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edward snowden

The 10 Weirdest AFC Stories of 2016

by Michael Anthony Farley on December 30, 2016

Equal parts surreal and horrifying, 2016 was basically an Hieronymus Bosch painting come to life. Given how apocalyptic and strange every headline from the mainstream news media has been this past year, it’s easy to overlook all the weird shit that went down in the art world.

But this year was chock-full of crazy art world stories, often that intersected with politics. (Remember a few weeks ago, when Madonna charged Art Basel visitors thousands of dollars to watch her grind on a chair while dressed as a clown, covering Britney Spears’ “Toxic” in front of a giant projection of Donald Trump?) It’s hard to even pick a “top 10”, but here’s our best effort to round-up the weirdest art stories we reported on in 2016:

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Monday Links: Tough Times for Tumblr

by Rhett Jones on July 25, 2016

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Tumblr artists take note. Verizon is set to buy Yahoo, Tumblr’s parent company, for the bargain basement price of $4 billion. Changes are expected and no service is safe, so make sure to back up any artwork. [The Verge]
Hans Ulrich-Obrist’s latest project has reportedly run into trouble. The Shanghai Project, a multi-disciplinary biennial that Obrist was organizing with Yongwoo Lee has been reimagined as a community-based event rather than art exhibition. Reports of scheduling, funding, staffing and bureaucratic difficulties have plagued the project for months. [The Art Newspaper]
The New Yorker takes a dive into the mysterious circumstances surrounding the archives of the conceptual architect Luis Barragán. Following his death in 1988, the archives were sold and have been held in a Swiss bunker ever since. [New Yorker]
The net artist Guthrie Lonergan has installed a new work on the Hammer Museum’s website and it has made visitors baffled, delighted and angry. The museum has put together some messages they’ve received over the last six weeks along with an interview with Guthrie about the work. [Hammer Museum]
Edward Snowden has collaborated with hardware hacker Andrew “Bunnie” Huang to design a cell-phone case for journalists and other people who may be tracked by malicious forces. It’s not the prettiest thing in the world but it’s far better than Snowden’s music video. [Fast Company]
Have to say that this James Turrell takeover of a memorial church in Berlin is great. It’s like the nightmare funeral scenes in Heathers made sublime. [The Creator’s Project]
U.S. Congressman John Lewis has won the prestigious Eisner award for the second volume of his graphic novel memoir, “March.” Done in collaboration with illustrator Nate Powell and co-writer Andrew Aydin, the series chronicles Lewis time in the American civil rights struggle. [The Guardian]
Bushwick will be a major pain in the ass in a few years. MTA officials have voted to shut down the L train for 18 months straight. The scheduled maintenance won’t begin until 2019 but this can’t possibly be good for local businesses or galleries. [DNAinfo]
Alanna Heiss recently gave a shout out to Laurie Anderson’s criticism from the early 1970’s, so ArtNews decided to collect some capsule reviews that Anderson wrote for them. Capsule reviews are a tough format and Anderson mostly sticks to a style of quick impressionistic description that’s light on opinion. [ArtNews]

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Edward Snowden’s Music Video Looks Like a Hilarious Parody of Cyberpunk

by Michael Anthony Farley on April 28, 2016

Anti-surveillance activist Edward Snowden has teamed up with French New Age/trance producer Jean-Michel Jarre to create a music video. And it looks and sounds like a “hacking” montage from a bad, mid-2000s European C.S.I. knockoff.

If you’re wondering why this terrible, terrible thing exists, there’s a second, six-minute “making of” video to answer your questions with the help of even more over-used Final Cut effects.

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Tuesday Links: Art Cool Again Thanks to Miracle Dealer

by Paddy Johnson Michael Anthony Farley Rea McNamara on September 8, 2015

“It’s been such an amazing experience being able to travel all over and use my photography to impact people’s lives. Seriously can’t believe how many mountains I’ve climbed and beautiful views I’ve captured.” via the satirical instagram account Socality Barbie

Why does ISIS blow up archeological buildings and temples in Iraq and Syria? Turns out it’s a big cover-up for the looted art and historical objects they then sell on the international antiquities market. [The Independent]
Sotheby’s and Artsy are collaborating on an online-only sale of contemporary art next month. With a focus on works valued at $50,000 or less that meaningfully engage with technology — confirmed artists include Richard Prince and Cory Arcangel — this marks Artsy’s first sale with a major auction house. [New York Times]
According to this account, a Roxane Gay and Erica Jong discussion at last week’s Decatur Book Festival in Georgia was a very awkward demonstration of white feminism and the denial of privilege. [The Guardian]
The reviews are starting to roll in for the Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev’s sprawling, politically-tinged Istanbul Biennial: Adrien Searle calls it a meditation on “the “ongoing tides of human misery”, Amah-Rose Abrams praises Bakargiev for properly capturing the city’s long history of emigration and asylum. (Not mentioned: whether or not the press kit was a repeat of Documenta 13.) [The Guardian, artnet News]
Christopher Stout Gallery is opening on Meserole Street in Bushwick with a “program of showing subversive and difficult art.” [Hyperallergic]
Is there any headline more nauseating than “Meet the Art Dealer to Billionaires Who’s Making Collecting Cool Again”? [Bloomberg]
Right-wing vandals have struck Anish Kapoor’s controversial “Dirty Corner” at Versailles with anti-semetic graffiti. Kapoor doesn’t want the piece to be cleaned. He will “not allow … intolerance to be erased.” Why? [artnet News]
Jacob Appelbaum, Edward Snowden confident and Ai WeiWei Seven on Seven collaborator, has his first solo show opening in Germany this week. This fascinating interview offers an interesting take on the history of surveillance in Europe; Appelbaum calls the holocaust Europe’s “first big data project”. [we make money not art]
Who wants to go to Mars? We might be a few years from making those trips happen, but you can sign up to have NASA will put your name on a chip and send that to Mars. Not quite the same thing is it? [NASA via: @corinnakirsch]
The best parody Instagram account we’ve seen: Socality Barbie. This account places a hipster Barbie in various scenes—coffee shops, mountains, bars that have antlers hanging on the wall—applies the perfect filter and voila. It’s the captions that really make the account though. Under one shot of Barbie on a mountain the text reads, “It’s been such an amazing experience being able to travel all over and use my photography to impact people’s lives. Seriously can’t believe how many mountains I’ve climbed and beautiful views I’ve captured.” [Wired via: Metafilter]
What day has the largest number of openings and where are they concentrated? A useful graphic shows us that some what predictably, this Thursday will be the biggest night. 79 shows open that evening, most of them in Chelsea. Wednesday and Sunday are the big nights for the Lower East Side with 29 and 20 shows opening respectively. [ARTnews]
VICE journalist Mohammed Ismael Rasool, along with two colleagues, was arrested in Turkey on terrorism charges while covering the violent conflict between the Turkish government and members of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party. The other two journalists have been released and are back in London. Here, they make a plea for Rasool’s release. [VICE]
Valid #BackToSchool thought: “if sedentary lifestyles are killing us, if sitting is the new smoking, why does education continue to be about sitting still in class?” [@JesseHirsh]

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Wednesday Links: Showtime Says “Yes” to Just Kids

by Michael Anthony Farley Corinna Kirsch Rea McNamara on August 12, 2015

The original music video for Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s RELAX was banned in 1984 because it was shot in a leather bar featuring gay men and drag queens.Here’s the restored uncensored version.

Posted by Sam Kalidi on Thursday, July 2, 2015

The original video for Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax” never made it to the air. Why? It’s set in a gay bar populated by leather daddies and drag queens gyrating in a bondage orgy. It’s 1000x better than the version that made it to MTV. This is what a mashup of Kenneth Anger and Jack Smith films would have looked like in the year 1984—an unfortunately bleak time for homophobic censorship. [via @JMGpix]
The man responsible for controversially putting the Guggenheim on the map is in expansion mode. Thomas Krens, former director of the Guggenheim, is proposing a new 160,000-square-foot museum, the Global Contemporary Collection and Museum, on North Adams’ Harriman-West Airport ground. Krens, who famously came up with the concept of Mass MoCA 30 years ago when he was director of the Williams College Museum of Contemporary Art, has entered lease negotiations with the Airport Commission, and is envisioning a massive for-profit museum with a collection of 400 works. It will cost an estimated ten to fifteen million dollars to build. [Artforum]
Just Kids, Patti Smith’s memoir of her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe during New York’s “Drop Dead” epochal era, is becoming a Showtime miniseries. Smith is on board as a producer and will co-write the script; no word yet on casting or when it’ll drop. (Don’t worry — we’ll make sure to let you know when there’s a casting call.) [artnet News]
In today’s weird “we live in the future” news, Björn Borg’s Spring/Summer 2016 collection, which will be unveiled at Stockholm Fashion Week, is inspired by the real-life plan for human colonization of Mars. [Mars One]
Why is Apple hiring so many fashion execs? While it seems as if it’s an attempt to push wearable tech, it’s more likely the post-Steve Jobs recasting of the company as a “lifestyle experience brand.” [The Business of Fashion]
“Rosé and Beyoncé: two pillars of modern womanhood that we could pack into a time capsule for future generations to unwrap, alongside an iPhone, maybe.” A so-called critical case history of the rosé, and how it transcended its basic roots to become the blushing wine of choice. [Vanity Fair]
Were you a teen on the Internet? Do you have some stuff online that you kinda-sorta want to delete, but just can’t? That’s where “Delete Your Account! Live” comes in—submit your past self to an open call devoted to performances, readings, and any or all media. Hurry, because the event takes place on August 26. [Delete Your Account Live via @willak]
Questionable quote of the morning: “If you go to Germany, every mechanic will have an opinion on contemporary art, whereas here people are afraid of looking uninformed, so they refrain from expressing their opinions.” Berliners, got some opinions on this? [Domain]
It’s that time again, when all your Twitter friends be like vote for me—it’s SXSW PanelPicker voting season. [SXSW]
Want to see that Perseid meteor shower tonight? Your viewing station will suck, according to this article, unless you’re in the countryside. Good luck, New York! [Business Insider]
The bust of Edward Snowden that was illegally installed and subsequently removed from a Brooklyn memorial earlier this year is on display at Little Italy’s LoMan Art Festival. [RT]
“Things That Anarchists Say to Me in Private But Never Repeat Publicly” is an anonymously submitted look at how leftist organizing becomes dysfunctional due to infighting and a set of impossible expectations for activists. Let’s just say that the author made a good call by choosing to remain anonymous—the think-pieces about privilege this could inspire would probably result in total ostracization from the cool kids. [Infoshop News]

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This Week’s Must-See Events: Collected Cum Shots and Love Children

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on June 8, 2015

In New York, there’s no such thing as recovery from last weekend’s art orgy at Bushwick Open Studios. There’s just more events. This week we’ve got what we expect to be a heady exhibition from Whitney ISP, a hypothetical, queer revision of history, and a room full of found and solicited cum shots. Good times!

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Wednesday Links: Chickens, Holograms and Commemorative Sculptures

by The AFC Staff on April 8, 2015

Dave Poulin’s controversial Lucille Ball sculpture. Critics say the sculpture is creepy

“On the island of Kauai, chickens have not just crossed the road. They are also crowing in parking lots, hanging out at beaches and flocking in forests.” This, my friends, is how you write a lede. Chickens are everywhere in Hawaii. [The New York Times]
Our benefit workout video made the L.A. Times. Woot! Thank-you Carolina Miranda. [Culture High & Low]
Ben Valentine emailed a questionnaire to 20 women artists and writers on the subject of Deep Lab, new media and technology-based art, and representation. Seven responded. The craziest response comes from Jennifer Chan, who runs down a laundry list of terrible experiences in response to the question: Briefly describe the barriers you face within a new media art and technology framework as a WOC or QTWOC. [Hyperallergic]
One minute a bust, the next minute, a hologram. A few hours after police removed the sculpture of Edward Snowdon from a Brooklyn park, a hologram of Snowdon’s image appeared in the same spot. The Illuminator art collective, responsible for the hour-long projection, are outspoken about their admiration of Snowdon and the anonymous group that installed the first bust. [WPIX New York]
Those guys from Scrubs Twitter-pledged to make pizzas for same-sex weddings in Indiana. The tweet has been reposted 8,000 times. We hope they’re prepared to fill a lot of orders. [People]
It’s a busy week for commemorative public sculptures. In Celoron, New York, artist Dave Poulin is offering to re-work his statue sculpture of Lucille Ball. He’s responding to a barrage of complaints about the work, which doesn’t quite resemble the actress. But the most ardent criticism has to do with its alleged creepiness. [NPR]
Deadline for the VOX XI juried exhibition is coming up on May 3. Vox Populi is looking for work that “pushes the boundaries in terms of form and content, is ambitious and timely, and is experimental and risk-taking.” Get to it, ambitious, experimental boundary-pushers! [Vox Populi]

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Tuesday Links: Bad Questions

by The AFC Staff on April 7, 2015

Above is a promo shot from White God, a film about a rag-tag team of dogs that start a revolution. An interview with Director Kornél Mundruczó that covers such topics as: Is it hard to work with dogs? Why didn’t you CGI the dogs? Are dogs aware of the camera in any way? Amazing. [Bomb Magazine]
The Times is going crazy with the college tuition articles. Tis the season, I guess. Today’s reading includes an article on how Mayor DeBlasio makes an upper middle class living and will still struggle to pay tuition for his two kids, an op ed piece about why it’s not state cuts that are pushing tuition fees up but a vast increase in administrative positions at Universities, and a new prize that awards universities for economic diversity. [The New York Times]
A large statue bust of whistleblower Edward Snowden was illegally erected in Fort Greene Park by a trio of artists, and quickly removed by authorities. The crazy thing is, that authorities covered the statue before they removed it. [Animal New York, Gothamist]
Blake Gopnik thinks the role of criticism is to “radically alter interpretations of art”. LOL!!!! The statement was made on the Volta/Artnet panel on online art criticism with Gopnik, Christian Viveros-Faune and Ben Genocchio and I couldn’t disagree more. Count me on the CVF side of things: It’s not rocket science. [Vimeo]
Oh no! Pearl River is closing because its rent has quintupled since 2003. It will now cost more than 500k per month. [Crains New York]
Australian performance artist Casey Jenkins is performing unskilled labor tasks in the gallery, and she’s taking requests, so long as you pay her the standard day rate commensurate with the type of labor. The point is to draw attention to notions of value, and how work shapes the personal life of the laborer. The drawback? You have to choose a job from a dropdown menu with 22 options. Facebook CEO is an option, but we don’t think Mark Zuckerberg will be hiring rivals anytime soon. [Huffington Post]
Website suffix alternatives to .com and .net are getting more oddly specific and colorful. .wtf is a thing, and .sucks is scheduled to debut in June. Companies are nervous. They’re buying up new domain names to avoid criticism from competitors and cyberbullies. Some suffixes are costly, and companies that want to protect their reputation online are calling out registry companies for extortion. [NPR]
BTW, still no word on whether eflux and Deviantart have been awarded .art. Artdomainname.com says sometime in 2015, maybe later. [artdomainname]
Is Hurricane Katrina to blame for the deluge of dystopic fiction and disaster films flooding the market over the past few years? One writer seems to think so. [Flavorwire]

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Important Retrospective; Snowden Documentary; AFC Q&A’s

by Whitney Kimball on January 19, 2015

AFC editors take panels by storm; Academy Award nominee Laura Poitras speaks at Artists Space; and the first U.S. retrospective of “one of the most prominent artists working in Southeast Asia” comes to the SculptureCenter.

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Monday Links: Tough Times for Tumblr

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