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Monday Links: The Socialist Internet, Zika Scares, Curators are In

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on October 31, 2016

chilean-booth

“Utopia” is the theme of this year’s London Design Biennale, and people are looking to “the global south” for inspiration. In the Chilean booth, for example, there’s the Star-Trek-like control room from a 1970s attempt to build a nation-wide proto-internet for then-socialist Chile. It looks even cooler than it sounds. Too bad the CIA overthrew their government and the project never came to fruition. [Dezeen]
Here’s the surprisingly-entertaining backstory of a once-controversial public sculpture in the Capital’s Judiciary Square. If you’ve ever wondered why there’s a golden statue of a naked woman with a deer amidst the District’s stern-looking monuments, here’s why. [The Washington Post]
Walking around Savannah College of Art & Design, one would never guess the college was only established in 1978. That’s because Paula Wallace, who founded the institution, had the foresight to buy up a bunch of Savannah’s then-dilapidated historic buildings to create a campus. [Curbed]
Here’s one “charity” Donald Trump has actually given money to: the National Museum of Catholic Art and History… even though he’s not Catholic, and according to this post, the “museum” might be a scam run by the mob? What? [Wonkette]
For the Wes Anderson fans in the audience, there’s a new show of Wes Anderson inspired art at Spoke Art. Most of it looks terrible. [Geek]
So tempted to make a trip to Pittsburgh for the Carnegie Museum of Art’s Hélio Oiticica retrospective. It sounds awesome. [Vogue]
Remember how the subject of how curators had become the art world’s new power brokers dominated all art conversation five years ago. Well now that ArtReview has named curator Hans Ulrich Obrist the art world’s most “powerful person” the Times seems to have caught on. In 2012, ArtReview named curator Carolyn Christov-Barkargiev the most powerful, but I guess she didn’t count because Obrist? Anyway, it’s 2016, curators are hot, and the Times is ON IT. [The New York Times]
Ok, this headline/subheadline is pretty outrageous-sounding: “Amid Zika Scare, Art World Insiders Fear Discrimination While Planning for Miami Fairs: Welcome to the new reality for the art world’s most seductive fair.” But there’s a very real fear that pregnant art world workers might face employment problems this year. [artnet News]

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Monday Links: Kurt Cobain, Nan Goldin, Chewbacca Mom All Still in the News

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on June 20, 2016

OMG. Hasbro made a custom “Chewbacca Mom” action figure for the accidental Facebook celebrity. How has her “15 minutes” stretched this long?[TIME]

Great news on the housing affordability front: the New York senate has passed a bill banning short-term rentals of entire apartments. This means individuals or management companies can’t hoard apartments to sublet via Airbnb. That’s a trend that’s been well-documented as a major drain on affordable housing stock in places such as San Francisco and Barcelona. The downside is, if you live alone, it’s going to be a lot harder to sublet your already exorbitantly expensive place if you leave town for less than a month. Is this going to push the Airbnb hustlers across the Hudson into Jersey City? [The Verge]

Whoa! Kurt Cobain apparently made a bunch of visual art, and now it’s going on tour. Jeff Jampol runs a company that manages the estates of deceased rockstars, and he’s working with Courtney Love to put the exhibition together. [Vulture]

Curbed kicked off a comment storm over the weekend by asking readers what they thought the ugliest building in New York is. The takeaway: Curbed readers are not fans of modernism and have clearly not spent much time in Queens. [Curbed]

Here’s a nice Father’s Day art story: influential photographer William Eggleston and his textile-designer daughter Andra have teamed up to translate his abstract drawings into collaborative fabric prints. [CBS]

Anyone seeking to re-live the extraordinary excess of Art Basel Miami? We rediscovered this instagram post by AES+F over the weekend and haven’t been able to stop watching it. [@aesplusf]

I questioned whether Nan Goldin’s “Ballad of Sexual Dependency” really needed to be reviewed when I first saw the headline on artnet. It’s a great piece, but hasn’t everyone who reads that magazine seen that work 100 times over by now? It shows everywhere. But then I read Christian Viveros-Faune review and was reminded why we read reviews in the first place: they add another layer of experience to the work. From the review, “Sitting through Goldin’s 700-image slideshow felt, I realized just days ago, not unlike waking up to news of another mass shooting. Virtually overnight, people whose youth had been electric with possibility were cruelly no longer in the picture. Meantime, their photographic likenesses morphed from simple snapshots into something else: portraits that turned elegiac, hopeful, monumental even.” [artnet News]

Star Trek actor Anton Yelchin died this weekend in a bizarre car accident. The 27 year-old actor, who played Pavel Chekov in the new “reboot” films, was run over by his own car after he parked on a hill and was standing behind the vehicle. [CNN]

Dylan Schenker writes about the International Digital Arts Biennial and what happens when the programming and aesthetics of a machine butt up against the will of humans—a theme within the biennial. [Creative Applications]

Other creative industries are waking up to the crisis the art world has been justifiably freaking out over: gentrification is draining talent from the capitals of the culture sector. This piece does a pretty good job of outlining just how problematic the increase in housing costs can be, through the eyes of fashion designers. [Business of Fashion]

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Monday Links: James Franco Calls AFC “Particularly Nasty”

by Paddy Johnson Michael Anthony Farley Rea McNamara on April 18, 2016

James Franco

It’s the 10th anniversary of the 2006 Youtube sensation “Shoes” by actor Liam Kyle Sullivan. Not sure the video tells us too much about the internet 10 years ago, though it is a good reminder that Peaches and more generally electroclash were widely popular. The music video, which is about a teenage character named “Kelly” who likes shoes and parties, still holds up. [The Onion AV Club]

Ann Freedman, former director of the scandal-ridden Knoedler Gallery, has given her side again, and what she reveals, is well, not much. Her much-anticipated testimony in the trial over the $8.3 million sale of a fake Rothko to Domenico and Eleanore De Sole was averted when the gallery and collectors settled out of court in February. Expectedly, Freedman confesses she didn’t know any of the works she sold were fakes, and while she says she’s sorry, adds “but let me be clear, this is [about] works of art. I didn’t slay anybody’s first-born. We have to have some perspective on suffering.” While six lawsuits have been settled against Knoedler for all the fakes they sold, four are still active. [Art Newspaper]

Finally, a listicle we can get behind: 10 Awful Public Art Pieces. [Houston Press]

The art market is ripe for abuse, say some. High quality global journalism requires investment. “There were huge steps towards greater transparency in the past 20 years,” says Clare McAndrew, author of the TEFAF Art Market report. “But in the past couple of years it has been going backwards.” Apparently, the trend of private sales at auction houses has created problems as has an unwillingness of private galleries to participate in surveys about purchasing. [FT.com via Art Market Monitor]

Jerry Saltz interviews James Franco. The crux of it seems to be that Franco has been unfairly persecuted in the art world because he’s an A-List actor who’s also an artist and scored his first show at a blue chip with conceptually weak work. The cruelties of the world continue: Jay Z was also unfairly persecuted, for shooting “Picasso Baby” at Pace filled with art world celeb cameos. What planet are these two on? There’s a tiny bit of talk about how Franco’s work wasn’t that strong, but come on. He remade Cindy Sherman photographs and showed them at Pace. Terrible. Franco says the gallery was embarrassed by the show, which HELLO. Of course they were. James Franco describes Art F City as “particularly nasty”. [NY Magazine]

Somewhat tangentially related, but Franco’s talent agency, WME | IMG, have bought a stake in in Frieze. The power-house agency, run by the inspiration for Entourage’s Ari Gold, will now sponsor the Frieze Tate Fund, providing the Tate with $213,000 for acquisitions. Beyond that, this all basically means you’ll see more celebrities at the fair previews, and the parties will be even more of a hassle to get into. [Artforum]

The Art Basel stabber says she attacked a fellow fair goer to prevent an ISIS attack. [The Observer]

Norwegian grocery baron/art collector Stein Erik Hagen is giving The Norwegian National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design free reign to pick out works from his $120 million collection. [Forbes]

The dreaded L Train shutdown could begin in 2019. [Curbed]

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Worst of 2015

by Michael Anthony Farley on December 30, 2015

What were the top five most scandalous stories we covered this year? The ones people read, shared, and re-tweeted the most, of course. I delved into our site stats to ask why we love bad news so much.

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FOX News Attempted to Troll Me at ABMB

by Michael Anthony Farley on December 11, 2015

Last week, FOX News personality Jesse Watters visited Art Basel Miami Beach to troll the art world. The segment aired last night, after heavy redaction and blooper clips being used as filler. This is how I remember our conversation transpiring.

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Tuesday Links: Vacant Buildings are Having a Glamorous Moment

by Michael Anthony Farley and Rea McNamara on December 8, 2015

What is it about the Turner Prize and its media circus that always brings up the tired “But is it art?” question. That’s arguably the dumbest and least relevant discussion an artwork can generate. This year’s winners, Assemble, are a collective of former architecture students who found fanciful uses for vacant buildings in Liverpool. The daily Telegraph’s art critic Mark Hudson didn’t agree with the selection: “Why bring it in as art? If you’re just looking for stuff that isn’t pretentious and is useful, why don’t you nominate B&Q or Oxfam? … It’s great if art can be useful. But just because it’s useful doesn’t make it art.” That’s a sentiment I’m generally inclined to agree with, but it’s really not applicable here. [BBC]
Brian Boucher shares his account of diving with artist Trevor Paglen. Paglen took a group of 10 art lovers diving 70 feet under the ocean to look at the fiber optic cables that run along the ocean floor. [artnet News]
Zachary A. Bennett visited the SATELLITE Show and shared this account of Open Space’s “Stupid Bar,” the rowdy “competition” across the hall from our space. [Huffington Post]
Controversy is brewing over the recent appointment of Bartomeu Marí as director of Seoul’s National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA). More than 340 artists—including 2015 Venice Biennale Silver Lion winner Im Heung-soon and media artist Park Chan-kyung—signed a statement questioning Marí’s record, especially in light of his handling of last spring’s censorship debacle at Barcelona’s MACBA Museum. The group is demanding reforms to protect artistic freedom, citing the South Korean government’s increasing bureaucratic restrictions on the arts. [The Korea Times]
Would you believe this? There’s video of a woman stealing a wreath off the front door of a Toronto home at 3AM. It was silver, sparkly, and worth $200. “It’s egregarious,” said detective Frank Olsen. “This is the first time I’ve ever heard of this and I’ve been doing this a long time.” [National Post]
Annette Kelm, the Berlin-based photographer who made the long list of the AGO’s AIMIA Prize, has won the Camera Austria Award for Contemporary Photographer. Upcoming shows include a Jens Hoffman-curated solo at Detroit’s Museum of Contemporary Art next year. [Artforum]
The Philadelphia Daily News probably has the most on-point cover today: Trump making a Hitler salute. [@CarlAnka]
Helpful career advice: “Dear Video Artists if you are going to have a section on your website called Current Work don’t make every single Vimeo link private?” [@MatthewLawrence]
Buyers remorse has hit Jean Nouvel’s 100 Eleventh Avenue. The Chelsea condo is less “vision machine” and more “wind tunnel”, allege residents. Woe be the problems of a mid-aughts-designed glass curtain wall. [Curbed]
An interview with artist Katie Rose Pipkin on her social media bots. [Furtherfield]
Last week I [Michael] thought Vector Gallery’s Satanic Suicide Hotline was a far more subversive take on an occult lounge than the Swamp of Sagittarius at Art Basel Miami Beach. Maybe I was wrong? It turns out an altercation in the Swamp of Sagittarius led to the infamous stabbing incident. Vector might have had portraits of Charles Manson and text inciting viewers to murder, but its competition inspired an actual attempted homicide. Obviously, this was a terrible thing and horrible for all parties involved, but noteworthy as yet another parallel between the two spaces. [Gothamist]

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GIF of the Day: How We All Feel After Art Basel Miami Beach

by Michael Anthony Farley on December 7, 2015

Here are some GIFs of a little girl throwing a tantrum and taking a nap on an overcast, damp beach. This is exactly how we all feel today, so we won’t be posting like we usually do.

Here’s a summary of just what we’ve been up to in Miami:

We brought you not one, not two, but three itineraries for ABMB week.
We launched our new project space, Fine Art Gallery, at Artist-Run at the SATELLITE Show, with F.A.G. Bar.
We were disappointed by the main fair at the convention center.
Paddy loved UNTITLED.
I liked NADA, but Paddy still had mixed feelings. We both agree that The Fontainebleau isn’t a great venue for that art fair.
Pulse’s move to the beach was welcome, but the fair still needs some work.
I noticed a lot of booths with similar looks, and picked who wore it better.
After a week of trudging around lackluster commercial fairs, Paddy expressed our undying love of Tiger Strikes Asteroid’s Artist-Run at the SATELLITE.
And yesterday, love (of the hopefully undying variety) seemed to be in the air at the Artist-Run—two of the participants decided to get married after having met each other just four days prior. Of course, we were there to document the moment in GIF.

Don’t worry, there’s more to come about our Miami adventures. And we haven’t forgotten about New York—our regular events listings will be back tomorrow.

But for now, we’ll be sleeping off our Basel weekend.

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Two Artists Just Met and Married at SATELLITE’s Artist-Run Show

by Michael Anthony Farley on December 6, 2015

The Artist-Run at SATELLITE just closed, but things stayed interesting here up until the end. While Art Basel had a stabbing, we had a wedding. James Swainbank, who was showing in Open Space’s Stupid Bar, just married Vinegar (Jennifer) Avery, who was also participating in the show through Yellow Peril Gallery. Really.

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Who Wore it Better? ABMB Edition

by Michael Anthony Farley on December 5, 2015

Inevitably, some people pack the same looks for Miami.

Remember NADA’s legendary pool parties at the Deauville? There always seemed to be at least two art-bros who showed up in the same “statement” bathing suit from American Apparel. But it’s usually more awkward when gallerists inadvertently dress their booths too similarly.

Below, we take a look at accidental twinsies and judge who wore it better:

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Thursday Links: Bearded Orthodox Priests with Their Cats

by Rea McNamara on December 3, 2015

A Pirelli anecdote: a calendar with bearded Russian orthodox priests and their cats. [The Art Newspaper]
“Hirst is now 50, and his career thus far has been a downhill slalom of provocation and pound signs.” This really sums up that painting of his Paddy saw in White Cube’s ABMB booth. Oh, and somewhat related: Hirst is opening his own gallery! [New Republic]
Also seen at ABMB: a Skype painting. “‘It’s the best thing I’ve seen so far!’ said the Warhol Foundation’s president Joel Wachs. ‘He’s in the painting!’” [artnet News]
Further ABMB preview reports; Nate Freeman says that a lot of Stellas are selling post-Whitney retrospective, while Brian Boucher tries to make sense of the bright and shiny selfie-baiting luxury artworks with more challenging political works in light of the San Bernardino mass shooting. [ARTnews, artnet News]
OK, last one: looks like Sly Stallone (who’s in an “acquiring mood”) replaced Leonardo DiCaprio as the most interesting ABMB-attending celebrity. [Bloomberg]
According to a new survey by the National Coalition Against Censorship, college students have demanded trigger warnings for spiders, indigenous artifacts, “images of childbirth”, nude models in a studio art class and being told a favourite artist was gay. Seriously. [You’ve Cott Mail]
The National Gallery is taking over the Sobey Award, one of the Canada’s richest art prizes with a $100,000 purse. Previously, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia had overseen the annual award for the past 13 years, but there had been grumblings about it lacking international reach. Looks like this might be the step on the right direction. [Ottawa Citizen]
Imagined dialogue in MoMA’s merchandising department: “OK, beach towels are done. Same with yoga mats. A collab collection—so three seasons ago. Wait! How about a skateboard? A Warhol skateboard. We’ll make sure to emphasize how ‘functional’ they are. It’ll be amazing.” [Observer]
Not surprised: if you Bing search “MoMA Judd” you get, well, Mama Judd. [@gregorg]

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