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art

Tuesday Links: Chelsea, Croissants, and a Chicken

Complex lists Chelsea as the best art neighborhood in the world, for its diversity. They write of Hurricane Sandy that “even the little guys managed to find a way to stay afloat, a testament to the resilience and strength of the community.” Among most notable galleries is Postmasters, which leaves next week to escape the skyrocketing rent. [Complex]
Thanks to Andrew Russeth for pointing out this jewel on billionaires Joe Nahmad from 2007. He’s rich, but notoriously difficult to deal with. It’s hard to get the Nahmads to pay. They don’t stick to the terms of the deal. Nahmad never tips waiters and once ate 14 croissants for breakfast. [Forbes]
An art student chopped off a live chicken’s head in the Alberta College of Art and Design cafeteria; it was all part of the student’s loose interpretation on a class assignment to film a protest. Police will not press charges. [Maclean’s, via @CAA]
Those hoping ArtPrize’s new Executive Director Christian Gaines will curb the amount of kitsch the citywide event has become known for should prepare to have their hopes dashed. Gaines, a former film festival manager, says he has no plans to alter the voting process that’s come to define the event. [Hyperallergic]
Some architects like the former Folk Art Museum building! More than 30 architects and board members of the Architectural League of New York signed a letter that asks MoMA not to tear it down. The building was designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien Architects. [Architect Magazine]
Move over, 1988. Hans-Ulrich Obrist and Simon Castets are leading a study of artists born after 1989, called 89plus; the project has just selected 22-year-old Alex Mackin Dolan for a residency at the Armory. [ANIMAL]

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Etsy’s Horse Art Trends

by Corinna Kirsch on March 22, 2013

Horse paintings are better than dog paintings.

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Tuesday Links: Stop the Music, Stop the Artists

by Corinna Kirsch on March 12, 2013

Jayson Musson, aka artist Hennessy Youngman, is asking for compensation—i.e. “nobody’s getting sued”—from Mad Decent Records for using his voice without permission on the “Harlem Shake”. Jayson, Hennessy, anyone, please stop the shake. [BBC News]
Here comes more musical outrage, this time from Ai Weiwei. Just months after the release of his Gangnam Style video, Ai now plans to release a heavy metal album. Someone, Jayson, Hennessy, anyone, please stop these art-celeb tricks. [Reuters]
The New Museum is going global. On Monday, the museum announced they had expanded their board of trustees to include an international super team of collectors, philanthropists, and one Russian billionaire. In the words of Board Chairman Saul Dennison, “The New Museum is New York City’s only museum devoted exclusively to contemporary art from around the globe.” [New Museum]
These are fighting words! In the latest issue of e-flux, co-founder Anton Vidokle dips his pen into the art economy. He tackles a range of subjects concerning the over-professionalization of art, and suggests it might be fine to be a “part-time artist”:

“We should probably be less concerned with being full-time, art-school-trained, professional artists, writers, or curators—less concerned with measuring our artistic worth in these ways. Since most of us are not expected to perfect any specific techniques or master any craft—unlike athletes or classical musicians, for example—and given that we are no longer tied to working in specific mediums, perhaps it’s fine to be a part-time artist? ”

Is perfection of craft really the only pursuit that warrants full-time careers? [e-flux]

Art Loop, Chicago’s public art program for local artists to produce new work within the city’s center, won’t take place in 2013. Last year, its budget had been slashed by $350,000. No word yet on whether the program’s been axed or merely put on hiatus. [Time Out Chicago]

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Snapchat: Bad for Sexting, Good for Art

by Corinna Kirsch on March 8, 2013

Sexting requires skill. Quality photos take time and effort, so it’s surprising to hear Snapchat, an app that lets you take self-destructing snapshots, referred to as a “sexting app”. Other than erasing a potential trail of nudie pics, the app’s sexting abilities are overblown.

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Cats and Art From Way Back: Marcel Broodthaers’ “Interview with a Cat”

by Corinna Kirsch on February 22, 2013

All hail cats. For better or worse, Nyan Cat, Kitler, and LOLcats have burned their way into our Internet-based memories. They’ve been nuzzling their way into our lives for ages, and for one such historical reminder, look no further than Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers’ performance “Interview with a Cat”.

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Wednesday Links: The Gallerist Who Flew

by Corinna Kirsch on January 23, 2013

Gallerist’s Dan Duray interviewed Christopher D’Amelio about closing his gallery and heading over to David Zwirner as a full partner. It’s full of great metaphors, like this one where D’Amelio sounds like a bird. He’s talking about what it’s like to move from his mid-sized gallery to David Zwirner’s: “[S]uddenly I had an opportunity to open my wings and soar over that divide, and I’m about to land on the other side.” [GalleristNY]
VICE followed around art duo Ghost of a Dream. The end result? A pretty tame video. Highlights include the artists talking about wanting to make dreams into a reality, then watching them cover one type of a vehicle after another with lotto tickets, the discarded “dreams”. We expect more from VICE; after all, they’ve given us “Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan”. [VICE]
Louise Blouin will not buy the Armory Show after all. [Art in America]
The City announces the winner of its tiny apartment design competition. The City has devoted a plot of land at 335 East 27th Street to developing “micro-apartments”. The question remains whether anyone will want to live in them. [The New York Times’ City Room]
It must be Royal Portrait Unveiling Month because it looks like we’ve got another painting from the monarchy. For the last 60 years, a portrait of Queen Elizabeth has been sitting locked up in Liverpool Town Hall. The portrait looked nothing like its sitter, so “[e]mbarrassed council chiefs ordered it to be hidden from public view in the vaults.” [The Telegraph]
The Clock won’t stop its worldwide tour. Joining the ranks of MoMA, LACMA, and the Pompidou Center, among others, Ohio’s The Wexner Center will be screening Christian Marclay’s 24-hour-long video. People really love this video. [The Wexner Center]
Most kids outgrow their imaginary friends. Not Eleanor Antin. In her memoir Conversations with Stalin, the artist keeps her childhood imaginary friend—Joseph Stalin—through young adulthood. Starting Monday, January 28th, she’s giving a week-long reading of her memoir at museums and galleries throughout New York. [Art Agenda]
Daniel Buren opened two solo shows this month at Bortolami and Petzel Gallery. Roberta Smith’s not a fan of Daniel Buren’s continued devotion to stripes, claiming that he “gets credit for choosing art over ideology, but he has to do more than relearn old tricks.” [The New York Times]
Art Tumblr blog phenom @HydeorDie launches a new art buying site, Hyde or Buy. [Tumblr]

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It’s the End of The World As We Know It

by The AFC Staff on December 28, 2012

This year, the art world became more dysfunctional than usual. As such, we talked about social injustice, power struggles, and uneven distribution of wealth seemingly endlessly. Who knows if it helped, but writing these ten posts made us feel just a little bit better.

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Art Fag City at The L Magazine: Are Video Games Art?

by Will Brand on December 5, 2012

This week at The L Magazine, I finally end the discussion of whether video games are art by declaring: “Yeah, sure, okay.” Have something to add? Too late. But more importantly: why’s it such a big deal?

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