Posts tagged as:

Damien Hirst

Wednesday Links: Happy Canada Day!

GIF by Stephanie Davidson

It’s Canada Day!
Move over, ISIS. Russian militants have attacked a contemporary art center in the Ukraine and destroyed artwork by the likes of Daniel Buren. Most dramatically, the rebels blew up a smokestack that had been crowned with a giant tube of lipstick by the sculptor Pascale Marthine Tayou. There’s a great GIF involved. [Hyperallergic]
Jean Nouvel, the architect behind the upcoming MoMA tower, “ is more than a designer of buildings; he’s a curator of French architecture’s cultural ambitions.” He’s such a celebrity, young women are thrilled to have him spill champagne in their laps, apparently. [New York Magazine]
The Independent Art Fair is moving to TriBeCa. The show has taken place in the former Dia building in Chelsea. That location was problematic, as we witnessed at Select Fair this year, and is being demolished to make way for luxury condos anyway. [The New York Times]
We were warned, and clicked on the headline “You Can’t Unread this Anecdote about Damien Hirst’s Foreskin” anyway. [ARTnews via The Guardian]
A glorious picture of Donald Trump getting his rage on. He’s suing Univision for severing ties with Trump after he made derogatory statements about Mexicans. Honest question: Is there a bigger asshole in America than Donald Trump? [The Wrap via: Heartasarena]
Ancient Egyptians mummified 8,000,000 dogs. [artnet News]
Seven new museums, their square footage, and their cost. For the uber art nerd. [ARTnews]
The Smithsonian is using 3D printing to produce replicas of human skulls for their exhibition Exploring Human Origins which will launch in 2017. A mediation on the benefits of accessibility versus the aura of authenticity. [The Atlantic]
Greece’s economic woes have made Athens real estate affordable to artists. This factor, as well as the fertile conceptual ground opened up by the country’s socio-political tumult are making the city increasingly attractive to creative types. If New York rents keep rising, everyone should move farther East than Ridgewood. [The New York Times]

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Recommended Shows: Jen and Paul’s One-Stop Souvenir City and Chelsea Bus Tours

by Whitney Kimball on October 1, 2014

Suck it, Chelsea.

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Friday Links: Utopia Is Dead, But a Bush Grows Back

by Henry Kaye and Whitney Kimball on August 22, 2014

Inspired by the new Fox reality show “Utopia”, Adam Sternbegh wonders if we’ve binged out on so much dystopia that we can’t handle the genre any more. (The actual show looks like a set up for something like “Sex House“). Seems unlikely, since sincere belief in Utopia right now makes you either a cult leader or a creepy Silicon Valley exec. But still, Sternbergh would still like to see the genre make a comeback. [New York Magazine]
Damien Hirst is exceptionally fancy. He has enough castles now to fill a slideshow. [artnet News]
George Lawler knew his father robbed a bank at gunpoint, but had no idea he was a muse for Andy Warhol. He found out only after reading a review of the recent show at the Queens Museum, 13 Most Wanted Men: Andy Warhol and the 1964 World’s Fair. This New York Times piece is basically just PR for the show, but there are some good quotes. Mainly, Lawler’s depressing realization at the end of the piece: “Wasn’t it Andy Warhol who said everyone will have their 15 minutes of fame? Here’s mine, I guess.” [The New York Times]
Clay Shirky on the inevitable death of print media: “The future of print remains what? Try to imagine a world where the future of print is unclear: Maybe 25 year olds will start demanding news from yesterday, delivered in an unshareable format once a day. Perhaps advertisers will decide ‘Click to buy’ is for wimps. Mobile phones: could be a fad. After all, anything could happen with print. Hard to tell, really. Meanwhile, back in the treasurer’s office, have a look at this chart.” [Medium]
Journalistic nightmare alert: Don Lemon’s Ferguson interview with Talib Kweli goes so so wrong at around 2 minutes in. [Gawker]
Astrophysicists can date paintings to the minute. Only the first sentence of this article is amusing. What follows is a lesson on the fluidity of art “movements.” We’d be snarky, but we’ve already given Jonathan Jones enough shit. [The Guardian]
Folksy drawings of whale revenge. [The Atlantic]
Speaking of whale revenge, a video of a fish eating a shark. [Gawker]
A thousandth nail in the coffin of Williamsburg culture. Mr. Brainwash is making murals for real estate development LCOR now, which, if you’ve ever seen Exit Through The Gift Shop, should come as no surprise. Inspiration seems to stem entirely from Starbucks decor. A plague on all your houses. [Buzz Buzz]
Jerry Saltz wants the bush to come back. A reference to Marilyn Minter’s campaign or just a general inclination? Either way, we can get behind it. [Twitter]
Christo is planning a large scale project on the Arkansas River in Colorado. Know what he wants to do to it? Cover it in fabric, six miles of fabric. [Artnet News]
Time to pay the piper, Internet. Twitter is on its way to Facebook-level suckage. “What Twitter is doing at the moment is testing us to see how much extra pain we’re willing to tolerate,” Vlad Savov observes of the paid-for content, promoted tweets, and profile redesigns. And then that’ll just be our lives forever. [The Verge]

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Wednesday Links: Dumb, Dumb, and Dumber

by Paddy Johnson Henry Kaye Andrew Wagner on July 16, 2014

Dumb, Dumb and Dumber, Exhibit A: Damien Hirst’s Rosary.

FIFA claims that 12% of the worlds population (or 900 million people) watched at least some of the World Cup final. Novelist Teju Cole, designer Jeb Thorpe, and artist Mario Klingemann created a time-based collage of photos of the game posted to twitter, each photo layered on top of the next so the TV consistently falls at the same place on the screen. This is a terrible project. Aesthetically, the only device used is the light of the TV as an anchor—which it already is—and a photoshop transparency filter to show the multitudes of people watching at the same time. This is a study in sameness. [The Atlantic]
As if the Jeff Koons H&M bag wasn’t enough: Damien Hirst starts a jewellery line. One of the pieces? A rosary with a golden pill instead of a crucifix. [Artnet]
Speaking of Damien Hirst, cutting out a site-specific Damien Hirst dot painting from the wall, does not mean you own it. “The ownership of a wall painting in the series titled Wall Spots always resides with the owner of the Wall Spots signed certificate, which accompanies the art work.” [Animal New York]
Carolina Miranda says the 9/11 Museum doesn’t give you any place to be alone with your thoughts, a quality in direct contrast with September 11th, which turned NYC into a stony silent city. [Culture: High & Low]
Creative Time is hiring an Editorial Fellow to work run their Creative Time Reports blog. Debate on twitter rages over whether a Art History, Journalism or other related MA or PhD, PhD should be strongly preferred for a salary of 40K a year. (The consensus appears to be that at least the PHD should be a “no”.) And yet, Creative Time’s numbers aren’t that far out of line with the mandated NIH post-doc salaries. Basically, Creative Time will pay a fellow $5000 less than medical researchers over the course of two years. [NYFA Classifieds]
The Moscow Museum of Modern Art is offering a glimpse of the Russian Government and its art in their show “The Art Collection of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.” expect extreme Russian nationalism and paintings of wistful soldiers holding giant guns. [Artnet]
Anti-immigrant graffiti sparks supremely dumb debate (if you can even call it that). [Gawker]
Today in very large numbers: Christie’s sells $4.5 billion in art in the first half of 2014. It’s hard to be surprised anymore by the fact that, indeed, auction houses bring in a ton of money. But this seems noteworthy; Sales are up 22% from the same period last year. Will growth this exponential be sustainable? [The Wall Street Journal]
Derek Thompson at The Atlantic claims that Millennial’s political views “don’t make any sense.” [The Atlantic]

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Wednesday Links: I Want to Show That the Public Can Actually Kill You

by Paddy Johnson Henry Kaye Corinna Kirsch on June 11, 2014

Peter Doig, “Country Rock (Wing-Mirror)

It’s official! Senator Ted Cruz’s application to revoke his Canadian citizenship has been approved. [New York Magazine]
This morning, online editions vendor Artspace announced plans for hosting online auctions. For these upcoming livestream events, they’re soliciting artwork from their newsletter subscribers. Free appraisals, anyone? [Artspace]
Proof that art listicles can be done well: “Western Art History: 500 Years of Women Ignoring Men.” [The Toast]
In the world of politics: Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was unexpectedly defeated in the primaries by David Brat, a candidate to the right of him. Speculation is that Cantor’s more “moderate” position on immigration did him in. Here’s how Brat won. [Politico ]
Shootings are up in NYC by more than 10 percent this year, and by 31.6 percent when comparing a 28-day period. No cause for the increase has been cited. [The Wall Street Journal]
Yes, your RSS feed is down. Feedly has been hacked. “The attacker is trying to extort us money to make it stop,” wrote a Feedly representative in a blog post this morning. [BBC]
Why does Marina Abramovic make performance art? “I want to show that the public actually can kill you,” she told the BBC Radio 4’s Will Gompertz. How much punch does she drink? [The Washington Post]
Everyone on the Internet’s hedging their bets that Scottish expat Peter Doig will take over Damien Hirst’s position as the most expensive living artist at auction. His painting “Country Rock (Wing-Mirror)” goes on the auction block at Sotheby’s later this month. [The Telegraph]
New York City has been ordered to pay a $600,000 suit that accuses officers of falsely arresting Occupy Wall Street protesters who were walking on the sidewalk. [The New York Times]
Studies prove it: Internet trolls are horrible people offline too. [Slate]
What the hell is going on at The Washington Post? Here’s an editorial that talks about how married women are safer than unmarried women. Here’s an editorial that talks about the “supposed campus epidemic of rape” which, according to George Will simply makes victimhood coveted. How did this stuff get published? [The Li.st]

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Hans-Ulrich Obrist’s New Do It Video Tells You to Do It With Social Media

by Corinna Kirsch on April 29, 2014

But why should we do it?

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Thursday Links: Let’s Celebrate Purchases by The World’s Richest

by Paddy Johnson and Corinna Kirsch on April 10, 2014

“Remember, in addition to oil and canvas, it took capitalism to put that picture on the wall.” That quote comes from our nominee for the worst article about art you’ll read this week, month, or even this year. “The Art World Tells Us Much About the Value of Wealth” talks about why it’s a good thing that the world’s richest purchase work made by only a handful of artists. It’s full of untruths like most artists don’t get rich because they’re “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Our favorite: “What is interesting is that there isn’t a hue and cry about how ‘unfair’ this is.” I guess he’s never read Art F City! [Entrepreneur Magazine]
Protests are happening today: Protest the Chinese government’s decision to withhold artist Ai Weiwei’s passport at the Brooklyn Public Library or protest Chelsea’s rising rents at the High Line. To each their own. [PEN American Center, City Room]
The Judd Foundation now offers free tours for artists (on Fridays at 11:00 AM). That’s smart because everyone knows that artists don’t work real jobs and should have no problem scooting on down to Soho during the day. [The Judd Foundation]
Random YouTube vids. [World of Random]
My Art Invest lets you invest in art for as little as £5 per share (most artworks are divvied up into 100 shares). But we wonder, what’s the value in having 1/100 a share of a Banksy? [The Art Newspaper]
Artist Theaster Gates and the Elastic Arts Foundation are going to open up a cafe and bar in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago. [Chicago Business]
Beware of the dabbler. A Florida pastor who deals art on the side has been convicted of trying to sell five fake Damien Hirsts to an undercover police officer. [The New York Times]
Edward Winkleman tells Artnet he’s looking for spaces on 57th and the Upper East Side in a larger piece about middle tier galleries. Winkleman worries that if blue chip galleries continue to peel off the best selling artists from middle tier and emerging galleries, and those galleries never see a return on their investment, the whole system is in jeopardy. [Artnet]

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Tuesday Links: A Sober Review

by Paddy Johnson and Whitney Kimball on April 8, 2014

Image from Wikipedia

Bar none, the best response we’ve seen to George W. Bush’s paintings:

Why do they exist? Why are they being exhibited? How are they being used and discussed? Why do they matter?

I think the simplest answer for why George W. Bush started painting is because he has nothing else to do. Bush is toxic and unemployable as a political figure. He can’t campaign for Republicans, can’t talk on television about anything important, can’t give speeches for money, can’t write memoirs, can’t travel to certain countries where he runs the hypothetical risk of getting arrested for war crimes. Painting is a harmless and respectable pursuit that offers an aura of cultured acceptability….

This is as good a time as any to point out that Bush painted his portraits, not just from photographs–a common enough practice as well as a long-established contemporary, conceptual strategy, though I think only the former pertains here–but from the top search result on Google Images. Many photos were taken from the subject’s Wikipedia entry. Bush based his paintings on the literally first-to-surface, easiest-to-find photos of his subjects.

Is this meaningful in any way? If he had one, it would mean Bush’s studio assistant is very, very lazy. [Greg.org]

Maybe we would talk more about Bush’s record if we called that art, too. Allen continues:

Ironically, there is even more important art buried within the Senate’s trove of classified CIA documents. And as Bush was being interviewed by his daughter on NBC, these other artworks were still being actively suppressed. Jason Leopold and Al Jazeera reported that the Senate report contains detailed sketches of waterboarding by Abu Zubaydah, a senior Al Qaeda leader imprisoned at Guantanamo….Since the CIA illegally destroyed its own waterboarding videotapes in 2005, these drawings may be the most powerful visual evidence of the torture regime we have left. [Greg.org]

The Broads buy Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Room. [The New York Times]
MoMA sets the wheels in motion to demolish the Folk Art Museum. [Commercial Observer]
This is New York winter porn: Moby’s new music video shows a Lower East Side rat crawling into a guy’s luggage and traveling to a warm, sunny beach. A metaphor? [Bowery Boogie]
The Damien Hirst autobiography is coming. [The Art Newspaper]
Peter Matthiessen, a founding editor of The Paris Review, died last weekend. The Paris Review has published his Art of Fiction interview. [The Paris Review]
Actor Mickey Rooney has died. [AP]
Koch Industries may hold the most net acreage in leases of the Canadian oil sands, which means they’d have the most to gain from the Keystone Pipeline. Time to stop buying Angel Soft toilet paper, I guess. [Washington Post]

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Looking Back at Dream Exhibitions Version 1.0

by Corinna Kirsch on March 18, 2014

Looking back at the first edition of Dream Exhibitions, several trends ended up popping up like persistent gophers.

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Monday Links: This Cucumber Isn’t a Cucumber

by Paddy Johnson and Corinna Kirsch on March 10, 2014

“It’s not what it seems” by artist Hikaru Cho.

Good morning and welcome to your first art fair-free day of the week! To celebrate we wrote up a link list.

Trompe l’oeil food painting. This cucumber is really a banana! [This is Colossal]
The BBC has created a text-based video game based on the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. This is to celebrate the novel’s 40th anniversary. [BBC]
The New York Times picks up the Industry City beat; they interview several artists, including Tamara Zahaykevich of the Artist Studio Affordability Project, about the neverending search for reasonably priced studio space. Apparently, many artists who were at Industry City can’t find a good new studio. [The New York Times]
A United States weapons firm is in trouble with Italy’s Minister of Culture. ArmaLite, Inc. created a newspaper advertisement showing Michelangelo’s David holding a AR-50A1 rifle. Government officials claim this is illegal and offensive. (The Italian government holds copyright over David’s image.) [The Mirror]
New artist trend: Getting kicked off of Instagram, then getting back on again a day later. New York Magazine talks to artist Richard Prince about what that was like; he was kicked off for posting a picture of his Brooke Shields. [Vulture]
Maryam Banikarim talks to six Silicon Alley (1.0) founders now. They reflect on the what the web was like then and now. “Suits” are described as having been interested in “risk assessment”. [Fast Company]
Hirst has announced that he intends to write an autobiography, but admits he no longer remembers his twenties due to a life of excess. We’re surprised (and doubtful) that he’s only lost a decade. [The Guardian]
A screed on what makes good photojournalism: pictures that don’t just confirm or corroborate some existing piece of knowledge, but actually advance our understanding. The examples of “good” news photos and paintings are limited to leaders playing with kids, but it’s a good piece regardless. [The Philosophers’ Mail]

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Wednesday Links: Dumb, Dumb, and Dumber

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