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basquiat

Friday Links: On Chelsea Manning’s First Portrait As A Free Woman

by Michael Anthony Farley on May 19, 2017

Okay, so here I am everyone!! =Phttps://t.co/NuyZlcWfd9 #HelloWorld pic.twitter.com/gKsMFTYukO

— Chelsea Manning (@xychelsea) May 18, 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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Monday Links: Don’t Blame Roberta Smith for Donald Trump

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on May 15, 2017

Jeff Koons’ sculpture “Play-Doh 1994-2014” has paved the way for Donald Trump, according to Alex Melamid. Is it because there’s a melty orange blob in the center and a weird yellow thing hanging off the top?

Of everything that’s been written about Trump’s unlikely ascendence and the art world, Alex Melamid’s recent piece in TIME might just be the most specious and bizarre. According to Melamid, artists and critics have created a culture that idolizes avant-garde thinking, infantilism, and publicity above all else—thus legitimizing Trump’s outrageous approach to candidacy and governing. Two of the most laughable moments: Melamid citing Roberta Smith’s praise of Jeff Koons’ “Play Doh” sculptures (because the average Trump voter is an avid NYT Arts reader, I’m sure?) and the wildly out-of-touch statement “plagiarism in the arts has mutated into what’s now called appropriation, a term stripped of any negative judgment.” LOL. [TIME]
For anyone else who ever thought the Harvard campus reminded them of Hogwarts, you’ll enjoy this bit of news that sounds like something out of Harry Potter. The Harvard Art Museums is restaging “The Philosophy Chamber,” a sort of wunderkammer from the university’s early history that became the basis for the museums’ present collections. [The Harvard Crimson]
A lottery has opened for affordable housing units in a new Long Island City high rise, starting at under $1,000/month. Apply now! There are only 34 slots, sadly. [Curbed]
Coming as a shock to no one, Anne Imhof’s “Faust” has snagged a Golden Lion at Venice. The “health goth”-esque performance was by far the most talked-about piece of the Biennale. [ARTnews]
Adiós Utopia: Dreams and Deceptions in Cuban Art Since 1950 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is being lauded as the biggest and most important exhibition of Cuban art in recent history. Patricia Restrepo, however, feels that the Cisneros-backed show is lacking in nuance. We haven’t seen the show ourselves, but if you’re in Texas, it looks like a must-see. [Terremoto]
AFC friend Jeanette Doyle has launched “CF” at the Research Pavilion in Venice and is looking for artists and curators to participate. The framework: you chose a nation you want to represent and an art work and stage it. CF will present these staged works via a series of projections chosen at random with the help of a computer algorithm. Deadline for submissions is August 11th. Submit here. [Art & Education]
Steven H Silberg has launched an art-making project titled “In Care of the White House”. Artists are invited to create works in response to the Trump administration, which the organization will document and send to the White House, with the idea that all the pieces will end up as a document of dissent in the National Archives for posterity. [In Care of the White House]
Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips are looking to auction off over $1 billion worth of art this week, including a 6-foot Basquiat at Sotheby’s that’s valued at $60 million. These auctions are being watched closely as a litmus test for the art market. Since Russian and Middle Eastern bidders have retreated from the auction scene due to lower oil prices, it’s been a buyer’s-market-boon for American and Asian collectors. But now the market might’ve bounced back, as the auction houses are hoping. [CNBC]
15 Art Deco buildings not to miss. [Curbed]

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Tuesday Links: Dana Schutz Painting Removed, Brooklyn Gets an Art Fair, Melania Gets a Portrait

by Michael Anthony Farley on April 4, 2017

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Those calling for the censorship of Dana Schutz’s “Open Casket” will be happy to know that the painting has been removed from view. They’ll likely be disappointed to know it’s for a logistical reason as boring as a water leak. The real story here seems to be that the museum’s brand-spanking-new downtown digs is taking on water. Cue the Titanic/iceberg jokes. [Hyperallergic]
Melania Trump’s official White House portrait is here, and it kinda looks like she’s an out-of-focus hologram. The internet is having lots of fun with this one. [New York Magazine]
A cast believed by some to be from a long-lost Degas mold will go on view in London. Meanwhile in Hong Kong, Sotheby’s just proved Basquiats are hot commodities no matter the continent. Expect to see more of his work heading to Asian private collections. [The Telegraph]
Artist and blogger Greg Allen has started a Kickstarter project, OurGuernica, After Our Picasso. The purpose of this initiative: raising funds to commission an anonymous Chinese artist to paint Angela Merkel giving Ivanka Trump side-eye (photo above) in the style of former-president-now-painter George W. Bush. That’s a lot of layers to unpack for what is essentially a meme. [Artspace]
This sounds like so much fun. The Museum of Sex has opened a fully-functional pop-up disco bar for their exhibition of Bill Bernstein’s New York nightlife photos. [The New York Times]
According to Mark Hudson, the Tate Britain’s Queer British Art 1861-1967 “begs the question of whether we’re in for art that tells the story of homosexuality in Britain over the 150 years leading up to the legal landmark, or art by artists who just happen to be gay. Judging by the first room, devoted to the late 19th century Aesthetic Movement, the exhibition might have been better titled Screamingly Camp Art.” Sounds like a missed opportunity all-around. [The Telegraph]
Bad news (for those of us prone to soul-crushing fair fatigue): Brooklyn is getting a Frieze Week art fair. The good news: it will be an off-shoot of SPRING/BREAK, focused on large-scale public installations and environments. SPRING/BREAK is one of the only fairs we can can handle more of. [artnet News]
Snøhetta’s Lascaux IV Caves Museum in southern France is open and looks (as expected) like an anthropology museum from the future. Their treatment of the cave painting reproductions is a really interesting display strategy. For preservation reasons, you can’t visit the real thing, but the museum has managed hyper-accurate reproductions that never try to trick you into thinking they’re the originals. [Dezeen]

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Friday Links: Someone Stole this “Transformers” Sculpture in Queens

by Michael Anthony Farley on October 14, 2016

transformers

Someone stole the above “Transformers” sculpture from Long Island City artist Annalisa Iadicicco. Come on guys, she made it with children! [QNS]

Recently discovered cave etchings in Spain might date back 14,500 years and have been described as “the most spectacular and impressive” on the Iberian peninsula. [BBC]

Holland Cotter joins the chorus of (mostly) praise for Pedro Reyes’ “Doomocracy”. [The New York Times]

From an auction immediately following the artist’s death, to a price “correction” in the 1990s, and ending up for sale again today—here’s what David Bowie’s prized Basquiat painting tells us about the way the art market works. [artnet News]

“If you can’t get walk-in traffic, why be in Chelsea?” -Mike Weiss on the closure of his eponymous gallery. Apparently having your gallery in a 24/7 luxury condo construction zone has become too much to deal with. Wow, how many Chelsea galleries have closed this year? [ARTnews]

150 affordable housing units are available from $833 to $1,082 in what’s temporarily Downtown Brooklyn’s tallest tower. Applications close December 15th. [Curbed]

Simon Fujiwara’s latest video installation at the Photographer’s Gallery in London sounds bizarre. He’s created a sort of video portrait of Joanne Salley, the British art teacher who was forced to resign after students discovered a thumb drive containing her topless selfies. The video shows an idealized/banal version of her life. [The Guardian]

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Thursday Links: At The Corner of Bill Cunningham and 5th

by Rhett Jones on July 7, 2016

bill_cunningham_corner

The corner of 57th Street and Fifth Avenue is temporarily being renamed “Bill Cunningham Corner.” The Mayor is allowed to rename a street for a week, in order to make it permanent, the change would have to be approved by the city council. [DNAinfo]
ArtList, an app startup for anonymous secondary market sales of art has shut down. Artnet News spoke with art advisor Todd Levin about the startup’s downfall. His view is that internet-based platforms aren’t ready for high-end work and can only hope for “momentarily younger hotter artists like Parker Ito, Kour Pour, and Ibrahim Mahama, who don’t always stand up to the test of time.” [artnet News]
Under the Sun, the documentary about North Korea has been released and currently has an 83% score on Metacritic. The film was controversially pulled from MoMA’s Doc Fortnight Festival over fears of retaliation from North Korea. That decision resulted in longtime assistant curator, Sally Berger, being fired. [Metacritic]
Young Thug says there is no such thing as gender. While no one should hurt themselves trying to pat him on the back, homophobia is a rampant problem in the hip-hop world and it’s kind of a big deal that those words are coming from the most-hyped rapper around. [Dazed]
A reminder that you do not have to enter a police station to ‘catch ’em all’ in the new Pokemon augmented reality game. [Polygon]
28 years later, Anthony Haden-Guest explains how he did NOT kill Jean-Michel Basquiat.[artnet News]
Vice has bought a majority stake in Garage magazine, a Russian oligarch’s wife’s “art, architecture, fashion and design” publication. Having never read Garage we can’t speak to the quality of the art coverage. But, they have an app where you can check out issues and if you use it to scan Kendall Jenner’s photo at the following link you’ll “bring her to life.” [Recode]
You have exactly one extra second to get those grant applications in this year. [Phys.org]

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Friday Links: Augmented Reality Bites

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on May 20, 2016

Keiichi Matsuda [h/t Gizmodo]

In order to get their AI to speak less like a robot, Google force-fed it thousands of romance novels and created a new language game to teach the bot to create paragraphs out of two statements. What resulted is some weird, lonely poetry. Someone get this thing a drink. [Android Authority]

In other “why would humanity even want this technology?” news, Keiichi Matsuda follows the burgeoning field of “augmented reality” to its logical conclusion: an annoying world full of pop-up ads and invasive game-like marketing. [Gizmodo]

The British Museum closed yesterday after Greenpeace activists climbed the columns on the museum’s facade and unfurled banners advertising a fake “Sunken Cities” exhibition about the effects of climate change, listing locations such as New Orleans. The demonstration was in protest of oil company BP’s funding of the museum, which many claim has impacted the way museums discuss climate change and other environmental issues. [artnet News]

Joan Miró’s grandson, Joan Punyet Miró, auctioned off 28 works by the artist to raise nearly $70,000 for refugees yesterday. The elder Miró, like many Spanish artists of the era, was himself a refugee during the Spanish Civil war. [Hyperallergic]

Be still our hearts: Betty Tompkins and Marilyn Minter discuss being a woman in art school in the 70’s, dive bars, and how damn long it took to achieve “success” in the art world. [Blouin Artinfo]

Whoa. Researchers at the University of Maryland have developed a process to turn wood transparent. The article discusses the obvious implications for architecture, but this could be the next big material for sculptors. [The New York Times]

Here’s an article arguing that cities should stop investing in museums and champion music festivals instead. According to writer Jonathan Wynn, they are preferable because they are cheaper, adaptable and require less public funding. [The Conversation]

People love to talk about how the CIA boosted the careers of abstract expressionists, but the CIA’s own art collection is ironically a tad closer to Soviet Realism, in that it depicts the glorious (and often secretive) fruits of its own workforce’s labors. Lots of historical representation here, as well as a cryptic still-life. Is the next big conspiracy theory that the CIA launched the wave of photorealism in 1970’s painting? [NPR]

Novelist Helen DeWitt does Frieze Magazine’s Questionnaire. This isn’t our cup of tea—it’s too self-promote-y and pompous—but we’ve seen it get a few high fives over twitter regardless. You be the judge. [Frieze]

Art collector Jho Low is being investigated by the FBI for shady dealings with Malaysian financial corruption. This has led to Low liquidating assets such as shares in a Manhattan hotel and his Basquiat painting, which he sold at a nearly $14 million loss to another finance douchebag. Does anyone else have news fatigue from trying to figure out exactly what the illegal/unethical, convoluted thing crooked investment people did when reading about the art market? [The Wall Street Journal]

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Thursday Links: The Powerful Stay Powerful

by Paddy Johnson Michael Anthony Farley Rea McNamara on October 22, 2015

Carlos Rigau (above) wants you to make a painting. He also squatted one of Miami’s many empty “investment properties” with the writer of this article about him, Rob Goyanes. [Temporary Art Review]
Just to clear up any confusion, James Turrell wants us to know that he definitely had nothing to do with Drake’s new music video [Blouin artinfo]
Jeffrey Deitch and Larry Gagosian are setting aside any rivalries to collaborate on an exhibition of figurative work from the 1980s. It will open during Art Basel Miami Beach in the Design District, not a fair booth. [Miami New Times]
A dark cloud shifted over FIAC’s VIP preview yesterday with news that next year’s Frieze London will be bumped earlier in the month to avoid clashing with Yom Kippur, leaving only nine days in between. One gallerist thinks this won’t be a big deal for the “real” collectors, but another thinks 50% of American collectors will have to choose where they’ll go. Mo money mo problems! [Art Newspaper]
ArtReview’s Power List is out. I guess we’re supposed to be interested in the small incremental changes on this thing. [ArtReview ]
The Basquiat estate is releasing an edition of 60 $50,000 prints through Pace Prints. The announcement was somewhat shrouded in secrecy until today. Now the mystery remains:who is going to pay $50,000 for a print that wasn’t even technically authored by the artist? [artnet News]
Turns out that new eye in speech bubble emoji is part of an anti-bullying campaign. [Wired]
Debating an MFA? Here’s a ranking of best rankings of grad schools for artists. [Hyperallergic]
New York City is changing it’s streetlights, slowly, to whiter, brighter, more energy-efficient LEDs. It’s a move that’s going to totally change how huge swaths of the city look at night. Some people are really, really unhappy about this. [The New York Times]
The fourth and final episode of Lorna Mills’s Ways of Something is premiering at Chicago’s Gene Siskel Film Center tonight, but guess what? You can watch online minute #27 by Jacob Ciocci. [Vimeo]

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Thursday Links: Everyone Hates the New Björk Retrospective

by The AFC Staff on March 5, 2015

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Björk’s MoMA retrospective reviews are coming in, and there’s not a soul who likes it. Even Flavorwire, the publication founded on the premise that good reviews are the only reviews worth publishing, gives it a thumbs down—and their reviewer liked David Bowie’s Is, one of the worst shows to ever grace museum walls. [Flavorwire]
The most satisfying read on the subject of MoMA’s Björk show, though, is Michael Miller’s takedown. Miller takes on MoMA/Klaus Biesenbach’s unabashed sycophantry for stars. The money quotes: “I felt sad and embarrassed leaving the museum. Embarrassed for Björk mostly, who deserved better than this, but also for MoMA….And the show is hardly a retrospective—it’s starfucking, something increasingly familiar at MoMA, and a failure even at that.” [Artnews]
Ever wondered just how frequently Jay Z and other hip-hop royalty rap about “Picasso,” “Basquiat,” and “Warhol”? Your answer, in the best chart of the day; it’s found in The Atlantic’s discussion on hip-hop’s misguided obsession with the art world. [The Atlantic]
Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics at New York University, pinpoints several reasons why the art market needs more regulation. The list follows comments made by Roubini on the art market at the 2015 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. [Economonitor via Julia Halperin]
Better late than never: Lockhart Steele’s Eater manifesto and blog-strategy is beautifully articulated. “What is it about blogs that caught on in the first place? It was that they catered to obsessions. Whether it’s a painting-your-toenails blog or it’s a blog about pizza, the idea is that you’re doing it about something that you’re really into. And I think now that our sites have all grown up, they’re not really blogs anymore—but they still are deeply obsessed publications.” [Lucky Peach]
Visitors to New York, beware! Manhole covers are exploding. And not just a little “boom”; they’re exploding at mushroom-cloud level. [Animal via ABC 7]
Until Tuesday, Printed Matter is hosting the 9th annual Japanese Young Artists’ Books Fair. Walk into Kinokuniya, St. Mark’s, Bookcourt, or PM’s own hub on 10th Ave and grab a new beautiful book by the likes of Yuriko Katori, Mior Kobayashi, Erica Suzuki, among others. [Printed Matter]
Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s billionaire-dad William has decided to donate his 3,500-piece art collection (approximately $50 million) to charity, after watching a particularly touching “60 Minutes” segment. That’s how you break the cycle of poverty. [Artforum]

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Tuesday Links: Don’t Let Grossmalerman Sell Meth

by Paddy Johnson Whitney Kimball and Corinna Kirsch on January 13, 2015

Grossmalerman making meth?

Guy Richards Smit needs $25K to finish Grossmalerman!, the sitcom about a sweaty, successful artist who paints vaginas and is haunted by Basquiat’s ghost. This season features Jibz Cameron, AKA Dynasty Handbag. [Kickstarter]
Sweden has made a catchy, bizarre sing-along music video for children that celebrates genitals. Even old lady vaginas are “elegant.” [Jezebel]
A police officer sidling off-camera. Heh heh. [@_youhadonejob]
An international round up of how artists get paid, by country. [The Guardian]
In an unattributed piece for artnet News that reads like a reblog of a story that ran in the New York Times this weekend, the author (Twitter presumes it’s Ben Genocchio) complains that the Brant Foundation can be given tax breaks for a museum that isn’t open to the public all-year long, and which has charitable activities including visits by Larry Gagosian. Well, it might not be fair, but it’s legal. [artnet News]
Fuck yeah, one of the first reviews I’ve enjoyed reading this year. Artist Lise Haller Baggesen, author of “Mothernism,” a pro-feminism, science fiction, and disco -ism that seeks to “locate the mother-shaped hole in contemporary art and discourse,” writes about visiting Olafur Eliasson’s “Riverbed” at the Louisiana Museum of Art in Denmark. Sometimes she’s poetic—”And when they were up they were up, and when they were down they were down, and when they were halfway up they were neither up nor down.”—but overall, Baggesen’s a good observer. At times imperfect, the essay is still more fun to read than most Artforum-style reviews. GOOD JOB. [Bad at Sports]
Love is an action. A thoughtful and touching account of what happened to the author when she answered psychologist Arthur Aron’s 36 questions with a potential partner. [The New York Times]
Debate over the new Charlie Hebdo cover, to be released tomorrow, a picture of Mohammed crying holding up a sign saying “All is forgiven.” @JulieHarden speculates that Mohammed would be crying knowing what happened because Mohammed is peaceful. [Twitter]
Video and exhibition documentation from an exhibition of work by the recently deceased artist Harun Farocki. He was extremely influential in the genre of essay films. [Contemporary Art Daily]
Artist Clayton Cubitt made videos of sexy women reading while getting stimulated under the table with a vibrator. Not fantastic art, but looks like a fun project! The videos went viral. Of course they did. [Clayton Cubitt via artnet News]
A montage of Satanic messages and sex hidden in Disney movies, to what sounds like an unfunny, crazy Bill Hicks rant. This comes with a ***huge*** disclaimer, but the montage is kinda convincing. [Please Kill Me]

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Wednesday Links: The Crazy-Pants Art World

by Paddy Johnson Whitney Kimball and Corinna Kirsch on January 22, 2014

An ode to Shia LaBeouf, a Transformers ice sculpture.

New York City’s been gifted with about a foot of snow, so it should come as no surprise that most of our links are about the cold, or the cold-hearted. Brrr.

As the protests in Kiev turned violent this weekend, the National Art Museum has asked protesters to keep fires out of the building: Protesters fighting Ukraine’s pro-Russian government lit a bonfire on the museum’s steps this weekend to stay warm. [The Art Newspaper]
It’s a sad day for the striving middle class; our favorite super-rich parody feed @NotLouiseBlouin has shut down. She/he has left us with a letter of solidarity:

You—the word-workers, the recently shitcanned, outsourced, underappreciated, under- or unpaid; the designers, publicists, programmers, salespeople who bear the real burden—deserve better than you’ve got. You deserve more than casual layoffs and a woman whose public pronouncements read like the worst of Thomas Friedman had been put into a blender, shat out by a robot, and glazed with the congealing crust of bipolar disorder. We may never be rich, but at least we’re not ridiculous. [NotLouiseBlouin on Tumblr]

Speaking of Louise Blouin, despite her net worth of $638 million, she owes some freelancers thousands of dollars in back pay. Freelance writer Carolina Miranda has instituted a “Blouin Shaming” program on Twitter, dedicated to spreading awareness about this woman’s shady business practices. Anyone else enjoy reading this crazy-pants Blouin email a second time? I know we have. [C-monstah]
Pussy Riot is coming to the U.S. for a fundraising concert for Amnesty International. [PleaseKillMe]
A pretty satisfying slideshow on guts, anatomy, and medieval medicine, as represented by art. [Hyperallergic]
The best freezer manual ever. [PBS via: @bitoclass]
Texas police officials release the worst sketch of a robbery suspect, possibly of all time—unless, of course, a Peanuts character went out on a mugging spree. I’m sure there’s some recent art school grads who could do a better job. [Metro]
This week in celebrity-and-art bullshit, actor Shia LaBeouf says his plagiarism, apology via Skywriter, and head-butt brawl were actually just a grand piece of performance art. LaBeouf indulges in my least favorite art cliche: “My actions are only as interesting as the conversations that come about as a result of them.” The implication here being that because people talked about it…the art must be good! [The Huffington Post]
What you should know about the recently opened Basquiat show at Suzanne Geiss, according to Gayletter: Full-frontal Basquiat photography. [Gayletter newsletter]
Can camp go through the mainstream and come out with something fresh? ← poop joke? That’s been up for debate with Glee and American Horror Story, but Amazon’s new Barbarella TV show should see this debate play all the way out to the end. [Vulture]

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