Posted inArt

Art Between Image and Text

To appreciate the group exhibition Thanks for Writing at 601Artspace, you must be prepared to savor the written word. The show highlights diverse considerations of the relationship between language and visual art with 14 artists addressing disparate topics and working in different media.

Posted inArt

Milk Does a White Body Good

Artist Nate Hill’s new project, “White Power Milk” (2011), pushes the boundaries of race, sexuality and commodification. He explains, “I named it ‘White Power Milk’ because I’m selling people that access to white girls from powerful families. Those are the hardest white girls to get access to. They are the powerful.” I interviewed him about his latest art work.

Posted inArt

A Populist Attack on the Art World Pulls Punches

According to Eric Doeringer, the artist-curator of I Like the Art World and the Art World Likes Me, the exhibition’s title—a nod to Joseph Beuys’s 1974 performance “I Like America and America Likes Me”—is meant to convey the “fraught relationship between emerging artists and the art-world establishment,” one marked by a simultaneous desire to criticize the art world’s excesses and to be recognized by it. Art about the institutions of art, both physical and discursive, is hardly a new phenomenon, but unlike Marcel Broodthaers and Hans Haacke, cited by Doeringer as predecessors for the work included in this exhibition, what emerges most clearly here is not “institutional critique” but a sense of anxiety or anger about the artists’ own marginalization and lack of mainstream success.

Posted inArt

Brooklyn’s First Art Fair

When the Verge art fair launched Verge Brooklyn, many Brooklyn galleries were peeved that the DUMBO-based event would take away from local galleries scenes. Why would they have to pay to be in an art fair in their own borough when Armory week was the only time they could get out of town collectors to their spaces? Even if the Verge Brooklyn fair began with a bumpy start it was able pull of something no one has tried before, an art fair in Brooklyn

Posted inOpinion

What Others Are Saying About #Rank

Earlier this month, I sent out a call for comments on #Rank, a project created by artists William Powhida and Jennifer Dalton, who were the masterminds behind #Class (Winkleman Gallery, February 2010).

The following are the responses we received from across the country and around the world. Some are by event participants, while others from observers (both in Miami and remotely). They represent various perspectives on#Rank (with minimal editing and in no particular order).

Also, tonight there is a post-Miami #Rank discussion (6-9pm) at Winkleman Gallery for those who would like to continue the discussion.

Posted inArt

Why Ed Winkleman Did #Rank at the Seven Miami Art Fair

How many of the estimated 46,000 artists, dealers, collectors, and lookyloos that checked in at Art Basel Miami Beach actually made the 35-minute car trip from the stunning South Beach to industrial Wynwood for the Seven Art Fair is still unclear.

Seven was to Basel what Independent New York was to the Armory Show. An art fair (ok fine, temporary exhibition forum), yes, but set up as a museum-like display rather than sales booths, more concerned with theme and content than commodity object. Curatorial considerations made intelligent relationships between artists from different galleries, instead of an “art world greatest hits.” Because of the elimination of sales booths, the pressure was off. Here, dealers seemed to be interested in discussing ideas.

Posted inOpinion

Kill Famous Artists at #Rank

We already warned you, so it should be no surprise that Paul Steen’s art world-ized open source video game based on Assault Cube, but injected with 150 of the “most important living artists” according to Artfacts.net, is awesome.

In his virtual world you can roam PS1 or the Istanbul Biennial or at a Jeff Wall show at the Kunstwerk in Berlin gunning down famous artist to win the game. This isn’t a kumbaya game, people. You need to kill to win.

But I have to admit that there’s nothing more fulfilling than reading “Damien Hirst fragged Jasper John.” Download the “Art Assault” modification here: paulsteen.se/aa.html And enjoy!