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2604Art Fag City.vvqbox { margin: 5px auto 0 auto; } /* hides the second object from all versions of IE */ * html object.mov { display: none; } /* displays the second object in all versions of IE apart from 5 on PC */ * html object.mov/**/ { display: inline; } /* hides the second object from all versions of IE >= 5.5 */ * html object.mov { display/**/: none; } Fresh Links!Fresh Links!Fresh Links!Fresh Links!The Aesthetics of BrowsersWorth Checking Out: LoshadkaFresh Links!The Aesthetics of BrowsersBennett Williamson of the Double Happiness surf blog wrote the following to me last night an email exchange about April 18th’s summation of the Futures of the Internet panel. I am interested in the question of the internet leveling things vs. the internet having hierarchy, but less politically and more (in a slightly Convergence Culture way) technically. Less interested in the search engines organizing what is supposed to be an “open playing field” and more interested in how our actions/expectations change as ease of information and exposure to a variety of mediums all gets presented through the same browser screen. Cultural convergences as I understand it typically discusses the intersection between the commercial and amateurism, a popular point of interest for many surf bloggers. I pull it from the quote above if for no other reason than it’s useful to name. Of course, for me, what an artist does with that material in the process of finding it or after seems to be the point at which art happens, an aspect I think many people find confusing simply because there isn’t enough history and discussion about the practice for many viewers to feel comfortable labeling what works for them and what doesn’t. Adding to Williamson’s comments about the browser, I’d like to begin by noting that medium specificity has always created unique viewer relationships. People experience sculpture differently than painting for example, because there is a different physical and spatial relationship to the object. In many ways these concepts remain the same when viewing art on a computer even if the variables change. So for example, unlike a photograph or a sculpture, a net artist has less control over a viewers interaction with its framing mechanisms. The size of screen or the color of the browser a user choses to view their work in, vary from household to household, and there’s very little an artist can do to customize that experience. Other aspects remain constant — viewers will experience work on a flat screen, images will be always seen at 72 dpi, they will always be framed by a browser, in all likelihood the smallest screen size will be 800 pixels which informs how an artist works. All of this of course is old hat to designers and net artists, who have been working with this set of problems for a while. However, for those who don’t think about these concerns all that often, it’s worth remarking that a large part of an artist’s web practice — whether they think too much about it or not — is implicitly concerned with image file management and display. In other words, decisions about the size and placement of a jpg or video file are always being made. In this way, I see a lot of aesthetic similarities between net art to collage and photography, because frame, composition, and layering, are always a concern. This of course, doesn’t speak to the element of interactivity or the conceptual concerns of the artist, but since we’re just talking aesthetics here, those topics are beyond the scope of this post. 1f6f2:29 pm // Digg this // Save this to del.icio.us // 3 Comments » Worth Checking Out: LoshadkaA series of posts I really enjoy from Loshadka. Check the blog out regularly - there’s usually something good up. I like that this jpeg is damaged. Image link. Image link museumofthevoidafteracidaftersmithsonafterafterrainbowroad.jpg 12:33 pm // Digg this // Save this to del.icio.us // 2 Comments » Massive Links: Slim Pickins EditionJo Mitchell, Photographing Girl on a Motorcycle, 1999/2007 Maybe it’s the rain, but I haven’t been dying to weigh in on today’s art news stories. If you can forgive the late start, a few links of interest below. Jerry Saltz reviews the Dan Colen Nate Lowman collaboration Wet Pain at Maccarone accusing it of looking too much like other shows and calling it flippant, which is precisely the problem with this kind of ticky tack art. Certainly you can identify those who have some skill in arranging objects, but even the good work looks a little too much like everything else. Despite a miss leading post title reading Paris Journal, A Break From Music, ArtsBeat the New York Times art blog, will be reporting on music when they return home from Europe. An observation worth remark: Between the New York Times and the NYTimes magazine, the publication hosts three art blogs, none of which feature significant coverage of Fine Art. You’d think between The Medium, The Moment, and ArtsBeat a little more energy could be devoted to the field - there’s certainly a lot more to talk about than art fairs, biennials, and the occasional highly priced auction item. Speaking of The Medium, Virginia Heffernan writes Sepia No More for New York Magazine, discussing the flickr style photograph. “While pretty and even cute, these images are also often surreal and prurient,” says Heffernan, going on to describe the digitally manipulated photographs of Rebekka Guoleifsdottir, one of the sites most popular members. Of course, once you see the work being discussed, it’s hard to stay too interested. Amateur art has its merits, but I can’t imagine a less engaging genre than the sentimental pony photograph, or the bright commercial signage landscape that apparently dominates the site. Surely there’s more engaging activity going on there. Speaking of photography, VVork links to a Jo Mitchell [pictured above] I quite like despite the fact that it’s flanked by seemingly countless robo-women torsos. I meant to link to this last week and then lost track of it: Charlie Rose by Samuel Beckett. Thanks to Greg.org and Steven Stern for that link. 10:12 am // Digg this // Save this to del.icio.us // No Comments » Comic Con Versus The Art Fairs: The Results!Art Fairs vrs Comic Con! By the end of this week Art Fag City’s Comic Con Versus The Art Fairs quiz will have either stolen or enriched roughly 40 seconds of over 12,000 people’s lives. Either way, we’re pleased! The test asks readers to identify Comic Con and Art Fair attendees; some of whom we felt looked like they could be either, others who were unmistakably from a particular demographic, and a remaining few weird art celebrity picks with some cross over potential. Probably the most amusing result from this quiz thus far comes in the number of readers who identify Eva and Adele and Jocelyn Wildenstein as video game costume freaks (roughly 45%), and amongst the more surprising, was the 89% reader success rate in identifying the over weight man in front of a bunch of crates as a comic book guy. I would have thought that number would be a lot higher! A special thanks to Art Fag City, Vulture, GalleyCat, Drawn and Quarterly, Boing Boing, readers for participating in the test. 11:45 am // Digg this // Save this to del.icio.us // No Comments » What’s New Pussy Cat?Cash Brown, George, 2008, oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches. Originally via: Daily Serving. Link tip: S. Chernick Gustave Courbet’s The Origin of the World has inspired a great number of paintings since its execution in 1866, Australian artist Cash Brown amongst the most recent. “I have been thinking a lot about the concept of originality and the derivative nature of so much contemporary artwork”, says Brown, going on to explain, “This led me to think of the beginning of Modernism. Origin, original, beginning, it all seemed a bit obvious…but I liked that about it.” In other words, the root concept lies in the connection between the meaning of the word origin, Courbet’s titling, and contemporary interest in appropriation. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about this project’s depth, and point to a few other variations by the artist here. On that same note, a google search on the subject provides additional fodder below. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJmDsnFcyWM An animation of photo graphics and chanting monks inspired by Courbet’s Origin of the World. This may not even be bad in an interesting way. Tanja Ostojic, Untitled, 2004 It’s probably unfair to contextualize a mature work commenting on the EU’s politics of non-integration with the rest of these paintings, but I can’t help but find this brand of underwear amusing. Thus, the picture stays. UPDATE: Filip Noterdaeme, The Birth of a New Museum, 1991 Filip Noterdaeme of HOMU sends us a painting [above] executed during his final MFA year at Hunter College. The work marries Courbet’s, L’origine du Monde , with Rene Magritte’s generative 1929 painting, La Trahison des Images . This particular piece has quite a bit of history behind it, so I’ve posted the write up from the artist’s website below. Birth of a New Museum has an interesting history. In the early Nineties, when he was an art student at Hunter College, Noterdaeme invented an eccentric alter ego for himself, a certain Marcellus Wasbending-Ttum, a painter and self-proclaimed “Homoplagiarist.” Under this alias, Noterdaeme created multiple works, some of which he painted himself, some of which, like Birth (originally titled Self-Portrait), were executed to his specifications by a hired professional. When Noterdaeme, acting as Marcellus Wasbending-Ttum, presented the Hunter faculty with this “Self-Portrait,” he found himself accused of plagiarism and was prematurely expelled from the MFA program. Embittered, Noterdaeme destroyed all his artworks - with the notable exception of Self-Portrait - and, for the next ten years, abstained from making art, working as a museum educator for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim Museum. In 2002, Noterdaeme created his own museum, the Homeless Museum of Art (HoMu). When he eventually turned his rental apartment in Brooklyn into a showcase for HoMu, he gave the painting a place of honor in the apartment’s High Gallery and renamed it Birth of a New Museum. 1f7111:00 am // Digg this // Save this to del.icio.us // 3 Comments » Tom Ford Ads Banned in ItalyLeft: Tom Ford perfume advertising campaign, Right: An ad for Tom Ford Sunglasses, now banned in Italy. Radar reports The Italian Advertising Institute (IAA) has banned the above right ad for Tom Ford Sunglasses, labeling it “sexually implicit”. “[It] goes beyond acceptable limits for advertising aimed at the general public”, says the institute. Meanwhile, the Tom Ford perfume ads in America, some of which appeared in ArtForum earlier this year, and prompted our discussion, have escaped censorship in this country. Since sexually explicit material doesn’t seem to faze the US at all, if Tom Ford really wanted to piss people off he’d consider dreaming up a line of fragrances that smell like Iraqi oil. He can call the line Haliburton, and see how far he gets with that in this country. 8:40 am // Digg this // Save this to del.icio.us // No Comments » Art Fag City at The L Magazine: Brian JungenBrian Jungen, Blanket no. 3, 2008, Image copyright Casey Kaplan My latest review at the L Magazine is up.В The teaser below. Brian JungenвЂ™s 2006 exhibition at Casey Kaplan wasnвЂ™t much to talk about. IвЂ™ve never cared for skull art вЂ” I canвЂ™t keep myself from thinking about pirates and acid trips, no matter the intended metaphor. In that show, presumably, the skull iconography referenced the Wild West, as the entrance featured a number of rear-view mirrors with hanging feathered ornaments, and in the main gallery and back room, respectively, multiple baseball skins were molded into human skulls that lay in a flatfooted arrangement on the floor, and sofa chairs were turned into saddles and mounted on stools. The work in the exhibition was laid too low to the ground and failed to fill out the space enough, making it difficult for most viewers to even catch the theme of the show. Two years later, the sculptures have gone from bad to worse. JungenвЂ™s current exhibition at Casey Kaplan suffers from both conceptual and aesthetic flaws, though it basically follows along themes heвЂ™s been exploring for the last eight years. Jungen, a Dunne-za, First Nations Indian, creates sculptures that reference his heritage, transforming various mass-produced objects into art: this exhibition opens with a plastic gasoline can perforated with small holes forming the shapes of dragonflies. ItвЂ™s unclear what significance the viewer should glean from the use of a motif popular among college freshmen, though one might infer that the can likely points to gas-huffing, a problem on First Nation reserves in Canada. It may be that the imprinted design is simply meant to create a female counterpart to the other pieces in the show, though such gender oppositions donвЂ™t add anything to the interpretation of the work. The rest of the gallery is filled with woven ceremonial robes made from sports jerseys. Hanging flatly on the wall, and neutered of any meaning past the dull objects they were and have become, the work is surely a low point relative to JungenвЂ™s past successes.В Just last year, the artist created a series of impressive totem poles constructed from hiking backpacks for a show at Catriona Jeffries gallery in Vancouver. In that work, both the materials and the object they represent are as successful in their craft, as they are in concept, each privileging social status, referencing a type of vacation that typically involves a fair bit of work. Admittedly, the artist brings some virtuosity to the actual textile weaving of his newest work — some of the patterns verging on beautiful — but the shirt still looks like a shirt, and a boring one at that. To read the full review click here. 12:01 pm // Digg this // Save this to del.icio.us // 2 Comments » Jeff Koons at the Metropolitan Museum of ArtJeff Koons at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image via Gothamist. Jeff Koons has seen more than his fair share of coverage on this blog as of late, so I didn’t go out of my way to attend the press preview at the Met Monday. It is however news, so here’s a summation of thoughts from other sources: Unbeige is excited about the specialty drinks that accompany the rooftop sculptures. Culturegrrl asks whether the show necessary, and questions whether borrowing from the collection of Steve Cohen makes the work more desirable. Ken Johnson thinks they look too small. Gothamist has good pictures. 10:42 am // Digg this // Save this to del.icio.us // No Comments » Art Fair Reports Finally InImage copyright: The Armory ShowВ The Armory Show sent out their fair report late afternoon yesterday, providing a little bit less information than they did last year.В For example, they don’t provide an estimate of total sales, so I guess we’ll never know if they beat 2007’s 85 million.В That said, I always thought these kinds of estimated numbers had the potential to be off by a significant amount, seeing as how the number is simply extracted from forms the fairs give out to exhibitors after the event.В From what I’m told, getting these surveys back is not easy. Other mildly interesting information drawn from the press release includes a visitor report of 52,000, which is the same as last year.В This is the fair capacity, so I guess, there’s no real news here unless that number declines.В As a point of comparison, Pulse reported 12,000 visitors at their March fair, an increase of 2,500. В VOLTA’s attendance numbers were missing from their report. 10:02 am // Digg this // Save this to del.icio.us // No Comments » Posting NoticeSarah McKenzie, Build Up, 2005, oil on canvas, 72 x 72 inches Expect a few fresh links to arrive throughout the day, but probably not too much more by way of posts on the main page. I’m running around the city today, and probably won’t be in front of my computer for long enough to write something coherent. In the meantime, take a look at the paintings of Sarah McKenzie. She’s currently in an exhibition I curated for the General Electric World Headquarters titled This Modern World, and her paintings are nothing short of fantastic. Also, if you haven’t done so already, do take our Comic Con vrs Art Fairs quiz. It’s awfully fun, and at least according to the results thus far, you’re likely to be stumped by a few. 31638:28 am // Digg this // Save this to del.icio.us // 2 Comments » Comic Con Versus the Art Fairs!Comic Con 2008, photo AFC If you like automotive trade fairs, then Comic Con will be right up your alley. Though itвЂ™s a different product, youвЂ™ll undoubtedly experience the same level of crass commercialism; those wishing to purchase figurines, video games, or benign swords of some kind will have their pick of products. Sadly however, there are increasingly fewer reasons for artists to attend this fair. Whatever art is there is near impossible to spot through the crap, and IвЂ™m told, those interested in the medium should attend MOCCA this coming June, a festival with a little more focus on the craft as opposed to its sale and marketing. Having said all this, given the increased popularity of art and comic book fairs, and what appears to be some cross over between these two fields, I thought it might be interesting to run a survey asking readers to identify these two demographics by pictures alone. See how well you do, and well discuss the results in the next few days. Art Fairs vrs Comic Con! 1:25 pm // Digg this // Save this to del.icio.us // 10 Comments » Futures of the Internet; A Long Summation with Pictures!Left to right: Clay Shirky, Jonathan Zittrain, Jimmy Wales, Lauren Cornell, and the arm of Tim Wu. Photo AFC Predictably lolcats dominated Wednesday’s panel discussion Futures of the Internet at NYU, as both examples of the seemingly limitless human ability to waste time, and as a form of creative expression unique to the Internet. Moderated and organized by Elizabeth Stark, Harvard law student, and founder of the Harvard Free Culture group, panel members Lauren Cornell, Executive Director of Rhizome, Clay Shirky, author of The Power of Organizing without Organizations, Tim Wu, Columbia, Professor of Law, Jonathan Zittrain , Professor Oxford University, Visiting Professor NYU, and Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia, spoke about their vision of the future Internet. Speaking to the human tendency to waste time, Shirky cited the emergence of the sitcom in the 1950’s as the most important cultural phenomenon of that century. Not only did it transition us from the industrial age to today, but, importantly, it marks the beginning of the couch potato. lolcats, Shirky suggests, are simply another result of this freed up time. No prediction for the future was made, on account of the self described role of the academic to reflect on what’s already happened and tell others what it means. Nobody took issue with this on account of the fact that none of us know what the Internet will look like 10 years from now. Also, everything that comes out of that man’s mouth sounds like truth, regardless of its actual merit, so it takes a bit to digest what he’s said. To be honest, I’m not sure he said that much. Certainly his thoughts on today’s larger net community, didn’t go too much past identifying what we already know. Tim Wu felt a little bit more comfortable making predictions, and talked about the collision between the ideology of decentralization, and a much more centralized media stream. In other words, he felt net neutrality was the most important issue facing Internet users today. Between him and Clay Shirky there was a lot of talk about how much change the Internet had brought, which of course, hasn’t been the case for the art world. Lauren Cornell made this point, observing that the economics of the art world remain based on scarcity, a particular challenge to artists who work with freely circulating media files, software, etc. She also noted that many artists in this field work intuitively, a particularly salient point as applied to group bloggers (many of whom were in attendance). I didn’t have the sense anyone came out with a better idea of what net artists do, but given the general audience my feeling was that even the introduction to Rhizome was probably a good start. After all, even co-panelist Jimmy Wales, didn’t appear to be overly familiar with the organization, referring to Lauren Cornell, as “her” in his own talk. Wales used the platform to speak further on the community aspect of the web, which, predictably, he felt was growing. Almost endless debate could go on regarding the effectiveness of these communities, and did, though the conversation is so familiar at this point I wasn’t overly interested. The most engaging idea he contributed to my mind, spoke to the fact that communications would soon be cheaper than food, which meant we might be hearing a few complaints from third world countries soon. I suspect the practicalities of making such a thing happen punch a few holes in the plausibility of this scenerio, but I’d at least like to entertain the thought that these nations might be given a voice, so I’ll leave that discussion where it is. Jonathan Zittrain after the lecture, photo AFC On a lighter note, the majority of the comic relief for the evening, came from Jonathan Zittrain, who coincidently ridiculed Clay Shirky early in the evening for his assertion that the sitcom was of such importance, before using it as a delivery model for his own ideas. Of course, I don’t think anyone would claim this action would necessarily challenge whatever Zittrain’s objection to Shirky’s ideas might be (he never said), but I did find the coincidence amusing. Zittrain’s talk consisted of three possible futures, complete with nick names; “The Rainbows and Buttercups/HR Pufnstuf version, a happy happy joy joy collective utopic vision of freedom, a second, less optimistic proposal, titled “the Internet Meltdown”, in which the openness of the net is eaten away by reality, (ie the net becomes “enforceable and lockdown-able), and a lastly, the “Not a Bang, But a Whimper”/Leave it to Beaver”, possibility, a pleasant but insidious environment in which our choices are prescribed to us in the form of menu bars or the iphone. The panel seemed largely in agreement with Zittrain on the thought that we would have to fight to preserve our freedoms, his talk closing on a rather depressing note once citing Amazon Mechanical Turk, as website run with the primary objective of turning our brains into server space. I suspect the majority of the audience agreed that the third scenario put forth was the most likely, so it seemed a bit of a shame that the panel was missing an activist like Nicholas Reville of Participatory Culture Foundation, who could speak to the practicalities involved in fighting against forces that remove some of our freedoms. In the interest in keeping this post readable in length, I won’t bother summarizing the Q&A, except to say that Zittrain’s characterization of nerds and programmers [editors note: Slashdotters] as the Simpson’s personality Nelson, was perfect (Zittrain began this caricature with the disclaimer that it was only a generalization). Obviously, the I-know-better-than-you-and-will-only-help-if-I-have-to mentality is of limited value. I also found it interesting that one audience member described the Rhizome site as authoritative and institutional. Certainly there is truth to the statement, though I think some of the comment threads currently on the site create much more back and forth between the institution and the community than this comment suggests. 1f4a4:10 pm // Digg this // Save this to del.icio.us // 32 Comments » Massive Links: “This is Why People Hate Contemporary Art” EditionGuillermo Vargas “Habacuc” Gawker reports Yale art major Aliza Shvarts repeatedly inseminated herself, while taking drugs to induce miscarriages. Her graduating exhibition will be made up of the documentation of these forced miscarriages, including video footage, and preserved blood. It, of course, sounded like fairly standard undergraduate work to us, particularly once we read that the goals for this piece ran something the lines of sparked conversation about art and the human body. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether you need to see this work in person to really evaluate it. Originally via: Yale Daily News. UPDATE: Via M.River, “Word on the street is, Gawker got punked.” This solves a number of questions about how she would be inducing the miscarriages. Anyone heard of the Bienal Centroamericana Honduras 2008? Apparently it’s the location where artist Guillermo Vargas “Habacuc” will, for the second time, starve a dog to death in the name of art, though no website for the “Bienal” can be found. In all likelihood this is some kind of web meme/art project that collects signatures in the name of either art or meme experimentation. Unfortunately, I’m not sure what this project will prove, past what we already know; people sign their support for causes almost blindly. Snoops on the veracity of the story.В Edward Winkleman here. Related: Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson’s ROM Bomb hoax in Toronto as performance art, 2007, and Jesse Power, an OCAD student skins a cat alive in 2001, as means of demonstrating the hypocrisy of eating meat. 7:00 am // Digg this // Save this to del.icio.us // 12 Comments » The New York Art CanonFrom left to right: Vito Acconci, Philip Guston, Lynda Benglis In contrast to Tyler Green, I don’t care if Jerry Saltz’s NYC art canon cheats a little and includes a piece made in Los Angeles or names Kara Walker a key figure, even though she’d adopted an Angeleno aesthetic. The list covers the last 40 years of artmaking, and while imperfect, I’m pleased to say I don’t have too many problems with the names Bruce Nauman, Vito Acconci, Philip Guston, Sol LeWitt, Lynda Benglis, Gordon Matta-Clark, Jennifer Bartlett, Cindy Sherman, Keith Haring, David Hammons, Andy Warhol, Andres Serrano, Cady Noland, Jeff Koons, and Kara Walker. Matthew Barney’s Cremaster series is a notable exclusion here, particularly given the support the critic has given him over the last 10 or more years. His absence can be seen as one more sign of the artist’s passing popularity. Also, while it’s a little early, arguably Nam June Paik’s use of a Sony Portapak to shoot Pope Paul VI’s procession through New York City in 1965 should have made that list, since it marks, for many, the beginning of video art. Nam June Paik also coined the phrase “information superhighway” in the 1970’s, and was an important figure to early net artists. 248612:50 pm // Digg this // Save this to del.icio.us // 9 Comments » Cyan, The Color of Timeless MarketingIT’S HARD TO IMAGINE THAT THE WORLD WAS NOT ALWAYS IN FULL COLOR, BUT IT’S EVEN HARDER TO IMAGINE THAT THE FUTURE WILL ONLY BE IN CYAN Except for black, cyan is the last color of an offset print to fade from the effects of sunlight. In this burgeoning landscape, a new aesthetic is put forth, championing blue, and showcasing products imbued with the enduring life we now associate with cyan. Take for example, the above poster of Jordan Knight from New Kids on the Block; this image lives well past it’s expiration date thanks to cyan. Signs of growth and renewal embodied in Pross for Men, a black hair color agent, and a package of cucumber seeds, wryly suggest a new life for this media figure. Photographers themselves will find blue dominance frees the profession from the burden of color. No more worrying over matching tones! Cyan helps create a level of uniformity these athletes couldn’t have achieved on their own. No one is unaffected by cyan, even the world leaders, movie stars, and fashion icons above who touch the lives of millions. To these men, TimeOut aptly poses the enduring question Got Beer? Perhaps most importantly however, those in the new future of cyan must ask themselves, Now What? This post was written in response to Private Circulation’s PDF Bulletin for Proposals. You can read the marketing call here, and download the proposal here. 7:00 am // Digg this // Save this to del.icio.us // 2 Comments » Art Fag City at The L Magazine: Color Chart at MoMAByron Kim, Synecdoche, dimensions variable, 1991-present. Image courtesy of MoMA. My latest piece at the L magazine is up. The teaser below. Who doesnвЂ™t enjoy a pie chart, a pretty colored graph, or any of the array of data visualizations available on the web? I suppose at some point IвЂ™ll grow tired of the endless endeavors in information aesthetics we see today, but I havenвЂ™t hit my threshold yet, which makes MoMAвЂ™s Color Chart particularly topical. Curated by Ann Tempkin, the exhibition showcases art work which assigns color through arbitrary systems, chance, and readymade source вЂ” all the stuff we see on the internet now, but largely in old-school, fine-art form. Which is to say, count on seeing a number of familiar works from canonical artists: Dan FlavinвЂ™s Untitled 1-5 (to Donald Judd, colorist), a series to incandescent colored bulbs in T formation, Ellsworth KellyвЂ™s painted grid of colors on a large wall, and an excellent series of paint by numbers by Andy Warhol. There are, however, a few disappointing contemporary choices: two nondescript works from Damien HirstвЂ™s limitless pit of dot paintings for example, and Byron KimвЂ™s frequently acclaimed Synecdoche, a grid of paintings based on the skin tones of models, which to my tastes are far too heavily indebted to process-based conceptual painters like Garry Neill Kennedy. While the exhibitionвЂ™s contemporary content might be disappointing, the curatorial expertise demonstrated for the 60s and 70s yields fantastic results. Basically, the older the work in Color Chart, the greater likelihood the piece will present a surprise. For example, John Chamberlain, an artist well known for his gaudy crushed automobile sculptures, has an underappreciated series on display from the brief period in which he was a painter. Deriving minimal images from the scrap he found in the junkyard, Chamberlain would build up the shapes and color with translucent paint, creating elegant simplicity and a stunning light. Probably the most impressive work in the show comes from Robert RauchenbergвЂ™s Rebus, a giant collaged painting in his signature loose style, incorporating color chips in the center of the piece. Among a crowd of calculated and predictably cool work, this moving painting provides an unexpected take on the many approaches artists have taken to charting color. To continue reading click here. 22149:17 am // Digg this // Save this to del.icio.us // 4 Comments » Ryan McGinley Inspires Inspid ReportingRyan McGinley, Running Field Does anyone else find this really annoying? I donвЂ™t know of any young artist besides Ryan McGinley who can evoke Andrew Wyeth without seeming arch or trite. Or one modish enough to conjure an opening where downtown socialites the MisShapes have to be seen to maintain cred, yet still solid enough for the New York Times MagazineвЂ™s prim photo editor to accept his invitation to dinner. His deft straddling of wholesome and hip has a broad appeal that drew a crowd to last ThursdayвЂ™s opening of вЂњI Know Where the Summer GoesвЂќ big enough to have broken a Team gallery record, or at least its fire code. Hoo Boy! Ryan McGinley evokes Andrew Wyeth, appeals to scenesters AND the New York Time Magazine’s photo editor! This combined with record breaking gallery attendance at his opening, is truly the mark of a remarkable photographer! Fawning and sycophantic reporting courtesy of Artforum.com. 8:34 am // Digg this // Save this to del.icio.us // 13 Comments » Marcel Dzama at David ZwirnerMarcel Dzama, Room Full of Liars, Diorama Image Size: 64.5 x 65.75 x 46 inches Looks like New York has grown tired of Marcel Dzama. Nearly anyone I’ve talked to on the subject of his exhibition at David Zwirner emits a low groan when I bring up his name, and Roberta Smith reviewed his 6th New York solo show this past week offering only a few good words on the subject. She’s mostly right; the three elaborate phases are progressively compelling, the war time illustrations tedious, the puppet theater dioramas over produced, and the film with piano accompaniment, actually compelling. I would add to this assessment however, greater specificity to the tedium Smith observes in the first room; too many drawings, and not enough variation therein. Smaller works on canvas would have helped add dimension to the show, as would have removing many of the drawings. They all look the same after a while and nobody likes an artist who resembles a factory; it suggests an insufficient examination of the ideas propelling the work. Indeed, Smith closes her review with the assessment that Dzama needs to think about the nostalgia driving his work. The drawings are unfortunately placed in this show, because they are the first works seen, and leave little incentive to carry forward. Like Smith, I agree that the elaborate sets in the next room suffer from over production; such problems typically exist due to lack of resolution in subject matter. For example, The Infidels, a vignette depicting a small dead animal with bats hovering over top, is stunningly beautiful, but a little too cute to carry the insidious message it would seem to intend. As a result, the subject matter feels benign and forgettable, even if the object isn’t. By contrast, Room Full of Liars, [above] a set made up of eight puppets, each with growing noses, presents a deeply troubling scene, their perfect arrangement and construction seemingly implicated in the doll’s moral depravity. To be honest though, I probably wouldn’t be talking about this show or Smith’s review at all, if I hadn’t seen Lotus Eaters, the silent film projected in the back of the gallery accompanied by a live piano player. However, as means of eliminating unnecessary redundancy, rather than rehash sentiments I share almost verbatim, I’ve simply quoted her words on the subject below. The show culminates in вЂњLotus Eaters,вЂќ a silent film about an artistвЂ™s loneliness and the role of memory, love and companionship in the quest for self-expression. It stars Mr. DzamaвЂ™s father, and begins and ends with a dancing bear, a longtime Dzama character. It is greatly buoyed by its musical accompaniment, especially on Saturday, when the pianist David Cieri improvises to the action on screen, delivering one of the most poignant aesthetic experiences currently available in Chelsea. 1f4c1:02 pm // Digg this // Save this to del.icio.us // 4 Comments » Breaking! Kate Bush Joins Facebook!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWdHOm256N4 Here at Art Fag City we’re all about keeping you abreast on breaking fan pages on Facebook such as that of Kate Bush.В Mostly, of course, this is just an excuse to repost my favorite, Kate Bush video, Army Dreamers.В Via: Wizardishungry twitter. 8:34 am // Digg this // Save this to del.icio.us // 2 Comments » The Whitney Biennial: Two VERY Different TakesDaniel Joseph Martinez, Divine Violence, 2007, installation view, The Project, New York, automotive paint on wood panel, dimensions variable Steven Squibb writes about the Whitney Biennial, at ArtCal Zine, Much has been made of the supposed theme of the show, ‘lessness,’ as though the works on display were trying to provincialize and impoverish themselves to the point of barely existing at all, thus opting out of the various economies currently striating the field. Quite frankly, I don’t see it. Only one artist, Seth Price, seems to be actively engaged in such a performance of self-marginalization and, given the specifics of his situation and his work, it is altogether interesting and meaningful for him to do so. The rest seem to be arguing, sometimes softly, to be sure, but sometimes quite loudly, that there might be more at stake at the present moment than a public demonstration of their own righteousness with regards an overheated market and its corresponding discourse, and that, following perhaps the rest of us need to pull over in order to check the map. The sentiment is well received, though one minor point of descent; Squibb doesn’t explain why Seth Price is the only artist who actively engages in self marginalization.В The work in the Biennial is about as gallery ready as you’re going to get, and while I don’t dismiss his work as a whole, I haven’t been able reconcile the conflict in labeling what he does as self marginalization when he shows at blue chip galleries, and moves his work through established channels of distribution, like ubuweb, EAI. It just doesn’t make sense. In other Biennial reviews, probably the oddest position I’ve seen taken on the Biennial comes from portfolio.com’s Alexandra Peers, In this shaky art market, collectors are searching more aggressively than ever for confirmation of their choices. And the Whitney’s endorsement of dealers matters more than ever because, as a whole, this Biennial is going to influence artists less than in the past because they aren’t traded much. Only about a fourth of the artists shown have ever sold a work at auction, even though most are established enough to have had such a sale. (More than half are in their 30s and 40s.) Based on the above comments I’m not any further ahead in deducing why a downturn in the economy should mean that the biennial won’t influence artists as much, or why it follows that its endorsement will be more significant to dealers. Perhaps someone can explain this these art world nuances to me, because that’s one that’s lost on me. 3:49 pm // Digg this // Save this to del.icio.us // 1 Comment »2069« Previous EntriesAnother Unknown Time New Travis Hallenbeck compressed video stills. Mostly I’m linking the site because I haven’t before and the animated header with midi file is really sweet. No Comments »The Dark Knight is a Remake | SpoutBlog “A comparison between trailers of Tim Burton’s Batman and this summer’s The Dark Knight make the new film look like a remake of the old.” Not sure what if anything is gained from this, but whatever. The Dark Knight premieres July 18th, and I’ll be watching it. No Comments »ArtCal - Jersey City - Curious Matter - Hocus Pocus Sort of a cheesy title, but AFC featured artist Tara Giannini is in the show so it’s recommended. No Comments »The Infinite Cat Project - Slide #1 - Frankie It’s like Men of the Internet for cats No Comments »C-Monster.В Julian Schnabel and Mastercard - Priceless. According to the fine print, the winner is entitled to a: 4-day trip for (2) to New York before 10/13/08 for Julian Schanbel (вЂќArtistвЂќ) (30) minute consultation regarding commissioned Portrait by Artist & $175,000 check for tax burden offset (Prize ARV=$530,000/Estimated Odds 1: 3,588,229). No Comments »Copyright crazies gaining steam in Canada - Boing Boing The “non-partisan’ Public Policy Forum is holding a major, one-sided IP symposium on Monday. Invited are the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, and other big-stick-swingers for American-style copyright disasters. Uninvited is noted copyright scholar Howard Knopf. No Comments »Padded Butt Briefs - Featured on BuzzFeed Finally, underwear for the consummate metrosexual: Padded briefs for guys with flat asses. This same company also offers "pouch pads". No Comments »b3n.muxtape.com Perfect. Via Ben Gold No Comments »Frozen Wave Phenomenon on Lake Huron Cool! Via PC No Comments »Is this the most disgusting art exhibition ever? Incarcerated Pete Doherty misses his blood-spattered art launch | the Daily Mail A exhibition of Pete Doherty’s bloody paintings launched in Paris yesterday - with the notable absence of the so-called artist himself. Due to incarceration, the troubled singer, 29, missed his shining moment at the Chappe Gallery. No Comments »Our Local Correspondents: Up and Then Down: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker 8 pages well spent on the Elevator No Comments »BREAKING: Wesley Snipes Has Three Years In Prison to Prepare For Next Role I believe his defense for tax evasion ran something along the lines of, "I don’t want to believe I have to pay taxes so I found an accountant who felt the same way and didn’t". No Comments »Rhizome - Math Wrath "[Math Wrath’s] site feels like the web presence of The Little Prince, if said prince fell into Rainbo Brite’s candy-coated astral world." No Comments »Your virginity for Net neutrality - Netiquette- msnbc.com Don’t know anything about Net neutrality? Tania Derveaux aims to change that with her offer to “make love with every virgin who defends the Internet.” Via: MTAA delicious 1facNo Comments »cpb.tumblr Give your cat a place to rest other than your keyboard No Comments »As relevant as Eric Fischl. New York art news, reviews and gossip.Art Fag City is Paddy Johnson.Advertise on Culture Pundits Activism artkrush ArtReview.com Blogroll blurb breaking! creative commons culture Design Events Evil Exhibition Fairs Feature Featured Artists Fresh Links! 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