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Randy Kennedy

Thursday Links: Sleep With All of Earth’s History

by Paddy Johnson on April 13, 2017

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So, after reporting on art at the New York Times for 12 years, Randy Kennedy is moving to Hauser & Wirth as Director of Special Projects. A couple of WTFs here. First, this sucks, because it almost certainly means a reduction of arts coverage at the Times. Second, who is the head hunter for Hauser & Wirth because they seem to draw talent from really unexpected places? Paul Schimmel left his position as chief curator at MoCA to become a director (and then left). Noah Horowitz came from heading up the Armory to oversee their operations (and then left). And now Randy Kennedy has joined. ARTnews has a run down on which galleries have drawn from what talent pools. [ARTnews]
Speaking of ARTnews, they have the scoop on the press release of the month—Eataly has announced it will sponsor an air filtration system that will extend the life of Leonardo da Vinci’s 29-foot-by-15-foot fresco, “The Last Supper” by 500 years. It’s currently rotting on a wall in a convent in Milan. [ARTnews]
Yay! The adult sleepovers at the Museum of Natural History are back. 350 bucks—and you have to sleep in your clothes—but still. You sleep with history. [artnet News]
Really? “Charging Bull” artist Arturo Di Modica, has threatened to sue if the “Fearless Girl” sculpture remains in place across from his sculpture on Wall Street. Is there nothing people won’t fight about? [Curbed]
Interesting. More than 150 members of congress have signed a petition to increase funding to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), including 11 Republicans. Hyperallergic’s Claire Voon writes that this signals growing bi-partisan support for the NEA. [Hyperallergic]

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Tuesday Links: Anish Kapoor Gives “Exclusive” Pigment the Finger

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on December 27, 2016

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After Anish Kapoor secured the exclusive rights to light-absorbing pigment Vantablack, artist Stuart Semple created “The World’s Pinkest Pink,” which is available to everyone except Kapoor. Kapoor responded to this dig with the above Instagram photo, wherein his middle finger is dipped in Semple’s pigment. This seems like the kind of drama one wouldn’t expect Kapoor to have time for. [artnet News]

Beginning with David Bowie, J. Kelly Nestruck looks back at artists who died in 2016 and the ways in which they “performed” their deaths. [The Globe and Mail]

George Michael died this weekend. Here’s a look at why he mattered beyond the music. Think making gayness more interesting and less threatening, and erasing the barrier between who should and should not sing a soul song. [The New York Times]

Last week we previewed the new artworks in the Second Avenue Subway. It didn’t occur to me though, that Vik Muniz’s “Perfect Strangers” mosaic features what appears to be New York City’s first depiction of a gay couple in a permanent, non-political piece of public art. [AP]

Photographer Wing Shya’s aesthetic emerged about two decades ago, while working as an on-set photographer for filmmaker Wong Kar Wai during Hong Kong cinema’s golden age. Today, his gorgeous photos maintain a cinematic quality, even as the city’s culture and economy stagnate under mainland Chinese rule. [CNN]

Famed minimalist and art critic Donald Judd amassed a tomb of writing over his life, but never used a typewriter. This news comes in a profile by Randy Kennedy on a new collection of the artist’s writings and his children’s role in shepherding the project. [The New York Times]

Best new architecture in NYC. In a surprise to no one, Santiago Calatrava’s Oculus makes the list, but not without some heavy caveating. (Late opening, political tomfoolery, shopping mall effect, etc.) [Curbed]

The Denver Art Museum’s upcoming renovation proclaims to be fairly sensitive to the existing facilities. Nevertheless, there’s apparently some controversy over relocating Edgar Heap of Birds’ outdoor sculpture “Wheel”. This editorial doesn’t really explain what that controversy is, though. [Denver Post]

Great. The GOP is connecting Democratic senate candidates in New York to Mayor de Blasio and corruption wherever possible. And of course, it’s an easy attack to launch because the administration has been plagued by corruption. [Politico]

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Friday Links: Help the Whales, and a Vagina Ring Joke

by Paddy Johnson Whitney Kimball and Corinna Kirsch on September 5, 2014

You know, just a guy in a whale suit.

Because some artists and galleries have no ethical qualms about posting hacked female nudes, there will be an art exhibition about them. [SF Gate]
John Herrman at the Awl gifts a new phrase to the world, “take time.” Use this quip whenever the Internet overreacts to a single event, i.e. nude leak 2014. “Hey, guys, it’s everyone’s ‘take time.’” [The Awl]
Researchers have found that roughly half the viking remains they studied were female. Apparently, previous to this, nobody thought to check the gender. [Tor]
Comedian Joan Rivers has died. [The New York Times]
Never afraid to offend, Joan Rivers tells jokes about the Holocaust and her vagina ring, just months ago on The Tonight Show. Host Jimmy Fallon ends the interview by asking Rivers if she’s afraid of death. [YouTube]
Joan Rivers and a Dr. Who joke. [Imgur]
This month’s Brooklyn Rail’s Critic’s Page is devoted to feminism. [Brooklyn Rail]
Margaret Atwood has become the first contributor Norway’s Future Library, a project by artist Katie Paterson. Every year until 2114, the library will invite one author to contribute a work. In 2114, trees that Paterson planted this summer will be cut down so the work can be printed. [The Guardian]
Procrastinate, for science. Whale.fm crowdsources labor for matching whale calls, to help scientists start to decipher the dialect of Pilot Whales. Try to match the sound in the center of the screen to one of the sound files below. If it’s a match, click the checkmark that pops up next to the audio clip. [Whale.fm]
Randy Kennedy has a nice interview with artist Pierre Huyghe—who “fits into the tidy mold of a museum retrospective about as comfortably as a monkey fits into a dress”—prior to his first Stateside retrospective, set to open November 23 at LACMA. Haha, Randy. [The New York Times]
Artists beware. Bert Kreuk has sued Danh Vo for 1.2 million because he failed to deliver a work worth $350,000 for an exhibition of Kreuk’s collection. The rest of the money is for “damage to his reputation and lost profit.” Collector Alain Servais has suggested over Twitter that Vo may be refusing to deliver the work because Kreuk is “an art-flipper more toxic than [Stefan] Simchowitz” [artnet News]
White guys in power weigh in on graffiti (again). “I find it outrageous that one of the city’s museums is currently celebrating graffiti and what a great impact it had on the city,” says Police chief William Bratton. “The young people who invented this style didn’t have access to art supplies,” says Jeffrey Deitch. “They didn’t have a garage at home where they could work on canvases. They had the streets.” This is so so so so so stupid. [artnet News]

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Thursday Links: Bankruptcy and Philanthropy Edition

by The AFC Staff on October 3, 2013

Image via The New York Times

New York City has just given the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum $5 million towards its $79 million renovation. [ArtsBeat]
Former Executive Director of Rhizome and New Museum triennial co-curator Lauren Cornell interviews Laura Poitras, the filmmaker behind The Guardian interview in which Edward Snowden revealed himself to the public. Poitras, who was described as the “Keyser Soze of the [Snowden] story” by The New York Times earlier this year, expresses her commitment to fighting against the “Orwellian nightmare” of government surveillance. She also uses the interview to speak about storytelling and the artistic choice to put Snowden behind the camera. Poitiers is currently making a documentary about government surveillance in America which will serve as the finale in a trilogy of films about the post-9/11 world. [Mousse Magazine]
The Silk Road, a website operated via Bitcoin exchange and subject of various artworks, has been shut down by the FBI. Approximately $3.6 million in Bitcoin currency was seized in conjunction with the shutdown. [The Washington Post]
Today’s must-read: Randy Kennedy’s report on Detroit, and the looming possibility of the sale of DIA’s art collection. Kennedy gives readers a very clear sense of the damage that would be done to the institution should the City attempt to do this; basically, it would be destroyed. [The New York Times]
Chicago art dealer Alan Kass was convicted of fraud. Due to health issues, he was sentenced to six months in prison, followed by six months home confinement, in addition to paying $350,000 in restitution to the gallery’s former clients. [The Art Market Monitor]
Cities unfriendly to artists based on soaring housing prices: Washington, San Diego and Los Angeles. The chart also maps cities where housing costs have declined. Looks like Chicago is a winner here, behind the obvious city, Detroit. [The Washington Post]
Sometimes art and horses don’t mix. Teenage girl buys horse named Señor Pablo Picasso. Finding that a dopey name, she fields suggestions for new names on a message board. Once “Guernica” gets tabled, the infighting begins. [The Chronicle of the Horse]
319 Scholes opens up a co-working space with desk space, meeting rooms, and an in-person fabrication studio. [Deskmag]
You’ve got a month to enter the 2013 Conscientious portfolio competition. Aimed at emerging photographers, it’s free to submit, and all you have to do is send a link to your website and tell them what pictures to consider. Deadline is Halloween. [Conscientious]
On Wednesday, Sotheby’s largest shareholder Dan Loeb, fired off a letter to the auction house accusing CEO William Ruprecht of failing to offer up “enough modern masterpieces to woo potential bidders and compete with rival Christie’s International.” That same day, Sotheby’s announced the upcoming sale of two major modern works by Picasso and Giacometti, worth a combined $80 million. [The Wall Street Journal]

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Thursday Links: Twitter and Print Edition

by Paddy Johnson on March 21, 2013

Silva Plath, Two women reading, (left), Nine female figures (right). Photograph: Indiana University Lilly Library

Lots of news from Twitter today:

Deborah Soloman is tweeting that Larry Gagosian has bought the former Harkness House for Ballet Arts on 5th Avenue. No further details yet. [Deborah Solomon]
Magda Sawon of Postmasters is warning art folk over twitter about an email scam. Beware of Helen Harkins, who is asking people to buy art she saw on website. Emails involve fedexing checks and arranging shipments. Do not fall for this. [Magda Sawon]
Yoko Ono weighs in over twitter on the gun debate by tweeting John Lennon’s bloody glasses. [Yoko Ono]

In the papers:

Time Out NY has the city’s best art critic, Howard Halle, making listicles. That makes me a little sad about the state publishing, but on the upside, they’re pretty good listicles. This curated guide to art celebrities should provide enough context to put an end to the misguided idea that George W. Bush is a good painter. [Time Out NY]
Artist Asher Penn interviews artist Spencer Sweeney. [Sex]
Randy Kennedy on social practice projects by Creative Time, The Queens Museum and more. [NYTimes. Paywall]

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Peter Nadin is an Art Press Magnet

by Paddy Johnson on July 5, 2011

Gavin Brown seems to attract compelling narratives. Last fall, no one could shut up about Rob Pruitt’s come back. This summer, we’re all talking about the gallery’s Peter Nadin show (on view through July 30), another artist with a come back story for the ages. As the story goes, Nadin ran a gallery with Christopher D'Arcangelo in the 80’s until disputes over management dissolved the partnership. Following this, the artist suffered a nervous breakdown which according to the Times, “caused Nadin to begin seeing the world in a fundamentally different way.”

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Alright, What Contemporary Artist Should Be The Next Barbie Make Over?

by Paddy Johnson on June 30, 2011

Does high art suddenly have mass culture appeal? Even with the growing number of reality shows on the subject my guess would be no — most people I know outside the field aren’t exactly spending a lot of time reading up on the subject –but clearly the creative folks over at Mattel don’t agree. This week, the toy company released three new Barbies inspired by well known works of art.

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Randy Kennedy

Peter Nadin is an Art Press Magnet

Alright, What Contemporary Artist Should Be The Next Barbie Make Over?

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