You searched for:

X Initiative

Thursday Links: Basically a Renaissance Painting

by Paddy Johnson on June 29, 2017

Basically a renaissance painting pic.twitter.com/ROGHicoZp9

— Simon Lewis (@sv_lewis) June 27, 2017

Kavi Gupta Gallery’s facebook reviews have suddenly been filled up with trolling comments from Trump supporters. It’s a response to gallery artist Scott Reeder’s public sculpture in Chicago which spells out the words “Real Fake” in fake gold. Good to see these Trump supporters use their time so productively. [Facebook via: @PDRVelez]

Artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg has produced 3-D-printed portraits based on the DNA Chelsea Manning sent the artist while in prison for releasing classified material to Wikileaks. The show will feature 30 portraits of Manning during her gender transition and is credited to both Dewey-Hagborg and Manning. [ARTnews]

This looks so cool—for a special vinyl 7” release to benefit Planned Parenthood, Merge Records and its flagship band Superchunk, asked their favorite contemporary artists including Joyce Pensato, Brian Calvin, and Amy Sillman to create unique works of art the size of a 7” record sleeve. Now they are being auctioned off on Paddle8—at low, low prices. Worth noting that Merge is a huge supporter of the arts. Also, as per the paddle8 copy, “Along with the original art, auction winners receive an exclusive pink swirl vinyl edition of the record. All net proceeds will be donated to Planned Parenthood South Atlantic.” Get yourself some art! [paddle8]

Sparked by Uber CEO and raging misogynist Travis Kalanick’s resignation, Joanne Wilson talks about her venture investments to women-led initiatives and how she believes women are breaking through the caustic tech and vc culture. Don’t tell Marissa Mayer. [Gotham Gal]

Hyperallergic publishes their strangest comic yet. This one predicts the style of artist you are based on your snack preferences. If you like ice cream, for example, you’re an Abstract Expressionist. If you like twizzlers you’re a landscape painter. What? [Hyperallergic]

The rent stabilization freeze is no longer. Renters will see a hike of up to 2%. [Curbed]

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 →

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 →

Christening a Film Festival’s New Old Home With John Waters

by Michael Anthony Farley on May 24, 2017

The Maryland Film Festival has a glorious permanent home in a formerly abandoned theater. Of course, as with all developments in Baltimore, it’s restoration hasn’t been without controversy.

Read the full article →

Be AFC’s Neighbor: Apply For Two Trees’ Cultural Space Subsidy Program

by Michael Anthony Farley on May 11, 2017

Applications are open for Two Trees’ Cultural Space Subsidy Program. We’re a recipient, and it’s been great. Artists and cultural organizations should apply!

Read the full article →

Friday Links: Public Art too Scary for Children? Frieze Going Populist?

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on April 28, 2017

Thomas Houseago

More developments in the saga of the beleaguered Bell Foundry art space in Baltimore. The city shuttered the live/work building last year, evicting residents with no warning, citing safety issues. Now the property is on the market as a knock-down development site for $1 million. Yesterday someone tagged “$HAME 100” on the side of the building, which is already covered in bank-sponsored street art. The article implies that the Baltimore Rock Opera Society (the sole remaining tenants) are somehow responsible for cleaning it up. Isn’t that their slumlord’s job? The Facebook comments on this one are entertaining/infuriating, as to be expected. [City Paper]
The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg have broken ground on an expansion project (doesn’t that sentence about Virginia sound like something a Brooklyn poet would write about gentrification?). The expansion, designed by Samuel Anderson Architects, will increase exhibition space by 22%. I think it kinda looks like a McMansion. [ARTFIXdaily]
The NYT profiles American Medium, discussing the niche skill of translating digital works to the white cube, the gallery’s origins, and their move to Chelsea. [The New York Times]
Google is launching a virtual reality “art gallery” where Tilt Brush makers can share their works with one another. Importantly, you won’t need a VR headset to see the 3D objects. This could spark a lot of interest in the technology. [Business Insider]
Boy this is appalling: The city run initiative, “Tenant Interim Lease (TIL) program”, leaves 38 percent of all affordable housing unoccupied due to mismanagement. [Curbed]
Is Frieze going to be a more “populist” fair this year, as this article suggests? Absolutely not. But gallerists are responding to the political crisis with some borderline-gimmicky nods to protest. Cheim & Read, for example, is doing an all-pink booth as a tribute to the sea of “pussy hats” from the Women’s March. And P.P.O.W. gallery will show an Anton van Dalen pidgeon coop that looks like a car burnt in a riot. [Bloomberg]
Advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather has created a font in memory of LGBTQ artist/activist Gilbert Baker, who designed the rainbow flag in 1978. They’ve launched the website Type With Pride, where the font can be downloaded in the hopes it is used in marches and protests. It’s a really pretty font, but I don’t see this being super legible from a distance at a rally. [Dezeen]
A vaguely skeletal public sculpture by Thomas Houseago is scaring some Chicagoans. It mainly seems people think it will spook the children or ruin family photos. We’re all for more scary public art. [ABC 7]

Read the full article →

Thursday Links: Get Your £1,705 IKEA Shopping Bag by Balenciaga

by Michael Anthony Farley on April 20, 2017

balenciaga

Balenciaga has released a “knockoff” of those blue IKEA shopping bags… which costs £1,705. The peculiar logic of late capitalism keeps the LOLs coming. [Dezeen]
Peter Garritano photographs New Yorkers he meets through Craigslist’s “Strictly Platonic” friend-seeking section. These are surprisingly less sad than one would expect. But some of the ads are really, really strange. And borderline not platonic at all. [The New Yorker]
The DOT is seeking proposals for a new public artwork/design object for the Canal Street Triangle for a project called “Gateways to Chinatown”. The selected proposal will receive a $900,000 budget. [Curbed]
Happy 4/20. Why is today Marijuana Appreciation Day? Like most stoner stories, it’s murky and complicated. [WJLA]
Hmmm. Alex Jones now considers himself a “performance artist” (in defense of the craziest of his rants, while in court during a nasty divorce). I’ve long suspected this of Ann Coulter, but always suspected Jones was just legitimately out of his mind. [The Huffington Post]
Here’s news that should make most city dwellers laugh: residents of a luxury highrise in London are suing the Tate Modern because visitors to the museum’s outdoor spaces have views into the floor-to-ceiling glass apartments. Apparently the condo owners didn’t understand the whole “glass houses” adage? Following this logic, does the museum have the right to sue the apartment owners for their views? [artnet News]
Wow, I had no idea Charlie’s Angels star Farrah Fawcett was an artist! Hopefully the exhibition Mentoring a Muse: Charles Umlauf & Farrah Fawcett at Austin’s Umlauf Sculpture Garden & Museum can disabuse us all of that oversight. [ARTnews]

Read the full article →

Friday Links: Rosa Parks’ Detroit Home Moved to Berlin for Art

by Michael Anthony Farley on April 7, 2017

gettyimages-6653129301

Las Vegas is trying for a contemporary art museum… again. The city has had two art museums come-and-go in recent history. [Las Vegas Review Journal]
Choreographer Ann Carlson has found herself in the crosshairs of conservatives over her seemingly inoffensive project “Doggie Hamlet”. The piece involves dancers, sheep, and sheep herding dogs. It admittedly sounds extremely silly at first glance, and of course the Right Wing is pissed that some NEA funds went into its production (by way of New England Foundation for the Art’s National Dance Project). Dance critic Gia Kourlas weighs in on the debate. [The New York Times]
The Wildensteins, the eccentric and controversial family of art dealers, have sold their UES townhouse/former gallery for $79.5 million. That’s now the most expensive house ever sold in New York City, which makes sense, because you would have to be both disgustingly wealthy and totally insane to spend that kind of money. [Daily Mail]
Speaking of insane and wealthy: Damien Hirst’s Treasures From the Wreck of the Unbelievable has to be one of the oddest, most ambitious projects we’ve ever heard of. Hirst has spun the tale of a freed slave, who 2000 years ago became an art collector. His ship sinks, bringing all of his treasures with it. Hirst has spent somewhere around £50 million on the show—fabricating gold and bronze “antiquities”, dumping them in the Indian Ocean to patina, and hiring boatloads of divers to retrieve them for exhibition in Venice. [BBC]
Artica Svalbard, a residency program in the icy northernmost extremes of Norway, has announced its first batch of artists: Carlos Casas, Oddvar I. N. Daren, Lars Palgaard, and Mette Henriette. These lucky four will get to live out their Fortitude fantasies, hopefully avoiding polar bear attacks and vitamin D deficiency along the way. [ARTnews]
In yesterday’s links, I mentioned that London’s local governments have been scrambling to prevent a mass exodus of creatives from the increasingly unaffordable city. Here’s one of their initiatives. A House for Artists, designed by architects Apparata in conjunction with artist Grayson Perry, will provide affordable housing and studios above a community center in Barking Town Centre. Some of these interior renderings look unbelievably spacious for now-build affordable housing. [Dezeen]
Artist Ryan Mendoza and Rhea McCauley, the niece of civil rights icon Rosa Parks, have teamed up to move Parks’ house from Detroit to Berlin. Mendoza has restored the home and is showing it as a piece of public sculpture. For now, McCauley wants the house to stay in Europe until America “grows up”. [New York Post]

Read the full article →

Tuesday Links: Dana Schutz Painting Removed, Brooklyn Gets an Art Fair, Melania Gets a Portrait

by Michael Anthony Farley on April 4, 2017

the-revolution-will-be-crowd-funded-greg-allens-latest-kickstarter-is-our-guernica-900x450-c

Those calling for the censorship of Dana Schutz’s “Open Casket” will be happy to know that the painting has been removed from view. They’ll likely be disappointed to know it’s for a logistical reason as boring as a water leak. The real story here seems to be that the museum’s brand-spanking-new downtown digs is taking on water. Cue the Titanic/iceberg jokes. [Hyperallergic]
Melania Trump’s official White House portrait is here, and it kinda looks like she’s an out-of-focus hologram. The internet is having lots of fun with this one. [New York Magazine]
A cast believed by some to be from a long-lost Degas mold will go on view in London. Meanwhile in Hong Kong, Sotheby’s just proved Basquiats are hot commodities no matter the continent. Expect to see more of his work heading to Asian private collections. [The Telegraph]
Artist and blogger Greg Allen has started a Kickstarter project, OurGuernica, After Our Picasso. The purpose of this initiative: raising funds to commission an anonymous Chinese artist to paint Angela Merkel giving Ivanka Trump side-eye (photo above) in the style of former-president-now-painter George W. Bush. That’s a lot of layers to unpack for what is essentially a meme. [Artspace]
This sounds like so much fun. The Museum of Sex has opened a fully-functional pop-up disco bar for their exhibition of Bill Bernstein’s New York nightlife photos. [The New York Times]
According to Mark Hudson, the Tate Britain’s Queer British Art 1861-1967 “begs the question of whether we’re in for art that tells the story of homosexuality in Britain over the 150 years leading up to the legal landmark, or art by artists who just happen to be gay. Judging by the first room, devoted to the late 19th century Aesthetic Movement, the exhibition might have been better titled Screamingly Camp Art.” Sounds like a missed opportunity all-around. [The Telegraph]
Bad news (for those of us prone to soul-crushing fair fatigue): Brooklyn is getting a Frieze Week art fair. The good news: it will be an off-shoot of SPRING/BREAK, focused on large-scale public installations and environments. SPRING/BREAK is one of the only fairs we can can handle more of. [artnet News]
Snøhetta’s Lascaux IV Caves Museum in southern France is open and looks (as expected) like an anthropology museum from the future. Their treatment of the cave painting reproductions is a really interesting display strategy. For preservation reasons, you can’t visit the real thing, but the museum has managed hyper-accurate reproductions that never try to trick you into thinking they’re the originals. [Dezeen]