Exposure, a new photography exhibition presumably modeled after Jen Bekman’s Hey Hot Shot, asks a $25 submission fee for a chance at $2,800 and a show at Leo Kesting Gallery. Now everyone has a chance to show with the same people who brought you celebrity sculptor Daniel Edwards. Score! Deadline June 17th, 2008

Related: Oprah’s Dead Bitches. (Via Gawker)

Due to my general lack of interest in auctions, I won’t be commenting much on this week’s contemporary sales, except to say I’m pleased Takashi Murakami’s ejaculating My Lonesome Cowboy commanded $15.16-million at Sotheby’s last night, since erotic work tends to have a few more market challenges than say, landscape painting. The big winner of the evening,  Francis Bacon’s Triptych 1976, brought in a 77 million hammer price, also setting an auction record.   For further commentary on the 17 artists who set auction records I recommend Culturegrrl’s extensive coverage.  Readers might also check in with Carol Vogel’s report in the Times, though as a word of warning, I’ll note it runs with a slightly grating quote from Barbara Gladstone, who after the auctions remarked, “Recession? What Recession?”  We all get it; the contemporary auctions did well in the face of an economic downturn, but I’d prefer some thoughts on why.  Anyone care to speculate?

Screengrab AFC

Art Fag City announces the launch of a new initiative today; tracking artists who appear on the Colbert Report. The second artist investigating the mechanisms of government agencies to appear on the show within the space of a month, Hasan Elahi spoke with Steven Colbert about his website Tracking Transience. The site (or Elahi - we’re not sure which) sends the government daily pictures of his whereabouts, what he’s eating, and even how he’s spending his money to ensure that officials don’t mistake him as a terrorist. A response to being detained by the FBI for suspicion of hoarding explosives in 2002, Elahi explains, “Intelligent forces no matter where they are all operate in a community where their commodity is information, and the reason that information has value is because no one else has access to that information…so the secrecy of that information is what makes it valuable…so by me disclosing all this information [it becomes worthless]”

Of course, the other reason the information he provides has so little meaning is that the site is full of pop up windows and scrolling images making it impossible to navigate. But whatever. Elahi tells Steven Colbert he’s seen a EOP.gov address in his sitemeter, which means he’s had the eyes of the President on his site. “You’ve got a fan!” replies Colbert, which immediately prompted the web professional in me to wonder about the duration of his visit.

Hasan Elahi’s work is currently on view at Artist’s Space in the exhibition The New Normal.

Screengrab AFC 

Bloggy types will have already read about Google’s new artist themes, a nifty background image that renders links and virtually any other type in the igoogle masthead unreadable. Also, thank God there’s a Jeff Koons theme, because he’s really been low on publicity lately. To be honest, if I used igoogle, I would have liked the Vacuum Cleaner image they proposed as his thumbnail, but that’s not what you get. Click on this link and three different Koons themes are shown, one of which is automatically assigned to your masthead.  Given that refreshing doesn’t seem to rotate the Koons’ images, I’m not sure why we’re presented with a choice.  The functionality is so poor, I’m also generally unclear about why anyone would use this.

via:

boing boing
eyeteeth
art observed

Executive Director Brian Newman and some of this year’s Media Arts Fellowship recipients 

The Tribeca Film Institute announced the recipients of its 2008 Media Arts Fellowships yesterday at their cocktail gala.  Supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, many artists may better recognize the granting organization name Renew Media, which no longer reads in the announcements because it joined the Film Institute earlier in the year.

I attended the reception yesterday, not only because the program awarded $715,000 to film makers and media artists, but because this year I had the pleasure of being a panelist.  This year’s new media grantees include Sharon Daniel, Joe Davis, Josh On, C.E.B. Reas, Michael Rees, and Paul Vanouse. Film and video fellows are Julianna Brannum, Andrew Bujalski, Daniel Carrera, Cherien Dabis, Jacqueline Goss, Judith Helfand, Braden King, Billy Luther, Shirin Neshat, Hugo Perez, Laura Poitras, Dee Rees, Jennifer Reeves, Naomi Uman, Lauren Woods, and Jessica Yu.

On a more personal note, I’d like to thank the Tribeca Film Institute for providing such good lunches while we deliberated over the grantees.  As someone who undoubtedly does think better with a pastry in hand, i’m happy to report that the review process was never hindered by a lack of sugar intake.

Admittedly this has little to do with art, but who could resist republishing that headline?  The Toronto Star reports a Canadian study commissioned by the conservative party finds widespread support for Ottawa using  Web 2.0 programs and strategies to more effectively reach the population.

“Adoption of Web 2.0 applications represents an opportunity to transform the `face’ of the government of Canada, to make it appear more approachable and more responsive to Canadians,” says the report’s summary.”

Speaking to popular applications explored for use,

“The survey warns that Facebook and YouTube users log on primarily for entertainment and recreation purposes and would not expect, or necessarily want, to meet official government missives in this “private” space.”

I guess there’s some resistance on the part of Canadians in investing tax payer dollars to create a Canadian Public Service Agency fan page, or a policy status widget.

John Constable

Constable’s Skies, an exhibition at Salander O’Reilly Galleries in 2004 evoked idle questions amongst dealers I knew at the time wondering how the gallery could afford to mount a show in which nothing was for sale. I didn’t care then. The collection of paintings was undoubtedly one of the best I’d seen — causing that kind of flip flop you get in your chest when you see works of such astounding beauty and grace — and remains so to this day. Coincidently, I’m not the only one who recalls the show in light of the gallery closure, forced bankruptcy and leins; Men’s vogue just published an article which cites Roger Kimball, a writer for the Wall Street Journal asking the same question.

Speaking of which, not since Vanity Fair’s expose on Michael Jackson’s estate in 2003, have I read such a thorough report on the business and personality details leading to Lawrence Salander’s financial troubles. Kelly Devine Thomas runs through it all in this piece; Salander’s deep personal investment in art, and his strategies in building a stronger market for 12th to 18th century art works, but also what seems near irrational shock that those who lost money or art works would feel so betrayed, and a lavish life style contradicting his claims that his practice was never about money.

The article goes on to detail a variety of financial problems ranging from the nearly 80 million owed in debts, and the unopened show Masterpieces of Art Salander had gambled making close to half a billion on, to a laundry list of disputes the dealer had with his business partners and clients. Amongst the more egregious wrong doings was the unauthorized sale of art works owned by others. And of course, given the number of ownership claims now coming in, as anyone who’s worked in the secondary market for any length of time knows, sorting them out in gallery of that size is exactly the nightmare Thomas describes. To cite just one example, seemingly countless permutations of Bonnard’s nudes exist all titled similarly. Given the variation that occurs when recording size and title, even the most fastidious of us would have problems figuring out who owns what.

Oddly, I still found it hard not to feel sympathy for the dealer. Even in the face of impossibility the man genuinely seemed to believe he would pay off his debts. Thomas closes on a rather down note quoting Salander himself, “My intent was always to pay,” he [says]. “No one is starving here. The injured parties are owed what they are owed, but they made a lot of money with me over the years.” He points to Myron Kunin. “I sold him most of his pictures,” Salander says. “I sold them to him and then sold them for him. I made him a fortune.”

To read the full article click here.

Erik Benson, Staying Up All Night, 2004, acrylic and canvas on wood panel, 40 x 72 inches. West Collection

International emerging artists have until October 1st 2008 to submit their applications to Paige West’s competition. Aptly named the West Prize, a total of $100,000 will be given out to young artists, the grand prize being a total of $25,000 in addition to a West Collection acquisition. Artists applying should take a look at her collection to get a better idea of the kind of work she responds to. It’s no small amount of money being given out, so you’ll really do yourself a favor by doing a bit of research before submitting. Notable artists in the collection include, Amy Bennett, Vic Muniz, Erik Benson, Larissa Bates, Roxy Paine, Eve Sussman and more.

Left: 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.

Jeff 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.

MK Guth, Ties of Protection and Safekeeping, 2007-08, at the Park Armory, Photo AFC

Newbie journalists and critics such as myself certainly found The Whitney Biennial’s press preview offerings exciting Tuesday morning.  The museum had fresh coffee, a plate full of bagels and other yummy food - a real step up from nothing - which a lot of us are used to.  Of course, one really should know better than to proclaim they are moving up in the world based on their bagel consumption, because inevitably such conclusions bite you in the ass. In my case the ass-biting turn around time was exceptionally short;  after arriving late to the Park Armory portion of the Biennial,  I was to witness the person ahead of me grab the last complimentary lunch.  Thank you JERRY SALTZ for nabbing that final serving!

To be fair, Mr. Saltz really can’t be blamed for my imposed art starvation that day; the man merely fended for himself…unlike all those waif thin girls I saw walking around with multiple boxes.  Now without a lunch, I spent the next twenty minutes trying to find a room devoid of food smells while listening to Biennial/Park Armory press release-ease orated over a speaker.  There was no escape, but eventually, the curators stopped talking so we could all look at the rest of the show.  It was probably close to 2:30 when I finally found a seat to relax after having viewed everything.  A colleague sat down beside me with her lunch box in hand, “Oh I see you managed to get one of those lunches.” I said irritably.  “Oh yes” she replied, “I took two! The food is so good, and it’s a free dinner for me now, so you really have to grab the opportunity when you have it.”  I didn’t reply.

In case anybody thought Steven Harper’s conservative government in Canada has been a relatively benign force in the arena of arts funding think again. According to the Globe and Mail Thursday, proposed changes to the Income Tax Act “would allow the Heritage [and Justice department] to deny tax credits to projects deemed offensive, effectively killing the productions.” I don’t know why these two departments should suddenly have the role of art and film expert thrust upon them when the Canada Council already employs people with that job description. If such a policy were pushed through, these ministers could ultimately trump decisions made by government arts agencies. Toronto lawyer David Zitzerman thinks the news smacks of “closet censorship, suggesting that Academy Award nominees such as Juno might not receive funding under this kind of review process. Certainly the majority of films by internationally acclaimed directors David Cronenberg, and Adam Egoyan would never have been made were this law in place years ago. It’s yet unclear however, just how Strange Brew would register on the Canadian governments moral compass.

Guggenheim director Thomas Krens’ resignation yesterday couldn’t have been more poorly timed. Who will HOMU’s [The Homeless Museum of Art] Filip Noterdaeme address his letter to now that the man behind the Guggenheim franchise is leaving? Speaking to the subject of artist Cai Guo-Qiang’s Everything is Museum, currently at the Guggenheim, Noterdaeme observes how Qiang’s curation of HOMU’s The Incredibly Shrinking Museum side by side the Guggenheim’s latests projects underscores contrasting objectives;

I can’t help but point out how our respective proposals complement each other perfectly, like the Yin and Yang of the museum world. Yours is all about museum expansion via the Guggenheim brand, while mine is about museum implosion, shown with my Incredible Shrinking Museum (ISM)*. Anyone interested in understanding the state of the art museum today need look no further. There you have it in a nutshell: the contemporary art museum is simultaneously exploding and imploding.

Sadly, I expect Noterdaeme’s response to the exhibition will buried in a sea of stories related to the Krens’ resignation (even though he’s “stick[ing] around to run the Abu Dhabi project”) and Cai Guo-Qiang’s “easily deciphered if not terribly original art.”

*The Incredible Shrinking Museum is described by Noterdaeme on his site as “a museum about nothing for a society that has everything”.

In case anyone missed it Tyler Green asks Christian Viveros-Faune about his conflict of interest in holding a post as the Village Voice art critic while organizing and co-directing two commercial art fairs (Volta in NYC, Next in Chicago). Viveros-Faune shamefully cites other conflicts of interest in the art world to excuse his own. Green’s interview here, and follow up thoughts here.

The Met sent out an official statement earlier this morning announcing director Philippe de Montebello’s retirement…for those of you who missed the five billion features in various newspapers yesterday. My favorite coverage so far comes from Tyler Green, who I trust will report on the subject when there’s more to talk about.

Screengrab AFC

Ouch! After observing the effective shut down of White Column’s slide registry for emerging artists under the tenor of Matthew Higgs, artist Martin Bromirski decided to update his work. Presumably in response the director’s statement “I don’t sympathize with empowerment, survival, battle, frustration and struggle” and “my practice as a curator is largely selfish. I make exhibitions that I want to see” the artist added a few photographs he thought might appeal more to Mr. Higgs.

After three and half years of development ArtInfo finally introduces its Sales Index, an auction database meant to be ArtNet’s only significant competition. As it stands now however, the company has a product that can compete amongst the smaller companies for traffic such as ArtFact and ArtPrice but not much more. Presumably as part of their promotion the database searches are currently without cost, a service that would be worth a lot more if they had launched with a reasonable amount of images. Within the first 20 results I conducted on Jeff Koons sculptures only one lot with a jpeg came up, rendering the majority of the searches meaningless for those without a photographic memory. Considering 7 of these lots were sold post 2000 there’s really no excuse for not having more scans and digital files online.

R elated: ArtInfo Jumps on the Social Networking Bandwagon

Image via: BravoTV

The first episode of Bravo’s Project Runway aired last night at ten, introducing 15 new designers who compete for 100,000 dollars and various other goodies. I like Project Runway because it brings studio practice and critique to the general public, but I am sometimes annoyed with contestants who are given a platform to expound on Fine Art. Last year’s delightfully delusional Vincent Libretti created a “fine art” gown, his BFA informing his decision to attach a bunch of garbage to his garb and call it art. This season Elisa Jimenez represents the art contingent with an installation and performance background, and is already giving the field a bad name. It took all of 3 minutes before we saw other contestants label her insane, and her hokey relationship to spirituality has the unfortunate affect of making her performance and design work seem wildly contrived. As for her competitiveness, much like Vincent, who refused to listen to feedback from the judges or from mentor Tim Gunn, Jimenez hears nothing. Gunn warned her earlier in the show that her gown needed some finishing, which she interpreted as a threat to her own creative vision. Her decision to sleep as opposed to work to fix her project predictably resulted in Heidi Klum’s apt description of her gown as one that “pooed fabric”. Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough to get her kicked off the show. Much like Vincent, who undoubtedly was good for ratings I suspect we’ll see a lot more of this woman than anyone needs.

Update: Saul Chernick observes in the comments:

…I think the PR producers used some dirty tricks to make us dislike her even more and for that they should be called out. For instance, they played weird music every time she spoke or worked which was a subtle way of mocking her and getting us to take her even less seriously. Also they edited the show in such a way as to make us root against her spending a disproportionate amount of time dwelling on her weaknesses instead of focusing on a wider range of designers. I believe they wanted to audience to predict that she was most likely to get the boot so that when she didn’t we’re all the more outraged. This validates a popular perception of artists as tricksters who’s befuddling weirdness gets undeserved reward.

I absolutely agree, and would add that the blog of fashion editor and Project Runway judge Nina Garcia illuminates this editing process by revealing aspects of the judging process that don’t make it into the show. Providing a round about example Garcia begins, “The first person voted off is always the most difficult because we really have not had the chance to see that designer’s full potential,” the editor was speaking specifically about Simone, but followed the sentiment up in the next paragraph saying, “Even though Elisa’s look was poorly executed she, unlike Simone, had a point of view. Elisa has been a fixture in the industry and has a lot of underground success…” While Garcia goes on to say she was more critical of Elisa for her achievements, her spiritual interests and connected industry success were clearly not the liabilities they were made to be in the editing if designer potential is factored into decision making, and all they have to go on is one challenge and the portfolios that got them into the show.

Webcam shot from the New Museum website. 

I assume once the New Museum opens their doors they will finally remove the webcam sending shots of their building construction to the institution’s website. The technology undoubtedly served to facilitate the time lapse video capturing the building project also on the website, though I have to admit this kind of fan fair is my least favorite form of inaugural tradition amongst institutions (anyone else remember the entire floor MoMA dedicated to showcasing the documentation of their expansion).

As for the opening itself, New Museum staff will be putting considerable resources into the celebrations, giving the public 30 hours straight to check out their new diggs beginning 12 pm December 1st. We’ll now have no excuse for missing any number of art works including, Ugo Rondinone’s “HELL, YES!”, a broach like neon sign installed on the front of the building to promote the festivities. Identifying the museum as queer, and loudly celebrating the new diggs, the work is part of a larger exhibition titled Unmonumental.  The Object in the 21st Century, the first segment in the four part series features all manner of super star artists including Urs Fischer, Carol Bove, and Sarah Lucas. We’ll have more to say on this subject once we see the work.

Francesco Vezzoli, Right You Are (If You Think You Are)

Why is PERFORMA’s kick-off event - a Francesco Vezzoli play scheduled for Saturday night at the Guggenheim - advertised as free and open to the public when none of the tickets were made available to the New York community? This just in from a regular AFC tipster:

…I was watching the [PERFORMA] website for info on how to get tickets, and it went from “FREE info on tickets coming soon” to “SOLD OUT”. They went very quickly, a little too quickly.

Said tipster did a little investigating, and discovered through various unnamed sources, that the tickets were never going to be offered to the public.

The tickets were divided up between Gagosian, the Guggenheim and PERFORMA’s inner circle. And apparently, Gagosian alone got over 650 tickets to distribute to their clients and staff…

Naturally, I called the Museum’s press representative Fitz & Co to confirm this, and was diplomatically told that the tickets were indeed made available to the public…through Gagosian. When I asked him how anyone would know this since this information wasn’t released on their website, I was told I should speak to someone else.