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Ben Davis

Tuesday Links: Writers Explain Why Everyone Else is Wrong

by Whitney Kimball on January 15, 2013
  • Ben Davis doesn’t want to write another piece about the poisonous art market, but he believes it’s his responsibility, so he’s doing it. We’re glad he did. He singles out the big three that are ruining art for everybody: unsustainable contradictions (often, artists making wink art about money) inequality, and terrible people. “…personally, I feel that art is too important to become PR for tycoons,” he writes, “no matter how much they want to pay to make it so.” Amen, brother. [ARTinfo]
  • That Davis quote reminds us of a Bob Nickas quote tweeted by Karen Archey over the weekend. “Wealthy and powerful people—and boring people, and famous people—use art and artists to legitimize themselves.” [VICE]
  • 18 human heads found in box at the airport, only Gawker seems to notice that that’s weird. [Gawker]
  • Painting needs some categories in order to go anywhere, so writer Richard Kalina has made some. Basically, they are “mimetic” and “abstract.” [Brooklyn Rail]
  •  Remember when the Armory show was a shocking event? Neither do we, but this WNYC episode describes how the art there once helped the plunge into “absolute chaos and nightmare.” [WNYC]
  •  Erin Kissane does a good job of explaining why the Atlantic was wrong to run a sponsored article for Scientology. [Incisive.nu]
  •  Facebook just announced the new “graph search” feature that answers Facebook-specific questions like “restaurants my friends have been to” and “photos I’ve liked.” [CBS]
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The Art Fag City Rob Pruitt Art Awards and Auction* in Pictures

by Will Brand and Paddy Johnson on February 28, 2012
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Thursday’s Art Fag City Rob Pruitt Art Awards and Auction* at Site/109 was a screaming success and we’ve got just under a hundred pictures to prove it.

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The Year in Brief: Good Riddance To Mainstream Media

by Whitney Kimball on December 30, 2011
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John Hockenberry, Jim VandeHei, Michael Wolff debate “Good Riddance to Mainstream Media” against Katrina vanden Heuvel, David Carr, and Phil Bronstein. This may not have been the groundbreaking internet video of 2011, but I thought about it often while reading this year’s (albeit art) internet highlights.

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Thursday Links!

by Paddy Johnson on October 27, 2011

  • ArtForum’s Ben Carlson gets it from Greg Allen, who mysteriously believes that reviews should discuss the work, not auction prices. Jacob Kassay at L&M Arts doesn’t get much of a review. [Greg.org]
  • Ai Weiwei re-imagines his time in custody as a fashion shoot for W Magazine. The magazine describes he documentary-style pictures he took of the 1988 riots in Tompkins Square Park as a touchstone. [W Magazine]
  • Charlie Finch suggests a few places to Occupy: Trump is a good one. So is Marina Abramovic. [artnet]
  • “All of our grievances are connected”: A visualization of the crap the Occupy Wall Street folk don’t like Loren Munk style. [Hyperallergic]
  • The term “micro-celebrity” came out a livejournal entry on camgirls. [Rhizome]
  • Reminder: The Chocolate Fair runs November 10-13 in NYC. Eat. [The Chocolate Show]
  • Ben Davis compares Occupy Wall Street to the Art Workers’ Coalition in an essay about why he supports Occupy Museums. [ArtInfo]
  • In overdue corrections: A while back I wrote that Tom Moody was complaining about how rants were disappearing on blogs and comment sections. Not so. Tom Moody says he was lamenting the disappearance of ranting in the blogosphere because of the comment sections of blogs. In his words, “In a post you can be a fiery orator but then in the comments you are supposed to make nice and listen to what people are saying.” Facebook likes etc are making people be nicer.  [Tom Moody]
  • Rafaël Rozendaal has a seven day show up at With Project Space worth checking out. Open through Oct. 30. [RR]
  • Word to the wise: Uniqlo’s 10 dollar pants are not available at their SoHo location. That intrepid reporting courtesy of yours truly. [Art Fag City original story]
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