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e-flux

Superscript: Two Days in an Auditorium with Art Critics

by Paddy Johnson on June 4, 2015

Let me tell you about what I learned.

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Monday Links: Jimmy Van Bramer, Protector of the Realm

by The AFC Staff on March 30, 2015

Image courtesy of Jimmy Van Bramer

Jimmy Van Bramer, one of New York City’s most active council members, is due to submit a bill that will allow for community feedback on public art commissions. Van Bramer envisions town-hall-style meetings early on in the design process—this is necessary. Re: Public outcry against the Jeff Koons statue in California and here, in Long Island City, Ohad Meromi’s pink-man sculpture. [New York Times]
In Bangladesh, a blogger was knifed to death on a busy street in Dhaka. According to local sources, he had been targeted before because of “anti-Islamic writing.” This incident marks the second writer-related killing in Bangladesh this month. [BBC News]
“To brutally summarize a lot of scholarly texts: contemporary art is made possible by neoliberal capital plus the internet, biennials, art fairs, parallel pop-up histories, growing income inequality. Let’s add asymmetric warfare—as one of the reasons for the vast redistribution of wealth—real estate speculation, tax evasion, money laundering, and deregulated financial markets to this list.” [e-flux Journal]
Either selfies are evil, or people are. Over the weekend, Instagram was filled with people smiling for selfies against the backdrop of the East Village fire. [New York Post]
In related news, both Coachella and Lollapalooza are banning selfie sticks this year. (Coachella reps calls them “narcissistics,” lol.) [Stereogum]
Best read of the week, and possibly the month: “The Rise of the Cryptopticon.” Siva Vaidhyanathan, a media studies and law professor at the University of Virginia, tracks the legal history of privacy and surveillance in the United States, from the 20th century to our digital age. [The Hedgehog Review via Alexis Madrigal]
Finally! Macaroni salad and plain Jello are cool again. Drop that kale and get yourself to a Denny’s because normcore food is a thing now. Supposedly. [The Awl]
Yep, art by famous artists = still really expensive. Roy Lichtenstein’s “The Ring (Engagement)” is expected to fetch around $50 million at auction at the Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale on May 12. [Huffington Post]
You too can get laid like a Lannister. British sex toy company Bondera released their “Game of Bones” product line, a Game of Thrones-themed lineup of dildos and bondage gear for sci-fi/fantasy and cheesy innuendo lovers everywhere. God, their copywriters are so lucky. [Flavorwire via Mashable]
Chicago jack-of-all-art-trades Shannon Stratton named the new chief curator of the Museum of Arts and Design. You’re welcome, New York. [The Observer]
Meet Jon Stewart’s replacement, South-African comedian and guy who seems way young—but hey, we’re rooting for you—Trevor Noah. [New York Daily News]

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Monday Links: Does Doing Drugs Affect Artistic Quality?

by Paddy Johnson Whitney Kimball and Corinna Kirsch on October 20, 2014

Scene from Andrew Jeffrey Wright’s Bananazz comic strip

This weekend, Twitter raged over an investigative article that wondered why a documentary film on Jeff Koons wasn’t included in the artist’s Whitney retrospective. It wasn’t even included in the gift shop! Let’s face it: this is a non-issue. Museums do not usually include documentaries as part of their visual arts programming. [The Art Newspaper]
Rhizome is in London. Even if you’re not there to attend their off-site programs, the lectures are online. Some lectures have been transcribed for your reading pleasure! Whee! I’m listening to the selfie panel with Amalia Ulman this morning. —Corinna [Rhizome]
Stop venting on Facebook; go to e-flux. This week the non-profit launched “e-flux conversations,” a moderated message board addressing topical issues. So far the best discussion has been Karen Archey on “top female curator” lists. [e-flux]
We might never know what killed Joan Rivers because her daughter has refused an autopsy. Now get back to work. [Gawker]
Solange is throwing an art party during Prospect.3. Bey’s little sis recently relocated to New Orleans. [NOLA]
Album sales are plummeting. Duh. [Death and Taxes]
Painter Wolfgang Hutter died on September 26th. We’re just finding this out now, says artnet News, because he didn’t want the news to be publicized. Maybe he’d read articles like this one. (Also wow these are cool.)
According to the National Report, Graffiti artist Banksy has been arrested in London, revealing the artist’s allusive identity. He is 35-year-old Paul Horner. Several news sites subsequently reported that that story is bogus, and National Report is a site made up of entirely fake news. [Glasstire]
Andrew Jeffrey Wright’s latest “Bananazz” strip is pretty good. An enormous gap between this and what’s typically on Hyperallergic. [the artblog]
What a really weird interview with Gerhard Richter. Questions include: How does doing drugs affect artistic quality? When did organized religion crumble and why do humans need art as a replacement? Are you depressed that artists now—even you, whom many consider to be the greatest living painter—can’t paint like Titian? [The Wall Street Journal]

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Thursday Links: Thank God There’s Not a Baby on That Tractor!

by Paddy Johnson and Corinna Kirsch on May 22, 2014

Canadian politics are just as dumb as American politics. Ontario Progressive Conservatives are up in arms because Liberal leader Kathleen Wynne rode on a tractor the wrong way. Thank God she wasn’t holding a baby! [The Globe and Mail]
The Taipei Biennial 2014 just announced its artist list; its theme concerns the relationships between humans and non-humans. Artists like Sterling Ruby were chosen because they use polymers: “In the light, a new generation of artists is exploring the intrinsic properties of materials ‘informed’ by human activity, including polymers (Roger Hiorns, Marlie Mul, Sterling Ruby, Alisa Barenboym, Neil Beloufa, Pamela Rosenkranz) or the critical states of materials (the nebulizations of Peter Buggenhout, Harold Ancart or Hiorns).” Artists have been using all sorts of materials for ages, and for all sorts of reasons outside of interspecies connectivity, but who cares about that. [e-flux]
Red Lobster parent company Darden Restaurants sold the cheese-and-biscuits franchise to a capital equity firm. Hazlitt’s David Berry recaps the Lobster’s more glorious days. [Hazlitt via The Paris Review]
“Everybody told me mink are untameable — they’re the most vicious creatures alive.” Despite that warning, Jesse Hirsch began his lifelong interest in training minks to hunt. [Modern Farmer]
File under heart wrenching stories: Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “The Case For Reparations.” A must-read. [The Atlantic]
You’ve seen this before. Saving room for cats. [Saving Room for Cats]
You’ll see lots of white people looking at Kara Walker’s “A subtlety” at the Domino Sugar Factory. According to Jamilah King, “This is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s reassuring that so many white people have a vested — or at least passing — interest in consuming art that deals with race. At the same time I found it unsettling to view art by a black artist about racism in an audience that’s mostly white. It reinforced the idea that black people’s histories are best viewed but not physically experienced.” [Colorlines]
In case you missed it: A performance made in honor of the late Ana Mendieta left chicken guts out front the DIA Foundation for the Arts. [Hyperallergic]

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Thursday Links: Two-Time Sinking Boat Takes Art Passengers on a Ride

by Paddy Johnson Whitney Kimball and Corinna Kirsch on May 8, 2014

Marie Lorenz’s Tide and Current Taxi Project (Image courtesy of Frieze)

Artist Marie Lorenz is rowing around Randall’s Island in a rowboat for Frieze projects. She will be a “punctuation mark” within the fair, making it more of a “cultural adventure,” according to Amanda Sharp. [Wall Street Journal]
Actually, this boat ride may be an adventure. The Wall Street Journal neglects to mention that Lorenz’s first Frieze boat sank in the middle of the East River, and her rider had to swim to Randall’s Island. Another sank back in 2009, which resulted in a show at Jack Hanley. Passengers beware. [City Room]
Art critic Ben Davis is back at Artnet after the magazine folded and relaunched as Artnet News! His first column is about the crisis in art and comes with a giant picture of his head. He says money is drowning out thought, and art is bad. [Artnet ]
A new documentary about Llyn Foulkes is showing at Film Forum through next Tuesday, but we’re not sure how much more we could learn about the man beyond what’s in the trailer. He was forgotten for a while, he makes weird shit, and he’s obsessive. “He’s actually making the most ambitious paintings at age 73,” though, says one voiceover. [Film Forum]
Artist Sean Carney is only 35 votes away from securing a wrestling match with MoMA’s Poet Laureate Kenneth Goldsmith. Go vote—because why not? [Change.org]
The New York Public Library is abandoning their terrible renovation plan that would turn part of their flagship fifth avenue and 42nd street location into a circulating library. Three factors contributed to this decision: A study showing that the renovation costs would exceed the original estimate of 300 million, a change in city government, and input from the public. Woo hoo! [The New York Times]
In related New York mayoral news, Bill de Blasio unveiled his 41.1 billion dollar affordable housing plan on Tuesday, and managed to give the Teachers Union a contract with modest raises, after 7 years of Bloomberg dragging his feet on giving them a contract at all. John Cassidy takes a closer look at these policies and describes him as a moderate. [The New Yorker]
“The scale of conspiratorial thinking in Russia is now comparable to that of the US after 9/11.” E-flux journal’s May issue takes on Russia. [e-flux]
Following “tepid” sales at Christie’s Impressionist and Modern auction on Tuesday night, Sotheby’s Imp-Mod sale failed to sell a whopping third of their lots. Okay, Sotheby’s just cannot keep up with Christie’s tepid pace. [Reuters]
$$$! Creative Time raised $1.3 million at their annual fundraiser gala. It was held in the Domino Sugar Factory, which currently houses Kara Walker’s Creative Time project, but will eventually be turned into condos. [Art in America]

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Wednesday Links: Amenities for Shopping

by Paddy Johnson and Corinna Kirsch on April 16, 2014

Last week’s inaugural Silicon Valley Contemporary art fair was full of art dealers scrambling to figure out what type of art techies might like. Some, like K&M Art, thought techies might want to unload their bitcoins for art. [Medium]
Monday nights you can choose between watching reality TV like Ru Paul’s Drag Race or wrestling entertainment like Raw. It doesn’t matter what you choose; NPR argues that both shows are “essentially one and the same,” both performance art about gender. I’d like to agree, but there’s too much of a focus in this piece on wrestlers performing masculinity and drag queens performing femininity; WWE is full of nearly naked sequined wrestlers twisted into pretzel positions with their oiled-up partners. [NPR]
Art collector and dealer Daniel Wolf and artist and architect Maya Lin have an old jail in Yonkers. They’re planning to transform it into studio space and a gallery. No word whether the collection will be made available public, but even so, the piece is pitched as though it’s about the budding art scene of Yonkers. The only other artist they were able to cite out there is David Hammons. The best part of the piece is when they describe the lack of basic amenities on the waterfront as “shopping.” [The New York Times]
Lawsuit filed against Brooklyn landlords claims they were quick to kick out black residents to make room for white ones. [Gothamist]
For new media lovers: Link Art Center has some sweet-looking art available at Paddle8. [Paddle8]
Lindsay Preston Zappas describes Math Bass’s show at Overduin and Co. as an exercise in visual merchandising. Ouch. [Carets and Stick]
Sarah Jessica Parker interviewed Alex Katz; she filled in for Leonard Lopate. [NPR]
Exhibition A interviews an art collector who’s also an astronaut. The interview’s full of space talk, not so much art talk. [Exhibition A]
Pierre Huyghe joins Hauser & Wirth. Not sure what this means for his New York gallery; he’s currently represented by Marian Goodman. [AMA]
This month’s issue of e-flux journal is mostly about sex. Sex! [e-flux]
Jaimie Warren’s new show at The Hole gets a lauding write up from the Huffington Post. Critic Priscilla Frank is a fan. [The Huffington Post]

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Wednesday Links: In the Future, We’ll Have Crabs and Potatoes

by Paddy Johnson and Corinna Kirsch on July 10, 2013

William Powhida reviews the exhibition catalog It’s the Political Economy, Stupid. He calls out theorists and critics who hope for a new, post-capitalist art practice without dealing with how we get to there (the future) from here (the now). It’s great. [Hyperallergic]
Magda Sawon did not win the High Line Art commission, but the activist Florent Morellet did. John Ahearn will sculpt his bust, which will go on view to the public in September. [High Line Art]
Though eight weeks old, this story’s totally relevant. Kriston Capps reports that D.C.’s independent gallery scene is shifting, and possibly shrinking. [City Paper]
Did you win this year’s apexart open call? Only if your name is Avi Lubin, Ceren Erdem, Jaime Schwartz, Martin Waldmeier, or Lisa Williams. [e-flux]
The Guggenheim makes history with its app, or at least that’s what some PR-filled reviews would lead one to think. [Long Island Newsday]
“Gadgets will soon be made of crabs and potatoes”. According to The Guardian, this is what we should look forward to with artfully designed tech. [The Guardian]
The house that Ai Weiwei built for contemporary Chinese art collectors Christopher Tsai and André Stockamp has now been sold. The upstate New York “compound” includes three bedrooms and a studio. [Curbed NY]
John Zorn turns 60. [The New York Times]
Malcolm Gladwell wrote about Korean Air back in 2008, saying that they’ve had more plane crashes because their culture is hierarchical. Slashdot seems to think this could explain Asiana Airline’s recent crash. [Slashdot]

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Carry Us?

by Whitney Kimball on May 13, 2013

We’re feeling pretty lazy after the fairs, so lucky for us, our art has come pre-bundled. This week: three fairs are still open, Eyebeam launches its video festival, and PS1 continues its Expo on ecology. On Saturday, we get to choose between Redhook and Bushwick. Now all we need is a piggy back.

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