Archive of Paddy Johnson

Paddy Johnson is the founding editor of Art Fag City. In addition to her work on the blog, she has been published in New York Magazine, artreview.com, Art in America, The Daily, Print Magazine, Time Out NY, The Reeler, The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, and New York Press, and linked to by publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Boing-Boing, The New York Observer, Gawker, Design Observer, Make Magazine, The Awl, Artinfo, and we-make-money-not-art. Paddy lectures widely about art and the Internet at venues including Yale University, Parsons, Rutgers, South by Southwest, and the Whitney Independent Study Program. In 2008, she became the first blogger to earn a Creative Capital Arts Writers grant from the Creative Capital Foundation. Paddy is also the art editor at The L Magazine, where she writes a regular column..

Paddy has written 4753 article(s) for AFC.

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Art Fag City

The Art Fag City Rob Pruitt Art Award* Nominees (Mostly) Announced!

by Art Fag City on February 6, 2012
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Find out what it’s like to be an Art Fag. We spend our days talking about our favorite genitals in the art world, and we want you to do the same! In that spirit, we’ve left one name blank for each Art Fag City Rob Pruitt Award, and we’re inviting our readers to nominate the final entrant. The final winner will be decided by our esteemed panel of judges, William Powhida, Jen Dalton, and Anton Vidokle, and announced at the inaugural Art Fag City Rob Pruitt Art Awards and Auction* this February 23rd.

Today, we release the names we came up with. Let us know what we got right, and let us know what we got wrong. We’ll be sending out nominating instructions for the Reader’s Choice nominees to our mailing list this Friday, so don’t risk missing it – sign up for the mailer today.

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Madonna Is World Leader and Tumblr Needs Writers

by Art Fag City on February 6, 2012

  • Discussions over defense cuts have been significantly eased after Madonna’s sudden announcement of world peace at Superbowl XLVI. She’s done it. It’s over. [YouTube]
  • Following the sudden suicide of Mike Kelley, a memorial to the artist has appeared, spontaneously, at Tipton Way in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. Replicas of the installations “Wages of Sin” and “More Love Hours” poignantly testify to the reach of Kelley’s influence among working artists and non-famous fans. [LA Weekly]
  • A student-led organization “Rags Over the Arkansas River” is still working to shut down a Christo project that would involve suspending large swaths of cloth over the river for 42 miles. Who would’ve thought that contemporary land artists and environmental activists would still find something to disagree about? [Reuters]
  • With 42 million Tumblrs in operation, the mini-blogging site has the population of Mexico City, Chicago, Bangkok, and Santiago, Chile combined. Like any big city, they deserve a local paper, and now they’re hiring writers and editors to build one. [NYT]
  • Meow! Nap! Hiss! Kill a mouse! Turn into a dog! These are all things you can do in ChatChat, a new low-tech MMO game where you get to be a cat. We have a feeling this one might cat-ch on. [Kongregate]
  • The denim-shirt-under-sport-coat look has been buried somewhere under a rock in the 1990s – until now. This look has been making the rounds at the Italian fashion shows – watch out for this look at the Armory. [Mister Mort]
  • News flash: unpaid internships are a grossly inequitable feature of the American labor system. Says one commenter: “Unpaid internships are good training. They prepare students for the lifetime of exploitation they face in the future. (Assuming they can get and keep a job.)” [NYT]
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February Preview: Everyone’s a VIP

by Art Fag City on February 3, 2012
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February: a month of multiple things happening, both here and in other places, often at the same time. Which things should you watch occur, and where and when will they occur? We know. Only we know. Enjoy.

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Killer Birds, Too Many Hipsters, and Other Annoying Things

by Art Fag City on February 1, 2012

  • How do three museums share a single artwork? The Israel Museum, Pompidou, and the Tate are splitting the costs for Christian Marclay’s The Clock. [Art Market Monitor]
  • West coast hipsters are annoying. They wear blue lipstick and orange spray-tan. [PaperMag]
  • Julia Halperin’s discussion of how the Prince v. Cariou case has affected artists’s decisions about appropriation and reuse should be required reading for anyone dealing with the “‘borrow and be borrowed’ culture of the Internet.” [Artinfo]
  • Chelsea gallery D’Amelio Terras sent out an industry-wide press release yesterday announcing that the gallery has shut its doors. [Art&Education]
  • Birds are not cute. Here’s some ferocious sky predators fighting, culminating in a 20-second continuous shot of birds in freefall aerial combat. [YouTube]
  • Around the office, we’ve been debating the hipster turn to donuts – goodbye, cupcakes! Food critic Pete Wells wrote a brilliant review of a new donut joint and regardless of your opinion on hipster donuts, this is a solid piece of writing. [The New York Times]
  • Susan G. Komen for the Cure, i.e. the pink ribbon foundation, has suddenly eliminated all funding to Planned Parenthood for performing that oh-so-controversial medical procedure – the breast exam. [NPR] People are getting furious. This thread on MetaFilter lists a ton of corporations who fund Komen; go bug them on Twitter. [MetaFilter]
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Monday Links: Beer Buys Friends and Butts Are Back

by Art Fag City on January 16, 2012

  • It's amazing what buying people over $100,000 worth of beer will do to an artist's career. Cyprien Gaillard, who won the Nationalgalerie's €50,000 prize back in September, has now won the People's Choice award for the same exhibition. [Artinfo]
  • We just found this YouTube video of Julian Schnabel giving advice and his words of wisdom seemto reflect the arc of this artist’s career. Sample advice: “If you win, you win, and if you lose, you win.”
  • SOPA's dead; it's not dead. Facing a presidential veto, the bill may be over, but this isn't stopping fears over PIPA. No word yet about how this will affect the Emergency NY Tech Meetup this Wednesday, January 18th. We’re planning on attending. [BoingBoing]
  • Everyone’s thinking about big butts. [Gawker]
  • Damien Hirst is now a lifestyle brand. At least, the Gagosian shop is betting on it. You can now buy official dot-inspired keychains, cufflinks, tea towels, and wall clocks. [Gagosian]
  • Picasso was trumped as 2011's top-earner at auction by a Chinese artist you've probably never heard of before. [The Huffington Post]
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To-Dos: Rashid Johnson’s Opening at Hauser and Wirth This Wednesday

by Art Fag City on January 9, 2012
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A few Art Fag City friends have excitedly dropped “RUMBLE,” this week, the show of 34 year old Rashid Johnson, opening this Wednesday at Hauser & Wirth. We’re interested too, and for all the reasons you might expect. Since expanding their operations in London and Zurich to New York the gallery has have safely occupied a 69th brownstone, an area of town that seldom showcases the work of young artists. Unsurprisingly, the gallery itself bases a large portion of their business on well-established or downright famous artists at least a generation older than Johnson.

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Friday Links! All We See Is Crime in the City

by Art Fag City on December 23, 2011
  • Do the phrases “SVA student” and “crime-fighting” sound like they belong in the same sentence? They should. Levent Cetiner, a young Chelsean had placed a a camera outside his apartment as part of an art project. He was at his computer a few blocks away on Wednesday night when he received an email with images of a burglar trying to make off with thousands of dollars worth of electronics from his home. The burglar was caught and Cetiner got all his gear back. It sounds so badass, now all Cetiner probably needs is a riot shield to hold back the ladies. [CBS]
  • This year, Hennessey Youngman proved that you really can’t explain Post-structuralism or Relational Aesthetics without dropping the F-bomb. In an interview with Jennifer Sullivan posted yesterday, he attributes his rising star quality to Art Fag City love. It’s true we were out there pretty early on this one, but credit where credit is due: Slacktory‘s meme genius Nick Douglas was our source on this one. [Vimeo]
  • This week, we saw some disquieting indications of an “epidemic” of metal sculpture thefts in the UK. The loss of Barbara Hepworth’s “Two Forms (Divided Circle)” was likened to the loss of a two-ton Henry Moore sculpture from a few years back. In North Yorkshire, a metal rhinoceros was taken from a college in North Yorkshire. All three are likely to be sold for scrap as metal prices continue to rise. Time to police your lawns people. [Daily Mail]
  • Congress is entertaining a droite de suite bill that would give artists a percentage of the resale of their work in large auction houses, and nobody seems to think it’s a good idea. Dealers say it will discourage trading, and Freakonomists say it will lower the prices on the initial buy, adversely affecting the careers of artists who are just getting started. [Guardian]
  • Mr. Brainwash won’t leave us alone. His new exhibition on La Brea Ave resembles a county fair but without the cows, funnel cake, or enjoyment. Explaining the project, the artist told reporters that, “It’s not about selling art, it’s about putting on a show….If I can inspire just one person to follow his dreams, then I will be happy.” Who knew an artist could sound so much like Jessica Simpson? [Culture Monster]
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Friday Links: Anti-Artist Anti-Design Edition

by Art Fag City on December 9, 2011
  • The Guardian’s article on the German art giant Anselm Kiefer is not without its gems. His solo exhibition at White Cube gallery in London opens today. “Damien Hirst is a great anti-artist. To go to Sotheby’s and sell your paintings directly is destroying art. But in doing it to such an exaggerated extent, it becomes art.” [The Guardian]
  • Shock waves continue to spread in the trial in Germany of Wolfgang Beltracchi, whose crew fabricated no less than fifty three works of art, including pieces by Fernand Leger, Max Ernst, and Georges Braque. Gallerist James Roundell is “sure there will be more wreckage washed up on the shore before we see the end of this.” [The Art Newspaper]
  • No fewer than three New York institutions are celebrating the centennial of Romare Bearden this year with exhibitions of his work. Holland Cotter writes about the collagist’s generosity both in and out of his studio: “He paid dues of a kind all but unthinkable to artists coming out of art school today.” [NYT]
  • Footprints? Handprints? Hover craft landing gear? Archaeologists are still stumped about the origins of a set of deltoid indentations found in the limestone floor of a building in Jerusalem’s Old City. “The markings are very strange, and very intriguing. I’ve never seen anything like them.” says Eli Shukron of Israel’s Antiquities Authority.  [Art Daily]
  • The Euro will turn ten come January. Some of us have see the currency’s sterile design as a symbol of the EU’s static dysfunction. The metaphor was visible ten years ago to French economist André Orléan: “Look at the symbolism: bridges and imaginary windows. The euro isn’t anchored in the past, it’s virtual, it doesn’t correspond to any reality.” [The Guardian]
  • For Andrew Russeth, the curatorship behind “American Exuberance” at the Rubell Collection is a reflection of how the today’s collectors are currently operating: fallibly. “Of course, if the show's title recalls one thing, it is former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan's description of the wild, speculative acquisition of Internet stocks at the end of the 1990s: ‘irrational exuberance.’ Maybe the Rubells are onto something after all.” [Gallerist]
  • Fans of Twitter-er @ElBloombito rejoice as the winner of the Village Voice’s Web Award receives a congratulations from Mayor Bloomberg. Please don’t ask us what this has to do with art. We’re just really psyched for the guy. [Runnin Scared]
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NADA: The Slideshow

by Art Fag City on December 2, 2011
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NADA is fantastic this year, with strong galleries, strong work, and strong sales. We only made it through half of the fair yesterday, and we’ll be going back today, but in the meantime you can see some of our favorite booths so far in the gallery below.

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