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Michael Anthony Farley and Rhett Jones
by Michael Anthony Farley and Rhett Jones on August 3, 2016
- Magnus, the app Magnus Resch named after himself and described as “Shazam for Art”, has been pulled from the Apple Store after claims that it operates using data stolen from other art databases. I’m sick of hearing about art apps that are “the ____ for art,” but this story merits attention because Resch sent a photo of himself with a donkey to Hyperallergic with his press release. At least that’s one JPEG we can likely assume he didn’t swipe from Artsy’s servers. [Hyperallergic]
- Professor Robert Ekelund has been studying what causes art museums to experience declines in visitors and revenue at a time when overall museum attendance is up. He finds that it comes down to three factors: audiences want more contemporary art, billionaires are buying up all of the contemporary art, and demographic/social shifts mean that more people are attending while museums are increasingly under pressure to provide free admission. [The Conversation]
- Two recent studies have found that people of color “make up only 9% of museum boards and 16% of the administrators, curators, conservators and educators who make decisions about what is exhibited and preserved as culturally important.” After a review of more than a 1,000 cultural institutions, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs is dedicating $1m to diversity efforts including an increase in paid internships. [The Art Newspaper]
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning pregnant women to stay away from Miami’s Wynwood Art District due to an outbreak of the Zika virus. Basel’s just four months away. [Jezebel]
- Those afraid of Zika in South Florida will soon have more indoor room to see art, though. Miami Beach’s Bass Museum has added 50% more exhibition space without an addition. They accomplished this by reconfiguring interior spaces (remember that huge ramp? It’s gone) and enclosing the terraces, so no more great outdoor parties for Basel week. [artnet News]
- Lisa Ruyter has begun the process of transitioning into a man. Ruyter started hormone therapy two weeks ago but he isn’t sure about future plans to undergo gender-reassignment surgery. [Page Six]
- The Rio Olympics don’t seem to be going very well and now funding has been pulled for a series of public art projects that were planned to coincide with the games. Giancarlo Neri, an artist who was to be included in the project says that the cancellation has more to do with politics than budget concerns. He says that the upcoming impeachment trial of President Dilma Rousseff has caused many projects to be stalled or cancelled completely. [artnet News]
- Yuri Pattison has transformed the Chisenhale Gallery in London into an eerie, abandoned co-working space for some hypothetical tech startup that may or may not have gone out of business. The installation sounds uncanny and brilliantly evocative considering how little intervention there seems to be beyond creating a simulacrum of an office. [The Guardian]
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by Michael Anthony Farley and Rhett Jones on July 19, 2016
Ayanda Mabulu’s extremely-NSFW painting of South African president Jacob Zuma… which we have censored with a Pokemon.
- While giving her speech at the Republican National Convention last night, Melania Trump plagiarized an entire paragraph from Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic Convention speech. The campaign just straight up denies this happened. It’s insane. [CNN]
- Resource for artists and professionals: Clarion List has links to things you need often like framers and things that are extremely specialised like art risk consultants. [Clarion List]
- Parviz Tanavoli, the Iranian pop artist who was mysteriously detained earlier this month has had his passport returned to him and he is free to travel. He promptly left Tehran for Vancouver. [The Art Newspaper]
- Wow, two days in a row we get something dumb from Jonathan Jones, what are the odds? Today, he enlightens everyone on the topic of “artwashing.” It’s a tough subject that Jones breaks down for you like this, “There is such a thing as civilisation – and it has a way of looking a bit like “gentrification.” Yes, low-income neighborhoods are uncivilized. This makes art look bad. [The Guardian]
- The Prado’s Hieronymus Bosch exhibition marks one of the only times in the past five centuries that this many of the artist’s works are together in one place. Insane. [New York Post]
- “When I see Ayanda Mabulu, I am going to wrap my fingers around his neck and throttle him.” -Edward Zuma, son of South African president Jacob Zuma on a painter who has criticised the administration. [News24]
- 17 buildings by Le Corbusier have been designated world heritage sites by UNESCO, including the the National Museum of Western Art, in Tokyo and the Unité d’habitation in Marseille. [Curbed]
- Mladen Stilinović, the Croatian conceptual artist whose contributions to the tiny country’s contemporary art scene helped put it on the map, has passed away at 69. [artnet News]
- The de Blasio administration has tapped Toronto’s Adam Giambrone as the new Brooklyn-Queens “Streetcar Czar”. Let’s hope Giambrone has learned what makes streetcars suck so much from Toronto’s example: trains don’t do well in mixed traffic. Seriously, every time a car double parks or hits a train the whole damn system gets held up. Why do people keep talking about streetcars like they’re the technology of the future? They made sense in the Victorian era when they didn’t have to share the road with someone’s Hummer. If this idea is going to be remotely usable in New York, they’re going to have to close the streets and give this baby signal prioritization. [Curbed]
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by Michael Anthony Farley and Rhett Jones on July 8, 2016
- Hot times, summer in the city. Due to an air-conditioner outage and temperatures expected to be in the nineties, the Brooklyn Museum will be closed this weekend. [New York Times]
- Eric Shiner, the director of the Warhol Museum, will be leaving to join Sotheby’s. He has held the position since 2011 and will now be Senior Vice President of the new Division of Fine Art. [Artforum]
- Frieze is getting shorter next year. Organizers say that the 2017 edition will only be four days rather than the usual five in order to reduce the burden on galleries. Ben Davis reports on the various factors going into the decision. [artnet News]
- Jeffrey Deitch has officially announced his plans for reopening the 18 Wooster St. location that was previously home to Deitch Projects. The new/old space will kick off with a series of performances by Eddie Peake that will run September 8-10th and it will not be running on a standard gallery model of representing artists. Despite the very public and acrimonious conflicts that were part of his time as head of the LACMA, Deitch says, “I rented the Wooster Street gallery to the Swiss Institute for five years, and figured that would cover my journey to Los Angeles. I always intended to come back.” [The Art Newspaper]
- In advance of its official 2020 opening date, The Main Museum of Los Angeles is offering public programming through “Beta Main”, a sort of preview of what to expect when the new institution opens in its official digs. [Los Angeles Times]
- The Second Avenue Subway’s 86th Street station is going to feature huge mosaics by Chuck Close. This is good news if you’re a Chuck Close fan, I guess. [Curbed]
- Fairphone—the Dutch phone manufacturing startup that hopes to make the electronics industry less evil—is getting attention even from The Wall Street Journal, print bastion of capitalism. [The Wall Street Journal]
- The Guggenheim’s exhibition Åzone Futures Market is essentially an exchange for a new cryptocurrency developed collaboratively. Even after reading this twice, I’m still not sure what this means. Is the message behind all these artist forays into financial markets that no currency makes sense and the economy is totally arbitrary? [Hyperallergic]
- Memes generated by an AI are the best memes. Meet Shitpostbot 5000, the internet’s least self-aware content generator. [Geek.com]
- Brooklyn’s Trestle Gallery is seeking a new Curator in Residency. [Trestle]
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