Posted inArt

Artists and NFL Quarterbacks: A Brief Guide

The 2014 Super Bowl, also known as Super Bowl XLVIII, will be held on Sunday, February 2 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. What’s that got to do with art? As it turns out, there are certain distinct parallels between the high-profile athletes who patrol the chalky gridiron and the art stars who exhibit in the chalky white enclaves that patrol the art world.

Posted inArt

Why Are We Revisiting the Times Square Show?

Thirty-two years after being labeled the “first radical art show of the ’80s,” the Times Square Show, a raucous and revolutionary DIY art exhibition held in an abandoned massage parlor on 41st Street and Seventh Avenue in the old dirty and devastated Times Square, has been revived by the Hunter College Art Galleries in the exhibition Times Square Show Revisited.

Posted inNews

Art or Animal Cruelty?

Indian artist Navin Thomas recently recieved a bunch of press for winning the SKODA prize for Indian contemporary art. Unfortunately his latest sound installation at Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi is garnering attention for an entirely different reason.

Posted inArt

1970s Flashback to the Birth of Alternatives

The current exhibition A Show About Colab and Related Activities at Printed Matter in Chelsea is a perfect example of the positivity that can result from discontent. First known as the Green Corporation and subsequently named Collaborative Projects, Inc. Colab was a loosely organized group of artists that functioned from the late 1970s through the early 1980s, serving as a platform, agency and collective for art making. The current exhibition consists of original artworks and ephemera (including meeting minutes, flyers, posters and publications) that document and sample from the slew of work produced under the organization’s moniker.

Posted inOpinion

Bay Area Hypocrisy: No Penance for Otterness, No Palestinian Art for Kids

The Bay Area is full of artistic hypocrisy this month. On one side of the San Francisco Bay, two commissions by artist Tom Otterness are on hold because of a tasteless art video he did in the 1970s, and on the other side of the same bay, a Palestinian children’s art show is cancelled because it pisses off a small faction of right-wing political activists.

Posted inNews

Tom Otterness Explains His Public Subway Art

Every wondered what the story was behind those bronze sculptures populating the 8th Ave/14th St ACE subway station? In this video, their creator, Tom Otterness, explains that he took the imagery for the sculptures from Gilded Age political cartoons. Too bad the artist is currently in some political hot water himself.

Posted inArt

The Alternative Holiday Gift Guide

You know you’re going to spend money this holiday season even if it’s only a gift or two for friends, family or that special someone. So, why not spending money in a way that supports emerging galleries, craftspeople, artists, charities, or quality small businesses that are trying to do something different.

Here is our short guide to some ideas for creative and affordable gifts.