Posts tagged as:
Mark Hudson
by Michael Anthony Farley on April 4, 2017
- Those calling for the censorship of Dana Schutz’s “Open Casket” will be happy to know that the painting has been removed from view. They’ll likely be disappointed to know it’s for a logistical reason as boring as a water leak. The real story here seems to be that the museum’s brand-spanking-new downtown digs is taking on water. Cue the Titanic/iceberg jokes. [Hyperallergic]
- Melania Trump’s official White House portrait is here, and it kinda looks like she’s an out-of-focus hologram. The internet is having lots of fun with this one. [New York Magazine]
- A cast believed by some to be from a long-lost Degas mold will go on view in London. Meanwhile in Hong Kong, Sotheby’s just proved Basquiats are hot commodities no matter the continent. Expect to see more of his work heading to Asian private collections. [The Telegraph]
- Artist and blogger Greg Allen has started a Kickstarter project, OurGuernica, After Our Picasso. The purpose of this initiative: raising funds to commission an anonymous Chinese artist to paint Angela Merkel giving Ivanka Trump side-eye (photo above) in the style of former-president-now-painter George W. Bush. That’s a lot of layers to unpack for what is essentially a meme. [Artspace]
- This sounds like so much fun. The Museum of Sex has opened a fully-functional pop-up disco bar for their exhibition of Bill Bernstein’s New York nightlife photos. [The New York Times]
- According to Mark Hudson, the Tate Britain’s Queer British Art 1861-1967 “begs the question of whether we’re in for art that tells the story of homosexuality in Britain over the 150 years leading up to the legal landmark, or art by artists who just happen to be gay. Judging by the first room, devoted to the late 19th century Aesthetic Movement, the exhibition might have been better titled Screamingly Camp Art.” Sounds like a missed opportunity all-around. [The Telegraph]
- Bad news (for those of us prone to soul-crushing fair fatigue): Brooklyn is getting a Frieze Week art fair. The good news: it will be an off-shoot of SPRING/BREAK, focused on large-scale public installations and environments. SPRING/BREAK is one of the only fairs we can can handle more of. [artnet News]
- Snøhetta’s Lascaux IV Caves Museum in southern France is open and looks (as expected) like an anthropology museum from the future. Their treatment of the cave painting reproductions is a really interesting display strategy. For preservation reasons, you can’t visit the real thing, but the museum has managed hyper-accurate reproductions that never try to trick you into thinking they’re the originals. [Dezeen]
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by Michael Anthony Farley on July 12, 2016
- Jack Shainman has hung Dread Scott’s “A MAN WAS LYNCHED BY POLICE YESTERDAY” flag above the gallery, referencing the iconic Jim Crow era NAACP flag. Predictably, our colleagues over at Fox News find this controversial and insensitive following the mass shooting in Dallas in which five police officers were killed. Because in conservative logic, the deaths of five police officers somehow outweigh the roughly 100 unarmed black people killed annually by police? [Fox News]
- Downtown Brooklyn Partnership and Downtown Brooklyn Arts Alliance have presented the “Culture Forward” plan to retain and expand the neighborhood’s art scene in the face of large-scale developments. Most excitingly, they’re advocating that the city-owned properties at 31 Lafayette Avenue and 334 Furman Street be renovated into 30,000 square feet of artist studios and are offering affordable housing seminars for arts/culture workers. [Curbed]
- Mark Hudson doesn’t seem to be a fan of the Liverpool Biennial. His chief complaint seems to be that the future of art looks a lot like the 1980s, but the whole curatorial concept of “episodes” sounds bizarre and hokey. Has anyone else seen the show? Sound off in the comments, please. We’re curious. [The Telegraph]
- A French court has indicted dealer Olivier Thomas over charges he participated in the theft and sale of three Picasso paintings from the artist’s stepdaughter Catherine Hutin-Blay. The paintings were discovered at the home of Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, who purchased them for €27 million from the Swiss businessman Yves Bouvier, who has been accused and fined for harboring the stolen paintings. Juicy. [artnet News]
- And in a far more bizarre case of international art legal troubles: a Canadian corrections officer, Robert Fletcher, is suing Scottish artist Peter Doig for $5 million because he won’t admit to painting a landscape painting in Fletcher’s possession. According to Fletcher, Doig was arrested for LSD possession as a teenager in Canada in the 1970s and sold the painting (which could now be worth a hefty sum) to the corrections officer when on parole for $100. The plot thickens, as there’s also a now-deceased Canadian with a similar name whose circumstances also fit the narrative. [Daily Mail]
- This is disgusting and also kind of cool: Central Saint Martins student Tina Gorjanc has filed a patent to clone human leather from Alexander McQueen’s DNA to produce a line of leather goods. I guess that human leather “Perfecto” jacket would be cyberpunk as fuck. [Dezeen]
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