Posted inArt

Cory Arcangel and Pierre Bismuth Tag Team in Soho

When I walked into Team Gallery this week to see their current exhibition, Cory Arcangel vs. Pierre Bismuth my gut reaction was annoyance. The exhibition presents three works by each artist. Though Arcangel’s rise to fame has come somewhat immediately and unexpectedly, as a kind of young hip digital concept artist Pierre Bismuth’s 20-year career is equally concerned with technology and media. The result is seamless and startling to an admittedly backwards curmudgeon like me.

Posted inArt

Extreme Makeover: Art World Edition

Since we’ve been running down the most powerless and most f***able art world figures, now we’re seeing which ones are in dire need a makeover. Anyone in the public sphere knows the way they dress reflects greatly on their work, and art people, fortunately or not, are no exception.

Posted inArt

Cory Arcangel’s (Al)ready-mades

Remember Oakley M-Frame sunglasses? They’re supposed to look like the future, with gradient lenses in a variety of neon colors and knotted frames that bear a resemblance to tensed muscle and ligaments. What they actually look like is a future imagined from the 1980s, in which some mixture of cyberpunk fashion, steroidal athlete aesthetic and Gatorade-style visual punch is totally au courant. New media prankster Cory Arcangel has turned these glasses into monuments, casting them in bronze and immortalizing them in a series of readymades called “Sports Products” (2011). Are you ready for 80s nostalgia? You better be, because it’s ready for you.

Posted inNews

Required Reading

This week … why are the Coptic churches of Egypt burning, Paul Goldberger is cynical of Rem Koolhaas, video of Alexander McQueen at the Met, profile of Cory Arcangel, tour of the 2011 Contemporary Furniture Fair, want to live on a houseboat on the Gowanus, Luna Park’s Berlin pics, an interview with the Met Opera’s conductor and 8 NYers are suing Baidu for censorship.

Posted inArt

Collectionof Brings Private Stashes to Public View

We’ve all wished we could break into an art collector’s house at times, just to take a look at the wealth of objects out of the public eye. Aside from being awesome aggregations of unique things, collections also communicate something about a person, their aesthetic tastes and their own preferences. Collectionof is a new website that brings the private stashes of some cultural figures to public view. Here, you can check out artist Cory Arcangel’s magazine choices or Brooklyn musician C. Spencer Yeh’s CD rack. Of course, some of it’s for sale, too.