Posts tagged as:

Kanye West

Tuesday Links: Best Places to Cry in Public

by Michael Anthony Farley on June 6, 2017

Very useful: a map of all the best places to cry in public around the city. [Curbed]
Israel’s oldest art school, the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, is moving into a new SANAA-designed campus in Jerusalem. [The Jerusalem Post]
A Takashi Murakami show opens today at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Takashi Murakami: The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg is a retrospective that spans five decades of the artist’s career, but based on nearly all of the promotion and media attention, you would think the focus of this show is Murakami’s collaborations with Kanye West. Seriously, the way people talk about this makes it seem like Murakami was some obscure unknown that West “discovered” and brought to the masses, rather than an art star he hitched his brand wagon to. Ugh. [Chicago Tribune]
Strange New York story of the day: Laura Murray, a struggling SVA grad who was surviving by drawing portraits of tourists, was mugged in 2012 and drew a sketch of her attacker. The cops caught him based on her drawing, and now she’s pursuing a career as a courtroom artist. [New York Post]
Here’s a comic about the most annoying child of hippies coming to an art opening in San Francisco. [The Bold Italic]
China Guardian is opening a combination art museum/auction house in Beijing. So much for pretending museums and the market weren’t too close for comfort! The building, designed by Büro Ole Scheeren also contains a hotel. [Dezeen]
From Banksy’s ill-conceived print giveaway to Jeremy Deller’s wheatpastes, British artists are responding in all sorts of ways to the upcoming election. Basically, everyone in the art world is hoping to oust Theresa May. Poor Grayson Perry had planned a solo show opening at the Serpentine Gallery on the 8th. Now that’s election day, and his show about post-Brexit identity and division has taken on an added gravity. [artnet News]

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Monday Links: I Never Want to Hear the Words Kanye and Art Used Together Again.

by Paddy Johnson on September 19, 2016

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Is there a more self-obsessed and conceited rapper than Kanye West? He’s joined Instagram and calls it “his art”. It’s bad enough that West joining Instagram is deemed news, but to discuss this as art—as if there’s some higher import to joining a social network—is just lunacy. [Dazed]

I’m probably looking forward to the Kerry James Marshall retrospective more than any other show this fall. Randy Kennedy’s profile of the artist begins with Marshall showing him a bin of bobble head dolls, which he uses to work from because he says they’re very accurate and live models are a pain. Artistic ingenuity makes me happy. Marshall’s paintings build “a sturdy bridge for figurative painting from the 15th century to ours” writes Kennedy. [The New York Times]

Performance Research is seeking contributions that address maternal aesthetics, ethics, politics, labour and care, as well as questions of inter/trans/subjectivity. Deadline is today. [Performance Research]

T.O.P, a member of the K-Pop group Big Bang will curate a Sotheby’s Charity auction to support, The Asian Cultural Council, a nonprofit foundation engaged in fostering economically struggling young art talent in Asia. We learn about the charity six paragraphs into the news story. [Korea Herald]

Artist Michael Mandiberg will open a show on the eighth anniversary of Lehman Brother’s collapse. He’s laser cutting the logos of failed banks onto discarded books about finance. [The New Yorker]

William Louis-Dreyfus, the French-born billionaire collector and philanthropist has died at the age of 86. [artnet News]

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Friday Links: Brooklyn Museum, Vanessa Beecroft Unsurprisingly Court Respective Controversies

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on September 9, 2016

Vanessa Beecroft Kanye

The Brooklyn Museum has named David Berliner president and chief operating officer. Given the museum’s PR problem with accusations of being pro-developer (and by extension, pro-gentrification) this is an odd choice. Berliner served previously as the chief operating officer of Forest City Ratner Companies, the developers who controversially created Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park using eminent domain to displace residents. [ARTnews]

Wow. Kanye West and Vanessa Beecroft can’t seem to stop doing controversial/dumb things. For their latest collaboration, they left models (“multi-racial women only”) standing for hours in the blistering sun on Roosevelt Island for so long that several women fainted and audience members (not production crew) felt so bad that they brought them bottles of water. Why? According to Beecroft, “The long wait before, I believe it was planned because [West] wanted the audience to get into this state of having to observe and having to stay.” [artnet News]

As New York rents skyrocket, in conjunction with higher labor and food costs, the city is hemorrhaging restaurants. Chefs are instead heading to midwestern cities to open places that can afford a “neighborhood” feel or culinary risk-taking. Meanwhile, landlords are ending up with vacant retail space or some combination of banks and Duane Reade locations. [Food Republic]

This post’s title-“Time to Let People Decide if 9/11 Sculpture is Art or Exploitation”-is pure click bait but the post isn’t. Reading through the article we watch the writer cite her own past criticisms of Eric Fischl’s sculpture back in 2002, Eric Fischl’s response years later and her reassessment of her position now. It’s rare to see that kind of bravery in writers. [The New York Post]

In other WTC news, a design has at last been chosen for the complex’s performing arts center. The winning proposal comes from Brooklyn-based firm REX, headed by former OMA architect Joshua Prince-Ramus (who spearheaded the famed Seattle Central Library alongside Rem Koolhaas). It’s a translucent marble box that slightly recalls OMA’s Casa da Musica, or perhaps I.M. Pei’s East Gallery. Those buildings are successful because they feel sturdy, timeless, and permanent yet lightweight and welcoming (as opposed to the 1 World Trade Center tower) and the performing arts center looks to hit those same notes. [Curbed]

It only took three weeks for New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Councilman Jimmy Van Bremer to sit down for the meeting de Blasio promised in their latest skirmish over affordable housing, but it happened. Van Bremer has not backed down on his position that the so-called affordable housing at Phipps House slated for Queens is not a good idea. Now, a coalition of nearly a dozen community and arts organizations (Art F City included) will hold a summit on Sunday, Sept. 18, to discuss the Phipps Houses plan, the overdevelopment of western Queens and the SBJSA. [Times Ledger]

Not so sure about the photos on this site, but what the hell: YaPhoto is a new photography platform that’s launched in Cameroon with the mission of promoting an emerging community of Cameroonian photographers. [YaPhoto]

Art Basel has announced Buenos Aires as its first partner in the vaguely-defined Art Basel Cities Initiative. This is intended to “develop a program of cultural events designed to celebrate the city’s vibrant arts scene and raise its profile in the international art world as part of its economic development.” [Miami Herald]

We’ve never heard Joan Semmel’s theory that feminism comes into fashion when the market is down, because women’s art is less expensive. We’re not sure how this theory follows the rules of supply and demand. Art market experts, is this true? Anyway, an interview with painter and feminist Joan Semmel. [Hyperallergic]

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Tuesday Links: Karl Lagerfeld’s $3,323 Colored Pencils

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on September 6, 2016

The KARLBOX from Faber-Castell.

The New York Times profiles Participant Inc founder Lia Gangitano. Why can’t everyone in the art world be this cool? [The New York Times]

Want to spend over $3,000 on drawing supplies? Try the KARLBOX. It’s a collaboration between Karl Lagerfeld and Faber-Castell and it’s just as ridiculous as it sounds. [CNN]

Laurie Simmons made a film called My Art, which seems vaguely-autobiographical and really, really bad. [The Hollywood Reporter]

A Menashe Kadishman sculpture in suburban Tel Aviv, Birth, has become a bizarre site of pilgrimage for Orthodox women who sit on it and pray for fertility. They claim the artwork has mystical powers, which is probably one of the most unique public receptions to a piece of contemporary sculpture. [artnet News]

According to the rumor mill, the new iPhone won’t have a headphone jack but it will be waterproof. Are that many people dropping their phones in the toilet? [The New York Times]

A battery operated sculpture featured in a Kanye West video that features 12 naked pop stars and political figures in bed together including Taylor Swift and Donald Trump does not cost 4 million dollars. The sculpture, currently on view at Blum & Poe in Culver City, was early reported by the Times to be for sale, but now the gallery press representative claims the piece is not for sale. Unless, of course, the right buyer comes along. We’re just going to go ahead and speculate that West, a self-described genius, is waffling on the sales strategy and price. [The Los Angeles Times]

For those who thought that the Gawker suit was a one off case: Roger Ailes is hinting at a suit against New York Magazine for their feature on him and the long history of sexual harassment allegations that have followed his career. He’s retained Charles J. Harder for the case, the lawyer funded by Peter Thiel for the Hogan Gawker case. [Politico]

Because of heightened security surrounding the US Open tennis championships, the neighboring Queens Museum has decided to close until 9/11. This sucks. [ARTnews]

Iceland is home to lots of utopian-looking modernist churches. Combined with the stark landscape, these would be great locations for a sci-fi movie. [Dezeen]

Developers Henderson Land are building a 24-story building in Hong Kong with the goal of leasing to high-end gallerists looking for quality exhibition space. Hong Kong has a notorious property shortage, particularly spaces suitable for art galleries. The new building has high ceilings and a crane for moving artwork, and tenants such as David Zwirner and Pace have already signed on. [Financial Times]

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Vanessa Beecroft Continues to Prove She Doesn’t Deserve Comparison With Rachel Dolezal

by Michael Anthony Farley and Corinna Kirsch on August 9, 2016

We were going to write a blog post titled “Vanessa Beecroft is the Rachel Dolezal of the Art World” and then realized what an unfair comparison that is. Beecroft’s appropriations of blackness are so, so much worse. This is not a post about stupid things someone has said once, twice, or in the case of Beecroft, many, many times. This is a post about how systemic racism cannot be wished away: “If I don’t call myself white, maybe I am not,” says Beecroft in “The Bodies Artist,” a profile published online today on the Cut.

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Friday Links: The Washing Machine Tour

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on February 19, 2016

A Chagall inspired fan art rendering of Barack Obama we found randomly on the web yesterday

Planners of Brooklyn’s future streetcar can look to New Jersey for lessons in what does and doesn’t work in the realm of surface transit. Long story short: trains are good. Trains running in mixed traffic with cars are bad. [The New York Times]

Italian businessman Renato Bialetti made a fortune from the iconic Moka coffee pot—a 20th Century design classic. Fittingly, he was just cremated and buried in one. [Quartz]

In other appliance news: Matmos has released a single-track album comprising manipulated sounds from their washing machine. And they’re taking their washing machine on tour. [Artforum]

Pixelated motels, digitally-printed blankets, and an alternative biography of mad artist Frenhofer are some of the fetish-inspired pieces at Springsteen Gallery’s exhibition Ready to Drop from Bradford Kessler, Body by Body and Erin Jane Nelson. This looks so good. [FLuXO]

Here’s a guide to the infuriating process of applying for a US artist visa. Some highlights: “It can take as little as 10 days and up to six months to approve the application. But to expedite it, you can pay an additional fee and expect to hear back within 15 days. But that will cost you an additional $1,225, plus the regular filing fee of $325” and “The people who are actually looking are not in the arts industry. So they might apply arbitrary standards… Well-known shows like ‘America’s Got Talent’ or ‘American Idol’ can make a difference, even if you didn’t make it as a finalist. It’s the name value that counts. ‘They see Chris Brown and Rihanna and that raises the approvability, even if they are a minor background dancer. If you can show that you have associated yourself with big names in the mainstream, you are better off than if you have played a bigger role in a no-name production.’” [Blouin Artinfo]

Editor’s note: I recall the first words of my lawyer when I spoke to him about the process of applying for a green card. “Think of it, like buying a car.” he told me. What went unsaid, of course, was that unlike a car, which you can drive out of the dealership as soon as you’ve put some money down, there’s no guarantee spending money on a green card will get it approved. It’s at least a year of living in fear.

New York City is looking to use many of the vacant lots it owns as plots for affordable housing. According to the audit there are 1,131 lots to be assessed and they could add as many as 57,000 units to the city. Many of these plots have issues—flooding, inadequate access to public transportation, etc, but it’s still a step in the right direction, at least in theory. [Curbed]

Related news: de Blasio’s rezoning plan to create more “affordable” housing units will be disastrous for the city’s poorest residents. “84 percent of residents in East New York—the first neighborhood to be rezoned under the city’s proposal—will be unable to afford the market rate housing units proposed under the rezoning, and 55 percent will be unable to afford the “affordable units” based on the proposal’s income requirements.” [In These Times]

A look at some crazy modern home designs that were never built. [Hyperallergic]

Vanessa Beecroft has left the art world entirely to create work for and with Kanye West. Nate Freeman thinks her work is better for it, because the work needs “someone like Kanye”. Not sure what those qualities are, but the article is a good read regardless, because for once Beecroft doesn’t read like an insufferable narcissist oblivious to her own racism. [Artnews]

Artists and gallerists participating in Material Art Fair were given disposable cameras to document their experiences. The results? Evidence that everyone was partying much harder than we were! [VICE]

Chances are you’ve seen a picture of Ariane—the ubiquitous, ethnically ambiguous stock photo model known for her smile and cult following—at least once today. Now, read about her life and fitness regime. [Women’s Running]

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Tuesday Links: Alphabetization™

by Michael Anthony Farley Corinna Kirsch Rea McNamara on August 11, 2015

Image Credit: thenextweb.com

How to be a DIY cyborg, from 2013. [Slate]
Gagosian Gallery is now representing the estate of Nam June Paik. The representation was initiated by its Hong Kong gallery staff, and will coincide with a fall exhibition there focusing on his later works. The move is obviously a huge blow to James Cohan Gallery, who originally represented the video art pioneer. [Art Newspaper]
On the Alphabetization of Google from a venture capitalist: “The way I see it, Google is the cash cow that finances all the big bets Larry and Sergey are making inside Alphabet…For $445bn, you get $70bn of cash, Google, which does $70bn of revenue and produces $20bn of operating cash flow (probably more now that is it not going to burdened by all of these other investments), and all of these big bets, including Google Ventures and Google Capital, which are about the biggest investors in the VC sector right now.” [AVC]
A newly-released security camera tape might hold clues to the case of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist, the largest art theft in American history. In 1990, a security guard let men dressed as police officers into the museum, who then bound him and his colleague in duct tape and made off with $500 million in paintings by the likes of Vermeer and Rembrandt. Sadly, many of artworks were cut from their frames during the heist—damaging them irreparably. [Live Science]
How on earth can you publish a discussion on why typing “haha” is for the olds and “hehehe” and “heh” are for the youngs, and without mention of the biggest “heh”-types of all, Beavis and Butthead? [The New Yorker]
For those rueful about start-up culture’s legacy of inflated fake job-titles, this etymological history of the term “rock star” reveals how the downward spiral began with boomer rock stars becoming corporate shills on the 1980s comeback concert circuit and then ended with the 28K-earning social-media rock star. [New York Times Magazine]
Amy Goodman interviewed Anne Pasternak and Nato Thompson, chief curator of Creative Time, about the organization’s democracy-centric summit at the Venice Biennale. [Democracy Now!]
There’s been a surge of censorship in the UK. Art exhibitions and theatrical productions that could strain ethnic tensions have been repeatedly cancelled or relocated due to police concerns that they could incite violence. [The Guardian]
Kanye West’s new adidas sneaker won’t be released until August 22, but here’s a list of all the shops in the entire human world that carry it. It also looks like a goth grandma knitted a shoe off a plumbing pipe. [HUH.]
New trend on YouTube: creating frames for the TV show you uploaded. Here’s Garfield and Friends, as seen within a Garfield-theme frame. [YouTube]
Venice Biennale 2015 Artist Trading Cards. Collect them all! [Biennial Project]
Melissa Chiu, the director of the Smithsonian’s Hirschhorn Museum, has come under fire for igniting a seemingly one-sided N.Y./D.C. rivalry. Offenses include appointing New York-based Gianni Jetzer as the museum’s curator at large and throwing the museum’s 40th anniversary party in Manhattan, instead of the District. [Washington City Paper]
Still need a vacay, people with money to spare? New York nonprofit Art in General is accepting slots for a $2,500 tour of Detroit in October. Price includes hotel, meals, but no airfare. [Art in General]

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Let Them Eat Cake: Kanye, SAIC, and the High Price of Graduation

by Katie Waddell on March 31, 2015

Rosalia Marzulio wants to bake Kanye West’s honorary doctorate in a cake.

That is, the artist and freshman at School of the Art Institute (SAIC) is requesting that SAIC President Walter Massey pass this proposal on to West. She started a Facebook event and Twitter feed so the project could gain some momentum. When I spoke to her on the phone last Saturday, she’d landed a meeting with President Massey, and was excited to pass on her idea to the administration.

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Tuesday Links: Juicy Basel Bickering + Farts

by Paddy Johnson on March 10, 2015

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A great profile of artist Laurie Simmons by Andrew Russeth, mostly for its thoroughness. She’s mad at Richard Prince for borrowing her work. She’s shy about using her Instagram account because she has too many followers. She calls her new portraits of women with open eyes painted on their closed lids “the opposite of portraits.” Read the whole thing. Her show opens this week at The Jewish Museum. Can’t wait to see it. [Artnews]
Whoa, juicy: Art Basel, the mega fair company, has sent a letter to its galleries complaining about the misleading business practices of the online art database Artsy. They were upset that CEO Carter Cleveland implied Basel had a paid relationship with the database in a recent issue of Fortune. [Artnet News]
More drivel from Jonathan Jones. Today at the Guardian, he tells readers that the Louvre Abu Dhabi should be celebrated despite migrant worker exploitation. Why? Because other architectural masterpieces were built upon slave labor and while nothing excuses slave labor this still to be completed Jean Nouvel building is a masterpiece. According to Jones it’s a cultural turning point—the building is a subversion of European imperialism and knowledge. How it’s a subversion, of course never gets explained. [The Guardian]
Kanye West talks Matrix, Picasso and ego. Hrag Vartanian over at Hyperallergic thinks it’s funny. I give it a shoulder shrug. [Gawker]
A new study on farts reveals that everyone farts and everyone cares, but not everyone cares to equal degree. [The Society Pages]
After being banned from Facebook for posting too many lewd pictures, art critic Jerry Saltz gets his page back. Commenter Robert Wysocki asks what it was like to be dead. Answer: They have a dental plan. So, not so bad, I guess? [Facebook]

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