Archive of Clara Olshansky

Clara has written 18 article(s) for AFC.

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Clara Olshansky

CALLING ALL WAFFLE-EATING ARTISTS!

by Clara Olshansky on August 22, 2013
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This Saturday morning, you can get a free Wafels & Dinges waffle in exchange for art! And their waffles can get expensive. I say, make a sculpture or statue. How awesome would it be to see a waffle truck decorated with tiny waffle trucks?

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9.5 Theses: Just a Little Radical

by Clara Olshansky on August 21, 2013
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9.5 Theses on Art and Class, by Ben Davis, editor of Artinfo, is both victim to and substantiated by Davis’s adamant worldview. Beginning with the Marxist-centric essays of the early chapters then expanding to more general issues facing the art world, the text saves itself from being an open-ended musing by framing each subject within its relationship to class ideology. This same ideology, however, leads him make some less than irrefutable claims.

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The Equinox: A Whole Much Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts

by Clara Olshansky on August 7, 2013
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As an installation, the components of Swedish-born artist Carol Bove’s exhibition at MoMA, The Equinox, practically vibrate together; as a set of sculptures, not so much. Currently, Bove’s more monumental sculptures are on view on the High Line; in contrast, her MoMA show features seven sculptures of varied scale, all arranged seemingly randomly on an elevated, white platform.

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Making a Memory: Califone’s New Tumblrflow Music Video

by Clara Olshansky on August 1, 2013
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Califone’s new Tumblr-generated music video, “Stitches,” created in collaboration with filmmaker Braden King and programmer Jeff Garneau and housed on Tumblr, is a computer-generated flow of selected photos and GIFs, different each time you watch it. It’s remarkably appropriate that “Stitches,” repeats, “Just stitch it together again, again, again,” given that the project forces the viewers to make connections between the images that seem to relate to neither each other nor the song.

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The New Museum: Goodbye Rose, Hello Ghost Ship

by Clara Olshansky on August 1, 2013
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The New Museum’s façade is due for a makeover. On August 31st, the museum will take down Isa Genzken’s “Rose II”; that sculpture will be replaced, come October 2nd, with two large-scale works by Chris Burden, “Ghost Ship,” a remotely controlled ship, and “Two Small Skyscrapers,” which call to mind the twin towers. The sculptures will be unveiled in conjunction with “Chris Burden: Extreme Measures”, the museum’s major fall exhibition, and, as part of the museum’s Façade Sculpture Program, they will remain up for one year. These “two iconic works on the exterior of the Museum, […] will alter the visual landscape of Lower Manhattan.” While calling the works “iconic” before the public has even seen them is a little premature, they at least sound haunting.

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The Web Petitions to Free Syrian Artist Youssef Abdelke

by Clara Olshansky on August 1, 2013
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Signatures are flying to free Youssef Abdelke, an imprisoned Syrian artist. Along with his wife’s private email petition, a Facebook campaign started by Arab and International Artists and Intellectuals has gained upwards of 1,200 supporters. Its mission: “We, Arab and International artists and intellectuals, call upon the Syrian authorities to free the internationally renowned Syrian artist Youssef Abdelke immediately. Our eyes remain open watching your attempts to suppress creative souls, until the day comes when you realize that art and creativity are enlightenment.”

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Artist Gives Detroit Crisco, “To Ease the Pain”

by Clara Olshansky on July 31, 2013
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Detroit artist Jerry Peterson, alias Jerry Vile, left a giant can of Crisco under the city’s giant iconic Joe Louis fist. Ha ha ha. By way of explanation, he left a note under the statue, saying, “Helping to EASE THE PAIN of Detroit’s Bankruptcy.” Straightforward enough, especially given Crisco’s popularity in ‘70s and ‘80s underground gay communities. Vile told the Detroit News, “It’s calling attention to the fact that (bankruptcy) is going to hurt.”

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Censoring the Voice Tunnel: 5 Questions with Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

by Clara Olshansky on July 31, 2013
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In a remarkable case of irony, the NYPD has attempted to censor an art installation about free speech. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s upcoming Park Avenue tunnel installation, Voice Tunnel is an open platform, allowing anyone to say whatever they want through an intercom that will translate the noise into waves of light and sound. The NYPD, however, wanted to include a 6-second delay, in case they needed to censor anything dangerous. They compromised: a monitor will stand by as people speak, and, in case of anything really incendiary, there is a button to delete the recording.

This is a uniquely appropriate issue for Lozano-Hemmer, whose work often concerns free speech and monitoring the public.

The artist talks with us about how he feels about the intervention, and what the censorship will look like.

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Student Presents Sculpture Onstage at Tonight’s RiFF RAFF Concert

by Clara Olshansky on July 29, 2013
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I kind of love this: Second year Cranbrook graduate student Tré Reising once made a 5-foot tall sculpture of Gucci Mane’s ice cream tattoo. He also gave Project Pat a large, fabric gun, which the rapper liked so much that he used it in his music video. Tonight, he strikes again. At an $18 RiFF RAFF concert at the Highline Ballroom, Reising will go present his RiFF RAFF sculpture (pictured above) to the rapper, on stage.

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Marina Abramovic to Build a Temple for Abramovicism

by Clara Olshansky on July 29, 2013
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Marina Abramovic is seeking funds for her new cult, The Marina Abramovic Institute. We’re not kidding. She’s seeking $600,000 on Kickstarter to finance whatever this thing is, and we’re afraid.

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