Archive of Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley

Paddy has written 203 article(s) for AFC.

Posts by author:

Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley

Tuesday Links: Draw Sean Spicer Like One of Your French Girls

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on June 27, 2017

Sean Spicer

In Los Angeles, the battle between Chicano anti-gentrification activists and gallerists in Boyle Heights continues to escalate. Maybe they should just team up to fight for something like New York’s proposed Small Business Jobs Survival Act together? [NPR]
CNN hires veteran sketch artist William J. Hennessy Jr. to record press briefings now that cameras are no longer allowed. They should hire Molly Crabapple to do some work for them too. [artnet News]
Talking Pictures opens today at the Met. For the exhibition, curators asked six pairs of artists to communicate with one another by sending photos from their smartphones back and forth. The show comprises records of that exchange in various formats. It seems kinda silly. [The Verge]
Sarah Douglas at ARTnews offers a recent history of gallery closings. The list does a good job at providing an overview of what’s happening in the industry and refutes the gallerist argument that these closures simply reflect the fact that there are too many galleries in operation. It’s not like these were bad galleries that didn’t make it because they were bad at the game, somehow. These were great galleries and businesses, often in operation for more than a decade, that should have been able to make it work. The business for lower tier galleries may not be sustainable. [ARTnews]
A lot of Alexander Calder’s sculptures and mobiles are meant to move, so they need to handled to make that happen. As such, The Whitney has hired “activators” for its new Calder show and the Times has a new feature showing them in motion. SO. COOL. [The New York Times]
Curbed provides an exhaustive account of just why Penn Station sucks so much and why this is going to be the “Summer of Hell” for commuters passing through. [Curbed]
Tarot card reader Maria Pilar Abel Martínez claims Salvador Dalí is her father and has taken the estate to court to prove it. No big deal except the court, siding with Martinez, ordered Dali’s dead body exhumed so a paternity test could be administered. If she is proven to be the heiress she would be entitled to a portion of the estate. The estate is expected to appeal. [Hyperallergic]
Rea McManara wrote about Alison S. M. Kobayashi’s detective work and performance when it debuted in Toronto last year. Now, it’s all the rage in New York. In fact, from the recordings she based her work on, the only brother still alive, Larry Newburge, gets choked-up when discussing it with the Times. It sounds like a great, great piece. [The New York Times]
Magazzino, or “warehouse” in Italian, has joined the ranks of museums in the Hudson River Valley. It’s the brainchild of collectors Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu, and will showcase works from their collection of Arte Povera works from postwar Italy. [The Art Newspaper]

Read the full article →

Monday Links: George W. Bush Doesn’t Need to be in the Next Whitney Biennial

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on June 26, 2017

“We did a test with stuntmen and it was so fake. I spoke to a director who told me that I’d never be able to replicate an assault with a stuntman—and I’d never want to. There’s the argument: “How is it real violence if it’s not a real person?” It’s real violence because I was applying real physical violence to the figure, despite it being made up of animated components. I wasn’t really interested in VR, but I was interested in taking a medium with a basis in interactivity and reducing its interactivity. I was interested in the mundane violence we see and the difference between seeing an ISIS video and watching a Quentin Tarantino film.”—artist Jordan Wolfson on “Real Violence,” his #VR artwork depicting an assault shown in the recent #WhitneyBiennial. Wolfson joined @rhizomedotorg curator Aria Dean (@lol_prosciutto) in conversation tonight as part of First Look, a digital art commissioning and exhibition program.

A post shared by New Museum (@newmuseum) on Jun 15, 2017 at 6:14pm PDT

The Times has another story about how gallery closures for small to mid-sized dealers are growing. Reporter Robin Pogrebin lists a number of recent closures—missing Envoy Enterprises, which closed last week, incorrectly citing Team gallery’s closing (they closed only one space), and lumping Andrea Rosen, a huge gallery, into the mix of “mid-sized” galleries. Still, there are a lot of illuminating facts and quotes in this piece. Anchoring the article is a study that found while middle-tier galleries saw their sales decline last year year, the largest outfits saw growth. Glenn McMillan of CRG noted that there are far fewer people visiting galleries thanks to social media and fairs. CRG closed this year after 25 years of operation. [The New York Times]

Libyan artist Takwa Barnosa couldn’t go abroad for art school, and schools in Libya didn’t offer the kind of education she wanted. So she used the money her family had saved for college to launch her own art foundation at the age of 17. [Deutsche Welle]

The Albright Knox is set to more than double its current space under the new expansion plan. The new plans take the museum underground by converting its parking lot into an underground gallery and creating a two-level parking garage. (It can not expand into the surrounding park.) The plan responds to the possibility that self-driving cars may lessen the need for parking – the new parking lot is being built so it can easily be converted into additional gallery space. [artnet News]

Susanne Klatten, the wealthiest woman in Germany, has opened a museum focusing on artwork inspired by nature in Bavaria. [artnet News]

Artist Ryder Ripps loses his patience with Hyperallergic’s lefty coverage and pens a long rant on Instagram over a piece that covered a debate with Jordan Wolfson and New Museum audience members over the politics of white on white violence. He sees it as click bait that stirs discontent for ad dollars in the model of the Huffington Post. He has a point. I too get tired of reading about identity politics and the constant positioning of privilege—as if identifying and quantifying it constitutes useful work. Wolfson’s art has nothing to do with race so the New Museum discussion seemed like it might be the result of a larger national conversation that has been dominating headlines, rather than something that is inherent in the work. [Instagram]

More praise for George W. Bush’s paintings. James Gardner goes so far as to suggest the former president be included in the next Whitney Biennial. We live in strange times. [The Weekly Standard]

Francois Pinault, the French billionaire who owns Christie’s and numerous luxury brands, is opening a museum near the Louvre and Centre Pompidou to showcase his enormous collection of modern and contemporary art. [rfi]

Rashid Johnson has opened a show at the Milwaukee Art Museum of large-scale works. [Milwaukee Independent]

You can now pay $25 for a tour of galleries in Bushwick, “the city’s newest, hippest art area.” [Broadway World]

This is really too bad: Julia Joern, a partner at David Zwirner and their communications lead, has resigned from her position due to health reasons. As someone who has spent years corresponding with Joern and her team, I can personally attest to what a loss this is. Joern was fantastic at her job and was in it for the right reasons—the art. It’s very sad to see her leave the position. She will be missed, not just by her colleagues at Zwirner, but everyone she touched in the process of her work—a league of publishers, scholars and writers. [ARTnews]

Read the full article →

Wednesday Links: Museum Staff Resign En Masse, Right-Wing Street Artist Trolls LA

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on June 21, 2017

More twists in the case of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist: Arthur Brand, an art advisor who works to recover lost artwork, claims that the paintings may be in the hands of former IRA members. This really is turning out to be a better drama than The Crying Game. [Daily Mail]
Kenny Schachter reports on Art Basel. These are great for an insidery look at the fairs. Still, I find them hard to get through. They’re as gossipy as a juicy Linda Yablonsky column, but often assume you know or care more than a reader does. I’m also not sure I care whether Schachter managed to secure a commission for a sale, what fairs he normally goes to and which ones he skips and who’s in a bad mood because they had to stay at the Radisson. I once stayed in a mobile home parked outside a prison and managed get through the Basel fair without complaining or a shower. [artnet News]
Wow. Nearly half the staff at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art have resigned. They alleged an abusive working environment with long hours and little pay. The museum remains open, despite the HR losses. [The New York Times]
The entirety of the United Kingdom’s public sculptures will be made available online by 2020. That’s 170,000 sculptures! [The Art Newspaper]
Following a $60 million renovation, Mass MoCA is now the largest contemporary art museum in the United States. Here’s a peek at what they’re doing with the space. It’s mostly really, really monumental artworks from A-listers. [Wired]
A timeline of the MTA’s complete meltdown in 2017 annotated with passenger tweets and instagrams. There are some nice moments here, though. I especially liked graduate student who missed his graduation ceremony due to extensive delays and the New Yorkers who threw him a mock ceremony while they waited for the train to proceed. It included an exchange of cell phones as a standin for the diploma and a cell phone picture of the student having graduated. [Curbed]
Meanwhile, Governor Andrew Cuomo who controls the subways is pretending he doesn’t. I was going to say that even the famously conservative daily, The New York Post is having none of this, but I forgot Cuomo is a democrat. The MTA board meeting starts at 10 am today and is being live streamed. Watch it if you dare (expect a lot of really boring speeches). [Gothamist]
The country is blighted by massive dead shopping malls, and more are emptying out every year. LA Times asked readers to weigh in on what to do with them. One suggestion was affordable live/work space for artists. That’s such a cool idea. [Los Angeles Times]
Anish Kapoor’s latest installation, “Destierro”, at Parque de la Memoria in Buenos Aires is intended to speak to the refugee crisis and the idea of borders. I’m not sold on how clear that concept translates—it’s a room full of brightly colored earth and a blue bulldozer. [Dezeen]
Allison Meier reports on the Library of Congress’s exhibition “Drawing Justice: The Art of Courtroom Illustration”. It includes an extensive online component which can be seen here. [Hyperallergic]
“Republicans are the new punk,” says Sabo, a right-wing street artist who has been trolling LA with posters of Trump, among other gimmicks. Unsurprisingly, he seems like a tool. [The Guardian]

Read the full article →

Wednesday Links: Tonya Harding Still Muse for Artists

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on June 14, 2017

Animal rights activists in Athens smashed windows and threw paint on the studio of Aboubakar Fofana, whose Documenta 14 piece comprises 54 sheep dyed different shades of indigo. The dye is apparently nontoxic, so I’m not sure what the problem here is. If I were a sheep, I’d be happier being a piece of living artwork rather than mutton. [The Art Newspaper]
So, this is a job that exists: “Art curator for a cannabis company”. Meet Burgandy Viscosi, who picks the artwork for different strains of pot for a Washington marijuana company. [Leafly]
Daniel H. Weiss will take the helm at the Met as its president and chief executive. He takes over for Thomas P. Campbell, who was forced out of the position of chief executive and director due to the financial mismanagement and conflict of interest scandals that plagued his leadership. Weiss, will help find a director, as, unlike Campbell, he will not be overseeing both the artistic and financial direction of the museum. Much a do has been made about this, but the idea that any person can effectively fill both positions is misguided at best imo. This is a step in the right direction. [The New York Times]
Not to do with art, but the Gwyneth Paltrow Goop summit sure seems to reveal that line of product as being a total and utter sham (if the jade eggs you’re supposed to insert in your vagina weren’t enough evidence on their own.) Lectures included a talk on “integrative photosynthesis,” “spiritual Wi-Fi,” “laterality to the body,” “neuro-vegetative signs” and “the ontological experience called your life.”, a panel discussion about gut in which panelists claimed that that kale, superfood of the millennium, can be extremely dangerous; that taking one Advil or Aleve “is like swallowing a hand grenade” and that cancer does not exist among wild animals. It seems ever talk was punctuated with opportunities for guests to go buy vastly overpriced Goop products at the IRL store set up for the summit. [The New York Post]
From documentaries and musical theater to art collections, Tonya Harding has become an unlikely muse for the arts in the decades following her 1994 violent feud with fellow figure skater Nancy Kerrigan. Erik Piepenburg considers why. [The New York Times]
The Riga Biennial (how many biennials does the world need?) is hiring a Curator of Public Programmes for their 2018 edition. Applications are due on the 24th. [e-flux]
There are $89 million worth of Basquiats on view at this year’s Art Basel. artnet News has a roundup of the works. It kinda seems like only two of these are really good? [artnet News]
We’ve never heard of UNDO Project Space in Chelsea, but John Ortved is RAVING about Alison S.M. Kobayashi’s Say Something Bunny, a performance based on an amateur audio recording made over 60 years ago that’s part detective story, part monologue, part tragicomedy. That’s not too dissimilar to our own Rea McNamara, who last year lauded the performance. [Vogue]
Adam Rogers’ tempered criticism of Norman Foster’s new Apple campus in Cupertino is a good read. Basically, it’s a building out of 1950s corporate suburban sprawl that reinforces some of the Bay Area’s biggest problems. [Wired]

Read the full article →

Thursday Links: All Eyes on Comey

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on June 8, 2017

A post shared by Sharon Needles (@sharonneedlespgh) on Jun 6, 2017 at 9:57am PDT

Yep. Sharon Needles has recreated the infamous decapitated Trump Kathy Griffin photo. This is so much better than watching celebrities try to out-do each other with the ice bucket challenge. Here are our thoughts about how the “original” wasn’t very. [Instagram]

Speaking of stupid Trump-related art controversies, the hardworking journalists at FOX News have caused an upstate high schooler’s art project to be censored. A student at Shenendehowa High School invited classmates to write on black and white headshots of the president. Of course, those statements largely comprised profanities. Ever desperate for clickbait to feed the endless moral outrage machine, FOX News somehow caught wind of this nontroversy and decided to pursue it as a “story”. The school ended up taking the project down. We live in strange, dumb times. [Times Union]

Here’s some promising news out of California. In the wake of the Ghost Ship fire, state lawmakers are debating ways to guarantee safe affordable live/work spaces for artists. The proposed SB 305 would even allocate $20 million to help fix-up artists lofts. [KQED]
Former head of the FBI James Comey testifying now! [The Internet]
The Souls Grown Deep Foundation is helping museums integrate art by self-taught African American artists from the South into their collections. The foundation was established by art historian William Arnett and his sons, and once they have dispersed their own collection to institutions, will focus on education and other artist support initiatives. [The Art Newspaper]
Chinese artist and political dissident Ai Weiwei, in collaboration with architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron has an installation up at the Park Armory that uses infrared recordings, face recognition software, and a small fleet of hovering drones. It sounds creepy. [New York Daily News]
Katie Hollander resigns from her position as Executive Director at Creative Time after only one year in the position. We can’t say we’re surprised. Hollander is a contentious figure in the non-profit world and her leadership style has often quietly raised eyebrows. [artnet News]

Read the full article →

Monday Links: Punk Rock—Queers Steal Roger Bernat Stone from Documenta 14

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on June 5, 2017

The Athens activist group Lgbtqi+ Refugees in Greece has stolen a Roger Bernat sculpture that was destined for a performance in Kassel as part of Documenta 14. They accuse the German arts festival of exploiting the refugee crisis on somewhat shaky grounds that I have a hard time following. Mostly, it seems like a publicity stunt. To that end, good job! It’s the most glamorous art heist photo we’ve seen in awhile. [Hyperallergic]
Another art fair has left the Hamptons. Art Southhampton has cancelled its 2017 edition, following Art Hamptons’ February announcement that their fair was suspended. The organizers (who also own Art Miami) cite market conditions and pressure to focus on other art fairs. Good. The world does not need multiple art fairs every month. [The New York Times]
Evidence to support that opinion would include cringe-inducing headlines such as this: “Puerto Rico’s New MECA Art Fair Opens in a Debt-Ridden Island Paradise”. [ARTnews]
The Johannesburg Art Gallery, one of Africa’s premier art institutions, is facing a crisis. The local government has finally earmarked funds to repair the historic structure (suffering from leaks due to someone literally stealing part of the roof and general lack of maintenance) but it sounds like the Gallery has larger problems. What’s the identity or audience of a colonial-era institution in a context of white flight and an increasingly migrant-based population? [Seattle Times]
Ian Schrager (of Studio 54 and design-minded hotel fame) thinks One World Trade Center is “a missed opportunity”. With the politics involved, it’s hard to imagine how any truly inspired architecture could’ve happened at the site. Luckily for him, his own view of the tower has been blocked by a much better skyscraper from Herzog & de Meuron. [Dezeen]
Residents of Trump Palace, an Upper East Side condo building, are starting a petition to rename the building. Basically, no one wants to buy their units and they’re depreciating in value due to associations with the president. Residents of several other Trump-branded properties have already gotten his name scrubbed. [Curbed]
This interview with Markus Lüpertz is a good read. The painter talks about Germany’s postwar art scene, his colorful personal life, and the role of an artist in society. His perspective about the politics of artmaking is interesting, even if we don’t 100% agree. Lüpertz argues that artists have no political or social responsibilities, and that good art makes the world an inherently more peaceful and compassionate place. [artnet News]
Can we stop putting Kathy Griffin and Bill Maher in the same category of comedian jokes gone wrong. Maher told a racist joke and was rightly criticized for it. Griffin posed for a photo and was harassed online relentlessly by the right wing media (and some from the left.) [Hollywood Reporter]
Here’s a juicy local news bit. Mark Lyons, a parking director in Sarasota, may have steered a $100,000 public art commission to his son-in-law, artist Mark Krucke. Now the city is considering cancelling the public art program in general to avoid a lawsuit. According to the news report, the Public Art Committee had no knowledge of Krucke’s relationship to the parking director and awarded the project to the artist on its merits. However, when the committee became deadlocked over a decision between two candidates, Lyons told the committee that the proposal of Krucke’s competitor was too logistically challenging without revealing his relationship to Krucke. He thus tipped the jury. [Herald Tribune]
The Bronx is getting more affordable housing. Sav Enterprises filed plans to construct a 15 story building with 319 units of affordable housing at 1932 Bryant Avenue in West Farms. This prime real estate is just across from the Cross Bronx Expressway. [The Real Deal]
I think everyone might need to see Wonder Woman. It’s supposed to be good, and given the amount of art inspired by the character, certainly relevant to the art world. [The New York Times]

Read the full article →

Friday Links: We Need More Seasons of Sense8 To Survive the Trump Years

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on June 2, 2017

I (Michael) don’t think I have ever been as emotionally invested in a piece of pop culture in my adult life as I have been watching the Netflix original Sense8. The show, from the Wachowskis, felt like the first site-specific artwork for the era of streaming—like watching eight addicting films from different genres at the same time in different tabs. It’s pretty heartbreaking that Netflix has inexplicably cancelled the show after two very well received seasons. In a real-world sociopolitical context increasingly defined by nationalism and bitter identity politics, a narrative that is essentially an epic morality play about global empathy—and individuals skill sharing to face repression in their respective societies—felt urgent beyond binge-worthiness. [the Internet: #RenewSense8 #SaveSense8 ]
Cara Ober stops by Glasstress, where international art stars collaborate with Venetian glassmakers. (Think Paul McCarthy glass buttplugs and an Ai Weiwei figure giving the middle finger). [BmoreArt]
Central St Martins grad student Camila Gonzalez Corea has been transforming images of topless women into emoji collages to protest Instagram’s censorship of female nipples. According to Instagram, it’s fine to show nipples if they belong to men. The Nipple Act bypasses this problem by replacing pixels with icons. [Metro]
68 Mayors are resisting Trump’s withdraw from the Paris climate accord and have pledged to uphold the agreements. New York is among them, and lit landmarks in green lights to show support for the international initiative. Michael Bloomberg, New York’s former mayor is co-ordinating the effort, and is negotiating with the United Nations to have its submission accepted alongside contributions to the deal by other nations. Bloomberg Philanthropies is offering to donate 14 million to help fund the deal’s budget. [Curbed]
Construction has started on “Ruby City”, a glittery red art museum David Adjaye has designed for the Linda Pace Foundation in San Antonio. For a building that is literally covered in glitter and painted bright red, it’s oddly understated. [Dezeen]
Another Renzo Piano museum that resembles a pharmaceutical giant’s depot has opened, this time in Harlem. Columbia University’s Wallach Art Gallery, nestled inside Piano’s Lenfest Center for the Arts, launches their inaugural show, “Uptown”, which is a triennial that includes well known artists such as Sanford Biggers, Nari Ward and Julie Mehretu along with emerging talent like John Pinderhughes and Alicia Grullón. Critic Jason Farago says it’s a pretty good show, but it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot to say about it. The most interest nugget in the review isn’t about the art but the fact that the Gallery partnered with other local museums to produce the show—a peace offering of sorts due to the gentrifying forces the University’s expansion brings. [The New York Times]
Sarah Cascone interviews Emma Sulkowicz about her strange S&M performance “The Ship Is Sinking” at the Whitney. Inspired by politics, Bertolt Brecht, beauty pageants, and figureheads on shipwrecks (among other references) it basically comprised a man dressed as “Mr Whitney” tying her to a piece of wood and torturing her. I have read the interview and I’m still not sure I (Michael) “get it”. [artnet News]
Ai Weiwei is posing as Alan Kurdi, the drowned Syrian refugee toddler, for a second time. Because it wasn’t a bad enough idea the first time around. In this picture he’s lying face down on his porcelain sunflower seeds—apparently it is a response to Donald Trump’s visit to the Israel Museum last week. The museum covered some of his works when the president visited—which it is now claiming it did because they were not fully installed. Whatever the case, can Ai Weiwei just let this toddler rest in peace already? [The Art Newspaper]
Here’s an interview with DoLab, the lighting team/curators who do the visuals for festivals such as Coachella. Their work sounds like a logistics minefield. [Variety]
“My Neighbor Totoro” will get its own theme park in Japan come 2020. [The Creator’s Project]

Read the full article →

Tyler Shields is A Terrible Artist. Kathy Griffin is Just His Accomplice.

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on June 1, 2017

Is a picture worth ten million words? That’s the question we’re faced with when considering the out-of-proportion reaction to a recent photo of Kathy Griffin holding the decapitated head of President Donald Trump. Enough commentary has poured across social, mainstream, and fringe media to fill a small library. But conspicuously absent from the discussion has been mention of Tyler Shields, the photographer who should be at the center of the authorship conversation, not the comedienne. For example, The New York Times published two reports on the subject, neither mentioning Shields by name, and one omitting any reference to a collaborator whatsoever. Would the discussion be different if the image were considered as an artist’s work rather than a celebrity publicity stunt?

Read the full article →

Wednesday Links: Gallows Sculpture Deemed too Offensive, Slated for Demo

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on May 31, 2017

Sam Durant’s “Scaffold” is being disassembled by the Walker Art Center because it offends people. Image credit: ANTHONY SOUFFLE

Are these the world’s best outdoor sculpture parks? I have a hard time lumping the Brooklyn Bridge Park in this list. [CNN]
The Walker Art Center is dismantling a sculpture by Sam Durant after protests. “Scaffold” is a composite of seven different gallows used in executions in the United States between 1859 and 2006 (this article doesn’t make that fact particularly clear) and is intended to spark discussion about the history of capital punishment in this country. Activists from the Dakota community called for its destruction because one of the reference gallows Durant based the piece on was used to execute 38 Dakota Indians in 1862 and say the artwork trivializes genocide. I’m not entirely clear on why this is “trivializing”. If the sculpture was supposed to provoke discussion about the history of executions in America, it seems to be effective. Can we stop knee-jerk calling for the censorship of any artwork we might find any moral grounds to oppose? Otherwise we’re going to be left with nothing in museums/public spaces other than Jeff Koons balloon dogs. [Star Tribune]
The “Fearless Girl”/”Charging Bull” drama never ends. Alex Gardega has added “Pissing Pug” to the menagerie, urinating on the girl’s leg to demonstrate that adding another component to an existing sculpture distorts to original’s meaning. We get it. Let’s move on. [New York Post]
Speaking of dumb ideas, Comedian Kathy Griffin is in hot water because she posed for a video holding Donald Trump’s decapitated head. What passes for conversation in the media really needs to change. [The Internet]
Anne Imhof, whose much lauded four hour long opera “Faust” on view at The Venice Biennale’s German Pavillion is still be discussed, tells a crowd at the Serpentine Gallery that her influences include Michelangelo and Jean-Michel Basquiat. I would have guessed Adidas. (Though in fairness, she does say the health-goth cast plays themselves.) [ARTnews]
We’ve all had some pretty weird homework in art school, but this might take the cake.Katie Martin-Meurer, a University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee art professor, challenged her students to make biodegradable insect motels. The idea is they’ll end up in parks, decomposing, rather than filling a dumpster with foamcore like most student projects. [NPR]
Google Street View is adding a host of new features to its museum interior tours. Soon you’ll be able to read wall text, zoom into high-res images, and more. How long until there’s a selfie-taking function? [Time]
Audible has created a 5 million dollar fund for playwrights. This seems like a very good thing. [The New York Times]
Uh oh, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento has a failing humidity control system that’s threatening the preservation of numerous objects on view. If the museum and contractors who installed the system can’t get a replacement up and running to specifications, the Crocker could lose accreditation to host certain exhibitions. Tuesday night, city officials approved a plan to fix the system, so hopefully all will be resolved. [CBS Sacramento]

Read the full article →

Tuesday Links: Disney Art, Barbie Art Still Terrible Yet Still Trending

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on May 30, 2017

A detail from Jeff Gillette’s oil painting “Bandra Brown,” 2017. (Deborah Vankin / Los Angeles Times)

I (Michael) interviewed Raúl de Nieves ahead of his upcoming talk at the Baltimore School for the Arts as part of the Contemporary’s CoHosts series tonight (free tickets still available). We talked about process, growing up Catholic, and the sculpture he spent seven years making. [City Paper]
Anyone attempting to open a white box space in a drafty loft, take note: your perfect paint is here. Spanish paint manufacturer Graphenstone has created an eco-friendly paint by mixing lime with the synthetic “miracle substance” graphene. The result is an ultra-thin, durable lime wash which actually thermally insulates whatever walls you paint. So cool. [Dezeen]
Nate Silver writes a short novel on the likelihood that President Trump will be impeached and removed from office early. The upshot—not super likely. “The easiest-to-imagine scenario for Trump being removed is if Republicans get clobbered in the midterms after two years of trying to defend Trump, the Republican agenda is in shambles, Democrats begin impeachment proceedings in early 2019, and just enough Republicans decide that Pence (or some fresh face with no ties to the Trump White House) gives them a better shot to avoid total annihilation in 2020.” [FiveThirtyEight]
Jeff Gillette’s latest project at Gregorio Escalante Gallery in Los Angeles sounds terrible. The artist has painted Disney imagery around slums in India. He then documented his “interventions” and transformed them into 3-D photorealistic paintings. When can we stop using Disney as a cliché shorthand for all that is wrong with escapist capitalism? And haven’t we decided by now that ruin porn is problematic and exploitative? Viewers are also invited to trample on drawings on the floor that Gillette’s high school students created. Mixed in with the students’ work are some Gillette originals. You can buy pieces from this grab-bag of floor “trash art” for $5, a commentary on the art market because his paintings of slums cost a buttload of money. Get it? [Los Angeles Times]
Speaking of awful clichés, last week I noted that no one should bother making Barbie art. But lo and behold, one of the Kylie Jenner just dropped $20,000 on some Barbie prints from artist and model Beau Dunn for her Barbie-themed bedroom. [Inquisitr]
Peter Blum Gallery is moving back to Soho after being forced out of its uptown location on 57th street. (The gallery was located in Soho back in the early aughts.) [ARTnews]
Developers are moving forward with plans to rezone the former Pfizer site in Williamsburg. The latest plans from The Rabsky Group propose over 1,100 apartments in eight clunky new buildings. The number of affordable units in the proposal has dropped, and it doesn’t look like they’re opting to preserve any of the old industrial buildings. The plans are hideous. The rezoning is still in the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) stage, and now is the time for neighbors to get involved. Here’s one suggestion: push for a compromise that preserves the industrial buildings for arts/light manufacturing use and allows the developers to build smaller-footprint towers at a higher FAR in exchange for more affordable units? [Curbed]
I’m not sure how I feel about political figures being turned into action figures—I missed the days where politics was considered a boring field for nerdy policy wonks—but that’s where we’re at. Artist Mike Leavitt has created an Elizabeth Warren action figure you can support via Kickstarter in June. [lizwarrenactionfigure.com]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →

Archive of Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley

Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley

Get Our Newsletter!

Like Us On Facebook!

Follow Art F City

What is Art F City?