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brooklyn

Brace Yourselves: Saatchi Art Is Bringing The Other Art Fair To Brooklyn

by Michael Anthony Farley on May 10, 2017

We hope you aren’t sick of art fairs, because Brooklyn is about to get another one. The Other Art Fair, to be precise, courtesy of Saatchi Art.

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No Paintings for Old Men: I’m Done With Amy Feldman

by RM Vaughan on February 24, 2017

I have to hand it to NYC-based painter Amy Feldman: not every artist can cause me to temporarily lose the will to carry on writing and the energy to carry on chronicling our bankrupt, post-meaning culture. What, I wondered as I walked around the palatial Blain/Southern Gallery, is the damned point anymore? Confronted on all sides by Feldman’s aggressively vacuous, massive canvasses, I can’t even argue conclusively that Feldman’s work is good or bad. It operates so outside of any qualitative value scale that I understand—as if attacking the very idea of value—that it defeats all rational readings of art or art making. All I can do is respond. And respond I must.

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Monday Links: Pop Art for Republicans

by Michael Anthony Farley and Rea McNamara on November 2, 2015

Uh, is this from The Onion? Brace yourselves, art world, for “Pop Art, Politics & Jeb”—a fundraiser the Jeb Bush campaign is planning during Art Basel Miami Beach. To the event organizers: if you need a metaphor to tie Pop Art to the Bush Dynasty, we recommend Warhol’s “Car Crash” series. [Slate via ARTnews]

The Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce is concerned that the borough “suffers” from a lack of suburban “amenities” such as gas stations and big-box stores like Target. While we understand that man cannot survive on artisanal gluten-free cupcakes alone, encouraging the construction of space-intensive national chains and gas stations sounds like a terrible land-use strategy for a city already grappling with crises of real estate scarcity, small businesses being priced-out, and countless environmental problems. [Crain’s New York Business via Planetizen]

“Instead, what the Zweigs wanted—and what it seems like many of their new Hastings-neighbors, also all ‘escapees’ from Brooklyn wanted—was to live in a place where their wealth and whiteness protected and elevated them in the way that those qualities historically have, but don’t anymore in an expensive and gentrifying borough.” On how the “Goodbye to All That” personal essay reads as White Flight, Round Two. [Brooklyn Magazine]

Increasingly, wealthy collector/philanthropists are opting to donate artworks to hospitals, as opposed to museums. Part of the rationale: pieces end up being buried in the expansive collections of major museums and spend most of their lives in storage. [The Wall Street Journal]

Only in the art world can a Chelsea gallerist with a history of being sued by her artists and buyers re-emerge as a Lower East Side “cultural platform”. [BLOUIN ARTINFO]

The Detroit Institute for the Arts has received a $150,000 grant to digitize prints, drawings and photographs from the Museum’s collection. [Artforum]

Is our collective appreciation for “subtlety” a form of esoteric snobbery? Forrest Wickman argues that literature and art are more accessible and effective when the allusions are direct and the metaphors thinly-veiled. But aren’t “message movies” just so damn patronizing? Besides, if everything were obvious, art critics would be out of a job. [Slate]

Speaking of bluntness, ambiguity, and what we hope is cryptic misdirection: Gilbert and George discuss their new series of placards with messages like “Fuck the Planet”, their love of gentrification and David Cameron, and a lot of other weird shit. To be fair, some of the reasoning behind a few of their text pieces sounds legit, but it’s impossible to tell what’s sincere and what’s a “bad boy” act. [The Guardian]

After nearly four years of debate, the city council of Chicago has granted planning permission for George Lucas to build his new Museum of Narrative Art. The museums will hold Lucas’s own collection that includes everything from film memorabilia to Norman Rockwell paintings in one very ugly, very weird building. [Wired]

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Thursday Links: Brooklyn, 2019

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on August 20, 2015

According to a report by City Realty, Brooklyn’s skyline is well on its way to looking like the one Bruce Willis inhabits inThe Fifth Element. Over the next four years, Brooklyn is expected to add a much-needed 22,000 new apartments. Many of those will be in huuuuuuge towers. Scroll through the renderings, which predict a chain of high rises that stretches from Greenpoint to Prospect Heights. But as commenters pointed out, the borough would need to add 70,000 units each year to meet demand, so don’t expect too much relief from escalating housing costs. [Curbed]

On Nicki Minaj, Ovid, and the long history of men fucking statues. [The Guardian]

Vodka! Art! Millenials! Liquor brand Absolut is the internet’s newest art dealer. Why? But mostly, can you even imagine their Miami parties come December? [artnet News]

ISIS doesn’t fuck around. Khaled al-Asaad, the director general of the Palmyra Directorate of Antiquities and Museums from 1963 to 2003, was beheaded Tuesday by the group in Palmyra. He was 82 years old, and executed for refusing to give up the location of artifacts that were relocated from the city’s archaeological site and museum when ISIS invaded the city. Typically these treasures end up on the black market and are used to fund the group’s terrorist activities. Not to state the obvious, but these are terrible, terrible people. [Hyperallergic]

Russia’s right-wing Christians don’t fuck around either. The conservative group calling themselves “God’s Will” attacked the exhibition Sculptures We Don’t See in Moscow, destroying artworks they claim violated Putin’s strict censorship laws which prohibit “offending religious feelings”. ISIS would probably love Russia. [Artforum]

Related: the interview we’ve all been waiting for. Brooklyn artist Mark Porter discusses his infamous sculpture of Baphomet, which the Church of Satan has been using to protest in support of the separation of church and state. [Observer]

Molly Soda’s well-known, but does it benefit the artists to market the show she curated for Stream Gallery as though it were a solo show? The gallery’s called it “Molly Soda’s Same.” Anyway, Hyperallergic mostly panned the work in the show, which is about seeing yourself in other people’s images. The work is described as complacent, underdeveloped and self-indulgent—and worst of all, out of date. “Without an evolutionary push forward, perhaps by including other methods of production or reproduction more evocative of life online, the show feels a couple years too late.” [Hyperallergic]

Speaking of the evolution of net artists, is Wi-Fi screwing up your sperm? Have no fear, new underwear can protect your junk. [Dezeen]

Doesn’t the headline “Congolese artist who died of malaria to have solo show at London art fair” sound like someone died of malaria in order to have a solo show at a London art fair? At any rate, the Africa-focused fair 1:54 will be displaying photographs of Kinshasa by the tragically-deceased artist Kiripi Katembo. [The Art Newspaper]

A gallon of Canadian maple syrup is worth more than a barrel of crude oil. So, uh, Stephen Harper… why aren’t you planting more trees instead of digging up more tar sands? [The New York Times]

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Visualizing a Gentrifying Downtown Brooklyn

by Michael Anthony Farley on June 12, 2015

Four photographers look back—and forward—on Downtown Brooklyn’s rapid gentrification since 2010.

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With New York Affordable Housing Laws Set to Expire, Students and Residents Rally

by Paul Brown on May 29, 2015

“We don’t have time to be fractured in our response to gentrification,” said Rachel LaForest of the Right to the City Alliance in the opening remarks. “We need more than solidarity, we need strategy-building and action.’’

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A Summer Without Manhattan

by The AFC Staff on May 27, 2015

Over the next three months, Art F City will head to the outer boroughs for the type of art we like: weird and wonderful shit.

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Monday Links: Smile

by The AFC Staff on April 6, 2015

$Smile, crocodile. From Math Bass's "Newz!" series, 2014.$

Smile, crocodile. From Math Bass, the “Newz!” series, 2014.

A frog with a sad smile. [Imgur]
“Karen” is an app from British art collective Blast Theory that delivers life tips and heart-to-hearts directly to your smartphone. But be careful. Karen, the persona driving the app, whose personality and responses are customized according to the user’s personality, might just get a little too friendly. She’s programmed to overshare, and call at inappropriate hours. [The New York Times]
A case for art majors: you might not make buckets of money when you graduate, but according to a new study, you will get laid. [artnet News via The Tab]
Unsurprising, but postinternet art hasn’t hit Cambodia yet. Internet usage has not swelled as it has in the west, so that type of networked artwork doesn’t fit the mold there. How useful is the term, if it only applies to certain physical locations? [Rhizome]
Art as potential fodder for money laundering. “Unlike many other real assets, such as farmland or property, art is also movable, which is handy for buyers who do not plan to tell the taxman about it. It can be a relatively discreet way of investing, too: Christie’s arranged $916m of private purchases in 2014, compared with just $266m in 2009.” [The Economist]
The Big D gets a Big Sculpture Prize. Dallas’ Nasher Sculpture Center announced plans for the inaugural International Nasher Prize for Sculpture, a $100,000 prize awarded to “a living artist in recognition of a significant body of work.” The winner will be announced in fall 2015. [Glasstire]
Clinton on Clinton! Hillary Clinton has leased a campaign office at 1 Pierrepoint Plaza and the corner of Clinton Street. We care because this means that Clinton’s offices and AFC’s offices will be within walking distance of each other. Maybe we’ll see her out at Shake Shack? [The New York Times via Politico]
Journalists and editors, please check your facts with utmost diligence. Yesterday, Rolling Stone officially retracted “A Rape on Campus,” a story published in fall 2014 about an alleged rape at the University of Virginia. After suspicions arose around the details of the article, the magazine requested an independent report from Steve Coll, dean of the Columbia School of Journalism. What follows, in the link, is the Columbia report, whose writers find fault not just with the reporting, but with the magazine’s editors. “But the most egregious failures of transparency in ‘A Rape on Campus’ cannot be chalked up to writing style. They obfuscated important problems with the story’s reporting.” [Rolling Stone]

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Tuesday Links: Dr. Kanye

by Katie Waddell on March 17, 2015

Ten years after the debut of College Dropout, Kanye West announced that he will receive an honorary doctorate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago on May 5. While rumors of organized student protest abound, most SAIC students hope to interrupt the ceremony and insist that Beyonce was the one who really deserved the award. [Editor’s note: As an alum of SAIC, I am offended that tuition will go towards this nonsense. [Consequence of Sound via Clique]
Happy drunkest day of the year, friends! A Chicago resident live-blogged snippets from a local police scanner over the weekend, documenting the horrors of St. Patty’s Day revelry. The result? A laundry list of gun threats, McDonald’s brawls, and arrests before the end of brunch. [BroBible via Crime in Boystown]
Check out 0p3nr3p0, an open-source, open-ended database specifically for hackers, glitch, and digital-media artists. It’s a part of NetArtizens Open Online Exhibition, an evolving online exhibition spanning three platforms. Take a look, or submit work before April 2 to participate. [Netartizens]
Underappreciated folk critic? Attention-seeking provocateur? Sell-out? Capital offers this meditation on the controversial career (and antics) of Jerry Saltz. [Capital]
For those of you who just can’t fingerpaint or nap without permission, fear not! Brooklynite Michelle Joni Lapidos will gladly charge you $333 or more for the privilege. Her adult pre-school encourages hardened New Yorkers to re-discover their inner children through dress-ups and sleepovers. So, it’s pretty much a standard Saturday night, but with crayons. [Gothamist]
The female:pressure Tumblr offers a visual survey of women in the music business working the other end of the mic. Much credit is due to Bjork—the Tumblr responds to her call for more documentation of women working the production side of the music industry. [Flavorwire via female:pressure]
Threewalls announced the release of The Tabletop Collection. This edition of the Community Supported Art Chicago program features five limited-edition artworks by Chicago-based artists Sabina Ott, Julia Klein, Laura Davis, Stephen Reber, and Assaff Evron. Their small apartment-friendly works re-imagine the sculpture garden, if sculpture gardens were the size of a bookshelf or tabletop. [Threewalls]

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AFC Guide to Public Art: When an 800-Person Band Ruled Brooklyn

by Corinna Kirsch on January 30, 2015

Brooklyn the Unknowable—never a better way to describe the motley borough. With that in mind, I wondered why Prospect Park has a bust of Mozart.

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