Posts tagged as:
BIENALSUR
by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on July 27, 2017
- Photographer Paul Raftery has documented the bizarre architecture of Kazakhstan’s post-Soviet capital Astana. The city looks like a weird low budget sci-fi show’s CGI landscapes brought to life. [Dezeen]
- BienalSur, a new biennial organized by the Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero of Argentina, launches this Fall with 379 projects scattered across different continents. This biennial format is sort of uncharted waters—Buenos Aires is the hub, but the focus is on South America in general, and projects will take place as far away as Paris and Tokyo. [The Art Newspaper]
- The American Alliance of Museums and the Association of Art Museum Directors have both come out against the Berkshire Museum’s plan to sell 40 artworks to line its endowment and renovate its building. “One of the most fundamental and longstanding principles of the museum field is that a collection is held in the public trust and must not be treated as a disposable financial asset.” [The New York Times]
- Ralph Steadman and Ceri Levy got a profile of their collaborations over at VICE. They make cheesy activist drawings of endangered animals, which are relevant because Steadman used to collaborate with Hunter S. Thompson, a well-known journalist and founder of the Gonzo journalism movement. (Thompson’s significance is never explained.) Anyway the drawings look exactly as you’d imagine—contrived splatter, extreme poses, compositions that all sit in the middle of the page. They’re no Walton Ford, that’s for sure. But the author seems to believe that if Steadman played into artist stereotypes more, and was “weirder, hermetic, less astonishingly prolific, and more pretentiously grandiose”, he’d be recognized as one of the truly great artists of our time. Sure. [VICE]
- Why is today such a slow art news day? (Yes, we saw the Dana Schutz controversy. Lay off her, already.) I literally just found myself reading this blurb about butter sculptures at the Ohio State Fair, fascinated: “The American Dairy Association Mideast says the sculpture unveiled Tuesday salutes chocolate milk as the official drink of the Ohio High School Athletic Association. It’s the first time the butter sculpture has included color. Cocoa was added for the bottle.” [Seattle Times]
- Thank fucking God. The MTA board has pushed back against the authority’s ambitious new rescue plan that would include more fare hikes. The authority’s chief financial officer, Robert E. Foran, pushed for those hikes, but the board thinks the money needs to come from other sources. Andrew Cuomo, the state governor has promised half the funds for the rescue plan, but New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has resisted giving the authority the rest. The mayor needs to man up. [The New York Times]
- TRIXI studios has used new ARKit software to develop an augmented reality version of A-Ha’s “Take on Me” video. Is this the future of music videos? [The Verge]
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by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on September 1, 2016
- Ahead of Donald Trump’s visit to Mexico, the Museo Memoria y Tolerancia in Mexico City (which has a program of artworks and exhibitions about war, genocide, racism, etc…) has been posting messages to him on their social media accounts. My favorite: “FOR YOU IT’S FREE.” [Instagram]
- The Italian government, which likes to think of itself as a preservation expert, really didn’t want Venice to go on UNESCO’s list of endangered sites. But Venice is pretty endangered, largely from an out-of-control tourism industry. [The Art Newspaper]
- Ramin Shokrizade used the economic model of a multiplayer online game to figure out what’s wrong with our IRL economy, years before the recession hit. Basically, property taxes should be higher to keep speculation in check. In the game, factories sat idle because players bought them up with the idea that they would be worth more “money” as the game progressed. In the real world, speculators snatch up real estate and land bank it as well—most of the “abandoned” buildings you see in East Coast cities are actually owned by investors who don’t put them to use because they’re waiting for a higher return on their investment. Taxing the hell out of vacant real estate would incentivize them to put all that inventory back on the market and force a housing/commercial real estate price correction. [Gamasutra]
- The First International Contemporary Art Biennial of South America is seeking proposals from artists through September [BIENALSUR]
- Is a museum show really the best and most logical capstone for an art award? Amber Eve Anderson makes a convincing argument that it’s not, based on the Baker Artist Awards exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art. I agree with her—after seeing the show I thought “this is it?” All but one of the artists would have been better served with programming such as film screenings or performances. [Bmore Art]
- In other Baltimore museum news, The Walters is presenting the tour “Drinking Our Way Through History” with local beers and a focus on art-historical imbibing. This looks like fun. [Facebook]
- United Talent Agency is opening an art space in LA’s Boyle Heights. But the agency, which represents celebrity artists, claims it won’t function like a typical gallery. Instead, they’ll partner with out-of-town galleries who want to expand their collector base to Los Angeles and use the space for their artists to “experiment”. [The New York Times]
- Huh. Dublin painter Kevin Sharkey has been homeless, arrested for destroying artwork, and collected by celebrities including Courtney Love. Now he’s running for president of Ireland. Somebody give this guy an HBO biopic. [artnet News]
- Good Lord. Brooklyn Museum Chief Curator Nancy Spector gets up at 3 AM to write, because that’s the time she can find the quiet and solitude she needs to do it. That is drive. An interview with her at New York Magazine—she is intense. [New York Magazine]
- The L Train’s planned disruption in services are more than three years away, and companies are scrambling now to profit off it. Uber has proposed a temporary deregulation of their services that would allow commuters to use a car pool app. We’re not sure how to feel about this. It may well be useful during that time, but it also will compete with the city’s own bus services, which as seen in other cities, has the effect lof eroding those services and creating class systems. Once we have this app will we be able to get rid of it? [Politico]
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