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Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art
by Paddy Johnson Michael Anthony Farley Rea McNamara on December 21, 2015
- America’s first boob selfie was likely a 19th century miniature painting entitled “Beauty Revealed: Self Portrait” currently in MoMA. Anyways, portrait miniatures were a huge deal in the North American colonies, and this story about Sarah Goodrich, the Boston-based painter behind “Beauty Revealed”, and its owner (a one-time secretary of state who was her patron and also lover) is a juicy art historical holiday special yarn. [The Economist]
- Related: Allen Jones, sculptor of the infamous women-shaped table and chairs that were copied in A Clockwork Orange, has a new show of female nudes in London, and this interview. Spoiler alert: He still likes boobs. [Forbes]
- The Iranian government has announced the delivery of fourteen postmodern architectural drawings from the United States to the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. This is noteworthy because the drawings had been impounded by American officials since their purchase in 1978, just before the Islamic Revolution ousted the art-collecting royal family and soured international relations. [The New York Times]
- It’s been over a month since the Paris attacks, and museum attendance is still 30% down from last year’s numbers. Worst, for two weeks following the attacks, attendance at the Centre Pompidou fell by 50%. The drop is blamed on the ministry of education’s decision to forbid schools from visiting museums; on a positive note, however, the numbers are starting to come back up again. [The Art Newspaper]
- “We will bring human inactivity into the internet in our sleep!” Kicking off this morning (or midnight of you’re in Japan) is IDPW’s Internet Bedroom, a twenty-four-hour live-streamed “participatory” sleepover. It’s part of Rhizome’s new web-based exhibition of net performance work. [idpw.org/bedroom]
- George Ortman, a painter whose late 1950s abstract geometric collage paintings foreshadowed minimalism, has died. Part of the seminal “Toward a New Abstraction” exhibition at the Jewish Museum in 1963, he went on to teach for thirty years at Cranbrook before becoming its head of the graduate painting department. [Artforum]
- Your friend makes terrible paintings. Your friend needs money and throws a party to make money where invites are expected to buy the paintings. As a friend, do you have to buy the painting? Answer, according to the ethicist: “No”. What it doesn’t say here, is that you should still donate in some way if you can. [The New York Times]
- As a new era of Trudeaumania continues to grow, so do the think pieces. This article in the Guardian speculates that Canadian conservatives are confused about why anyone would want to have their picture taken with a leader. In their books, the less amiable and kind hearted the leader, the better he must be. It should be noted that google images supports the theory that Stephen Harper looks like an asshole, whereas Justin Trudeau does not. [The Guardian]
- Two full-time tenure track positions are open at Vancouver’s Emily Carr University of Art + Design: assistant or associate professor in sculpture, and assistant or associate professor in communication design. [Emily Carr]
- Etsy user uvproductionhouse is offering an “UPCYCLE planter for book you now find problematic”. The image is a succulent plant inserted into a hardcover of alleged-sexual-harasser Terry Richardson photos. [Etsy]
- There’s, like, zero time to get more Christmas presents, but if you need some last minute art gifts, our friends at the DeSeyn Shoppe offer collages and cut paper work. In one custom collage Ms. DeSeyn shows that she can turn anyone into Peter Pan! [Etsy]
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by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on November 18, 2015
- An important piece of western cultural patrimony is being preserved for posterity: the first Taco Bell has been spared demolition and is being trucked 45 miles to the company’s headquarters in Irvine, California. Fans can even watch its journey from designated Taco Bell locations along the route. [Los Angeles Magazine]
- National Geographic has an interactive graphic that shows what the Manhattan skyline will look like when all the planned and under-construction buildings are complete. Observations: until the past decade or so, relatively few buildings in the city were actually over 700 feet. Soon, the Chrysler Building is going to look tiny. [National Geographic]
- Prior to the 1979 revolution, Iranian Empress Farah Pahlavi assembled one of the greatest collections of modern and contemporary European and American art. After the royal family fled, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art’s collection miraculously survived thanks to protection by art enthusiast Firouz Shabazi Moghadam and others who guarded the Warhols, Gaughins, Pollocks, and Rothkos. Now that Iran’s international relations are improving, there’s hope that the museum can take its rightful place among the great art institutions of the world. It’s a really inspiring and compelling story. [Bloomberg]
- Europe’s royal palaces are given an unlikely second life as exhibition space for contemporary art [BBC]
- Hyperallergic has a recap on last night’s protest of the Brooklyn Real Estate Summit at the Brooklyn Museum. The story here: lots of artists came out, which has been an issue in the past and there was real community engagement in the issues during the protest. [Hyperallergic]
- In related protest news, The Guerilla Girls have declared war on “cartels of collectors [who] get behind the work of a few selected artists; galleries are paying for exhibitions of their artists at museums; and art fairs are showing the same bankable work over and over.” Expect guerilla projections, demonstrations, and more. The campaign kicks off in the Twin Cities. [The Art Newspaper]
- Here’s some nice news: Italian designer Enzo Mari has granted the reproduction rights of his designs to an organization in Berlin that helps refugees start careers in furniture making. The group CUCULA will be producing Mari’s “Autoprogettazione” series to raise funds for relief activities. [Dezeen]
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