From the category archives:

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34 AFC Friends Cite Their Favorite Link of 2011

by Paddy Johnson on December 31, 2011
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As is our annual tradition, I’ve asked people I know and respect to contribute their single favorite link for the year. No themes. No grand explanations. Just one link, and one sentence describing why they liked it. For the first time ever, this year I received no dupe links. The web is a much larger place than it used to be.

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A Year-End Review: AFC’s Top Rated Posts

by Paddy Johnson on December 28, 2011
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A look back at AFC’s most popular posts reveals good news and bad news. On the one hand, our second most popular page of the year proves that, yes, intelligent reviews do have a place on the web: readers can’t get enough of our Recommended Shows. On the other, this page was trumped only in numbers by Whitney Kimball’s post Streaming Hot Sex Video Games. Clearly, porn and video games remain an enduring interest on the web.

As we embark on our year end fundraising campaign, I urge you to page through these posts below and take a look at some of the discussion here. We spend a lot of time producing posts we think are valuable, and we want to do more of that. Your donations help make that happen.

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The Deal With Occupy Museums

by Paddy Johnson on October 24, 2011
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Is Occupy Museums as naive as its critics seem to think? I talk to those behind the movement to get a better sense of what they believe and where this is going. There’s a lot less to be skeptical about than many seem to believe.

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Post-Modernism, Modernism, and Pre-Modernism in Chart Form

by Paddy Johnson on October 4, 2011
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A generation in the art world, a new “ism”, now lasts at least two years — one for discovery, the next for promotion. Movements and trends are declared ‘dead stock’ before they can mature. No matter how good or bad artists may be, or how slow or fast they want to develop, they have to acknowledge this world media system and its fashion-go-round, if only to reject it …

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Edward A. Shanken on Is New Media Accepted in The Art World?

by Paddy Johnson on September 6, 2011
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Edward A. Shanken, the award winning author of Art and Electronica had a few things to say in the comment section of last week’s post asking whether new media has been accepted in the art world. Since the comment itself is autonomous and substantive enough to warrant its own post, I’m republishing it here in the main section of the blog. It’s worth reading. Twice.

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Peter Nadin is an Art Press Magnet

by Paddy Johnson on July 5, 2011
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Gavin Brown seems to attract compelling narratives. Last fall, no one could shut up about Rob Pruitt’s come back. This summer, we’re all talking about the gallery’s Peter Nadin show (on view through July 30), another artist with a come back story for the ages. As the story goes, Nadin ran a gallery with Christopher D'Arcangelo in the 80’s until disputes over management dissolved the partnership. Following this, the artist suffered a nervous breakdown which according to the Times, “caused Nadin to begin seeing the world in a fundamentally different way.”

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YouTube Competitions Over the Years

by Paddy Johnson on May 23, 2011
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Hands up if you don’t know what a youtube contest is. I’ve been talking about them for the last four years, but in case you’ve missed one of those posts: participation usually involves spending hours at home on youtube selecting a bunch of funny videos you hope will be voted “better” by America’s finest in the flesh; drunk 20-somethings.

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