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Minneapolis

Thursday Links: RIP Kenneth Snelson

by Michael Anthony Farley on December 29, 2016

Kenneth Snelson, “Easy Landing,” 1977.

Oh no! Kenneth Snelson died today of prostate cancer at the age of 89. He was known for his science-influenced sculptures. On a personal note, his installation in front of the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore is one of my earliest memories of interacting with public art as a child. [The New York Times]

70 year old Yolanda Baker might be America’s last disco ball maker. This video of her making disco balls makes me so happy. [courier-journal]

Did scandal-plagued Korean leader Park Geun-hye create a “blacklist” of left-leaning iartists? According to reports, the list contained the names of politically-minded artists, writers, filmmakers, and even supportive corporations in South Korea. Those on the list were cut off from government subsidies. It seems like everyone in Park’s disgraced administration is trying to shift the blame to another member. [Korea Times]

The City of Minneapolis has censored a vagina-centric poem by Junauda Petrus, which was slated to be included in a public art project. Apparently the word “clitoris” was one of the “problem” words in the piece. [City Pages]

San Diego is the latest city to crack down on code violations at art spaces following the Ghost Ship fire. [Los Angeles Times]

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Wednesday Links: But Some People Do Care

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on May 18, 2016

Some view Peregrine Honig’s restroom signs as insensitive.

Former Work of Art contestant Peregrine Honig’s “We Don’t Care” restroom signs—created in response to North Carolina’s discriminatory transgender bathroom laws—are sparking some heated social media debate that for once doesn’t involve the right wing. Some view the $150 signs as exploitative and dismissive, while others (mostly cisgendered people) support the artist. It’s spread to multiple threads, but in this one we get to watch AFC friend Molly Rhinestones and Jerry Saltz on opposite sides of the debate. [Facebook]

As the cost of riding the MTA continues to rise, fare evasion on the subway is now the number one cause for arrests in NYC, disproportionately affecting low income people of color. All those arrests cost the city $51 million annually. But it would only cost the city $40.5 million to offer those same 29,000 riders free metrocards instead of arrest records and a night in jail. Activists are trying to call attention to this absurd policy by giving out free metrocard swipes in low-income neighborhoods. [Elite Daily]

Hate read: this piece equates the late Tony Goldman’s art-branded gentrifications schemes with social practice and community arts. Like, not as a criticism of community arts’ vaguely colonial undertones, but as an endorsement of art as a tool for developers. Seriously? [The Huffington Post]

Related: a household now needs to earn $158,000 annually to rent a two-bedroom in New York City, according to HUD metrics. This is so unacceptable. [Curbed]

Who is Yusaku Maezawa, the handsome billionaire from Chiba who pretty much single-handedly rescued the market with almost $100 million in contemporary art purchases last week? He’s a fashion mogul, former musician, and philanthropist with a foundation in Tokyo and a guest house for artists in London. Dear Mr. Maezawa, please bring us to Japan to see your collection, love AFC. [Observer]

This is adorable. Virginia Beach Arts and Humanities Commissioner Ben Loyola is offended by the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art showing Mark Ryden, who uses Catholic imagery in subversive-cheesy ways, and “paintings of nude portraits in all positions.” He’s upset taxpayer money is funding this. Ben, if you need a theme for a party to raise awareness about your concerns, I suggest the 1980s. [WAVY]

Unsurprisingly, more powerful figures from the art world have been named in the Panama Papers. The latest are gallerist Dominique Lévy and Miami mega-collector Ella Fontanals-Cisneros. If you really need to stash assets in a non-taxable form, can’t you just buy more art for your personal museum? [artnet News]

Your animal video of the day: Panda & basket. Cleaning up leaves is a much harder job than it looks when there is a panda involved. [YouTube]

Hip-hop artist The Game commissioned a $65,000 portrait of Prince from street artist Madsteez. I want to see this on the hood of a car. [Complex]

Ben Davis thoughtfully reflects on Jordan Wolfson’s installation at David Zwirner, which focuses a human-like robot being tortured. Davis concludes that Wolfson has a violent need to command the attention of the viewer. [artnet News]

The Handicraft Building in Minneapolis, which was erected in 1907 to house women artists and craftspeople, is being partially demolished and renovated into luxury apartments. This is terrible. Dozens of artists will be displaced, in addition to artist-run galleries. This follows a pattern in downtown Minneapolis, in which small-scaled historic structures are being demolished to make way for larger developments. [City Pages]

In other real estate news, artist-run space Essex Flowers is relocating to Chinatown, where they’ll have a bigger space. [ARTnews]

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ArtPrize Announces $20,000 in Grants for Artists

by Michael Anthony Farley on March 30, 2016

ArtPrize, the Michigan-based public art competition, has announced a $20,000 fund to be distributed via “pitch nights” in four cities. Artists from those respective regions can attend these events in Durham, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, and Louisville and propose public artworks to a panel for the chance to secure $5,000 to realize their projects. The selected artists will then be given an exhibition opportunity during ArtPrize.

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Thursday Links: Recessionary Skyscrapers You’ll Never See

by Michael Anthony Farley and Rea McNamara on November 19, 2015

111 First Street, an OMA lower Manhattan building that will never be built. Image credit: Arch Daily

One of the worst casualties of the recession? Architecture. Here’s a look at 15 Rem Koolhaas/OMA designs that were never completed. Many of them are located in the NYC area, and certainly would’ve injected some of the classy eccentricism the city’s architecture was once known for back into the streetscape and skyline. [ArchDaily]
After losing thousands of works in Hurricane Sandy, Printed Matter has relocated to a bigger, flood-resistant space with the help of volunteers and donations from artists. [The New York Times]
This is totally click-baity, but this Toronto subway map from the future — 2021, to be precise, when the Eglinton Crosstown LRT finally opens — is pretty exciting. The new transit line will finally replace the bus service for a huge swath of the city’s uptown with rail transit, and hopefully bring Toronto’s public transport into the 21st century. [NOW Magazine]
More coverage of Tuesday’s protests at the Brooklyn Real Estate Summit. [Gothamist, Artsy]
Best reaction ever to Minneapolis rebranding its west downtown as “WeDo” (yup, “Wee-Doo”): “Honestly I love this city but naming your arts district “WeDo” is begging for poop and/or pot jokes.” [@AnaMarieCox]
Curators, according to Michael Govan, are cheap dates. At a contemporary art collecting panel this week at the Frick, the LACMA director advised collectors that they were more likely to get free advice from curators than art advisors. Take a curator for a lunch, collectors, and even buy them a piece for their museum’s collection, and “they’ll tell you their life story—they’ll tell you everything.” [Art Newspaper]
Why do conversations about censorship and “appropriateness” always center on other people’s children? An Illinois woman who sounds insane (she once tried to feed her husband to birds) has started a petition to remove a mural depicting a naked woman tied to a tree and a penis in a hot dog bun. Of course, her argument is “THINK OF THE CHILDREN!” But really, what kid wouldn’t think a cartoon dick-in-a-bun was hilarious? [WISH-TV]
Saskatoon’s Remai Modern recently hosted “Supercommunity Live”, a two-day conference extending E-flux Journal’s Venice Biennale publishing project. But according to this recap by critic Caoimhe Morgan-Feir, it was just a bunch of people reading their papers, and seemed to only appeal to its visiting international crowd. [Canadian Art]
Alec Baldwin “accidentally” spent $95,000 on a Pat Steir painting at a charity auction. [ART news]
The Ontario Association of Art Galleries (OAAG) just announced the winners of its annual OAAG awards, recognizing leading exhibitions by the province’s public art galleries. Winners include the Art Gallery of Ontario for its Suzy Lake retrospective, and the Art Gallery of York University’s historical archive-driven Is Toronto Burning? exhibition curated by Philip Monk. [OOAG]
Matthew Klos interviews Peter Drake, Dean at the New York Academy of Art, on the challenges and rewards of being a young artist in New York, art education, and contemporary painting. [Bmore Art]

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Monday Links: Cell Phone Video Preserved for Posterity, California is Stingy

by Paddy Johnson Michael Anthony Farley Rea McNamara on September 28, 2015

Artist Alexander Taylor will be launching a Rhizome-backed project to archive .3gp format cell phone videos from the early 2000s.

From cell phone videos and unstable programs to aging laserdisk players and archival prints of Corey Arcangel codes; read all about the surprisingly fascinating world of digital art preservation and restoration. [Fast Company]

The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies has released a state-by-state report on projected per-capita art appropriations for fiscal year 2016. So where are an artist’s best chances of getting funding? Unsurprisingly, urban Northeastern states like New York, Maryland, and Massachusetts spend way more on the arts per person than conservative states. Though the islands have us all beat: Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and the Virgin Islands spend more money per capita on the arts than any U.S. state except Minnesota. And although the District of Columbia’s arts funding is down this year, it still spends a relatively whopping $22.30 per person on arts appropriations—more than anywhere else in the country. Surprisingly, the West Coast is about as bad as the deep south when it comes to underfunding the arts. [NASAA]

There’s a new art historical documentary coming out on the land art “cowboys”. [Hyperallergic]

Anish Kapoor’s sculpture at Versailles was been vandalized yet again. [Europe1]

According to the Australian government’s radicalization kit — a counter-terrorist booklet helping teachers identify radicalized students — if you’re a green activist into alternative music, you’re a target. [The Guardian]

Anonymous collective Laboria Cuboniks has compiled a Xenofeminism recommended readings list. [Uberty]

Toronto’s Sony Centre for the Performing Arts suffered a major flood last week that damaged a large portion of their archival holdings. [Sony Centre’s Facebook]

On India’s undervalued modern and contemporary art market. [Barron’s Penta]

Photos from the “rough and rowdy” 1970s Florida roller rink scene. [Orlando Weekly]

For five years, there’s been an “art embargo” passed by the Russian government that forbids Russian museums or state archives lending cultural material to the United States. This all stems from a lawsuit by the New York-based Jewish organization Chabad in the hopes of securing artifacts it claims belongs to their people from Russian state collections. It’s a long story. Anyway, The Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis found a very contemporary solution to the hurdle this presents curators. For the exhibition Faces of War: Russia in World War I, Russian scholars digitized photographs, recordings, and artifacts that the American institution then reproduced, all without breaking the embargo. [StarTribune]

“Even as progressives, we don’t think about how to experience the universe through pleasure. And the problem is that fun and leisure have become the domain of white people. And that’s how white supremacy works.” Faviana Rodriguez and other diverse burners breakdown the overwhelming whiteness of Burning Man. [The Guardian]

Honey Lee Cottrell, photographer and filmmaker who pioneered lesbian erotica died Monday September 21 of pancreatic cancer. She was 69 years old. [Feminine Moments]

We have now reached the point where deskilled telecommuters are supposedly so nostalgic for IRL McJobs that they need to play a VR job simulator game. [Fusion]

An oil painting and drawing by Francisco de Goya—collectively valued at €5 million—have been stolen from a home outside Madrid. [artnet News]

Ain’t no drama like globe-trotting oligarchy drama! Now an American art consultant, Sandy Heller, has been subpoenaed in the lawsuit between Russian collector Dmitri Rybolovlev and Swiss dealer Yves Bouvier, who is accused of overcharging Rybolovlev. Has anyone else had a hard time following this case? Expensive art was too expensive? What? At any rate, there could be a fun drinking game where we all sip champagne every time an exotic rich people tax haven is name-dropped in the story: Frozen assets in Singapore! Jail in Monaco! Freeport art storage in an undisclosed location! Lunch in St. Bart’s! [The Wall Street Journal]

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Tuesday Links: Show Me Some Art With Soft Porn

by Paddy Johnson and Corinna Kirsch on February 17, 2015

Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis on Fuck Yeah Yanis Varoufakis

Do Artist Branding and Hollywood Talent Agency Deals Kill an Artist’s Soul? AFC’s Paddy Johnson doesn’t think so. [Artnet]
Chicago-based, Cuban-born artist Alejandro Figueredo Díaz-Perera has been living behind a wall for three weeks, in quiet protest of his U.S.-Cuban policies. [Chicago Magazine]
Márcia Oliani, 54, the finance manager of an art gallery who recently endured six days without water in her Sao Paolo apartment unleashes some crazy vitriol on the governor and the water utility company Sabesp. The city has been experiencing the worst drought they’ve had in the last century “I feel hatred, hatred of the governor and of Sabesp,” she said. “I’d like to take them out and set fire to them. They completely failed to warn us, and have just continued to lie about this throughout.” [The New York Times]
City Desk Studio has been trying to sell the skyway they purchased in 2006 for $1.2 million since 2009. Having been unsuccessful, they are now offering $5000 to anyone who will purchase it. Greg Allen has devised a cheapo shipping option, which involves removing the skyway’s floor, but we think the permits required to get it on the barge he’s proposed might blow the budget. [Greg Allen]
A new book of Abstract Expressionist painter Mark Rothko’s writings: The Artist’s Reality: Philosophies of Art. [Amazon]
Looks like we all need to move to Minneapolis. Some stats: “The Minneapolis–St. Paul metro area is richer by median household income than Pittsburgh or Salt Lake City (or New York, or Chicago, or Los Angeles). Among residents under 35, the Twin Cities place in the top 10 for highest college-graduation rate, highest median earnings, and lowest poverty rate, according to the most recent census figures.” Why is the city so successful? According to Myles Shaver, a professor at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, it’s because “its most important resource never leaves the city: educated managers of every level.” I guess that’s a resource more valuable than oil. [The Atlantic]
Nothing even remotely to do with art, but you gotta read Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis in the Times opinion pages today. He talks uses game theory and Kant to explain his position on austerity and Greek’s current negotiation strategy. [The New York Times]
And for those who want to know more about Yanis Varoufakis, an apparent heart throb in Greece, here’s the “Fuck Yeah Yanis Varoufakis” Tumblr, complete with duckfaces. [Fuck Yeah, Yanis Varoufakis]
And for those who want to know more about the economics of the Greece financial crisis and how it relates to the history of World War I, there’s Paul Krugman hitting it out of the park. [The New York Times]
71-year-old artist David Hammons has announced he is opening a gallery in Yonkers, but little details are known. Here’s what Andrew Russeth found out about the gallery: “Hammons’s space, at 39 Lawrence Street, is a one-story brick building with tall ceilings, filling a lot that measures two-thirds of an acre, about 29,200 square feet. According to property records, an entity called Duchamp Realty LLC, which is registered to the artist’s home address in Brooklyn, bought it for $2.05 million in January 2014.” [ARTnews]
Congratulations, again, to Pierre Huyghe for winning the 2015 Kurt Schwitters Award! Here’s AFC’s posts on the digital-conceptual-minimal artist. (“I do not own Tate Modern or the Death Star” remains one of Corinna’s all-time favorite works of art in neon.) [Artforum]
“Show me some art with soft porn.” [Imgur]
A letter from “Artists for Palestine” was published over this weekend in The Guardian. Over 700 art-worlders have decided to disengage with Israel in the cultural sphere. This means that invitations to any cultural centers with ties to the Israeli government will be declined. The 700 includes John Berger, Brian Eno, and Jeremy Deller. [The Guardian]

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