Image of Douglas Gordon’s giant pool at the Armory (via Vogue.com)
- Douglas Gordon has installed a massive pool with pianos in the Armory. Christian Viveros-Faune finds very little beyond that and wonders about the project budget. The idea sounds like the worst of Armory shows, banking on awe factor in order to hide a thin premise (read: Ann Hamilton’s curtain). [artnet News]
- Everyone is coming out with sexy 2015 calendars. We’re not the only ones in the art world doing so; we found this New York City Freelance Art Handlers calendar that popped up on Etsy. [Etsy]
- Lonely Planet declares Queens, New York the number one vacation spot in the U.S. All across the Internet you can hear cries of “Noooooooo!” shouted by Queens residents. [Lonely Planet]
- The rich people hobby of building museums gets another participant: Norma and Irma Braman plan to single-handedly fund the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami. Braman told the Times “Whatever the cost is, we will be building it, period.” [New York Times]
- Sally Kohn writes a great piece about some of the wrong headed feminism that has made headlines recently. This includes the feminist response to Mark Zuckerberg’s comment that he wears grey t-shirts because he doesn’t want vanity to distract him from his job—some thought this statement was meant to invalidate a woman’s choice to dress nicely. Also on the list was the latest Lena Dunham dust up over her memoir wherein she describes looking at her little sister’s vagina at the age of seven and masturbates near her in the same bed. This resulted in an uproar over whether this was natural and a campaign to get Planned Parenthood to drop Dunham as their spokesperson complete with the twitter hashtag #DropDunham. [The New Republic]
- Speaking of Lena Dunham’s memoir, another point of contention seems to be an account of her sexual assault. She makes clear that she used a pseudonym to describe the person who assaulted her—it seems some reporters have been making someone else’s life hell—and talks about her decision not to open a criminal investigation. [Buzzfeed]
- A woman sexually harassed by an Uber driver receives $31 in compensation from the company. [Jezebel]
- Baer Faxt: Art book publisher TASCHEN will open the TASCHEN Gallery in Los Angeles this Saturday with “It’s Just a Shot Away: The Rolling Stones in Photographs”, bringing together almost 100 photographic prints tracing the band’s history.
- Prospect in New Orleans will now be a triennial rather than a biennial. After visiting this year’s edition, Paddy concluded that this year’s edition did not live up to previous biennials. Given another three years, we hope Prospect will have a chance to up its game. [Baer Faxt]
- Say hello to the new anti-Tindr, Hinge, which connects you only with people who have mutual friends on Facebook. [Wired]
- Author Chris Kraus admits she doesn’t make much money off of her writing passions. “I realized early on that the kind of writing and art I was most drawn to was not the most highly rewarded, so I made other plans. I teach on a visiting basis as much for the contact as for the income. I live mostly off rents.” Is she a landlord? Does she Airbnb? We are left to ponder the meaning of “rents.” [Full Stop]
- Hurricane season is upon us. California prepares for the most powerful storm in five years. [CBS News]
- Theartblog picks gifts for the holiday season, from design philosophy to Ad Reinhard’s “How to Look” series. [part one; part two]
- Comics execs are threatened by female cosplayers, who dominate the industry. “Cosplay combines comics with the stereotypically feminized world of fashion,” writes Noah Berlatsky. “It’s a way for folks to combine a love of Batman or Thor with a love of fabric and sewing and dressing up.” [The Atlantic]
- The Pope’s New Year address will advise against buying products made by slave labor. [Agence France-Presse]
