Posts tagged as:

gentrification

Wednesday Links: Transphobia, The 00s, Chewbacca Mom Make Comebacks

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on July 26, 2017

Image of the day: France is burning. By Valery Hache/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images [h/t The New York Times]

The latest news from the surreal hellscape that is our nation’s government is that Trump is banning transgender people from the military. Doesn’t it seem like the right wing always comes up with a culture wars bone to pick when their political/economic agenda (Russia investigation, healthcare repeal, etc…) is under siege? At any rate, this is terrible, but if laughing is therapeutic for you, watch this Samantha Bee bit in which she provides commentary to rambling speeches made by potentially drunk Republican congressmen about trans people in the military. How is our country this insane? [Facebook]
Pussy Riot and Les Enfants Terribles are fundraising for “an immersive theater project” in which the audience would get to experience the Pussy Riot ordeal. That includes everything from their infamous performance in a Russian church to their crazy trial and time in a labor camp. Sounds fun? [Kickstarter]
Here’s a new, pretty comprehensive list of grants and loans for artists and entrepreneurs. Lots of funding sources on here we’ve never heard of. [Insight Personal Finance]
Remember “Chewbacca Mom”? The Texas woman who rose to brief, unlikely fame because she laughed so hard wearing a Chewbacca mask in a parking lot on Facebook Live? Writer Alyssa Bereznak does, as she’s been following Candace Payne via Google alerts for the past year. Here she has a timeline of the viral sensation’s rise and fall in public favor. It’s fascinating. The internet is a weird (and judgemental) place. [The Ringer]
Phew. After much outrage (including plenty of cute tributes from artists included in this link) Microsoft announced that MS Paint would NOT be disappearing, but will be available for download from their app store. [artnet News]
Rumors have been flying that beloved Baltimore dive bar The Club Charles will be closing, starting August 1st, indefinitely. Some say it will reopen following renovations, but there are few details here. The 66 year old institution is basically like the evening office of the city’s art/theater/literati scene. It’s John Waters’ favorite bar, among countless other filmmakers, musicians, artists, and drunks. I (Michael) will be devastated if this is a permanent closure. [City Paper]
The Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan 1994 Museum will partner with @popculturediedin2009—an archive dedicated to the drama of the aughts—to mine the decade’s pop-culture. I’m not sure what to think of this. On the one hand, these scandals may already be a source of nostalgia, and therefore hold some enjoyment. On the other, is it not too soon for this? I keep thinking there’s got to be a better use of intellectual engagement than this—particularly given our current political climate. [artnet News]
Karen Loew makes the case for the Small Business Jobs Survival Act, and looks at what other cities are doing to stop the spread of chain stores, closure of neighborhood retail, and “high rent blight” that’s been hitting Manhattan so hard. Basically, New York is way behind on protecting legacy businesses. This is something every gallerist or artist with a studio (or really, anyone who enjoys bodega food) should be getting behind. [City Lab]
Related: The Zapatista-inspired Eastside Café (which functions as an art/activism/community space in East Los Angeles) managed to stand its ground against gentrification and buy their building from the landlord when developers came knocking. Amazing. [Remezcla]
2070 photographs by Annie Leibovitz were purchased by a wealthy patron in 2012 and donated to The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax. That was a boon for Leibovitz who was struggling financially at the time. The problem is, while the donor purchased the work for 4.75 million, it’s valued at 20 million and the Canadian government doesn’t want to sign off on the deduction. The panel tasked with approving the donation has accepted that only some of the photographs are art. Also, it seems the valuation of the portfolio is less than that of the individual works, thus creating the disparity of value. [The New York Times]
A score for Acquavella Gallery: Phillip de Montebello, former head of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will join their staff as curator of special exhibitions. [The New York Times]
Applications close in four days for the free 360 Xochi Quetzal artist/writer residency on Lake Chapala, Mexico. This place looks beautiful. [360 Xochi Quetzal]

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L.A. Art Diary Week Four (Everyone Loves Eames, Erotic Art, and More)

by Michael Anthony Farley on July 20, 2017

In his fourth week in Los Angeles, Michael Anthony Farley discovers that there’s not enough to do on weekdays and way too much to do on weekends. Here’s how he spent the weekend. Everyone loves Ray and Charles Eames, and erotic art.

Catch up on Week One, Week Two (and Week Two, Part Two), and Week Three.

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Tuesday Links: Famous New Media Artist Jeremy Bailey Promises Personalized Exhibition in Your Web Ads

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on July 18, 2017

Baltimore Clayworks, a much-beloved ceramic studio and education nonprofit, is filing for chapter 7 bankruptcy after 37 years. Frustratingly, it seems like the board didn’t cooperate with the community in attempting to resolve their cash flow problems, and instead were relying on a real estate deal that fell through. [The Baltimore Sun]
Speaking of closures/real estate deals, The Hard Times continues to roll out the best headlines on the internet: “Record Store You Didn’t Shop at Becomes Condo You Can’t Afford”. [The Hard Times]
I guess this is what it looks like when a reporter who begins with no knowledge of the art world writes about the art world’s transition to online sales. That transition is tracked wholly through Artsy – when other companies are described they’re lumped into categories so broad they misdescribe them. Quotes sometimes come from sources who aren’t exactly authorities on the subjects they discuss. That’s just a result of not knowing much though. The story has an extra grating edge because it’s a tale of privilege (Carter Cleveland is the son of an art historian and financier) soliciting funding for a company that tailors to privilege (art collectors). AND the company’s entire spiel-using the site is so easy it’s “almost pedestrian”—contains a whiff of class appropriation. That said, the article does contain some useful tidbits — the company now reports $20 million a month in facilitated sales (whatever that means). Glad it’s doing well. [The Verge]
The list of amenities at this artist residency is pretty funny. Highlights include “List of extreme activities all around the country” and “Bulgarian phone number – SIM card”. Sign us up! [Art Connect
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house famously straddles a waterfall. Unfortunately, the rapids were a little too rough recently and caused exterior damage, including to the Jacques Lipchitz sculpture “Mother and Child,” which Wright himself selected for the site in 1941. [Architectural Digest]
The NYT has an adorable blurb about the unlikely friendship between Jamie Wyeth, Andy Warhol, and Archie Warhol, the painter’s dachshund. [The New York Times]
Here’s a slideshow of Columbia University’s new Lenfest Center for the Arts, designed by Renzo Piano. It’s an “eh” building. Functional, but I believe Paddy once accurately described the exterior as looking “like a pharmaceutical company’s corporate campus”. [Dezeen]
Politicians about to re-enter an election campaign need to stop getting on the train anytime a problem is announced and start solving the problems. Bill de Blasio doesn’t need to ride the 7 train to see a Mets game, he needs to fix it. [Curbed]
Speaking of Curbed, we’ve noticed Famous New Media artist Jeremy Bailey has taken out an ad that appeared on the site for his “The You Museum”. The project “curates personalized exhibitions that are delivered to you via banners on the websites you visit most.” We want this. [The You Museum]
Brooklynites rejoice: Deborah Kass’ “OY/YO” sculpture is back! It’s been moved to the Williamsburg waterfront. [untapped cities]

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Surprising, And Some Unsurprising, Findings About Where NYC’s Artists Live

by Michael Anthony Farley on July 14, 2017

A new study from the Center for an Urban Future looks at where artists live in New York City. What neighborhoods in New York City are losing artists? Gaining them? Those answers aren’t surprising. But the dominance of pricey Uptown Manhattan nabes (in terms of total artist populations) certainly is.

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Friday Links: Inside the Pigment War

by Michael Anthony Farley on June 23, 2017

Stuart Semple’s Black 2.0 pigment accomplishes some of the optical trickery of Vantablack.

Everything you’ve ever wanted to know (or not) about the beef between British artists Anish Kapoor and Stuart Semple over Kapoor’s exclusive rights to Vantablack. The story basically ends with Semple making his own ultra-black pigment that’s available for everyone and far more affordable. [Wired]
The Tate Britain has placed work from Khadija Saye on view in their memorial gallery. Saye died in the Grenfell Tower fire last week. [BuzzFeed]
Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Art Gallery is expanding, following last year’s huge donation of $42.5 million from billionaire Jeffrey Gundlach. The plan, from OMA’s Shohei Shigematsu, will allow the museum to display more of its collection while maintaining the Olmstead parkland in which it sits. They’ll accomplish this by expanding underground and burying the existing parking lot. [WIVB 4]
As skyrocketing rents make expansion in major art capitals impossible, many mid-tier galleries are opening locations in smaller cities or vacation towns. Or giving up permanent brick-and-mortar locations altogether and just doing pop-ups and art fairs. [Financial Times]
Head to the Oculus at the World Trade Center sometime in the next month. Up Close: Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel features nearly-life-sized reproductions of the famous frescoes in great detail. [artnet News]
Stop plucking now: the Dallas Museum of Art is hoping to set a world record for most Frida Kahlo impersonators gathered in the same place. The event will take place on July 6th, what would have been the artist’s 110th birthday. [Star Telegram]
Some of the brains behind the Highline have created a website, Highline Network, to share ideas with other similar park projects. A lot of the impetus actually seems to be a cautionary tale—most don’t want to replicate the out-of-control gentrification that accompanied the park’s arrival. [Dezeen]

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Tuesday Links: Disney Art, Barbie Art Still Terrible Yet Still Trending

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on May 30, 2017

A detail from Jeff Gillette’s oil painting “Bandra Brown,” 2017. (Deborah Vankin / Los Angeles Times)

I (Michael) interviewed Raúl de Nieves ahead of his upcoming talk at the Baltimore School for the Arts as part of the Contemporary’s CoHosts series tonight (free tickets still available). We talked about process, growing up Catholic, and the sculpture he spent seven years making. [City Paper]
Anyone attempting to open a white box space in a drafty loft, take note: your perfect paint is here. Spanish paint manufacturer Graphenstone has created an eco-friendly paint by mixing lime with the synthetic “miracle substance” graphene. The result is an ultra-thin, durable lime wash which actually thermally insulates whatever walls you paint. So cool. [Dezeen]
Nate Silver writes a short novel on the likelihood that President Trump will be impeached and removed from office early. The upshot—not super likely. “The easiest-to-imagine scenario for Trump being removed is if Republicans get clobbered in the midterms after two years of trying to defend Trump, the Republican agenda is in shambles, Democrats begin impeachment proceedings in early 2019, and just enough Republicans decide that Pence (or some fresh face with no ties to the Trump White House) gives them a better shot to avoid total annihilation in 2020.” [FiveThirtyEight]
Jeff Gillette’s latest project at Gregorio Escalante Gallery in Los Angeles sounds terrible. The artist has painted Disney imagery around slums in India. He then documented his “interventions” and transformed them into 3-D photorealistic paintings. When can we stop using Disney as a cliché shorthand for all that is wrong with escapist capitalism? And haven’t we decided by now that ruin porn is problematic and exploitative? Viewers are also invited to trample on drawings on the floor that Gillette’s high school students created. Mixed in with the students’ work are some Gillette originals. You can buy pieces from this grab-bag of floor “trash art” for $5, a commentary on the art market because his paintings of slums cost a buttload of money. Get it? [Los Angeles Times]
Speaking of awful clichés, last week I noted that no one should bother making Barbie art. But lo and behold, one of the Kylie Jenner just dropped $20,000 on some Barbie prints from artist and model Beau Dunn for her Barbie-themed bedroom. [Inquisitr]
Peter Blum Gallery is moving back to Soho after being forced out of its uptown location on 57th street. (The gallery was located in Soho back in the early aughts.) [ARTnews]
Developers are moving forward with plans to rezone the former Pfizer site in Williamsburg. The latest plans from The Rabsky Group propose over 1,100 apartments in eight clunky new buildings. The number of affordable units in the proposal has dropped, and it doesn’t look like they’re opting to preserve any of the old industrial buildings. The plans are hideous. The rezoning is still in the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) stage, and now is the time for neighbors to get involved. Here’s one suggestion: push for a compromise that preserves the industrial buildings for arts/light manufacturing use and allows the developers to build smaller-footprint towers at a higher FAR in exchange for more affordable units? [Curbed]
I’m not sure how I feel about political figures being turned into action figures—I missed the days where politics was considered a boring field for nerdy policy wonks—but that’s where we’re at. Artist Mike Leavitt has created an Elizabeth Warren action figure you can support via Kickstarter in June. [lizwarrenactionfigure.com]

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Friday Links: Ballroom Inspired By Derelict Detroit Buildings Coming to Brooklyn

by Michael Anthony Farley on May 12, 2017

LOL. Someone at Vanity Fair, intending to reach John Waters via his mailing address at Atomic Books, addressed an envelope to “Jhon Walters; Antomic Books”. [Facebook]
The last few building booms have contributed some pretty heinous new additions to New York’s cityscape, but this might just be the worse. I’m not sure we can even call this ill-proportioned stack of claustrophobia-inducing hotel rooms clad in signifiers of “Brooklyn-ness” (Brick! Street Art!) and mismatched decor trends architecture. This is straight-up an attraction out of a theme park, which I suppose makes sense considering it’s called “The Williamsburg Hotel”. The most cringe-inducing detail? A grand ballroom designed to “reflect the derelict buildings of Detroit”. [Dezeen]
This is awesome. Baltimore nonprofit art space/residency Creative Alliance is throwing a giant dance party tomorrow in support the city’s status as a “sanctuary city”. Bailar Sin Miedo will feature Mexican food vendors, bachata lessons, and live music. [Creative Alliance]
The Hard Times has now fully replaced The Onion as my newsfeed’s satirical headline supplier of choice: “Moving to Brooklyn Gave Me the Confidence Needed to Finally Start Wearing This Hat”. [The Hard Times]
A giant Jeff Koons inflatable sculpture of a ballerina is coming soon to Rockefeller Center. [artnet News]
Here’s a sneak peak at the new Marciano Museum opening in LA later this month. The inaugural exhibition is inspired by Walter Benjamin’s “Unpacking My Library.” From the few images here, though, it doesn’t really seem like the Marciano Collection is particularly good? [Los Angeles Times]
Rioters in Portland smashed the windows of Michael Parsons Gallery, which unbeknownst to them, ironically, was showing paintings of last year’s riots by Alex Lilly. Is this a Portlandia sketch for the Trump era? [Oregon Live]

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The Last Day of Disco; DUOX4Odell’s: You’ll Know If You Belong

by Michael Anthony Farley on April 28, 2017

When tasked with paying tribute to a long-shuttered nightclub, Wickerham & Lomax went an unusual route. Their ambitious DUOX4Odell’s: You’ll Know if You Belong, which closes tonight in Baltimore, speaks to loss and placelessness as much as glamour.

Closing Reception: April 28th, 7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
1723 N. Charles Street, Baltimore

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Tuesday Links: No, This Museum Is Not On Fire

by Michael Anthony Farley on April 11, 2017

Daniel Knorr, Expiration Movement, (2017). Fridericianum Kassel. Photo © Bernd Borchardt, Courtesy Galerie nächst St. Stephan

“They go for the artists first. They go for the journalists, writers, painters, and photographers. That’s who you lock up if you don’t want people to know what’s happening. So that’s why I think if we don’t protect what they’re making now, it is a slippery slope, and we will lose by the time we need these images to go to the general public. No matter what these artists are working on now, whether or not it has an overt political sensibility, we need to protect them and their freedom.” Deana Haggag, the new president of United States Artists, on the arts in Trump’s America. [Vogue]
Dizzy is a new print-only art magazine that features everything from profiles of artists’ cats to an advice column by Princess Nokia. [ARTnews]
Man, The Hard Times (The Onion’s more punk cousin) has been killing it lately. This headline is everything: “Trump to Begin Series of Dumpster Fireside Chats”. [The Hard Times]
What is going on with LACMA’s expansion plans? When first announced, it seemed like architect Peter Zumthor was going to stitch together to museum’s existing campus with an elevated blob building that spanned busy Wilshire Ave and created connections above the various buildings. It turns out they want to demolish most of those buildings, which begs the question: why do you need a weird bridge building if the facilities it’s bridging are gone? The blob shape was explained as a reference to the La Brea tar pits, and the building was going to be clad in glossy black to match. But now they’ve ditched that idea, and even the interiors are supposed to be Real-Housewives-bathroom-beige. It seems like a lot of the conceptual justifications for this design just don’t make sense anymore, and this has been whittled into an odd-but-boring building. [Dezeen]
Daniel Knorr’s piece for documenta 14 comprises a smoke machine installed in Kassel’s Fridericianum museum. It spews white smoke from the museum’s tower (a reference to the Pope dying/Vatican electoral process? Does the art world need a new Pope?) and this has caused alarm. City residents keep calling the fire department because it looks like the museum is on fire. The fire department has gotten tired of repeatedly checking on the installation to reassure everyone that it isn’t a fire, so now documenta will be providing a full-time smoke-watcher to reassure all involved that it’s just art and not a disaster. How did no one anticipate this being an issue in the planning process? [artnet News]
The Bell Foundry, an artist-run live-work-show space that was shuttered by the Baltimore Fire Department following the Ghost Ship fire, is for sale. The idiosyncratic building and adjacent lot are being marketed as a knock-down development site—suggesting that the owners have given up on trying to get the building up to code and, given its $1 million price tag, will likely never be art space again. This sucks, and also comes amidst a city-wide debate over the future of artist-run spaces. The mayor has pledged to help preserve and bring-up-to-code the city’s quasi-legal art spaces, but it remains to be seen how that’s going to work. [City Paper]

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Wednesday Links: Facebook Deems Oil Painting of Sleeping Lesbians Too Sexy For Web

by Michael Anthony Farley on March 1, 2017

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Charles Blackman, “Women Lovers.”

More Facebook censorship news: Australian auction house Mossgreen wasn’t allowed to post an image of Charles Blackman’s oil painting “Women Lovers”. Mossgreen executive Paul Summer says “It’s like going back to the 1950s. It’s ridiculous to censor this sort of thing.” [BBC News]

Mexican-Canadian artist Miriam Aroeste is taking considerable flak thanks to her work at Vancouver’s Trump Tower. The developers commissioned 180 pieces from Aroeste before the Trump name became quite so politically loaded. But those developers aren’t actually the Trumps—the Canadian Holborn Group built the thing. They (rather stupidly, in hindsight) just licensed the Trump name. In a strange way, I guess the relationship Trump has had to most real estate for the past decade or so isn’t so different from those “street artists” who gets paid to make some luxury condos look like they’re “revolutionizing edgy urban living” or whatever. The difference is the Trump brand makes buyers look like a whole other brand of new money douchebag. [The Art Newspaper]

Related: the Trump administration has put out an RFP for “design and build of several prototype wall structures in the vicinity of the United States border with Mexico.” I would imagine any architect who submits a non-ironic proposal will likely never find work in the culture field again. [Dezeen]

Thomas P. Campbell, head of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has announced his resignation. Rumors are swirling that his departure wasn’t quite by choice—despite monumental success with exhibitions and visitors under Campbell, the Met has experienced problems with budget, layoffs, postponed capital projects, and of course that pesky new logo. [The Washington Post]

This is probably one of the cutest gentrification battles we’ve read about. A luxury apartment developer is suing a longtime neighborhood resident for feeding birds. Those birds poop all over the development’s balconies and rooftop amenities. Apparently the poop is scaring away potential tenants. Is this a good resistance strategy? Or at least a good subplot in a John Waters film? [The Baltimore Sun]

We (mostly) like the Second Avenue Subway’s public art. Alexandra Lange does too, but points out a problem with so much contemporary American architecture: the art feels a bit lost in spaces designed to be have as little identity as possible. [Curbed]

The Armory Show’s “Focus” section this year, What Is to Be Done? curated by Jarrett Gregory, frames sociopolitical issues through the lens of economics. That sounds a little dry, but the work here looks pretty good (and apparently smells terrible, in the case of Ibrahim Mahama’s dead fish blankets). Somehow, though, the topic of Trump is completely avoided. Gregory explains: “I’m sure people will do great things with that material, but this is more delicate, in terms of the approach, for the most part.” Eyeroll. Even in other commercial art fairs, gallerists have had the balls to show overtly political work that was often much more nuanced and original than this quote from Gregory: “I think that in the art world, we too often have a single perspective—the European white male, for example.” [ARTnews]

Ok, we have resisted the urge to comment on Doug Aitken’s Desert X installation because literally every other art and/or design blog has already told the world that it’s “unbelievable” or “breathtaking” or “mind-boggling” or “dangerous for birds” but this link has some actually useful information in case you want to decide for yourself. Here are directions to go see it in person (you need a car). [Time Out LA]

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