Posts tagged as:

Julie Mehretu

Institutional failure, Trump’s Agenda, and Meme-Driven Conservative Movements: A Talk with Nayland Blake

by Paddy Johnson and William Powhida on June 29, 2020

Boogaloo Boys show off posters supporting Trump at a demonstration

Artist Nayland Blake joins the podcast to discuss the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer, mass protests, and the resurgence of COVID as the backdrop for public art and how museums are addressing diversity. Spearheaded in large part by Blake, we discuss all of these issues through the lens of what people need and how art makers, art workers and arts institutions answer that need.

We started the conversation with Blake’s recent twitter thread on art criticism.

“Art criticism is the activity of thinking with and through art objects,” they wrote. “If you constantly reach for the same few objects to think with, you stagnate as a critic and simply reinforce your own bias.”

Other relevant links mentioned in the show:

Support Explain Me by becoming a member on Patreon.

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Friday Links: We Need More Seasons of Sense8 To Survive the Trump Years

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on June 2, 2017

I (Michael) don’t think I have ever been as emotionally invested in a piece of pop culture in my adult life as I have been watching the Netflix original Sense8. The show, from the Wachowskis, felt like the first site-specific artwork for the era of streaming—like watching eight addicting films from different genres at the same time in different tabs. It’s pretty heartbreaking that Netflix has inexplicably cancelled the show after two very well received seasons. In a real-world sociopolitical context increasingly defined by nationalism and bitter identity politics, a narrative that is essentially an epic morality play about global empathy—and individuals skill sharing to face repression in their respective societies—felt urgent beyond binge-worthiness. [the Internet: #RenewSense8 #SaveSense8 ]
Cara Ober stops by Glasstress, where international art stars collaborate with Venetian glassmakers. (Think Paul McCarthy glass buttplugs and an Ai Weiwei figure giving the middle finger). [BmoreArt]
Central St Martins grad student Camila Gonzalez Corea has been transforming images of topless women into emoji collages to protest Instagram’s censorship of female nipples. According to Instagram, it’s fine to show nipples if they belong to men. The Nipple Act bypasses this problem by replacing pixels with icons. [Metro]
68 Mayors are resisting Trump’s withdraw from the Paris climate accord and have pledged to uphold the agreements. New York is among them, and lit landmarks in green lights to show support for the international initiative. Michael Bloomberg, New York’s former mayor is co-ordinating the effort, and is negotiating with the United Nations to have its submission accepted alongside contributions to the deal by other nations. Bloomberg Philanthropies is offering to donate 14 million to help fund the deal’s budget. [Curbed]
Construction has started on “Ruby City”, a glittery red art museum David Adjaye has designed for the Linda Pace Foundation in San Antonio. For a building that is literally covered in glitter and painted bright red, it’s oddly understated. [Dezeen]
Another Renzo Piano museum that resembles a pharmaceutical giant’s depot has opened, this time in Harlem. Columbia University’s Wallach Art Gallery, nestled inside Piano’s Lenfest Center for the Arts, launches their inaugural show, “Uptown”, which is a triennial that includes well known artists such as Sanford Biggers, Nari Ward and Julie Mehretu along with emerging talent like John Pinderhughes and Alicia Grullón. Critic Jason Farago says it’s a pretty good show, but it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot to say about it. The most interest nugget in the review isn’t about the art but the fact that the Gallery partnered with other local museums to produce the show—a peace offering of sorts due to the gentrifying forces the University’s expansion brings. [The New York Times]
Sarah Cascone interviews Emma Sulkowicz about her strange S&M performance “The Ship Is Sinking” at the Whitney. Inspired by politics, Bertolt Brecht, beauty pageants, and figureheads on shipwrecks (among other references) it basically comprised a man dressed as “Mr Whitney” tying her to a piece of wood and torturing her. I have read the interview and I’m still not sure I (Michael) “get it”. [artnet News]
Ai Weiwei is posing as Alan Kurdi, the drowned Syrian refugee toddler, for a second time. Because it wasn’t a bad enough idea the first time around. In this picture he’s lying face down on his porcelain sunflower seeds—apparently it is a response to Donald Trump’s visit to the Israel Museum last week. The museum covered some of his works when the president visited—which it is now claiming it did because they were not fully installed. Whatever the case, can Ai Weiwei just let this toddler rest in peace already? [The Art Newspaper]
Here’s an interview with DoLab, the lighting team/curators who do the visuals for festivals such as Coachella. Their work sounds like a logistics minefield. [Variety]
“My Neighbor Totoro” will get its own theme park in Japan come 2020. [The Creator’s Project]

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Thursday Links: Apply Now for $519 Rent in the LES

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on March 2, 2017

Daniel Joseph Martinez on view at Roberts & Tilton’s Armory Show booth. Image: KATHERINE MCMAHON for ARTnews.

Daniel Joseph Martinez on view at’s Armory Show booth.
Image: KATHERINE MCMAHON for ARTnews.

This is so cool. Adam Pendleton, Rashid Johnson, Ellen Gallagher and Julie Mehretu have pooled their money and purchased the birthplace of Nina Simone—a 660 square foot house in Tryon, N.C. Plans for the structure haven’t been fully formulated yet, but for now at least it’s going to be preserved. [The New York TImes]

A new building in the Lower East Side has entered the NYC affordable housing lottery, offering studio apartments from $519. Apply now. [Curbed]

The Orange County Museum of Art had plans to finance a new location in Costa Mesa through a real estate deal involving luxury condos on land it owns in pricey Newport Beach. Now it’s in a world of political drama. Southern California NIMBYs make the West Village look like a tabula rasa. [Los Angeles Times]

Here’s one museum personnel saga that’s more scandalous than the Met’s recent shakeup: Munich’s Haus der Kunst might’ve been infiltrated by Scientologists. Yep. There’s a full-on panic over a staff administrator who may have a secret agenda. In Germany, Scientology is considered a cult and they take its shadowy mechanizations very, very seriously. [Artnet News]

Well, Baltimore is getting a new piece of public art. The prone “Homeless Jesus” was just blessed with holy water one block from my (Michael’s) house. The irony of this is that the very Basilica where it was christened has a terrible track record of landgrabs and demolition of housing in its immediate vicinity. Jesus actually has a pretty big house, now with gardens and a parking garage where once stood apartment buildings. Lots of others in the neighborhood, not so much. [ABC 2 News]

In the same neighborhood, artists are fundraising to rehab a group of buildings for performance, studio, and affordable live/work space. The project is called Le Mondo, and is an ambitious example of artist-owned, artist-run real estate. This is a good project to support. [Crowdrise]

More good news for the markets of the insanely wealthy, Sotheby’s recorded the highest total for any London sale yesterday evening with a £195 million ($241 million) sale of 54 lots of Impressionist, Modern and Surrealist art. Their estimate was £150/180 million. [Baer Faxt]

Speaking of the uber wealthy Pace Gallery broke ground in Chelsea yesterday as they begin construction on their new 8 story, 75,000 square foot building at 540 West Twenty-fifth Street. For reference, that’s a little under half the size of the Whitney Museum’s building on Gansevoort, which is 220,000 square feet. Unlike the Whitney, though, which is a museum built to house and display treasures that belong to the public, Pace is building a sales showroom and offices for the rich. [Baer Faxt]

Yesterday we expressed disappointment in the lack of artwork addressing the Trump regime in the Armory Show’s curated section. But apparently plenty of gallerists didn’t shy away from bringing politically confrontational work. Good. This is a trend that was evident at Zona MACO last month, and hopefully one that gains momentum through the art fair circuit. [ARTnews]

Lorna Mills gives good interviews. On the subject of accreditation and GIFs she says, “I wonder if any artists working online think so much about ownership. They tend to think more about credit for the things they have done. Ownership also suggests some sort of control over the work, and we know that isn’t always possible online. Transfer Gallery published a GIF catalogue of my work recently and I think that serves as a more official form of accreditation.” More Lorna Mills please. [Hyperallergic]

Ann Pfoser Darby, member of Queens Community Board 4, allegedly said during a meeting about safety improvements to 111th street, “Once Trump removes all the illegals from Corona, there won’t be anybody to ride bike lanes.” People are calling for Darby’s removal from the board. I’d like to point out that if all the immigrants left Queens, there wouldn’t be anyone to use any infrastructure in the borough. [Streetsblog]

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Nightmares Before Christmas

by Michael Anthony Farley on December 12, 2016

This week there’s not a lot of art stuff happening beyond holiday parties and craft fairs. One could say NYC’s taken an unexpectedly Middle-American turn in that regard, were it not for how morbid so much of the week’s happenings are. Tuesday night, scholars Sam Tanenhaus and Richard Wolin perform a post-election autopsy on the American Republic and speculate about its afterlife (hint: It’s not looking good) at CUNY. For a slightly less depressing evening, head to Ubu Gallery where German artist Heide Hatry is opening a new series of drawings made with the ashes of human remains. If that’s not enough mortuary holiday cheer for you, Con Artist Collective is throwing a fake memorial art show for the comedian Bill Murray (one of the few national treasures that hasn’t died in 2016). Thursday night we’re looking forward to a subversive holiday group show at Kate Werble Gallery, and a six-hour night of discussions about Art After Trump at Housing Works.

Friday night, things get a little less bleak city-wide. P! and Beverly’s are hosting events for a Bard CSS project that sprawls across Chinatown and continues with satellite events all weekend. At Brooklyn’s Orgy Park, a group show invites painters to make something collaborative, and in Queens, MoMA PS1 is throwing a holiday party for artists that looks totally bonkers. Have some spiked hot chocolate. After a week of thinking about Trump and death, you’re going to need it.

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Julie Mehretu at Marian Goodman Gallery: Can Social Abstraction Succeed?

by Paddy Johnson on October 20, 2016

How valuable are first impressions? In art, this seems to be a perennially important question. A work should, aesthetically, stand on its own. Except, of course, when it doesn’t matter because the concept determines the formal choices. Or when aesthetics kinda sorta matter but so does the context.

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Future Bodies are Everywhere and Scary

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on October 17, 2016

There’s plenty of heady discourse this week—future bodies, hypothetical architectures, theories of curation and criticism—and of course plenty of election-related hand-wringing.

Kick it off Monday night at Jersey City’s Word Bookstore, where the Brooklyn Institute of Social Research is inaugurating a lecture series about cyborgs. Or head to Manhattan’s Red Bull Studios for an event celebrating Grand Arts, the Kansas City project space that launched dozens of conceptual art projects and, now, a catalogue. Tuesday night, Paddy Johnson joins other art critics to talk shop at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Dweck Cultural Center, and Tyler Coburn talks genetic engineering and body mods as the future of humanity at e-flux. If you’re looking for something more hands-on (or a chance to move your feet), there’s a survey of handmade prints at Site:Brooklyn and an epic-looking disco fundraiser for El Museo del Bario Wednesday night. Thursday, White Box is opening a jam-packed group show (with some impressive names!) all about political angst. Friday we’ve got a talk from Maura Riley at Stony Brook Manhattan and Underdonk opening a class-conscious solo show by Patrice Renee Washington.

But the weekend brings us back to what we like the most: artwork that investigates the weird. Selena Gallery’s two person show from Dalia Amara and Florencia Escudero looks for uncanny surrogate female bodies in consumer goods on Saturday night. Sunday, Sascha Braunig’s work at MoMA will likely strike a similar chord. And MARC STRAUS opens a solo show by Chris Joneswho builds fantastical dioramas (pictured) from mundane images.

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This Week’s Must See Events: Ride the Macabre Wave

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on September 20, 2016

Last month, Corinna Kirsch pointed out to us that NYC’s art scene is getting pretty goth this fall. A quick glance at the exhibition thumbnails below reveals this spooky prophecy was dead-accurate: graveyards, skulls, and darkness predominate.

Tuesday night, recount the psychedelic adventures of Bruce Conner at MoMA. Wednesday, the domestic gets the spotlight with projects from Chloë Bass and Oksana Todorova at CUNY and A+E Studios, respectively. Expect plenty of creep-out factor from the latter’s biomorphic, toxic household items. Thursday, Julie Mehretu’s occult-influenced new body of work takes her practice in a darker direction, and Irene Lusztig lectures about conjuring empathy from (probably) eerie archival material.

The weekend gets even more macabre. Brian Andrew Whiteley is displaying his infamous tombstone at Christopher Stout Gallery Friday night, while Ghost of a Dream builds their own dream haunted house from the ruins of art fairs Saturday at Smack Mellon. And of course, Wickerham & Lomax’s Local Atonement: A Nutshell Study of Unexplained Death opens at American Medium. Sunday, Mana Contemporary’s fall open house encompasses just about everything under the sun—from Marilyn Monroe’s poetry to Israeli textiles—but of course a little momento mori content as well. Andy Warhol’s skull paintings will be on view. 30 years after his death, Warhol still has his finger on the undead pulse of the art world zeitgeist

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AFC’s Fall Forecast: Goth Art Everywhere

by Michael Anthony Farley and Corinna Kirsch on August 19, 2016

Winter is coming. As the nights grow longer, shadows seem to creep into the city’s innumerable white boxes.

Our prediction for what the Fall/Winter 2016 look will be in New York: goth as fuck.

Artists, galleries, and institutions across the city seem to be embracing the macabre, gloomy, and achromatic in the months leading up to Halloween (by far, the art world’s most important holiday). We’re looking forward to aesthetic darkness, existential angst, and an embrace of the occult. Is this otherworldly tragic election season to blame for our state of mourning? We’re not sure, but let’s hope some fall weather shows up in time for us to break out our all-black wardrobes.

We’ve rated New York’s darkest upcoming art shows from “one tube of black lipstick” for “somewhat bleak” to “five tubes of black lipstick” for “this gallery is essentially a food court full of crying mall goths.” Our picks, arranged by opening date:

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Friday Links: Cooking Blog Surprise

by Paddy Johnson Whitney Kimball and Corinna Kirsch on January 16, 2015

torpedo pears

A chronological history of Lifetime movies, from the Tori Spelling classic Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? to more serious fare like Angela Basset’s celebrity biopic, Whitney. Former executives from the channel discuss when certain genres, like “teens in jeopardy,” became popular. [Washington Post]
For those who don’t care about the Oscar snubs—here are the art nominees. Good Lord, Hyperallergic has reviewed them all. [Hyperallergic]
OMG. Shellac lead singer and songwriter Steve Albini has a cooking blog. [Mario Batali Voice]
Ben Davis has managed to make a convincing argument for Juan Muñoz’s Many Times at Marian Goodman, a feat I never thought possible. It’s a bunch of gray, laughing figures in resin cut off at the ankles. I always thought the work was boring, but Davis finds a little magic (a word he loathes) in the details. [artnet News]
Kehinde Wiley, Xu Bing, Mark Bradford, Sam Gilliam, Maya Lin, Julie Mehretu, Pedro Reyes, will be honored with the 2015 U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts. The award recognizes artistic achievement as well as commitment to the government-sponsored program Art in Embassies. [ARTnews]
A review of the Riot Grrrl exhibition Alien She from a former riot grrrl. Critic Melissa Miller ends up writing a mostly positive review, but points out a necessary issue with any historical exhibition: “The drawback to this approach, however, is that it presents Riot Grrrls with one voice, with a ‘we’re all in this together’ attitude.” [Art Practical]
☆♕ A Grecian Inspired Roleplay for ASMR ♕☆ [YouTube]
Beefy Mortal Kombat monsters, but with the female victory dances, like pole dancing. Aside: holy shit, Mortal Kombat got gruesome since the 90s. [YouTube via Metafilter]
Wow, France’s Culture Minister Fleur Pellerin has promised Charlie Hebdo €1 million in funding to keep it running. Now the Pompidou and several other arts institutions are launching Charlie Hebdo-related shows and awards. [artnet News]
Critic Martha Schwendener reviews Tyson Reeder’s current show at CANADA (which we like), and fills her review with a total of seven textbook-friendly artists to compare Reeder: Matisse, Bonnard, Renoir, Bonnard, Isamu Noguchi, and Andreas Gursky. You can talk about art without having to namedrop; like, you could talk about the art. [New York Times]

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School of Doodle: Where John Baldessari Teaches Teen Girls Art

by Whitney Kimball and Andrew Wagner on July 29, 2014

Have you ever wished that John Baldessari could be your art teacher? Well, now that he’s retired from both CalArts and UCLA, that’s not going to happen. But if you’re a teenage girl, the new organization School of Doodle might be able to help out.

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Julie Mehretu

Institutional failure, Trump’s Agenda, and Meme-Driven Conservative Movements: A Talk with Nayland Blake

AFC’s Fall Forecast: Goth Art Everywhere

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