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Rob Pruitt

Rob Pruitt Measures Obama’s Legacy In Paintings At Gavin Brown’s Enterprise

by Emily Colucci on December 14, 2016

Sometimes an artist’s project is so timely that it doesn’t matter if the concept is hokey. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Rob Pruitt’s The Obama Paintings, which is currently on view at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise.

Starting with Obama’s inauguration in 2009, Pruitt embarked on an eight-year long project to paint Obama every day of his two-term presidency. These red, white and blue-toned works might look cheesy in another political moment. But, in the context of the looming Trump administration, The Obama Paintings provides a meaningful opportunity to reflect on Obama’s presidential legacy, as well as the forthcoming exit of this empathetic and considerate leader. I’ll admit, I got a little choked-up in the gallery.

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Nightmares Before Christmas

by Michael Anthony Farley on December 12, 2016

This week there’s not a lot of art stuff happening beyond holiday parties and craft fairs. One could say NYC’s taken an unexpectedly Middle-American turn in that regard, were it not for how morbid so much of the week’s happenings are. Tuesday night, scholars Sam Tanenhaus and Richard Wolin perform a post-election autopsy on the American Republic and speculate about its afterlife (hint: It’s not looking good) at CUNY. For a slightly less depressing evening, head to Ubu Gallery where German artist Heide Hatry is opening a new series of drawings made with the ashes of human remains. If that’s not enough mortuary holiday cheer for you, Con Artist Collective is throwing a fake memorial art show for the comedian Bill Murray (one of the few national treasures that hasn’t died in 2016). Thursday night we’re looking forward to a subversive holiday group show at Kate Werble Gallery, and a six-hour night of discussions about Art After Trump at Housing Works.

Friday night, things get a little less bleak city-wide. P! and Beverly’s are hosting events for a Bard CSS project that sprawls across Chinatown and continues with satellite events all weekend. At Brooklyn’s Orgy Park, a group show invites painters to make something collaborative, and in Queens, MoMA PS1 is throwing a holiday party for artists that looks totally bonkers. Have some spiked hot chocolate. After a week of thinking about Trump and death, you’re going to need it.

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Thursday Links: Welcome to the Kakistocracy

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on November 17, 2016

T. Rutt, “Flag desecration artwork” (2016)

Apparently there’s a Greek word to describe our current state of affairs: kakistocracy. “n. 1829, ’government by the worst element of a society,’ coined on analogy of its opposite, aristocracy, from Greek kakistos ‘worst,’ superlative of kakos ‘bad’ (which perhaps is related to the general IE word for ‘defecate’;” [Dictionary.com]
Max Robinson’s review of Arrival pretty much sums up everything I was thinking when I (Michael) saw the film Tuesday night. Except I was also thinking “This is The Notebook meets Contact.” [City Paper]
Looters have been pillaging Italy’s earthquake damaged towns for artwork. This is so sad. [The Daily Beast]
Miami’s Red Dot Art Fair won’t be showing art collective T.Rutt’s “T.RUMP” bus, a repurposed Trump campaign bus that has been used for anti-Trump protest art during the election. Eric Smith, president and CEO of Redwood Media Group, which owns Red Dot, has decided to revoke T.Rutt’s space in light of the election results and potentially inflammatory nature of their work. To which we say, fuck you. Also, has anyone ever cared about Red Dot? (We stopped reviewing the fair in 2008 because they made the art viewing experience so depressing it wasn’t worth it.) We’re pleased to say Satellite, where we’ll be exhibiting, offered T.Rutt a booth, but didn’t have a place to park the bus. [Hyperallergic]
Finally some good news for the gays: Kensington Palace is opening an exhibition about the wardrobe of Princess Diana. [artnet News]
Rob Pruitt had been planning an exhibition at Gavin Brown Enterprises of his celebrity look-a-like paintings. Now, he’s made an eleventh-hour decision to show a selection of his portraits of Obama instead, citing the election as impetus. [ARTnews]
Lincoln Center has named Debora L. Spar its new president. Spar replaces Jed Bernstein who was forced to leave after failing to disclose an affair with a woman he’d promoted. Spar will be the first woman to lead the center, which is the nation’s largest performing arts non profit. [The New York Times]
Finding substantive auction coverage isn’t easy. With the exception of ARTnews, I haven’t read a single report that’s noted that Gerhardt Richter’s Düsenjet, Phillip’s top selling lot in yesterday’s contemporary evening sale, was guaranteed. These reports shouldn’t just offer up a bunch of numbers but account for the conditions informing the sales. [ARTnews]
Inside the most terrifying place in the world: the factory in Japan that churns out rubber Donald Trump masks. Apparently they’re having trouble keeping up with demand. This video is so creepy. [The Guardian]
Temporary Art Review is releasing a special anthology binder, To Make Public, sampling five years of critical, artist-centric writing. [Temporary Art Review]

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Tuesday Links: Lenin Toppled, Potentially by Market’s Unseen Hand

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on September 20, 2016

red-square-lenin

Josh Roth is the art lawyer tasked with assembling United Talent Agency’s art team, essentially responsible for the Hollywood agency’s controversial move into representing visual artists. There’s a lot of concern that UTA is going to disrupt traditional artist/gallery/audience relationships and reward entertainment-style spectacle. After reading this interview with him, the whole endeavor seems to make a bit more sense. Maybe this isn’t the L.A. art apocalypse it’s been made out to be? [VICE]

Well, everyone should’ve seen this coming: secondary market prices for “emerging” artists such as Hugh Scott-Douglas and Lucien Smith are way below the prices they commanded in 2014. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Those prices were over-inflated by speculators just buying to flip, and the correction keeps the primary market in check. Will this encourage young artists and gallerists to stop churning out endless quantities of soulless crapstraction? [Bloomberg]

Andrew Sullivan’s long-form reflection on his (very common) addiction to a constant data stream of social media as a professional blogger is a good read and very relatable… until about ⅘ of the way through, when it’s suggested that yoga, Burning Man, and organized religion are productive alternatives to wean us off Facebook. The first 10 minutes of this essay had me convinced that living real life should be enough. [New York Magazine]

This is a great idea. Berlin has trained refugees displaced by ISIS and the associated civil wars as museum guides to give other refugees tours in Arabic. [The Art Newspaper]

Headline of the week: A Sex Toy Lawsuit Highlights Privacy Concerns Around “Smart” Dildos. The lawsuit centers around “We-Vibe” a dildo that can be controlled via smartphone, and collects data like intensity settings, frequency and date of us. Personally, I’m (Paddy) far less concerned about the privacy issues than I am baffled by the need for such a “smart” product to exist in the first place. To use a dildo you have to hold it in your hand…just like a phone. Isn’t this just complicating the whole procedure? [Motherboard]

We’ve been fascinated by the story of Rebecca Moss, the artist-in-residence aboard a cargo vessel owned by Hanjin Shipping Company. After the Korean company declared bankruptcy, no port would allow the ship to dock out of fear the parent company wouldn’t be able to pay fees. She’s been stranded at sea by this bizarre situation until September 17th, when the ship was allowed to dock in Tokyo, where she’s now catching up with art world folks. [artnet News]

That giant statue of Lenin atop the East Village apartment building Red Square has been removed. This comes amid rumors that the complex has been sold to developer Dermot Company. Sad. There’s gotta be some joke in here about capitalism winning over the East or something. [Curbed]

Kansas Gallery is closing after five years. The gallery was located across the street from Postmasters on Franklin Street in Tribeca. They showed a lot of great young talent and will be missed. [AFC Inbox]

In other “Kansas” news, Wichita-based artist Curt Clonts wrote a short opinion piece condemning trendy art as social-media-focused or else overtly political “crap”. What’s remarkable about this is the backlash/conversation it started—after igniting heated debate locally online, the Wichita art space Harvester Arts is hosting a public forum to discuss the piece. I can’t tell if living somewhere where one short piece of art criticism ranting could become such a hotly contested issue would be inspiring or crazily suffocating. Either way, it’s good to see people care. [The Wichita Eagle]

Oh man. Greg Allen reports that we missed the Rob Pruitt birthday panda balloon market on ebay back in June. Doh! [Greg.org]

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Thursday Links: Museums Got Big Donations, Artist Got Arrested

by Michael Anthony Farley and Rea McNamara on December 10, 2015

Earlier this year, performance artist Lech Szporer was arrested for locking himself in a cage outside of the Manhattan Detention Center to protest mass incarceration. Let that sentence sink in a while. [The New Yorker]

Amar’e Stoudemire, Miami Heat’s center/forward, wants to help emerging artists sell art and find collectors via a website—the “Melech Collection”. I’m all for sports stars convincing their fellow players to think twice about sinking their big-money deals into Lanvin sneakers, but one of his advisors includes Mr. Brainwash. (To his credit, the other includes Rob Pruitt.) [Bloomberg]

Everything you need to know about tree pins, the iconic Christmas costume jewelry piece. Yes, your most watched eBay auctions just got a little more seasonally appropriate. [Collectors Weekly]

So this really blows: our very own Michael Anthony Farley’s boyfriend Ryan had his car burnt down to the ground just outside of his parents’ home in Miami. AFC’s F.A.G. Bar would not have happened without this vehicle transporting a lot of the art. Whitney Kimball has started a GoFund to help Michael and Ryan out—any donation would go a long way. [gofundme]

This interview with Shia LaBeouf and his collaborators on his it’s-bad-wait-now-it’s-kind-of-interesting hashtagged performance art makes some good points, like calling on the “false intimacy” of Marina Abromovic’s The Artist is Present and criticizing academic art. [The Guardian]

There’s definitely a graduate thesis somewhere in this early-1970s government-funded guide on sci-fi drugs by Robert Silverberg. [Boing Boing]

France, can you stop vandalizing public art already? An outdoor exhibition of models and celebrities as gay couples by Olivier Ciappa in Toulouse’s Grand Rond park has been repeatedly vandalized since its November 30 opening. Worse, after a December 8 announcement of the exhibition being re-installed, all the photos were stolen. [artnet News]

ICA Boston just received a major gift of twenty artworks by female artists, including two important sculptures by Eva Hesse and Louise Bourgeois. The collection, valued at $42 million, was given by frequent ICA benefactor Barbara F. Lee. [Boston Globe]

The Edlis/Neeson Collection opens this weekend at the Art Institute of Chicago. The 44 artworks represent that largest donation in the museum’s history, and under a unique agreement will remain together on display for 25 years, followed by another 25 years of display. [The Chicago Tribune]

This story about Chinese knockoff investigators reads like a sci-fi novel, complete with an anti-hero named “Flaming Lee” who led a double life as a private investigator and bootlegger of counterfeit circuit breakers. [Associated Press]

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Rob Pruitt’s Panda Paintings Have a Starring Role in Kingsman: The Secret Service

by Corinna Kirsch on February 17, 2015

Pandas make the villain.

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Black and White: Whatever Happened to the Panda Flash Mob?

by Whitney Kimball on October 8, 2013

Color Wheel is a new series in which we identify a trending color in art for the week and post a daily image that illustrates its popularity. In honor of PandaCam, this week’s color is black and white. Readers are invited to send us images they have on hand so long as they match the profiled colors and we’ll post the best ones we receive.

Back in 2010, a panda bear flash mob stormed Rob Pruitt’s show at Gavin Brown. The bears were needed to protest the show because Pruitt had used T-shirt graphics of pandas, without citing the emerging designers Jimiyo and AJ Dimarucot.

All this is to say that if you or anyone you know was part of Panda Mob, you are needed. Please send Pandas and heads this week, during business hours, to:

PandaCam
319 Scholes Street
Bushwick, NY
11206

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Orgasmatron Lives!

by Paddy Johnson Corinna Kirsch Gabriela Vainsencher on October 7, 2013

We’re still flying by on September’s openings, but by the time the weekend rolls around, we’re gonna see some signs of new art life. Throughout the week, there’s a heckuva bunch of artist talks and lectures. We just might jump out of our panda costumes to attend a few. By the time the weekend rolls around though, we’ll have some hard choices to make. Pandacam re-enactments or Mike Kelley’s behemoth retrospective at PS1, Rollin Leonard’s solo show of cut up digital bodies, or Robert Longo’s Patsy Cline cover band reuniting at The Kitchen. Only time will tell whether the government’s shutdown has greater effects on the art world than anyone could have predicted.

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Our Take On “The Cat Show” at White Columns—With Kitty Pics!

by Corinna Kirsch on June 20, 2013

The Cat Show at White Columns has everything and nothing to do with cats. Everything, because most of the 134 artworks show cats or cat-related ephemera—like litter boxes, scratching posts, or yarn. Nothing, because the themes of many of these works aren’t about cats at all.

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