Art
First Look at the Surrealism Show at Factory Fresh
Yesterday, I convinced curators Ali Ha and Jason Andrew to give me a peak at the Surrealism show that opens tonight at Factory Fresh as part of the 2011 Bushwick Open Studios.
Reviews
Art
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 cyberpu
Art
Alexander McQueen's Sartorial Savagery
What becomes a legend most? How are those cultural superstars chosen, the ones whose very names invoke awe, wonder, or at least a gasp? Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, the comprehensive retrospective of the late designer’s ravishing raiment now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art certainly p
Art
Oklahoma Art Is OK!
Ever since I moved to New York, I’ve been telling people that great contemporary art is coming out of my homestate of Oklahoma. Benrimon Contemporary in Chelsea is finally bringing some evidence to New York in the group show Red Country Pictures. The exhibit focuses on one particularly influential l
Art
A Perceptual Dance Party for Your Eyes
Abstraction is a fickle shapeshifter. Outlines of horses and bulls in caves and geometric markings on ceramic flatware were the earliest embodiment of the craft. Since then, abstraction has travelled through an unbelievable number of incarnations. James McCoy Gallery recently took on the challenge o
Art
Under Construction at Parker's Box
If contemporary art remains far too removed from daily life for some people, Briac Leprêtre's Like It Is exhibition at Parker's Box makes the case for exactly the opposite. On the walls of the Williamsburg gallery viewers encounter carefully constructed watercolors of unfinished domestic interiors a
Art
Surviving AIDS
The most visceral pieces in Brooklyn-based artist and activist Hunter Reynolds’ solo show Survival AIDS at Lower East Side nonprofit art space Participant Inc. are not, as one might expect, the blood splattered newspaper clippings screaming ominous headlines posted on the walls of the gallery. Rathe
Art
Has Werner Herzog Made the First Art Stoner Flick in 3D?
Director and filmmaker, Werner Herzog’s latest, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, is a strange mix of flighty pseudo-intellectual reverie and jaw-dropping documentary. Filmed in the famously inaccessible Chauvet Cave in southern France with 3-D enhancement, and sprinkled with the usual eccentric Hertzogian
Books
Digging Into Ai Weiwei's Online Diary
Reading through detained Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s blog, recently translated by Lee Ambrozy and published as an eponymous book by MIT Press, isn’t fun, and it’s not for the faint of heart. A carefully selected culling of the artist’s massive production of posts between 2006 and 2009, the volume is
Art
Watch: Ai Weiwei Documentarian Alison Klayman on Colbert Report
Director of Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry Alison Klayman hit the Colbert Report last night to talk about the Chinese artist's arrest and his current situation. Click through for the video clip.
Art
Seven Artists Meet Seven Technologists, But Who's Who?
Seven on Seven is an annual conference hosted by Rhizome and the New Museum that pairs seven artists together with seven technologists to collaborate on projects created in a 24-hour period. The event's second outing was last Saturday, May 14. The first question that came to my mind while attending
Books
Steve Martin Attempts to Skewer the Art World & Fails
You may know Steve Martin from being one of our time's defining comedians, actors and celebrity figures. But along with those first few titles, the man is also a renowned collector of contemporary art, as well as a novelist and a playwright. These pursuits could be called hobbies if they didn't requ