Rea McNamara

An Interview with the Displaced Artists of Sterling Road: New Book, New Perspectives

by Rea McNamara on February 26, 2016

TORONTO — On January 11th, Toronto artists and studio mates Lili Huston-Herterich, Vanessa Maltese and Abby McGuane were informed by their landlords of a 55% rent increase for February. This means their studios, located at a two-storey factory on Sterling Road, would jump from $1,905.50 CDN per month to $2,964.50.

The artists weren’t alone — indeed, as first reported in the Toronto Star, the landlords increased the rent across the board, with other artist and small business tenants also being forced to vacate the formerly desolate industrial zone in Toronto’s lower Junction neighborhood. The rapid revitalization along Sterling Road is bittersweet — despite the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art’s imminent move to the historic Tower Automotive Building at 158 Sterling next year, as well as new developments like “limited edition townhouses”, artists are getting pushed out of their live/work studios to be converted into offices for film production and advertising companies.

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The Willful Fantasy of a Robot Art Critic

by Rea McNamara on February 25, 2016

Scientists, we’re told, have invented a robot art critic. Joe Berenson is a four year old robot-cum-research project currently rolling around the galleries of the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris clad in a black bowler and white opera scarf. His robotic exoskeleton supports a camera for an eye; Berenson uses the camera to view hung works, and expresses his opinions with a frown or a smile. He’s the art world equivalent of Short Circuit’s Johnny Five, with a reportedly evolving, algorithmically-determined “artificial taste” thanks to his Rotten Tomatoes-like processing of the responses he observes in other museum visitors.

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New York Artist’s Bottle Project Drifts Onto French Shores

by Rea McNamara on February 24, 2016

Two and half years ago, artist George Boorujy tossed a message in a bottle into Wolfe’s Pond Park on Staten Island. Last week, that bottle was found on France’s southwestern coast—ironically enough, by a French artist.

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Wednesday Links: Space is the Place

by Rea McNamara on February 24, 2016

Space is the place: here’s a thorough overview of afrofuturism’s influence on cities and spaces. My mind is currently blown on post-colonial African architecture, coincidentally being surveyed in a Vitra Design Museum-curated retrospective at Chicago’s Graham Foundation. [Curbed]
The National Museum of American History has an exhibition on right now solely devoted to historic bird poop. Turns out buying and selling bird guano was a booming trade in the 19th century, thanks to it being the predominant agricultural fertilizer for its era. [National Museum of American History]
A London exhibition of Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein’s drawings for film and theatre reveal his debts to Shakespearean theatre and the books of D.H. Lawrence and Arthur Conan Doyle. [Apollo Magazine]
Lawrence Weiner, Richard Serra and Fred Tomaselli have signed an open PEN American Center letter in support of Apple’s battle with the FBI over allowing them backdoor access to iPhone encryption. [Artforum]
Swiss collector Uli Sigg reveals how he built one of the biggest collections of contemporary Chinese art: he bought in a “systematic way, from the late 1970s onwards, mirroring Chinese art production in its width and depth from its very beginning.” He also benefitted in buying the works directly from the artists — there weren’t any galleries or dealers at the time. [CNN Style]
Twenty years after the obscenity trial over its Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition, Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center revisits the historic event with a group show featuring five local artists reflecting on the legacy of the controversy. [Hyperallergic]
Digging this interview Mexico City-based curator Gaby Cepeda conducted with Argentinian artist Ad Minoliti: “What’s the purpose and function of a painting? How would an aphrodisiac painting look? Could a triangle be arousing? How to create desire without the predispositions of the human body or the sexual ideals of the pornographic industry? How could kinetic geometry work as post-porn?” [Rhizome]
On the so-called color industrial complex upheld by Pantone’s 2016 Color of the Year campaign; basically, rose quartz and serenity owe a lot to Seapunk and Vaporwave. [LOKI]
Renato Bialetti, son of the inventor of the Moka coffee pot, had his ashes buried in an oversized version of the octagonal pot. [UPI]

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The Sum of Everything: An Interview with Charles Atlas

by Rea McNamara on February 12, 2016

“The career of the American filmmaker Charles Atlas has been a steady but slow-burning fire for more than 40 years,” wrote Holland Cotter just last year. Despite pioneering the media-dance art form, and collaborating with dancers and performers like Michael Clark, Marina Abramović and Leigh Bowery, Atlas didn’t have his first solo until 1995 at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. That’s a big name institution to land a solo with, but it’s only been within the past decade that he’s had a steady stream of solo presentations at institutions and galleries. Those include the Tate Modern, London’s Vilma Gold, and Luhring Augustine in Chelsea.

Why the CV gap? This question naturally came up in the context of Atlas’s recent screening of his early works in Toronto. Organized by Pleasuredome, the event was a cross-section of motion movies, narratives and video featurettes accompanied by a book launch of his first monograph at Art Metropole.

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Internet Artists Help Stuttgart’s Akademie Schloss Solitude Launch Web Residency

by Rea McNamara on February 3, 2016

Good news for internet artists. Schlosspost, an online platform for Stuttgart’s Akademie Schloss Solitude, is planning to extend the public foundation’s international artist residency program. The extension will coincide with the launch of their own online residency program. Acting as a sort of “virtual” Akademie, Schlosspost will be awarding the residencies several times a year, offering artists a micro-grant and online promotion of their projects.

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Tuesday Links: Monkey Business

by Rea McNamara on February 2, 2016

PETA lost its copyright lawsuit on behalf of Naruto, a selfie-snapping crested macaque. But even though the judge dismissed the suit, PETA can amend — meaning that they can try to get damages from nature photographer David Slater, whose camera was used by Naruto. (Slater had earlier sent a DMCA notice to Wikimedia Commons for including the photo in their repository, and Wikimedia charged back that the photo was in public domain because monkeys can’t own copyright.) [Motherboard]
After the failure of its foray into the music industry, is Starbuck’s next move the artworld? It’s new Chelsea branch is selling art. Currently hosting an exhibition of paintings and drawings by artist Robert Otto Epstein, the works are being sold between $1,000 to $3,000. The exhibition programme is happening in partnership with online art gallery Uprise Art, and all proceeds will be going to non-profit arts education organization Free Arts NYC. [The Art Newspaper]
Dutch police are training eagles to after unlicensed drones: turns out birds of prey are more effective than shooting nets or remotely hacking. “It’s a low-tech solution to a high-tech problem,” says the police spokesperson. [Reuters]
Mark Rothko’s son testified yesterday at the Knoedler trial. The case is determining whether the gallery knowingly sold a forged Rothko to collectors Domenico and Eleanore De Soles for $8.3 million. They are suing for $25 million. Christopher Rothko testified that he never authenticated a work by his father — “I don’t get involved in questions of authenticity” — even though Knoedler named him as one of 11 “specialists” that had authenticated the work. David Anfam, author of a Rothko catalogue that was another specialist, testified that he too had not seen the De Soles’ Rothko in person. [ARTNews]
With the blockbuster MoMA Picasso show closing this Sunday, the dispute over the ownership of a plastic bust between Larry Gagosian and the Qatar royal family has been temporarily resolved. The bust will be held by Gagosian until the conflict is adjudicated. [New York Times]
In AFC alumni news: Marina Galperina is joining Gawker as a senior editor. Previously, Galperina was the founder and EIC of AFC fave Hopes&Fears, which went on indefinite hiatus last month. [@nicknotned]
A day in the life of a nude model. [Huffington Post]

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