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Paddy Johnson and Corinna Kirsch
by Paddy Johnson and Corinna Kirsch on March 2, 2015
Good job, everyone. Woo! Art F City has been nominated for the “best blog” award by the International Association of Art Critics (AICA-USA).
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by Paddy Johnson and Corinna Kirsch on February 27, 2015
- Artists Jennifer Catron and Paul Outlaw compete on the Food Network’s competitive cooking show Chopped. It airs next week. [Food Network via Jen Catron]
- Weed the people have declared their opinions in Washington, D.C., where residents can now possess, transfer, or grow their own green stuff without getting in trouble with the law. Here’s a handy chart pointing out the finer details of what you can and can’t do. [WTOP]
- Islamic State militants took sledgehammers to the Mosul Museum in Iraq. The museum was first seized in June, when IS took over Mosul. Yesterday, the ISIS media office published a video showing the destruction of statues. In it, a man says, “The monuments that you can see behind me are but statues and idols of people from previous centuries, which they used to worship instead of God.” Iconoclasm it is. [The New York Times]
- I (Paddy) am outraged, outraged, at the inaccuracies in March’s Taurus art horoscope. According to the horoscope experts over at Hyperallergic I’m slated to give away house and home! [Hyperallergic]
- I (Corinna) am outraged, virulently outraged, at the inaccuracies in March’s Virgo art horoscope. I’m set to have a “trying month,” but I’ll pull through thanks to my friends and colleagues. March is going to suck for me! [Hyperallergic]
- Okay, who’s been following “the dress” fiasco? Some people see a dress colored white and gold, others see the dress as black and blue. The debate has steamrolled the internet—Buzzfeed announced yesterday that their post on the subject broke record traffic numbers on their site. What to make of the discord? Over here at the AFC offices we speculated that monitor calibration was the issue. (Last night I identified the dress color as blue and brown, a color combination nobody has debated, but today, on a different monitor, the dress looked white and gold.) Wired explains that the difference in perception has to do with the background color—your eye projects those colors on the dress. Then they printed the picture out. [Wired]
- The Hello Kitty Cafe and Restaurant has nearly all its food shaped or stamped with Hello Kitty’s face on it. That is all. [Google]
- According to the Artprice annual report, global art sales have increased by 300 percent over the last decade. [The Telegraph]
- One of the stranger interviews you’ll read: Ali Wong is a curator and Wong Kit Yi is an artist. They share the same body. This is an interview with both. [Asympote]
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by Paddy Johnson and Corinna Kirsch on February 26, 2015
In which Paddy and Corinna discuss the Triennial in thousands of words.
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by Paddy Johnson and Corinna Kirsch on February 26, 2015
Via: Freeze_de instagram. So good.
- Paddy Johnson on the New Museum Triennial: It’s good! [Artnet]
- Your new favorite Instagram, @freeze_de. For the ultimate art insider. [Instagram]
- For the first time ever, a history of dick pics in relationship to criminal photography. NSFW, obvi. [Rhizome]
- Say “hello” to Carla, a new contemporary art mag based online and offline. Carla is short for the full name of the publication, “Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles.” [Carla]
- Cindy Sherman in a mask. [Instagram]
- Islamic State is selling looted Syrian artifacts to London galleries. [The Washington Post]
- In 2017, the sci-fi future will have arrived. That’s when human head transplants will be possible, says one Dr. Sergio Canavero. Likely the cost of a transplant will be around $13 million. [Quartz]
- Which means that Mr. Burns will be able to afford one. [Simpsons Wiki]
- A protest banner in an Oscar Murillo was removed by a museum security guard. The Centro Cultural Daoiz y Velarde in Madrid took seven years to build and cost 13 million. That pissed some people off, thus the signs. Murillo decided to integrate that into his work. [Artnet]
- Felix Salmon takes a look at rising buying premiums at Sotheby’s. They’ve gone through the roof. [Fusion]
- Patrick Schumacher, director of Zaha Hadid Architects, wants to get rid of public funding for art schools. “Public funding for art, including public funding for art schools is an indefensible anachronism,” he writes on Facebook. “Schools of art are not justifiable by argument, because contemporary art is not justifiable by argument.” Schumacher does not go into defining what a ‘justifiable by argument’ for an academic course would be, so we can’t take his statements too seriously. [Dezeen]
- Brian Eno on digital music making tools and the question of whether every imperfect note should be retuned. [The Vinyl Factory]
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by Paddy Johnson and Corinna Kirsch on February 24, 2015
Shovel yourself out of the snow because this week will be full of reasons to thaw out your brain and soul.
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by Paddy Johnson and Corinna Kirsch on February 24, 2015
Slimey, one of the world’s many fictional worms.
- New rules for drones! [The Economist]
- Paddy Johnson will be moderating a panel at Volta on digital collecting called “Art in the Cloud” Saturday March 7, 2015 at 4:30 p.m. Panelists include art advisor and collector Stefan Simchowitz, collector David Diamond, independent art advisor, curator and collector Myriam Vanneschi and Transfer gallery founder Kelani Nichole. This conversation comes with its own trailer. [Artnet]
- Citizenfour is now on HBO Go. [HBO GO]
- Watch a crab get eaten by an octopus that literally leaps out of the water to eat its prey. The commentary is perfect. [YouTube]
- List of fictional worms. [Wikipedia]
- The New York Times Editorial Board has recently taken Governor Andrew Cuomo to task for failing to raise taxes needed to fund the MTA, and discussed the grave problems of air pollution in India. Yesterday, it took on the weather. The Board does not approve of winter. [The New York Times]
- “It’s like the tattoo thing—will I love it forever? Does it matter?” An art collector explains why getting tattoos is like building an art collection. [Art Practical]
- Our gadgets are getting smaller, but at the cost of shorter battery life. [Bloomberg via Alexis Madrigal]
- Here’s a question: What is Columbia University’s new sexual assault prevention requirement supposed to teach a student? From Jillian Steinhauer: “The language the school uses to describe it is a laughable hybrid of corporate-sounding mumbo-jumbo and touchy-feely vagueness; in the video, Columbia’s president says, ‘This is an opportunity to create art about the connection between sexual respect and membership in the Columbia University community,’ while others explain, ‘We invite you to express your thoughts and feelings about sexual respect — concepts like consent, relationships, boundaries.’” [Hyperallergic]
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by Paddy Johnson and Corinna Kirsch on February 23, 2015
- “HUGE Watercolor of Salmon and Matisse cut-outs.” [Craigslist]
- William Pope.L has mixed feelings about being on the cover of Artforum. [ARTnews via Hyperallergic]
- Freddy, an artist-run gallery that now has an auction up on Paddle8, has a short interview explaining the reasons behind the anonymity of its administrators. “The anonymity has more to do with how the project is intended to function on the Internet. It’s not about some kind of airtight identity foil—there are plenty of people who know exactly who I am—it’s about the desire to present a project where the identity of the curator is of less importance than the work itself.” BID. As of the time of this writing, there are only 5 hours left to support this great organization! [Paddle8]
- “We are no longer breeding cats. This website is for sale.” It’s a sad day when you try to buy a kitten online, but find that the site only exists to advertise a web domain. [kittens-forsale.com]
- Erin Lee Carr published a playlist of songs loved by her late father, David Carr. The sweet, melancholy playlist of indie rock and alt folk and country should be required listening for anyone who needs thawing out of any winter mess. [Spotify via @erinleecarr]
- Is the online market for art booming? Yes, if we go by the number of sites popping up to sell art. Artsper, the latest online marketplace for art, focuses on French galleries. [Spear’s]
- Investigations into Brazilian oil giant Petrobras has had an unexpected effect on museums. Cultural support from Petrobras has dwindled, leaving the country’s institutions in limbo. [Frieze, behind the paywall]
- Here’s the weirdest video you’ll watch all day. I haven’t finished watching all of Will Benedict and David Leonard’s “Toilets Not Temples” yet, but so far, I’m intrigued by this documentary about the globalization of food distribution—the emerging wine market in India, for instance—that blends sci-fi creepiness with cut-and-dry interviews. Includes naked people raining from the sky and a talking dolphin. [Vdrome]
- Artist Trevor Paglen, also the cinematographer for the Edward Snowden documentary Citizenfour, reacts to the film’s win for best documentary at last night’s Oscars. [Twitter]
- Celebrity-art blahblah: Hip-hop artist Chris Brown is also a graffiti artist of sorts. He spraypainted some luxury cars for Fine Art Auction Miami’s Urban Art Week, raising over $60,000. [Hot New Hip Hop]
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by Paddy Johnson and Corinna Kirsch on February 17, 2015
Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis on Fuck Yeah Yanis Varoufakis
- Do Artist Branding and Hollywood Talent Agency Deals Kill an Artist’s Soul? AFC’s Paddy Johnson doesn’t think so. [Artnet]
- Chicago-based, Cuban-born artist Alejandro Figueredo Díaz-Perera has been living behind a wall for three weeks, in quiet protest of his U.S.-Cuban policies. [Chicago Magazine]
- Márcia Oliani, 54, the finance manager of an art gallery who recently endured six days without water in her Sao Paolo apartment unleashes some crazy vitriol on the governor and the water utility company Sabesp. The city has been experiencing the worst drought they’ve had in the last century “I feel hatred, hatred of the governor and of Sabesp,” she said. “I’d like to take them out and set fire to them. They completely failed to warn us, and have just continued to lie about this throughout.” [The New York Times]
- City Desk Studio has been trying to sell the skyway they purchased in 2006 for $1.2 million since 2009. Having been unsuccessful, they are now offering $5000 to anyone who will purchase it. Greg Allen has devised a cheapo shipping option, which involves removing the skyway’s floor, but we think the permits required to get it on the barge he’s proposed might blow the budget. [Greg Allen]
- A new book of Abstract Expressionist painter Mark Rothko’s writings: The Artist’s Reality: Philosophies of Art. [A
mazon]
- Looks like we all need to move to Minneapolis. Some stats: “The Minneapolis–St. Paul metro area is richer by median household income than Pittsburgh or Salt Lake City (or New York, or Chicago, or Los Angeles). Among residents under 35, the Twin Cities place in the top 10 for highest college-graduation rate, highest median earnings, and lowest poverty rate, according to the most recent census figures.” Why is the city so successful? According to Myles Shaver, a professor at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, it’s because “its most important resource never leaves the city: educated managers of every level.” I guess that’s a resource more valuable than oil. [The Atlantic]
- Nothing even remotely to do with art, but you gotta read Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis in the Times opinion pages today. He talks uses game theory and Kant to explain his position on austerity and Greek’s current negotiation strategy. [The New York Times]
- And for those who want to know more about Yanis Varoufakis, an apparent heart throb in Greece, here’s the “Fuck Yeah Yanis Varoufakis” Tumblr, complete with duckfaces. [Fuck Yeah, Yanis Varoufakis]
- And for those who want to know more about the economics of the Greece financial crisis and how it relates to the history of World War I, there’s Paul Krugman hitting it out of the park. [The New York Times]
- 71-year-old artist David Hammons has announced he is opening a gallery in Yonkers, but little details are known. Here’s what Andrew Russeth found out about the gallery: “Hammons’s space, at 39 Lawrence Street, is a one-story brick building with tall ceilings, filling a lot that measures two-thirds of an acre, about 29,200 square feet. According to property records, an entity called Duchamp Realty LLC, which is registered to the artist’s home address in Brooklyn, bought it for $2.05 million in January 2014.” [ARTnews]
- Congratulations, again, to Pierre Huyghe for winning the 2015 Kurt Schwitters Award! Here’s AFC’s posts on the digital-conceptual-minimal artist. (“I do not own Tate Modern or the Death Star” remains one of Corinna’s all-time favorite works of art in neon.) [Artforum]
- “Show me some art with soft porn.” [Imgur]
- A letter from “Artists for Palestine” was published over this weekend in The Guardian. Over 700 art-worlders have decided to disengage with Israel in the cultural sphere. This means that invitations to any cultural centers with ties to the Israeli government will be declined. The 700 includes John Berger, Brian Eno, and Jeremy Deller. [The Guardian]
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by Paddy Johnson and Corinna Kirsch on February 16, 2015
- The Pratt Show has been canceled. The 30-year-old annual juried exhibition for graduating seniors was axed by administration. Pratt students and faculty have created a petition letter, for what’s being called the #bringbackprattshow campaign. [Change.org]
- An amazing Tumblr studying the appearance of algorithms in popular culture and everyday life. [#algopop]
- Find all your Modernist art needs in the latest eBay corner, “All About Yves.” Exhibition posters, prints, collectibles, even the 2012 limited-edition Yves Klein Euro (yes, this happened) are up for grabs. Ebay might come under fire for failing to vet its artworks. For $190,000.00, you can purchase a nude Yves Klein bust that comes with a “lifetime exchange certificate.” Just in case you change your mind. [eBay]
- A sign of the “haunted-house market, where a new scary event lurks around each corner”: Sotheby’s, the only publicly traded auction house, will not be paying a special dividend to shareholders until they find a new CEO. [Wall Street Journal]
- Over the years, so much has been written about the late Francesca Woodman that it seems nearly impossible to find a new approach to her work. Critic Paige K. Bradley did, however, in her write-up of the artist’s current show at Marian Goodman. Cheers to that. [Artforum]
- The Museum of Broken Relationships. [Collector’s Weekly]
- Pixelated hair is a trend. [Bored Panda]
- “The image used by Prince is not the first photograph of a Rastafarian to land the appropriation artist in legal trouble.” [Hyperallergic]
- Here are a few artists who are using ASCII and other techniques to publish art on Twitter. [The Atlantic]
- David Carr’s syllabus “Press Play.”<3. We’ll be spending a good chunk of our day pouring through articles we have yet to read. Essential reading for any journalist. [The Medium]
- SpongeBob: Most-photographed image from Mexico City’s Material Art Fair. [San Francisco Art Quarterly]
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by Paddy Johnson and Corinna Kirsch on February 5, 2015
AFC editors are not the only ones confused by coconut oil.
- One of life’s great questions, explained: Is coconut oil just for rubbing on your titties, or is it truly a superfood? [Shannon’s Kitchen]
- Walter Liedtke, who served as a curator in the European painting department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for more than 35 years, was amongst the five killed in the Metro-North crash yesterday. [The New York Times]
- Atlanta residents sure are jittery. After a driver mistook a pinhole camera made from soda can for a bomb—it was duct taped to the 14th Street bridge over interstates 75 and 85—the police department deployed a bomb squad and shut down the highway. “I felt bad for the student, because this was his art project,” the man who called in the bomb told local NBC affiliate 11 Alive. “I hope he at least got an A.” [Hyperallergic]
- The Broad Museum will open to the public on September 15, 2015, across the street from MOCA and . Funded by Eli and Edith Broad, and set to include works from their private collection. [The Broad]
- Pay your taxes. New York officials have subpoenaed several galleries and collectors for failure to pay state income tax. The last time the government cracked down on unpaid taxes on high-end art was in 2002. Suspicions abound that the publicity of high-dollar works at auction helped spur the investigation. [The New York Times]
- For reviews of little-known and out-of-print sci-fi paperbacks. [Hypercastle]
- Artist Tania Bruguera tells the Miami New Times that Cuban officials have been spying on her personal calls. She continues to be detained on the island. [Miami New Times]
- Add Scott McCloud’s The Sculptor to the very short list of graphic novels featuring an artist as the main character. From the sounds of it, the premise seems to be whether you’d give up your life for your art. Drama, drama, drama. [The Atlantic]
- If you can manage all of the pop-up ads, check out these horoscopes for horses. Eh, or not. [Equine Whispers]
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Paddy Johnson, Editorial Director