Thomas Houseago
- More developments in the saga of the beleaguered Bell Foundry art space in Baltimore. The city shuttered the live/work building last year, evicting residents with no warning, citing safety issues. Now the property is on the market as a knock-down development site for $1 million. Yesterday someone tagged “$HAME 100” on the side of the building, which is already covered in bank-sponsored street art. The article implies that the Baltimore Rock Opera Society (the sole remaining tenants) are somehow responsible for cleaning it up. Isn’t that their slumlord’s job? The Facebook comments on this one are entertaining/infuriating, as to be expected. [City Paper]
- The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg have broken ground on an expansion project (doesn’t that sentence about Virginia sound like something a Brooklyn poet would write about gentrification?). The expansion, designed by Samuel Anderson Architects, will increase exhibition space by 22%. I think it kinda looks like a McMansion. [ARTFIXdaily]
- The NYT profiles American Medium, discussing the niche skill of translating digital works to the white cube, the gallery’s origins, and their move to Chelsea. [The New York Times]
- Google is launching a virtual reality “art gallery” where Tilt Brush makers can share their works with one another. Importantly, you won’t need a VR headset to see the 3D objects. This could spark a lot of interest in the technology. [Business Insider]
- Boy this is appalling: The city run initiative, “Tenant Interim Lease (TIL) program”, leaves 38 percent of all affordable housing unoccupied due to mismanagement. [Curbed]
- Is Frieze going to be a more “populist” fair this year, as this article suggests? Absolutely not. But gallerists are responding to the political crisis with some borderline-gimmicky nods to protest. Cheim & Read, for example, is doing an all-pink booth as a tribute to the sea of “pussy hats” from the Women’s March. And P.P.O.W. gallery will show an Anton van Dalen pidgeon coop that looks like a car burnt in a riot. [Bloomberg]
- Advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather has created a font in memory of LGBTQ artist/activist Gilbert Baker, who designed the rainbow flag in 1978. They’ve launched the website Type With Pride, where the font can be downloaded in the hopes it is used in marches and protests. It’s a really pretty font, but I don’t see this being super legible from a distance at a rally. [Dezeen]
- A vaguely skeletal public sculpture by Thomas Houseago is scaring some Chicagoans. It mainly seems people think it will spook the children or ruin family photos. We’re all for more scary public art. [ABC 7]
