.
This past week marked the 10th anniversary of the Iraq war, and The Art Newspaper reflects on the destruction to Iraq’s artistic heritage in the last ten years:
The national Iraq Museum … was looted between 10 and 12 April 2003, and … [an] estimated 16,000 antiquities were stolen, around half of which have been recovered. Among the 8,000 or so items still missing are an important ivory plaque of a lioness and a collection of cylinder seals, with images of ancient life and myths.
Remember Richard Flordia’s “creative class” bullshit theory? Well:
Florida himself, in his role as an editor at The Atlantic, admitted last month what his critics, including myself, have said for a decade: that the benefits of appealing to the creative class accrue largely to its members — and do little to make anyone else any better off. The rewards of the “creative class” strategy, he notes, “flow disproportionately to more highly-skilled knowledge, professional and creative workers,” since the wage increases that blue-collar and lower-skilled workers see “disappear when their higher housing costs are taken into account.”
Though not so fast … Florida responded with:
… Kotkin misleads readers when he writes I’ve “conceded.” What hogwash. I’ve long been aware of the inequality that is a byproduct of the unvarnished creative knowledge economy and I’ve written about it extensively. Going all the way back to The Rise of the Creative Class, I zeroed in on the “widening income gaps and growing stratification that define our social life.”
This week, the New York Times‘ art and architecture critics are on an activist bent. Micheal Kimmelman wrote about the design disaster that is New York’s Penn Station:
It’s not only that Penn Station, designed a half-century ago in a declining city for what seemed then an unlikely capacity of 200,000 passengers a day, is now handling more than twice that number. It is also a shabby, hopelessly confusing entry point to New York, a daily public shame on the city.
… and Roberta Smith wrote about the museum drama that is LA’s MOCA, and she has some tough words for Eli Broad:
Their first step should be to distance themselves from Eli Broad, their ruling if nonvoting trustee, who fiercely opposed the merger but has been instrumental in bringing the museum to this impasse.
Only with him gone will the museum be able to attract the serious money, dedicated board members, professional staff and — most important — strong, visionary director that it needs.
Artinfo offers a list of “20 Top Artist Grants and Fellowships You Might Actually Be Able to Get.”
Related? “Thank you for your interest in applying for the Tortured Artist Grant.” A hilarious post by McSweeney’s Internet Tendencies.
The film interns at the Walker Art Center resigned:
Jeremy Meckler, Courtney K. Sheehan and Matthew Cole Levine announced their walkout in a statement emailed to Walker staff accusing the museum’s management of “general disrespect towards a longstanding, talented, and loyal staff” and “callous negligence” that “was felt with particular sting in the Film/Video department.” The three had spent a total of five years working at the Walker.
The arcane International Association of Art Critics USA pooled a bunch of art critics (probably people whose writing appears predominantly on dead trees) to decide what were the best shows in the country for 2012 and guess what, all the shows they chose were on the coasts (and mostly — as in 70%? — in NYC with a sprinkling from LA).
Ever wonder how Iran censors the internet? Here is an infographic to explain it to you.
ARTnews’s Robin Cembalest writes about an encyclopedic show in Montreal that explores the historic art of Peru. One of the fascinating features of the culture is the lack of writing, which places greater importance on the visual culture:
None of these cultures used a written language. Instead, as the catalogue explains, visual languages, of symbol, color, and form—from the fantastical beings and geometric motifs on textiles to the “spatial syntax” of a vessel’s handle and spout—were the conduits for information about power, ritual, religion, and identity.
The V&A museum in London cancelled an experimental gig by metal band Napalm Death last week over fears that the “historic fabric of the building” could be damaged.
Required Reading is published every Sunday morning EST, and it is comprised of a short list of art-related links to long-form articles, videos, blog posts or photo essays worth a second look.
