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Archive of Reid Singer

Reid Singer is now an Editorial Assistant at ArtINFO. A talented writer and baal koreh, Reid interned at AFC during the summer and fall of 2011, after receiving his BA in Art History from the University of Chicago.

Reid has written 38 article(s) for AFC.

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Reid Singer

Sculptor John Chamberlain Dies at 84

by Reid Singer on December 22, 2011
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John Chamberlain, the American artist best-known for his abstract sculptures made from auto parts and crushed steel, has died at the age of 84.

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Monday Links! Ilness, Wealth, and Reversals of Fortune

by Reid Singer on December 19, 2011
  • Kim Jong-il, the character treated to a stunningly accurate portrayal in Team America: World Police, has died. The sexagenarian  was best remembered for his height, his fondness for looking at things, and the threat he posed to global security. [NYT]
  • Street art blogger RJ Rushmore has published a compilation of photographs from ABMB. Our hats are off to Mr. Rushmore for bringing some street art to the fore that we don’t absolutely hate. [Vandalog]
  •  The Metropolitan Museum of Art has extended a hand to Google Goggles, The Shazam of the visual world. Visitors carrying a mobile device can now point it at thousands of objects in the Met’s collection and gain access to the wealth of information available about the work online. [Bloginity]
  • Collectors buy art for “emotional value” at the same rate that men read Playboy “for the articles.” This, at least, was the assumption among art investment firms that has been very much rebuked by a new study published by Deloitte Luxembourg. For their part, art speculators are more active and powerful than they used to be, and will likely contribute to an increase in trading that could potentially drive prices up and out of the reach of museums. [Real Clear Arts]
  • So yeah, you might be wondering if museums are depending too much on private donors. Are the bad guys really winning? Today, the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Opera House and the Tate announced plans to renew their sponsorship deals with British Petroleum through 2017. Citing the “extraordinary” support of the oil company, the institutions made their move in the face of severe criticism from environmental groups, including a molasses-spilling ceremony conducted by protestors last spring. [Guardian]
  • While it may be old news by blog standards, AFC wishes to pay our respects to John C. Wessel, the New York art dealer who died on Friday. The St Louis native will be remembered as one of the first and most strident supporters of LGBT artists, offerring solo exhibitions to Mike Bidlo, Walter Robinson, Donald Moffett, Rhonda Zwillinger and George Platt Lynes in the ’80s and ’90s. [Gallerist NY]
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Holidays Films for Grown-ups

by Reid Singer on December 16, 2011
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“The system is destructive: Grown-ups are ignored for much of the year, cast out like downsized workers, and then given eight good movies all at once in the last five weeks of the year.” Such was David Denby’s justification for letting an early review of “The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo” slip in The New Yorker before the film’s theatrical release, responding to an disapproving email from producer Scott Rudin for having violated the film’s press embargo date. Notwithstanding the terms of their disagreement (which, with Rudin’s retort, “You’re an honorable man,” sound pretty personal), Denby makes a good enough point. While you may feel guilty about buying into the late-December consumption spree, there are a few gems not to be missed.

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Before Irréversible, There Was Henri-Georges Clouzot

by Reid Singer on December 9, 2011
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It’s good news that MoMA will be showing a series of films by Henri-Georges Clouzot between now and Christmas. Long before today’s vogue for “extremity,” Clouzot made films that fiercely challenged audiences’ moral and emotional sensibilities, creating some of the most admirable achievements in French cinema. If, like me, you wish there were more movies like “Enter the Void,” or “L’Enfant,” “Demonlover” or “Ma Mère,” then this is a retrospective for you.

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Peter Schjeldahl: Polar Bear Runner

by Reid Singer on November 18, 2011
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Peter Schjeldahl’s lecture at The New School was titled “The Critic as Artist,” taken from an essay by Oscar Wilde by the same name. It could have easily been called “The Critic as Rebel,” given the degree to which it reflected the worldview of a self-taught Village Voice homeboy who works at home largely because he can smoke there. A well-behaved, well-dressed sexagenarian, Schjeldahl is a cutting writer and speaker who can’t always resist wielding his talents for making people laugh out loud.

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What Actually Happened at The LA MoCA Gala

by Reid Singer on November 14, 2011
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The donor gala at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art went off yesterday, and more or less without a hitch. It was a Jeffrey Deitch kind of night, eliciting reactions that run exactly parallel to how people feel about Jeffrey Deitch. If Deitch’s penchant for campy spectacle is not to your taste, then you probably found the treatment of naked performers distasteful. If you admire Deitch’s approach to fundraising and attention-farming, then you’d likely describe the donor gala as a success. If you’re often overcome by imbalances of power and capital in the art world, then you won’t overlook how Deitch’s employment of Abramovic, a fellow art superstar, discouragingly affirms that order.

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Yvonne Rainer’s “Salò” Reference Is Hyperbole

by Reid Singer on November 11, 2011
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Sirens are sounding as word has spread of a letter written by choreographer Yvonne Rainer to LA MoCA director Jeffrey Deitch. Rainer isn’t happy. Dismayed after hearing details of the performance artwork organized by Marina Abramovic set to take place during a donor gala for the museum, she describes the planned performance as “degrading” and “grotesque,” denouncing Abramovic’s project as “another example of the Museum's callousness and greed.” In her letter to Deitch, Rainer writes that the work of art taking place during the gala to something ‘reminiscent of ‘Salò.’”

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Lists About Art Taste Like Gummy Bears and Cure the Blues

by Reid Singer on November 4, 2011
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The only offensive thing about Halle’s list is that it might give people the impression that they’ve actually learned something. I really hope commenters were being ironic when they applauded the “art history” lesson available from the slideshow captions; apparently some people can’t imagine how real art history might differ from a brief paragraph with some fun facts. This list is too brief, too arbitrary, and too thin to gather anyone’s attention for more than a few minutes. It is a tremendous success.

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