From the category archives:

Opinion

Walton Ford at Paul Kasmin: The Best Show in Chelsea [NSFW]

by Paddy Johnson on November 18, 2011

Yes, I meant it when I said the Walton Ford show at Paul Kasmin Gallery is the “best show in Chelsea”. This comment originally appeared in Wednesday’s link list, and has subsequently prompted a few private emails to the effect of, “You’re not serious?”. Well, yes I am, but for all the reasons those asking the question might think: It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a show look this hilariously wrong in a gallery.

Read the full article →

Bloomberg, Beware, Zuccotti Park is Everywhere

by Paddy Johnson on November 17, 2011

So say the protester chants now filling the various Occupy Wall Street Twitter streams I’ve been following. This is good news — I support the occupation and want bank regulation — though to be honest I wasn’t so convinced the city’s cause for eviction was without merit. Past the health concerns, the park had basically become an untaxed marketplace. I like to think there could have been some compromise reached, even if sending protestors home at night seems the most realistic given the cold weather.

Read the full article →

What Actually Happened at The LA MoCA Gala

by Reid Singer on November 14, 2011

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.

Read the full article →

Yvonne Rainer’s “SalÃ²” Reference Is Hyperbole

by Reid Singer on November 11, 2011

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 ‘SalÃ².’”

Read the full article →

Lists About Art Taste Like Gummy Bears and Cure the Blues

by Reid Singer on November 4, 2011

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.

Read the full article →

A Cheap Grab For Exposure: The Occupy The Internet Exhibition

by Paddy Johnson on November 1, 2011

Why is Occupy The Internet now an “exhibition of leading net artists”? Launched two weeks ago at fffff.at, the original project was a simple call: embed a script that runs an army of animated gif protesters on your website to show your support for the Occupation movement. The post asked for animated GIF submissions that would then be “called up for duty”, and has since been installed on over 875 websites.

Now, all those submissions are being replaced with GIFs by artists curator Evan Roth deems worthy of special consideration. This is beyond insulting.

Read the full article →

Why Splinter Movements Don’t Take Away Credibility From Occupy Wall Street

by Paddy Johnson on October 28, 2011

The tenor of this argument has been making me uncomfortable; it sounds a lot like those concerned about the raggedy drummers and incoherent rants giving the larger movement a bad name. The truth of the matter is, no matter how elegant the language, the movement would still be attacked. That's what power structures do when they feel threatened.

Read the full article →

Why Karen Archey is Wrong About Occupy Museums

by Will Brand on October 21, 2011

In a piece yesterday, Karen Archey asked, “Why is Occupy Wall Street Protesting NYC Museums, and Not Super Rich Galleries and Art Fairs?” The post is aimed at Occupy Museums, the Occupy Wall Street Arts and Culture project that began protesting yesterday outside MoMA and the New Museum. Pretty rapidly, however, it descends into personal axe-grinding against Art Fag City. Here’s why she’s wrong.

Read the full article →

Shut It Down: A Reality Check for the Warhol Market

by Reid Singer on October 20, 2011

In a rather showy restructuring of priorities, the Andy Warhol Foundation has announced that they will dissolve their authentication board. The task of deciding the provenance of hundreds of purported works by Warhol that the Foundation can’t get to between now and the end of the year will thus be left to other scholars and independent experts. “We’d rather our money go to artists, not lawyers,” said chairman Michael Straus, who said the foundation couldn’t go on indefinitely fielding lawsuits filed by people who found the board’s conclusions unfair (or just unsatisfying). They’d rather focus their energies on grant-making and other activities with a broad public interest.

Read the full article →