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martin wong

HIV/AIDS Goes Art History In “Art AIDS America” At The Bronx Museum

by Emily Colucci on July 29, 2016

What is lost when HIV/AIDS becomes art history? A lot, as it seems.

As HIV/AIDS gets revisited by a slew of recent exhibitions, books and films, the real continued emotional impact of the disease is in danger of being replaced by a distant historical interest. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Bronx Museum’s current exhibition Art AIDS America.

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Friday Links: Little Street is Real

by Rea McNamara on November 20, 2015

A then and now of Vermeer’s Little Street. Credit: Rijksmuseum/The Art Newspaper

The original location of Vermeer’s “The Little Street” has been discovered. After a century of debate among scholars as to whether one of the earliest Northern European portraits of a middle class house exterior was real or fictitious, the buildings have been determined to be Trip Gate in Delft. [The Art Newspaper]
Silicon Valley has their over-valuated “unicorn” start-ups, and now Canada has their own name for those $1 billion plus tech companies: narwhals. How the arctic toothed whale embodies our pre-tech bubble burst no one knows—maybe when it all sinks, Canadian start-ups are able to break the ice with their tusk, constant apologizing, and self-deprecating humor. [Quartz]
In related news, a millennial Silicon Valley unicorn founder has let the world know he does not want cars, watches or gadgets: he wants to start collecting art, and has appropriately inspired a Twitter parody account of his potential art collection with quips like “it’s time to #swiperight on the #artworld.” [artnet news]
This confessional listicle from a recently out of work, 25 year independent video store employee is depressing. With the demise of the video store industry, here’s what we’re losing despite the convenience of Netflix: human interaction and a video library not solely shaped by the whims of licensing agreements. [Vox]
Holland Cotter thinks the Martin Wong retrospective survey at the Bronx Museum of the Arts is a must-see. He fondly reminisces about first encountering the “virtuoso realist” in the 1980s when he was briefly a clerk in the Met’s bookstore, and the critical eye he brought to his mystical city paintings. [New York Times]
Artist assistant: “John, BMW’s publicist needs a quote from you for the press release announcing the Art Car commission.” Baldessari: “Is this really necessary right now? I’m in the middle of something.” Assistant: “Cao Fei hasn’t gotten back to them yet.” Baldessari: “I really don’t care, just tell something corny about how it’ll be my ‘fastest artwork yet’.” [Autoblog]
London’s National Portrait Gallery just scored a $4.5 million donation from the Lucian Freud estate containing his letters, sketchbooks and early childhood drawings. [Artforum]
David Bowie has a new music video. There’s a sax solo and bandaged eyes and dancers moving with seizure-like movements and creepy kids. [The Awl]
Another arts publication has written a report about that digital art biennale Michael reviewed last week, analyzing the challenges digital art face from the establishment, but how that’s changing: Jon Rafman and Hito Steyerl are getting institutional shows, and there’s now a Canadian award for emerging digital artists with a $5000 purse. Oh, shameless self-promotion: the online pavilion I curated got a plug. [Canadian Art]
If you live in Berlin, you really have no excuse to be late ever again if you’re travelling via transit, especially since their transit authority has released a real-time map of their subway system. [Metafilter]

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Monday Links: Ben Carson in a Bathrobe. Ben Carson with Jesus.

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

Ben Carson in a bathrobe.

The art market is a fickle, frenetic creature. Maybe it always has been? Historian James Hamilton, author of the new book A Strange Business: Art, Culture, and Commerce in Nineteenth Century London argues that we might understand today’s art economics better by looking at the triumphs and failures of the business of art in the past. [History News Network]
Can’t wait to talk about what rich people are buying this week. The contemporary auctions began yesterday at Phillips and will run through Thursday. Phillips brought in just over their low estimate of 64 million with 66.9 million. Josh Baer described the results as in line with the quality of the work. [The New York Times]
A retrospective of the late Martin Wong’s work is presently on view at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. This seems to be in keeping with the trend of nostalgia for the grittier pre-Giuliani city at so many institutions and galleries—or at least for representations of it. Wong’s paintings are full of dilapidated buildings, seedy hotels, and even some kissing firemen. [ARTnews]
Here’s a painting of GOP Presidential hopeful, Ben Carson with Jesus. [The Guardian via Hyperallergic]
Mayor Bill de Blasio has a new plan to speed-up evictions of NYCHA tenants with criminal records. Under the new policy, public housing residents will be evicted two weeks after being arrested. This sounds like a horrible idea that might leave little room for appeals and will likely exacerbate the city’s homelessness crisis. Given the NYPD’s history of unlawful arrests and racial profiling, this is likely going to hurt more vulnerable people than protect low income residents from “dangerous criminals”. [Curbed]
ArtPrize Dallas has been cancelled. The event, which invites residents to vote in a public art contest anyone can enter has been wildly successful in Grand Rapids. However, Dallas, which would have held its first event in the spring of 2016 had troubles. Executive director Ariel Saldivar cited fundraising issues as the problem, but the letter announcing its closure does little to hide Saldivar’s bitterness about the process. Was there was more going on behind the scenes? Saldivar writers that “despite the visionary understanding of our supporters, there were a few who saw the concept as threatening to the status quo.” [MLive]
Mélanie Joly, the new Liberal Minister of Canadian Heritage says that she will double the Canadian national arts budget from 180 million to 360 million, thus restoring the cuts to arts funding by the Conservative Party during their tenure. [CBC]

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The Whitney Biennial: A Format in Crisis

by Corinna Kirsch on March 20, 2014

Just like a reality TV show, the premise behind this year’s Whitney Biennial aims for high spectacle: What happens when you take three curators and ask them to put on three separate exhibitions at one of the world’s most prestigious museums? The world watches on, and we wonder what could possibly go wrong.

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Barbara Bloom, an Artist-Curator at the Jewish Museum

by Corinna Kirsch on May 14, 2013

Why are artist-curators being recruited by New York museums? With all the artist-curated shows currently on view, the artist’s viewpoint may never have been represented so strongly.

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