Aimmi Phillips' "Girl in Red Dress With Cat and Dog" (1830-1835) (Screen shot courtesy of the American Folk Art Museum)
It was only a matter of time before someone called out BiennialeOnline’s lofty claim to being “the first exclusively online biennale exhibition of contemporary art.” Today, that falls to artist Oliver Laric. His “An Incomplete Timeline of Online Exhibitions and Biennales,” covers everything from THE THING to thewrong.org, and should be a primer for those who’d like to learn. The work was intended for BiennaleOnline, but has since been withdrawn for limiting format requirements, like, absurdly, not being allowed to include any outgoing URLS. Rhizome’s artbase (also on the list), now hosts the piece. Get with the times, people! [Rhizome.org; Artbase]
After a tragic shooting in Illinois on Wednesday, Rita Luark needs money to bury her daughter, two grandchildren, and their father. You can send the Luarks money here:
102 South Main, PO Box 258, White Hall, IL 62092
Online: www.bankpbt.com [Facebook]
Columbia MFA Thesis Show opens this Sunday at The Fischer Landau Center between 2-5. The show is curated by Fionn Meade. Recommended. [Fischer Landau Center for Art]
Jason Foumberg has been busting his butt over at Newcity Art, with sweeping coverage of Chicago’s scene. This week’s installment: Breakout Artists 2013. [Newcity]
Are selfies narcissistic? Brian Droitcour thinks not, reasoning that a selfie means sharing oneself; not taking selfies denotes a preciousness about your autonomy. He’d also make a good case for swinging. [culturetwo]
A seven-foot-tall Greco Roman head made of styrofoam was found by the Marist College crew team in the Hudson River. Officials are dumbfounded. [Newsday]
If you’ve following the latest chapter of Folk Art Museum’s ongoing punishment, this video should make you sad. Collector Ralph Esmerian gives Martha Stewart a tour of the Folk Art Museum, back when the 53rd street building was new, in the mid-2000s. “How does it feel to see all your things here?” Martha asks, to which Ralph replies “Fantastic…they have a fantastic home in which to shine.” MoMA now plans to demolish that building, and Esmerian’s currently serving a 6-year prison sentence for bankruptcy and wire fraud. In order to cover his debts, Sotheby’s will be auctioning off all but 53 of 263 of the works which Esmerian promised to the museum. We hope this doesn’t include “Girl in Red Dress With Cat and Dog” (1830-1835) by folk art icon Aimmi Phillips, of which Esmerian says: “This girl is just terribly, terribly special. I was able to get it after several institutions had passed her up. I thought she was vital in terms of her charm and beauty and innocence.” [Martha Stewart]
Hrag Vartanian also interviewed Esmerian back in 2002. Of “Girl in Red Dress,” Esmerian told him:
“When I was told there was an American Folk Art classic coming onto the art market, I couldn’t believe what it could be. AFAM was the third museum in line to be offered the work, but the first two turned it down because of the price. I felt we had no choice and we had to have it because it would give us an institutional sense that we’re here. We paid an enormous price but got something that is truly sensational,” Esmerian says about the painting he purchased in 1984 and immediately transferred to the custody of the Museum. [agbu.org]
Postmodernism is having the best day ever. It’s been just over a year since a New York District court dealt a major blow to Richard Prince, finding his Canal Zone series guilty of violating the copyright in Panamanian landscape photographs and Rastafarian portraits by Patrick Cariou. Not only was Prince found guilty, but the court ordered all unsold Canal Zone artworks and catalogs sent to Cariou so that they could be destroyed, sold, or disposed of as he saw fit. Thankfully, today sees a win for art: the case’s defendants won an appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Is “Psychosexual” at Andrew Rafacz gallery a portrait of the collector-psychologist-curator? Is Oliver Henry’s coffee creamer drawing charming? And can a pair of socks ever be a metaphor for the Gaza-Israel conflict? Critics Robin Dluzen and Pedro Vélez discuss.
Peter Brant is more than just an art collector; he’s been a pal to artists. After Brant bought his first Warhol when he was just 21, Andy and Peter ended up taking trips together: to Aspen, Europe, and closer to home, Montauk. [Wall Street Journal]
This summer, the Met is coming out with yet another blockbuster fashion exhibition, Punk: Chaos to Couture. (That title probably sounds better when said aloud in a death metal growl.) We kid you not, there will be a CBGB bathroom installed in the Met. [New York Magazine]
Developers are currently digging up a few more blocks of High Line, north of 30th street, now to be added to the the existing park. [Curbed; Crain’s]
Gross. Julia Halperin reports more museum woes, thanks to shoddy leadership. After this week’s news that MoMA plans to demolish the old Folk Art Museum building, the US Bankruptcy Court has ordered around 200 works seized from its collection. The works had been promised to the museum in 2005 by its former chairman, collector and jewelry merchant Ralph Esmerian, who later used the same work “as collateral to secure multi-million-dollar loans from Sotheby’s and Christie’s.” Esmerian never repaid his debts, and he’s currently in prison for wire fraud, so Sotheby’s will be selling them off this winter. Christie’s is upset because the work isn’t getting sold at Christie’s. Just drag it right through the mud. [The Art Newspaper]
Shoddy leadership is a plague. Felix Salmon explains how Cooper Union’s board mismanaged funds they were charged with overseeing, and must now, in direct violation of founder Peter Cooper’s vision, charge tuition. No one has been held accountable. [Felix Salmon]
For the first time in the school’s 100-year-plus history, undergraduate students will be required to pay tuition. Students are protesting, and this time, the Cooper Union administration is taking steps to prevent large-scale protests like the lock-ins that occurred last fall.
Scott King is a UK-based artist who’s produced a delicious send up of the New York art world, rife with Canadian music and art influences. Think Peaches meets the political Canadian artist collective and electro-pop band Hooded Fang and you’ve got your track. As a Canadian living in New York with anglophile tendencies, naturally, I love it.
Take a few minutes out of your day for this. Things start to get really good around the 1:50 mark. I’m not issuing any spoilers, but there’s this; “Dan Colen, pigeon shit”. h/t Andrew Russeth
“Don’t move to New York,” I told an audience of young students at the University of Georgia last week. To my surprise, most of the students were already familiar with my thoughts on the matter—I’d forgotten about a conversation I’d had with local artist and MFA graduate Layet Johnson, who’d called to ask me if he should move to New York. That conversation became part of an installation in a hotel show. It’s a small town, so by the time I’d arrived, the entire student body had listened to the piece.
Still, the topic came up again and again during my stay, and part of it was my own doing. I’m sad that New York, the city I’ve lived in for more than 10 years, is now barely hospitable to those making the kind of art I love. It’s my job, though I don’t like it, to tell young artists thinking of moving that without connections, their job prospects are dim. The ugly reality is the cost of living is prohibitively expensive in New York.
How do you build a large contemporary art collection? Here’s one successful method: send letters to well-known artists and swap “totally insane looking” drawings from your autistic son for their work. That ploy got the attention of This American Life; this week, the radio program aired an episode on this sketchy dude. At ARTINFO, Rosalia Jovanovic picks up where the TAL story leaves off, and speaks to Fredericks & Freiser artist Baker Overstreet about his involvement with the London [This American Life, ARTINFO]
Frieze is on Craigslist. We found an ad scouting out talented magicians, bartenders, and actors for artist Liz Glynn’s performance at the fair. [Craigslist]
Chicago has its first 3D printing facility. Available printers include the personal-use UP Mini and MakerBot, as well as the professional-grade EOS Formiga P110. The Duchamp toilets pictured in this article were made with the home printers. [New City]
The Barnes Foundation is raising ticket prices from 18 to 22 dollars. This isn’t shocking news, but their rationale is bizarre: to prevent visitors from touching the art. [Hyperallergic]
President Obama’s budget proposal for this coming year would boost arts funding by 10%. [Los Angeles Times]
