From the category archives:
Massive Links
by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on May 30, 2017
A detail from Jeff Gillette’s oil painting “Bandra Brown,” 2017. (Deborah Vankin / Los Angeles Times)
- I (Michael) interviewed Raúl de Nieves ahead of his upcoming talk at the Baltimore School for the Arts as part of the Contemporary’s CoHosts series tonight (free tickets still available). We talked about process, growing up Catholic, and the sculpture he spent seven years making. [City Paper]
- Anyone attempting to open a white box space in a drafty loft, take note: your perfect paint is here. Spanish paint manufacturer Graphenstone has created an eco-friendly paint by mixing lime with the synthetic “miracle substance” graphene. The result is an ultra-thin, durable lime wash which actually thermally insulates whatever walls you paint. So cool. [Dezeen]
- Nate Silver writes a short novel on the likelihood that President Trump will be impeached and removed from office early. The upshot—not super likely. “The easiest-to-imagine scenario for Trump being removed is if Republicans get clobbered in the midterms after two years of trying to defend Trump, the Republican agenda is in shambles, Democrats begin impeachment proceedings in early 2019, and just enough Republicans decide that Pence (or some fresh face with no ties to the Trump White House) gives them a better shot to avoid total annihilation in 2020.” [FiveThirtyEight]
- Jeff Gillette’s latest project at Gregorio Escalante Gallery in Los Angeles sounds terrible. The artist has painted Disney imagery around slums in India. He then documented his “interventions” and transformed them into 3-D photorealistic paintings. When can we stop using Disney as a cliché shorthand for all that is wrong with escapist capitalism? And haven’t we decided by now that ruin porn is problematic and exploitative? Viewers are also invited to trample on drawings on the floor that Gillette’s high school students created. Mixed in with the students’ work are some Gillette originals. You can buy pieces from this grab-bag of floor “trash art” for $5, a commentary on the art market because his paintings of slums cost a buttload of money. Get it? [Los Angeles Times]
- Speaking of awful clichés, last week I noted that no one should bother making Barbie art. But lo and behold, one of the Kylie Jenner just dropped $20,000 on some Barbie prints from artist and model Beau Dunn for her Barbie-themed bedroom. [Inquisitr]
- Peter Blum Gallery is moving back to Soho after being forced out of its uptown location on 57th street. (The gallery was located in Soho back in the early aughts.) [ARTnews]
- Developers are moving forward with plans to rezone the former Pfizer site in Williamsburg. The latest plans from The Rabsky Group propose over 1,100 apartments in eight clunky new buildings. The number of affordable units in the proposal has dropped, and it doesn’t look like they’re opting to preserve any of the old industrial buildings. The plans are hideous. The rezoning is still in the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) stage, and now is the time for neighbors to get involved. Here’s one suggestion: push for a compromise that preserves the industrial buildings for arts/light manufacturing use and allows the developers to build smaller-footprint towers at a higher FAR in exchange for more affordable units? [Curbed]
- I’m not sure how I feel about political figures being turned into action figures—I missed the days where politics was considered a boring field for nerdy policy wonks—but that’s where we’re at. Artist Mike Leavitt has created an Elizabeth Warren action figure you can support via Kickstarter in June. [lizwarrenactionfigure.com]
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by Michael Anthony Farley on May 25, 2017
Joey Falsetta’s photo of Amanda Lepore (L) and Platon’s photo of a Philip Treacy headdress for Alexander McQueen (R) are two of the works on display at Modern Love Club’s “Men I Love and Other Things I Think About.”
- One of the most unconventional art spaces in the East Village, Modern Love Club, has opened an all-male group show. The “gallery” is actually a matchmaking service’s storefront. Amy Van Doran, the matchmaker/gallerist has thus far been running the space as an exclusively female-artist-focused exhibition space. Now she’s tapped curator Gabrielle Sirkin for the tongue-in-cheek-titled show Men I Love and Other Things I Think About. None of the art seems to have anything in common beyond the fact that the makers have penises, but hey, that’s just the inverse of how all-women shows are curated most of the time. Beyond that, a lot of the work looks pretty good, if not overhung in the cramped space. It’s up through July 14th. [Cool Hunting]
- Artist Zissou Tasseff-Elenkoff is opening a new gallery in Chicago, All Star Press, that will feature exclusively art about sports. Is there even enough sports-themed art in the world to keep a gallery roster full? [dna info]
- The Srihatta-Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park will be Bangladesh’s first major contemporary art museum, with 5,000 sf of galleries, 10,000 sf of residency space for artists, and acres of landscaped gardens. It’s the brainchild of collectors Nadia and Rajeeb Samdani, who have previously organized biennials and other events to draw attention to the impoverished country’s art scene. [Smithsonian]
- A megaproject at 80 Flatbush will include much-needed studio space for artists in Downtown Brooklyn. Alloy Development is partnering with BRIC to renovate the building at 505 State Street into free studio space for artists in BRIC’s residency program—doubling the organization’s capacity. This is one of several good decisions Alloy has made in the 80 Flatbush project. It’s an all-too-rare case of a developer starting a project by speaking to neighbors first to see what an area needs. Here, that means preserving the existing historic buildings on the site as cultural space and building vertically to create space for new schools, neighborhood retail, and nearly 900 mixed-income apartments in addition to a profit-generating office tower. More developers should approach projects this way—if you get your neighbors on board with planning from the beginning, it’s easier to fudge zoning and avoid endless lawsuits. [Curbed]
- In other development news, the ridiculous-hipster-amenity-laden luxury rental tower Urby (the new Jersey City skyscraper that looks like stacked boxes… it’s kinda cool) will be launching an artist in residence program with Mana Contemporary. Will resident artists have access to the DIY apothecary classes, saltwater pool, and morning meditation deck? One can only hope. [Dezeen]
- Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have failed to disclose their multi-million-dollar art collection in financial papers related to their roles in the Trump administration. The couple is claiming the collection is just for “decoration” and not an investment. That’s certainly a murky distinction—one the Trump clan seems to blur with cosmetic procedures as well. [artnet News]
- Yay! Artists Space will be reopening in a new location in TriBeCa sometime in 2018. The nonprofit left their longtime home on Greene Street because the owner wanted to create a penthouse. Here, though, they’ll be leasing 8,000 sf spread over two floors from art lovers—their new landlords are Gerry and Martin Weinstein. Martin Weinstein is the cofounder of Art in General. [ARTnews]
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by Michael Anthony Farley on May 24, 2017
- “It’s curious that the intellectual and artistic community transforms its aesthetic unease or personal disgust into a longing for a type of patriarchal and pre-modern moral authority,” Cuauhtémoc Medina, chief curator of Mexico City’s MUAC, speaking about the controversy surrounding Jill Magid’s exhibition at that institution. (But really, such an apt observation on any art world scandal). Magid has turned the cremated ashes of legendary architect Luis Barragán into a diamond. This diamond is being offered to art historian Federica Zanco in the form of an engagement ring as a bartering chip (Zanco owns Barragán’s professional archives in her private collection in Switzerland, denying access to other scholars. According to rumor, the archives were gifted to her as an engagement gift decades ago). Magid’s intent is to liberate the archives to the trust of an institution for public access, but many see the project as disrespectful, tacky, sacrilegious, or even an act of cultural imperialism. The problem I identify here is the choice of an engagement ring. It contextualizes Barragán’s physical remains—in addition to his archive—in a form to suit Federica Zanco, adding insult to injury. [The New Yorker]
- New York’s Institute of Arab and Islamic Art has opened with a four-person show that accidentally features all women artists. Dana Awartani, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Nasreen Mohamedi and Zarina Hashmi all deal in geometric abstraction and obsessively-controlled craftsmanship. It sounds like a surprisingly tame show given contemporary identity politics. [Hyperallergic]
- This glass-and-concrete artists’ retreat upstate looks like pastoral utopia. Whoever the mystery artist is (a photographer who apparently is quite successful) should invite us up for a weekend! [Dezeen]
- Wow. 103-year-old Margaret Ricciardi has been taking art classes every semester at CUNY’s College of Staten Island since becoming widowed in 1983. She still stands while oil painting. Now, she’s receiving an honorary Doctorate from the school. Not a bad way to spend one’s retirement! [New York Daily News]
- Wassan Al-Khudhairi is taking over the controversy-plagued position of chief curator at St. Louis’s CAM from Jeffrey Uslip. She certainly has her work cut out for her. I can’t think of another institution as hated by its host city. Thankfully, Al-Khudhairi’s internationally-nomadic lifestyle seems to have given her plenty of experience listening and adapting to new communities. And maybe some global perspective can move the museum beyond its local tensions. [Riverfront Times]
- Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump accompanied the president to meet the Pope. Their outfits were INSANE. Totally snatching these looks for our next goth ball. [People]
- Speaking of the batshit crazy first family, Trump once again wants to eliminate funding for the NEA. We have some other suggestions for budget trimming. [artnet News]
- Baltimore artist-run spaces take note: if you’re a nonprofit or other tax-exempt organization, the state is handing out some healthy-sized grants this year, and the Bromo folks will help you with your application. [Bromo Arts and Entertainment]
- “A serious dreamer, he welcomes without begging analysis, and takes analysts, even critics, seriously. The evidence of his generosity is that he doesn’t give his own interpretations. There are so many artists who think they can do my job. I let them. I like writing about art that leaves space.”—Sarah Nicole Prickett on the strange joys of watching David Lynch’s weird-AF-reboot of Twin Peaks as an art critic. [Artforum]
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by Paddy Johnson on May 23, 2017
In honor of the return of Twin Peaks we bring you this animated GIF courtesy of Matthew Divito.
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by Paddy Johnson on May 23, 2017
Buckminster Fuller – Dome Over Manhattan (1961)
- Just what this city needs—a new survey show of contemporary art. Because the Whitney Biennale, the New Museum Triennial and the endless art fair season isn’t already enough. This one will be launched by the Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University in New York and will be a Triennial focusing on uptown artists. The Wallach Art Gallery is pretty small—I can’t imagine this will be a very comprehensive show. [ARTnews]
- Facebook’s rules on sex and nudity have been leaked to the Guardian. They are more liberal than we would have guessed. [Hyperallergic]
- Ooooh, here’s a Kickstarter project we can get behind. The Queens Museum is looking to raise $35,000 to create architectural models of unrealized, fantastical projects for their show “Never Built New York”. The perks seem pretty fun. At the low end, a $75 pledge lets you lease one of the never-built projects. At the high end, for $5000 you get a dinner with starchitect Daniel Libeskind. [Curbed]
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by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on May 22, 2017
- Trump likes an Abdullah Al-Othman photograph of a former Islamic shelter for widows and divorced women wrapped in tin foil (all housing should be gilded?). This is one of the precious few details from Trump’s tour of the Saudi contemporary art scene, one of the lesser discussed sideshows from the circus that is his middle east visit. [The Art Newspaper]
- An AFC alumn bring us a surprisingly fascinating read: Whatever happened to the Gilded Age art stars? They made fortunes during the first art market boom over a century ago, but were largely forgotten in the art history canon, having been overshadowed by their broke-ass impressionist contemporaries. [artnet News]
- Following last week’s deadly crash in Times Square—in which Richard Rojas seemingly deliberately ran over dozens of pedestrians—and numerous similar ISIS attacks, Alissa Walker wonders why the city doesn’t just fully close Times Square to cars. It turns out that would be great, but difficult with the existing traffic patterns in Midtown. Suggestions include a Barcelona-style “superblock” configuration or London-style congestion pricing. I say just ban the damned things from Manhattan entirely. [Curbed]
- Bjork has launched a virtual reality art exhibition at The Magic Box at The Reef in Los Angeles. She describes the various VR experiences as another way to “reach intimacy” with her listeners. [Variety]
- This is really cool. The Chattahoochee Valley Art Association converted a small town Georgia jail into an art museum in the 1970s. It’s still in operation (as a museum, not jail) today. [Ledger-Enquirer]
- I wish so much of Ai Wei Wei’s art wasn’t straight up terrible. 175 lego portraits of activists and free speech advocates sounds very contrived. It will launch at the Hirshhorn in June—I’m not excited about this. [The New York Times]
- Turmoil at the Brooklyn Rail. Late last week the publication announced that its board of directors, “day-to-day senior staff and six additional full- and part-time staff members” would part ways. Now, Phong Bui, the publication’s publisher is saying that he has replaced the board and enlarged his staff. Really? That’s a lot of change in a week. [artnet News]
- Renzo Piano (architect of The Whitney’s new digs) designs the best exhibition spaces. Here he’s hidden a gallery in the landscape of a French vineyard. Perhaps a less obtrusive exterior than many of his other projects? [Dezeen]
- According to this report, there’s plenty to see in Washington Galleries this month. Arte Povera, minimalism, representation and lots of artist names we haven’t heard before. It might be time to make a trip. [The Washington Post]
- Liz Hirsch looks at seemingly unrelated art world stories—from the unexpected closure of Andrea Rosen to the digitization of museum collections and the formation of the Congolese Plantation Workers Art League—and makes the compelling argument that Trump’s presidency and the increasing concentration of capital and power are changing the game. Even as geopolitics become more nationalistic, culture is globalizing and institutions and artists will find new networks to distribute ideas and information. [ARTnews]
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by Michael Anthony Farley on May 19, 2017
- Samantha Allen considers the first image of a free Chelsea Manning, and how the prison where she was kept policed her gender expression. [The Daily Beast]
- Both Adam Szymczyk, curator of the upcoming documenta 14, and Christine Macel, curator of this year’s cheeseball Venice Biennale, included their lovers in their respective shows. Scandal or common practice? [artnet News]
- There are few topics more depressing than the death of a whale. Yet that’s the topic of Lukas Hofmann’s show Enzyme, which opens tonight at Paris’ Galerie Frangulyan. If you’re in town, go cry, I guess. [AQNB]
- Chiba-based businessman Yusaku Maezawa just dropped a record-breaking $110.5 million on a 1982 Basquiat painting at Sotheby’s. It’s the most ever paid at an auction for work by an American artist. The good news in this story? It’s going to live at the art museum in the buyer’s hometown. [ARTnews]
- Valse Kunst Museum in Vledder, The Netherlands is a museum dedicated to forgeries. The museum was started by jilted Dutch collectors, who of course made lemons out of lemonade, and now houses plenty of convincing knockoffs of masterpieces. This is awesome. [The Boston Globe]
- 83-year-old activist and artist Raphael Montañez Ortiz will receive a medal for his contributions to Chicano culture at a ceremony in UCLA. Ortiz is known for “destructivist” art, in which he literally destroys household items as sculpture. I’m kinda hoping he chops the medal in half with an axe on stage as soon as he gets it! [UCLA Newsroom]
- Here’s a very useful guide to applying to New York’s Affordable Housing Lottery. Though with odds like these, you might as well apply for the actual lottery and just become a millionaire like anyone paying current market-rate rents in Manhattan. [Curbed]
- Cara Ober is basically the only writer I know who seems to have actually enjoyed Venice this year. Apparently the secret is pregaming with a spritz! Note to self… [BmoreArt]
- Andrew Berman Architects have added a beautiful extension to the The New York Public Library’s Stapleton branch. My first thought: I could read here all day. My second thought: the acoustics of all these hard surfaces combined with the volume of Staten Island conversations will probably make this reading room unusable to all but the deaf. [Dezeen]
- Mass MoCA’s gigantic $65m expansion enables the museum to house long-term, large scale installations. The first batch includes a 15-year commission from Jenny Holzer, a 25-year James Turrell show, a 15-year Laurie Anderson radio station, and a 15-year exhibition of a massive Louise Bourgeois sculpture, among others. For a destination museum, this seems like a smart move. [The Art Newspaper]
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by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on May 18, 2017
Edi Rama
- Today, May 18th, is apparently International Museum Day, organized by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and Art Museum Day, organized by the Association of Art Museum Directors. I (Michael) had never heard of either of these designations until this year. Museums worldwide will be offering free or reduced admission, and here in the USA, many are using the day as a rallying cry to save museum and arts funding from the conservatives. [Hyperallergic]
- Olly Gibbs has been using Face App to make artworks in the Rijksmuseum smile. These are cute. And much less creepy than seeing your friends as old people on Instagram, the app’s usual function. [The Poke]
- Christina Ruiz seems to agree with Paddy’s takedown of the Venice Biennale. The review is packed with hilarious snippets like this:
“A video documents the US choreographer Anna Halprin’s ‘Planetary Dance’, a gathering of middle-class white people on a hilltop in Marin County, California, where they chant, run around in circles and express their horror for all war and violence. Halprin staged this performance in 1981 to “reclaim” Mount Tamalpais from the clutches of a serial killer who was targeting female hikers in the area. People were “gripped by terror” the video informs us. But then Halprin staged her Planetary Dance and the killer was caught! Amazing.
It may be fun, even life-changing, to take part in a Planetary Dance. I don’t know because I’ve never done it. What I do know is that it is neither fun nor life-changing to sit through a video of one.”
[The Art Newspaper]
- Adrian Searle doesn’t care for the biennale but finds quite a bit to like in the pavilions. Anne Imholf’s “Faust” gets a lot of attention, as it should. [The Guardian]
- And on the subject of Edi Rama, the Prime Minister of Albana and an artist included in the Biennale, critic Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei writes, “We are still waiting for the moment the international art press will shift its attention from Rama’s wallpaper and doodles to the actual “political canvas” this man has been painting in Albania, which has included landscapes of weed plantations, concrete-covered archeological treasures, natural reserves exploited by oligarchs for enormous profits, and a stunning portrait of a collapsing political system.” The catalogue mostly talks about how Rama transformed the city of Tirana into a color field painting as mayor and how his doodles draw from the tradition of surrealists. [Exit, via Walter Robinson]
- In Slate’s new podcast series on working, in which they ask “What Do You Do All Day?” musician Dan Deacon gives a tour of his studio and talks about his process. I haven’t listened to the whole thing yet, but it’s worthwhile and humorously relatable to anyone who works from home/in a creative field. [Slate]
- Does the world really need this many words to let us know Jimmy Fallon isn’t relevant? [The New York Times]
- I’m unclear on why exactly Cabinet Gallery was invited to build their new, extremely ugly brick-and-mortar location (financed by including luxury residential units above the gallery) inside Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, a public park in London. I suppose it’s a public benefit that they included an artist residency, but this seems like an inappropriate (and mostly ugly) use of public land set aside for green space. There are plenty of examples of creatively-massed architecture that creates street-facing retail spaces while actually improving the public space it backs on to (the recent Lincoln Center plaza overhaul, for example). [Dezeen]
- Hmm. The first trailer for Star Trek: Discovery is here and it’s not very promising. The production quality looks like a low budget flick on the SyFy network and I suspect I’m not alone in prequels-nobody-asked-for fatigue. (When can we get a new post-DS9 movie or series?) I’ll definitely watch it somewhere, but it’s absurd of CBS to expect people to pay for a streaming subscription based on this trailer. [io9]
- Headline of the day: “Going to Art School Could Help Save Your Job From the Robots” [artnet News]
- SoundGarden frontman Chris Cornell and Fox News Founder Roger Ailes have both died of unrelated causes. Cornell was 52, and Ailes 77. [The Internet]
- Christie’s Post-War auction was through the roof, by ARTnews’s account. Josh Baer said it felt a little ho-hum even though it performed perfectly—perhaps because the expectations were so high. [ARTnews, BAER FAXT]
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by Michael Anthony Farley on May 17, 2017
Left: a photo Jason deCaires Taylor took of Damien Hirst’s “Treasures From the Wreck of the Unbelievable” and posted to Instagram. Right: Jason deCaires Taylor’s own work.
- Here’s the latest bizarre beef over Damien Hirst’s Treasures From the Wreck of The Unbelievable: sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor is upset that Hirst’s work here looks a little like his schtick. Taylor, who is showing in the Biennial’s Granada pavilion, has been putting sculptures underwater for around a decade (the same amount of time Hirst started planning this show). Hirst, for his part, had been experimenting with similar processes in the 1990s, which makes Jason deCaires Taylor’s implication that Hirst plagiarised him and statement that he is “considering my options and discussing it with my legal team” even more ridiculous. There are 7 billion people on a planet with a surface that’s 75% covered with oceans. The fact that two of us had the idea to put some shit in them and leave it there isn’t surprising. [artnet News]
- Here’s a very cool map: all the best mosaics in New York subway stations. [Curbed]
- America’s first accredited degree program in “circus arts” is building a tent-shaped campus. The Circus Conservatory will be opening in Portland, Maine. I literally had to reread this sentence multiple times to accept that it wasn’t Portland, Oregon. [Dezeen]
- The ReThink NYC plan imagines a transit system in which commuter trains can run from New Jersey, through Manhattan, and into Queens and the Bronx. They claim this, in addition to extending several subway and PATH lines to meet the new hub stations, would free up track space and avoid congestion at Penn Station. It’s always been baffling that NYC doesn’t have a connected regional commuter rail system that doubles as high-frequency rapid transit in the core, like Paris’ RER or Madrid’s Cercanias. [NJ.com]
- Speaking of transit, the MTA has admitted New York City’s subways are falling apart and has released a six point plan to address the matter. The big thing is that they are planning to expedite their capital plan to purchase hundreds of new trains. Cuomo cut 65 million in funding to the MTA this year even though the train system is in dire need of repair. [Gothamist]
- The Cincinnati Art Museum has received a nearly $12 million gift to establish the Alice Bimel Endowment for Asian Art (the largest in the museum’s history). In addition to the cash, Carl and Alice Bimel donated over $14 million in art objects. [ARTFIXdaily]
- Sotheby’s Impressionist Modern sale had an Egon Schiele painting estimated to sell at between 30-40 million withdrawn at the last moment last night. Reports are that the sale was a bit of bore with its star lot lost. [ARTnews]
- Josh Baer speculates that the cover lot (Schiele) was withdrawn because they did not anticipate a winning bidder. Ouch. [Baer Faxt]
- The movie Baby Driver is inspiring so much fan art, that Kaitlyn Tiffany has written about it. The movie is about a getaway card driver who wants out of a life of crime, but his bosses won’t let him. The art looks as unoriginal as the movie does, though, which is a disappointment. [The Verge]
- 25 million images of art from 14 art institutions world wide are about to be digitized and put online. The partnership aims to make available 7 million images by 2020. [artnet News]
- Artist Matthew Ritchie is selling his 4 million dollar loft in TriBeCa. He needs more space to work. [Curbed]
- Frighteningly, a new poll finds that the majority of New Yorkers support Governor Andrew Cuomo running for president. [Politico (paywall)]
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by Michael Anthony Farley on May 16, 2017
- Twin Peaks Metrocards are available at select subway stations. Someone please nab me a Laura Palmer! [Curbed]
- Georges Berges argues that galleries are being forced to adapt to the “experience economy” as the act of purchasing becomes less about a simple exchange of goods and more about activities. This is a trend Whitney Kimball identified way back in 2015, and that I recently praised Shin Gallery for embracing. I’m not sure this is about gallerists adapting to the market’s demands (I don’t think “relational aesthetics” or sleepovers or cookouts or whatever art spaces are doing is what sells art objects to collectors) but maybe just about justifying (and enjoying) a brick-and-mortar location in today’s climate? [Observer]
- 21c, the art museum/hotel chain that operates on an alternative model to funding institutions in conservative states, is facing backlash at its Louisville location over a piece involving a racist postcard from the Civil War that an artist had recontextualized (apparently not very successfully) as a statement about confronting the past. After a boycott and threats of violence, 21c removed the piece. [WHAS11]
- Teenage artist Sam Egli threw up on a canvas for his submission “Last Night’s Supper” to a religious-themed group show at New Zealand’s Jetcharm Gallery. It’s actually a pretty nice piece. [Stuff]
- Denver-based nomadic gallery Black Cube has brought a “Colorado pavilion” to Venice as a satellite show, challenging the nationalist model of the Biennale. With text based neons from Joel Swanson and shiny gold sculptures from Laura Shill, it might sound like a fair booth on paper, but the work is gorgeous. Even Paddy (who was unphased by most of the Biennale) loved it. [artnet News]
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