Posts tagged as:

Chuck Close

Preview the Second Avenue Subway’s (Surprisingly Not Bad) Art

by Michael Anthony Farley on December 22, 2016

Fingers-crossed, the long-overdue Second Avenue Subway will open on New Years Day. But we can preview the city’s newest public artworks—from Chuck Close, Vik Muniz, Sara Sze, and Jean Shin—thanks to photos from inside the construction site.
So far, the work looks better than one would expect…

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Tuesday Links: Cats Continue to Serve Public Good Online

by Paddy Johnson on December 20, 2016

Behind this kitten lurks something much more sinister.

A chrome extension that replaces pictures of Donald Trump with kittens. [Business Insider]
We’ve all seen this by now, but Russia’s ambassador to Turkey was shot while giving remarks at Contemporary Arts Center in the Cankaya area of Ankar. [The New York Times]
Andrew Russeth’s Top 10. My favorite list so far. Just the right mix of the expected and shit you didn’t even know was shown. [ARTnews]
Jonathan Jones’s Top 10. My least favorite list so far. It begins with Pablo Picasso and Hieronymus Bosch and ends with Douglas Gordon. Sure, sure on the old time-y stuff, but every contemporary art pick is tacky as hell. [The Guardian]
A look at the art on the 2nd Ave Subway line. Ugh. A tacky Vic Muniz picturing a girl and her runaway balloon. But there’s a good Chuck Close, so maybe it evens out. [The New York Times]
38 more units for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s affordable housing project. [Politico]

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Wednesday Links: All Aboard for Offshore Art?

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on July 13, 2016

Photo by Ian Dickson / Rex Features ( 750588ck )
X-Ray Spex – Poly Styrene

Gross. Developer JDS turned a former Gowanus art gallery into a sales office for luxury condos. And designer Anna Karlin has staged it with “sculptures” made from the building’s finishing materials. [Curbed]

Whoa. Someone dug up a 1979 episode of the BBC show Arena titled “Who is Poly Styrene?” It’s a really awkward 40 minute documentary about the female punk pioneer. [Dangerous Minds]

This skillfully written profile on Chuck Close questions whether Close has changed over the last couple of years. The author recounts interviews where he couldn’t keep track of his stories long enough to tell them, his latest work is garish and unskilled, last year, he was mistakenly diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Close has even had trouble painting—painter’s block. Set aside a bit of time and emotional energy to read this sad, end of life story. [New York Times Magazine]

A janitor at Art Southampton threw out a Will Kurtz sculpture (which comprised a trashcan full of trash-like art) and the internet cares because Brooke Shields curated the booth. [Observer]

Speaking of the Hamptons, The Parrish Art Museum MidSummer Party last weekend featured a “Radical Seafaring” group exhibition about art on the water. The curator, Andrea Grover, argues that “offshore art” is a movement to be considered alongside Land Art. Or maybe they just threw a beach party for people who live for nautical-themed everything? If the art world’s elites do go full-on #seapunk, I [Michael] claim the drag names “Regatta Cotillion” and “Yacht-Club Abramović”. [ARTNews]

And in other beach town news, Raymond Roy of Yarmouth, MA has set off a free speech debate by making a sand art mermaid sculpture with breasts considered too big by many an upstanding Cape Cod citizen. [Death & Taxes]

I love that artnet News has filed their listicle naming collectors who own the largest sculptures under “Analysis”. It’s difficult getting through this piece—who cares who bought what—but the images are nice, so it’s worth it for that. [artnet News]

This potentially-problematic slideshow listicle comes with a multi-paragraph introduction/disclaimer aimed at defusing a semantics debate in the comments section: “Homoerotic Art by Straight Artists”. [The Advocate]

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Throw Your Art Career in MoMA’s Dumpster

by Whitney Kimball on October 20, 2014

You won’t hear us bitching about Chelsea this week, which, given the last month, is probably a relief for all our readers. We’ll be more than occupied with protests, generative artworks, Bushwick Expo, video blowouts, and televisual operas. You can also expect to hear no end of promo for our auction, which ends —->THURSDAY, Thursday, Thursday!<—–

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Secrets of the Whitney Biennial: 1979

by Corinna Kirsch on February 28, 2014

First bit of trivia: Art was for sale at the 1979 Whitney Biennial.

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Monday Links: So Many Opening Ceremonies

by Anthony Hicks Paddy Johnson Corinna Kirsch on February 10, 2014

Palestinian fisherman finds a long-lost Greek statue of Apollo, Hamas police officials confiscate it once they notice it’s up for sale on eBay. [The Guardian]
Artist Chuck Close who suffers from face blindness (that is to say, prosopagnosia), was hired by Vanity Fair to take photos of celebs without makeup because, you know, he is the ultimate least judge-y person in the world and does not care that ScarJo has an oily face. We assume it’s up to Vanity Fair readers to decide who’s hot or not, without gobs of eyeliner. [Dlisted]
Artist Tony Matelli responds to criticism that his “Sleepwalker” sculpture should be removed from the Wellesley College campus. It sounds like he doesn’t care too much about the removal: “I don’t think they’ll make that decision, but if they make that decision, that’s fine with me.” [CBS News]
The opening of “Dumb Starbucks” is an art project. We’ll see how long fair-use law will let this parody business last—especially since they’re not even serving their own pastries. Ruh roh! [LAist]
“San Franciscans Wait Two Hours in the Rain for Day-Old New York Bagels.” [Uptown Almanac]
In case you missed the Olympics opening ceremony, the Cirque du Soleil-inspired performance pays tribute to Russian artists like Kazimir Malevich. [The Washington Post]
Plus-size dog clothing is on the rise. [Reuters]
The Broad Museum of Art will not open until 2015. [The New York Times]
The theatrics that seem to accompany the release of a new Lars Von Trier film are in full swing: Shia LaBeouf wore a bag on his head and Von Trier was ostentatiously silent at the Nymphomaniac opening in Berlin. [The Guardian]

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Friday Links: Tote Bags and Hedge Fund Managers

by Paddy Johnson and Matthew Leifheit on January 24, 2014

Heather Kravas, a quartet, 2013. Performance view, January 2014, The Kitchen, New York. Liz Santoro, Oren Barnoy, Jennifer Kjos, and Cecilia Eliceche. Photo: Paula Lobo. Image via: ArtForum

Hedge fund managers manipulate the art market. This WSJ article does a reasonable job of informing readers on who the key players are, but doesn’t release the kind of juicy issues former art market journalist Sarah Thornton was known for reporting. Read the WSJ article and then Art Market Monitor for analysis. [Art Market Monitor]
Vik Muniz, Chuck Close, Sarah Sze and Jean Shin have been commissioned by the MTA to beautify the 2nd Ave subway. No Vik Muniz rendering has been released but we’re unhappy with him regardless since he’s been making bad work since forever. We’re also unsure that Chuck Close was the right man for this commission. Who wants to look at a giant anonymous baby head during their commute? [In the Air]
The reviews for the Guggenheim’s Carrie Mae Weems show (opening today) have begun to roll in. Holland Cotter is upset the show wasn’t larger, and half heartedly gives curators Kathryn E. Delmez at the Frist Center and Jennifer Blessing and Susan Thompson at the Guggenheim a pat on the back for doing a good job working within the restrictions. [The New York Times]
A Gertrude Stein tote bag by Triple Canopy. [Triple Canopy via: Kyle Chayka]
Claudia LaRocco on the weeklong experience of APAP: Mild. I very much appreciated the observation that the pop song is still an ironic or at least knowing structural device in dance. [ArtForum]
The Kiev Biennial will take place for a second time. Really? This is not a city of great stability at the moment. The launch of any exhibition of that size there will be daunting task for curators and artists. [The Art Newspaper]
Corin Sworn has won the Max Mara Art Prize for Women. [In the Air]

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Performa Alternatives

by The AFC Staff on November 4, 2013

And there are so many.

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EXPO Chicago in Images: The Good, The Bad and Mel Ramos’ Monkey

by Paddy Johnson on September 21, 2013

It’s impossible to describe EXPO Chicago without offering a few images to tell the story. This slideshow with commentary do just that. Highlights, lowlights, and everything in between after the jump.

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Circle Glasses: The Art World’s Gateway to Power

by Paddy Johnson and Whitney Kimball on August 13, 2012

Do you have square glasses? Better put that paint brush down if your answer’s yes, because your art career is over.

Observe.

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Chuck Close

Circle Glasses: The Art World’s Gateway to Power

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