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Gagosian

Friday Links: The Art World isn’t Changing

by Paddy Johnson on June 30, 2017

Tomorrow is Canada’s 150th anniversary. July 4th’s coming up too, but we’re a little less excited about celebrating that this year given the healthcare debacle and this muslim ban bullshit. [The Internet]

Curator salaries are increasing according to a new survey conducted by the Association of Art Museum Directors. So too are the salaries of COOs. [artnet News]

Acute Art has enlisted a bunch of A list artists to try out their new VR headset. Apparently it’s not very realistic, but the article still ran with a title suggesting the software could change the art world. Given that we’re looking at a bunch of stars promoting a product sounds like the art world is just the same. [Jstore]

Amtrak is making repairs which means Penn Station is going to be more of a world of hell than it already is. Hard to believe that station could be any worse than it already is. This explainer post is useful but also filled with some amazing pictures. [Curbed]

OMG this Times video on the Carsten Höller show at Gagosian is HILARIOUS. It talks about how playful the art is, but it’s narration is slow and plotting and comes across as the most pretentious thing you’ve ever heard—all while watching kids run through his sculptures. [The New York Times]

Jerry Saltz reviews “Wrong Side of History” at Bullet Space, a group show addressing Trump’s America. The show gets a good review, but it and its essays are mainly used as vehicle to take a jab at the art world’s predictability. “I love the art world; great art is getting made and shown. Art will live, as always. But we all have to admit that the art world isn’t the definition of radical right now.” [Vulture]

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We Went to Frieze, Part One: Seagull Poop, People Poop, and Demon Poop

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on May 4, 2017

Every year Frieze installs a massive tent on Randall’s Island and lures jetsetters from across the globe to its contemporary art fair. This year, the fair expanded its usual roster of contemporary art galleries to include a few secondary market stalwarts as well. Newcomers to the fair included Bernard Jacobson Gallery, Castelli Gallery, and Axel Vervoordt and Eykyn Maclean.

That’s not a huge change in the landscape of the fair, but notably the fair’s director, Victoria Siddall, told the Art Newspaper recently that there was a significant uptick in applications from galleries in this market. Is Frieze grooming the New York market for an edition of their London-based Frieze Masters (a fair focused on secondary market art works)? Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, Frieze New York is much better than usual. Art fair standards that drag these events down—geometric abstraction, process based abstraction, and assembly line art works by A-list artists—were few and far between. Overall, the work on view seemed unusually fresh and thoughtful. Neither are words we normally use to describe art fair art, let alone that at Frieze.

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Wednesday Links: Is This Parrot’s Painting Art?

by Paddy Johnson on September 7, 2016

Sally Mann will launch a show at Gagosian on September 22nd that addresses the subject of Cy Twombly, her good friend and neighbor, who died recently. Her son’s recent death is said to have influenced the show as well. [The New York Times]
Oh, great. Another “Is it art?” feature. This one’s about whether paintings made by animals in a zoo are art. To determine the answer, the author proposes two definitions of art and sees how they match up to paintings and process. [The Washington Post]
A map of Detroit’s public art essentials. [Curbed]
This seems like good news: As part of a broader push to help the growing number of workers relying on the “gig economy,” the New York City Council will consider legislation giving all Uber and taxi drivers access to “portable” benefits like health care coverage, disability insurance and life insurance. [Politico]
Burning Man has become popular amongst Silicon Valley millionaires and billionaires. Now there are luxurious camps which use hired staff like cooks, builders and security. Class tensions have erupted with many Burners saying this is a betrayal of radical self-reliance. Art people have steadily maintained little interest in the event. [The Telegraph]
Expected but still terrible news: Many artists, newspaper cartoonists and cultural figures have been detained after the attempted military coup against Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. [The Art Newspaper]

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Thursday Links: Gun Violence Solutions?

by Rhett Jones on August 4, 2016

After a year-long campaign by the activist group New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, Apple has replaced its revolver emoji with a squirt gun. I guess that’s progress. [Hyperallergic]
Architects are also trying their hands at curbing gun violence. Spurred by terrorist attacks and mass shootings, a new interest in safety and making people feel safer has arisen in the architecture community. Phrases like “natural surveillance” are a little unnerving but the focus on making people feel less isolated seems like a step in the right direction. [Motherboard]
Antiques have declined in overall value by 45% since 2002 so antique fairs are jumping into the contemporary art market. [The Guardian]
That guy who made the art pricing app filled with stolen images and data says it will be coming back. His argument is that many of the images are user generated and that no one is calling for Instagram to be taken down. It’s true, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram etc are billion dollar businesses built on copyright violation. This guy’s still kind of a jackass though. [The Art Newspaper]
Looks like Moscow’s Garage museum is putting that VICE money to use. It will expand to a second location on New Holland Island in St. Petersburg. [ArtNews]
An inspired journalist from The Hollywood Reporter has answered the question of how tiny Donald Trump’s hands are. The exclusive information was obtained by walking down to Madame Tussaud’s and measuring Trump’s wax figure. So now, dear reader, you too can compare your hands to Donald Trump’s. They’re pretty tiny. For a 6’ 2”, 200 pound man, they’re very tiny. [The Hollywood Reporter]
Bill Viola is set to install a second video work at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The work, entitled “Mary,” will be a companion piece to Viola’s Martyrs (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) from 2014. [The Art Newspaper]
Jens Hoffman is leaving his position as deputy director at the Jewish Museum. He’ll still handle special exhibitions and will be working with other institutions. [ArtNews]
Photographer Jeff Wall is joining go-go-Gagosian after spending 25 years with Marian Goodman. [New York Times]

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Friday Links: A Good Day For LGBT Rights

by Rhett Jones on July 1, 2016

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The Pentagon has announced that the ban on transgender citizens serving in the military will be lifted. What’s more, transgender recruits will receive full coverage of medical expenses, including hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery if a doctor determines the procedures to be medically necessary. [CNN]
Two planned buildings in New York’s affordable housing program will be making specific efforts to be more LGBT-friendly. The buildings are aimed to provide housing for low-income, elderly New Yorkers. Programming will include Pride Month celebrations and events that highlight LGBT artists and writers. The initiative is designed to make people in the community feel safer when applying for senior services. [Curbed]
Candy Coleman, the director of Gagosian Gallery’s Los Angeles location has resigned and will be joining Sotheby’s. Her role will be to increase the auction giants west coast operations. [ArtNews]
After 176 years in business, the world’s oldest photography studio is shutting down. Bourne & Shepherd, in Koltaka, India, opened sometime around 1840. Reports say that business has slowly been in decline after a fire destroyed significant portions of their archives, 25 years ago. [artnet News]
Australia has been experiencing severe funding cuts to their national arts program. In addition to 50% small to medium arts organizations being left without funding, 1,300 arts workers are expected to lose their jobs. The Guardian has an insider account of the activist campaign to raise awareness and make this an election issue. [The Guardian]
Tesla has announced that a man died while using the company’s autopilot feature. He is the first known casualty and unfortunately it may be the electric automaker’s fault. Maybe slow down hopes for those driverless cars coming sooner rather than later. [Forbes]
Roberta likes MoMA’s new Bruce Conner retrospective. This thing sounds massive, it features 250 works including Conner’s drawings and assemblages. We’re looking forward to this one. [New York Times]

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Wednesday Links: Before Orlando, There was UpStairs Lounge

by Paddy Johnson and Rea McNamara on June 15, 2016

“So, we’re American. And when the enemies of the US want to strike at US symbols, they now strike at us! LGBT equality would seem to be another American export than can be resented and attacked as American. For anyone used to being an pariah, this will take some getting used to.” In 2008, Skylar Fein’s “Remember the UpStairs Lounge” showed at New Orleans’ Prospect.1 biennial. The installation recreated aspects of the popular 1970s gay bar that was tragically set fire by an arsonist and killed 32 people. In light of Orlando, Hrag Vartanian revisits the work, and talks with the artist about the US’s complicated history of anti-LGBTQ violence. [Hyperallergic]
A change of guard: Barbara M. Vogelstein will succeed Elizabeth A. Sackler as chair of of the Brooklyn Museum’s board of trustees. Vogelstein has three decades experience in private equity investing, and served on the institution’s board from 2001-2010 and then again since 3015. Vogelstein was involved in the search for the museum’s new director, and she and her husband endowed the museum’s contemporary art curator position in 2005. [Artforum]
Adrian Searle glowingly reviews the Switchhouse, the Tate Modern’s new extension. The off kilter pyramid matches Herzog & de Meuron’s original conversion of Bankside power station into contemporary art gallery in 2000. And the show’s pretty good! Actual conversations between art works occur. [The Guardian]
Rose Eveleth just launched a new column exploring design bias in medical research and products. First up, artificial hearts. Even though women are more likely to die on transplant lists, artificial hearts aren’t designed for them — in fact, an artificial heart typically fits 80% of men and only 20% of women. [Motherboard]
London’s public transportation system has a new screen-friendly typeface. The new typeface, a revamp of the original 100 year old Johnson typeface, has a lighter weight made for mobile reading, while retaining certain idiosyncrasies like the “bulbous ‘U’”. [The Verge]
Yes, this happened today: UK Independent Party leader Nigel Farage and Bob Geldof had a boat war on the Thames. The Brexit debate just got real. [Telegraph]
Merray Gerges chats with Montreal’s GothShakira, who has been getting a lot of media traction for her intersectional feminist image macros on Instagram. [Canadian Art]
By 2020, the New York skyline will look f-ugly. Get ready for skyscrapers—a rendering by CityReality. [Curbed]
The International Association of Art Critics has announced that this year’s winner of AICA Incentive Award for Young Critics, will receive a trip to Havana, Cuba, to attend the AICA Congress this October. Submit a review by July 29th. [AICA via: ARTnews]
At the VIP opening of the new Tate Modern opening, over 150 feminist activists protested the institution’s decision to show work by Carl Andre, chanting “oi Tate, we’ve got a vendetta, where the fuck is Ana Mendieta?”. Organized by the WHEREISANAMENDIETA movement, the protesters are decrying the exhibition of Andre’s work — not to mention the failure to show Mendieta’s work in the same space, even though the Tate has five works in storage — as a glorification of violent men within the art institution. [Dazed]
Talk about exploitation: Jenny Lorenzo and Brittany Ashley, both popular producers/personalities for Buzzfeed’s Motion Pictures company, were fired for appearing in “Gente-Fied”, a web series produced by actor America Ferrera. Why? Because Lorenzo and Ashley apparently breached the non-compete clause in their contracts. Even though non-compete agreements are fairly common in tech and engineering jobs, digital media companies like Buzzfeed are now adopting them. It’s a backwards revival of the old Hollywood studio system, back when stars signed ironclad 7-year contracts. [Politico]
Breaking: Bloomberg’s art market reporter Katya Kazakina confirms billionaire Leon Black has won ownership of Picasso’s “Bust of a Woman” plaster sculpture. At the center of an international legal drama between Gagosian and the Qatari royal family, the dispute stemmed from Picasso’s daughter, Maya Widmaeier-Picasso, selling the work not once but twice to both parties. [@artdetective]
Art Basel reports are coming in: Dealers are bringing their best work to counter-act the narrative that says the market is down. [ARTnews]

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On Zona MACO: How to Excel at Being an Average Art Fair

by Michael Anthony Farley on February 11, 2016

Last week, I visited Mexico City’s Zona MACO (México Arte Contemporaneo), Latin America’s largest art fair. This was on the heels of our visit to Material, a satellite fair that impressed Paddy and me beyond our expectations. Walking into MACO felt just like visiting the most art fair-y of art fairs by comparison—which is to say, the immediate experience was predictable. There were long convention center lines, groups of “fresas” queuing up to take selfies in reflective sculptures, and familiar overexposed blue-chip names such as Alex Katz and Richard Prince. (“Fresas” is Mexican slang for “yuppies”, literally translating to “strawberries”.) MACO devoted a good chunk of floor space to design wares—from furniture to high-end sunglasses. I wasn’t immediately inspired to lend the event much thought beyond snapping some photos. With a few days of reflection, I realize Zona MACO is noteworthy for its extremes. And that’s not just the quality or quantity of blatantly commercial crap. For all the lackluster blue chip staples on the floor, I also saw an impressive amount of well-curated project booths that smartly positioned emerging artists and galleries in dialogue with the establishment. These two poles served a useful purpose: they lay bare how contemporary art fairs function. Zona MACO is the best model I can think of to demonstrate how for-profit fairs must work to remain both commercially viable and discursively relevant. For better or for worse, MACO excels at both.

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: The Creative Time Summit, Juliana Huxtable, and Cyborg Squirrels

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on November 9, 2015

This weekend, everyone will be (or should be) attending The Creative Time Summit in Bed-Stuy. Leading up to the all-day events this weekend, however, are a handful of promising openings. Monday, check out massive, rarely-seen works from abstract painter Friedal Dzubas in Midtown. Thursday, a Jeff Koons show at Gagosian attempts some metaphysical alchemy, and Friday morning, Juliana Huxtable’s new MoMA commission opens. Friday night we couldn’t be more excited for solo shows by Alex Ebstein and Meriem Bennani at Cuevas Tilleard Projects and SIGNAL, respectively.

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Wednesday Links: Infested Waters

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on May 13, 2015

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A great white shark, possibly pregnant, lurks off the shore of Jones Beach, Long Island. [am New York]
Facebook begins testing instant articles with nine different publishers, including NBC News, National Geographic and The New York Times. This means you don’t have to follow a link to a new site any more – content will just load directly on Facebook. How will this work out for The New York Times, which receives a lot of revenue from the paywall? Good question. [The New York Times]
An article that begins with a very obvious premise—that the boom in the global art market reflects rising inequality—contains one anecdote worth repeating. In the case of the record breaking Picasso, writer Neil Irwin suggests that only 50 people in the world could purchase the work, assuming most are unwilling to bid more than 1 percent of their total income. In 1997, there would only be a dozen. [The Upshot]
Hauser & Wirth’s Partner and Vice President Mark Payot told me three years ago at an art fair that an artist had never left the gallery and vise-a-versa. Well, times have changed. In a report on the Art Newspaper on the fluid relationship of artists with galleries, we learn that Sterling Ruby left Hauser & Wirth, but is still represented by Sprüth Magers (C9), Gagosian Gallery (B60) and Xavier Hufkens (B44). For the artists reading this who have yet to secure representation, I feel your pain. [The Art Newspaper]
Christoph Büchel’s installation at the Icelandic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale may be shut down. Büchel created a mosque, and city officials worry that extremists will attack it. Doesn’t this seem like a massive over reaction? [Artforum via The New York Times]
A Howard law professor notes that mainstream Americans love fictional rebels who fight oppressive authoritarian governments in films like The Hunger Games. So why didn’t the nation sympathize with the rioters after the murder of Freddie Gray? Suggestion: we need a black Katniss Everdeen. Maybe it’s time for Angela Basset’s character from Strange Days to get a spin-off sequel. Another suggestion: let’s all just skip the comments section on this article. [The Baltimore Sun via Deray McKesson]
Speaking of futuristic dystopia, those of us who thought our humble salaries in the art appreciation field were safe from the threat of mechanization have been proven horribly wrong—computer algorithms are now taking on art history. If it’s any consolation, the hard-working medical robots and military drones that this generation of software is descendant from are probably just as disappointed as our parents are. [MIT Technology Review]
And in other Insanely-Rich-People-and-Paintings news, Picasso’s “Women of Algiers” sold for $179.3 million at a Christie’s auction, breaking the record for an auction sale price. [BBC News]
There’s a giant translucent Hello Kitty parked on 47th St. and Second Ave. It’s the latest project from Sebastian Masuda, hosted by the Japan Society. New Yorkers are invited to fill the sculpture with personal belongings to be displayed in Tokyo during the 2020 Olympics. [The Daily Beast]

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Tuesday Links: Don’t Let Grossmalerman Sell Meth

by Paddy Johnson Whitney Kimball and Corinna Kirsch on January 13, 2015

Grossmalerman making meth?

Guy Richards Smit needs $25K to finish Grossmalerman!, the sitcom about a sweaty, successful artist who paints vaginas and is haunted by Basquiat’s ghost. This season features Jibz Cameron, AKA Dynasty Handbag. [Kickstarter]
Sweden has made a catchy, bizarre sing-along music video for children that celebrates genitals. Even old lady vaginas are “elegant.” [Jezebel]
A police officer sidling off-camera. Heh heh. [@_youhadonejob]
An international round up of how artists get paid, by country. [The Guardian]
In an unattributed piece for artnet News that reads like a reblog of a story that ran in the New York Times this weekend, the author (Twitter presumes it’s Ben Genocchio) complains that the Brant Foundation can be given tax breaks for a museum that isn’t open to the public all-year long, and which has charitable activities including visits by Larry Gagosian. Well, it might not be fair, but it’s legal. [artnet News]
Fuck yeah, one of the first reviews I’ve enjoyed reading this year. Artist Lise Haller Baggesen, author of “Mothernism,” a pro-feminism, science fiction, and disco -ism that seeks to “locate the mother-shaped hole in contemporary art and discourse,” writes about visiting Olafur Eliasson’s “Riverbed” at the Louisiana Museum of Art in Denmark. Sometimes she’s poetic—”And when they were up they were up, and when they were down they were down, and when they were halfway up they were neither up nor down.”—but overall, Baggesen’s a good observer. At times imperfect, the essay is still more fun to read than most Artforum-style reviews. GOOD JOB. [Bad at Sports]
Love is an action. A thoughtful and touching account of what happened to the author when she answered psychologist Arthur Aron’s 36 questions with a potential partner. [The New York Times]
Debate over the new Charlie Hebdo cover, to be released tomorrow, a picture of Mohammed crying holding up a sign saying “All is forgiven.” @JulieHarden speculates that Mohammed would be crying knowing what happened because Mohammed is peaceful. [Twitter]
Video and exhibition documentation from an exhibition of work by the recently deceased artist Harun Farocki. He was extremely influential in the genre of essay films. [Contemporary Art Daily]
Artist Clayton Cubitt made videos of sexy women reading while getting stimulated under the table with a vibrator. Not fantastic art, but looks like a fun project! The videos went viral. Of course they did. [Clayton Cubitt via artnet News]
A montage of Satanic messages and sex hidden in Disney movies, to what sounds like an unfunny, crazy Bill Hicks rant. This comes with a ***huge*** disclaimer, but the montage is kinda convincing. [Please Kill Me]

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