The Star-Tribune has the story of how Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota purchased a treasure trove of American art accumulated by dance legend Merce Cunningham. The stash “includes at least 150 major objects and perhaps thousands of smaller items,” according to the newspaper.
Andy Warhol
Posted inArt
At MoMA, Andy Warhol’s Films Plumb the Erotics of Boredom
Andy Warhol’s artwork tends to elicit strong reactions, whether it’s love in the form of poster-buying, hate in the form of getting angry at gallery installations or boredom, displayed by just not going to Warhol exhibitions at all. I happen to like Warhol’s art, although until recently, I had only ever seen his prints and paintings. A new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, called Andy Warhol: Motion Pictures shows a new side to an artist who often gets pigeonholed as a screenprinter of soup cans.
Posted inArt
The Empire Tweets Back
Tomorrow, Hyperallergic will join WNYC, ARTnews Magazine and architecture and literary experts Mark Lamster and Bryan Waterman to live-tweet MoMA’s screening of the 485-minute duration classic, Empire (1964).
For a complete list of tweeps to follow for the exercise in duration art reporting, discussion, and good ol’ fashioned art geek fun, visit WNYC for the lowdown.
Posted inOpinion
Warhol Goes App-y
Word is that the Warhol Museum is releasing a new Warhol app (iPhone only for way) that allows users to transform photos into silkscreens that create their own versions of art that resemble the Pop master. But you don’t have to wait for the official version since there are many unofficial ones already on the market, including Warhol FX and myPhotoBooth (both for iPhone) … and there’s much more Warhol for your smartphone.
Posted inArt
Art Basel Miami in Pictures
There’s no point in giving you a “review” of the mothership of art fairs in Miami, Art Basel Miami Beach, so I thought a photo essay with some observations were more appropriate.
I admit that I got a little bored after three hours of wandering around. I found myself seeing the same thing and getting the same numbness I get during marathon holiday shopping trips or walks through ancient souks … there’s only so much merchandise you can see in one stop.
It was still refreshing to see some galleries display the prices of their wares freely, and examples of excellent abstraction by names mostly absent from the art history survey books, but I was most shocked to discover what must be the most awful Basquiat I have even seen in my life.
Posted inNews
Candy Sells For $4.5 Million At Philips de Pury Auction
Halloween is already past, so candy is supposed to be on sale, right? Not at last night’s Philips de Pury sale when a lucky bidder ended up paying $4.5 million for 200 pounds of blue cellophane-wrapped treats. The candy pile by Felix Gonzalez-Torres was only one of a number of high-selling works at the auction house’s Carte Blanche and Contemporary Art Part I auctions.
Posted inArt
Warhol Keeps His Cool to the End
There is a constant dual narrative with Warhol between reality and fantasy, the physical and the mechanical, the life lived and the life watched on a screen, and Warhol, in the end, found it all to be one in the same. This exhibit of Warhol’s late work, Andy Warhol: The Last Decade, is no exception to the contradictions and in fact reveals just about as much as it obscures.
Posted inArt
Why are iPhone Polaroids so Popular?
You may have seen it on your friend’s Facebook pages or the screen of a mobile phone, on a Twitter image service or a Tumblr blog. An aesthetic rash has been plaguing popular photography as of late, but it’s not a new one. A slew of iPhone ‘Polaroid’ applications are turning people’s visual diaries into retro, oversaturated documents of social lives, friends and lovers. But what makes these applications so popular
Posted inOpinion
Warhol’s Cock (Drawing) on the Moon?
Did a tiny ceramic chip covered with original drawing by artists Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, David Novros, John Chamberlain, and Forrest Myers travel to the moon with the Apollo 12 lunar module in November 1969. PBS’ History Detectives investigates …
Posted inOpinion
A Urinal Is a Urinal Is a Urinal
How many urinals by Marcel Duchamp are there? Turns out there are at least 17. Greg Allen of Greg.org points out that fact and takes the piss [sorry, couldn’t resist] out of Washington Post critic Blake Gopnik for his recent review of “Stolen Pieces” (1995-97) at Postmasters’ Reality is Overrated show by Eva and Franco Mattes. It’s amazing that Duchamp’s “original” idea continues to inspire artists and discussion.
Posted inNews
Whack-a-Warhol at the Brooklyn Museum, “Long Live the Art-ocrats!”
If the image of the Warhol piñata at the Brooklyn Museum didn’t freak you out enough, the videos of everyone from Jennifer Rubell to Jerry Saltz taking a whack at the thing (and right in the mouth no less) will surely disturb you to no end. If the art world ever needed a good therapist then now is the time, I mean even if it’s just to deal with members of the art-ocracy “bashing a gay guy” thing as a form of dessert!
Posted inArt
Pittsburgh: The Great Deceiver (Part Two)
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.)
