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pandas

Wednesday Links: But Some People Do Care

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on May 18, 2016

Some view Peregrine Honig’s restroom signs as insensitive.

Former Work of Art contestant Peregrine Honig’s “We Don’t Care” restroom signs—created in response to North Carolina’s discriminatory transgender bathroom laws—are sparking some heated social media debate that for once doesn’t involve the right wing. Some view the $150 signs as exploitative and dismissive, while others (mostly cisgendered people) support the artist. It’s spread to multiple threads, but in this one we get to watch AFC friend Molly Rhinestones and Jerry Saltz on opposite sides of the debate. [Facebook]

As the cost of riding the MTA continues to rise, fare evasion on the subway is now the number one cause for arrests in NYC, disproportionately affecting low income people of color. All those arrests cost the city $51 million annually. But it would only cost the city $40.5 million to offer those same 29,000 riders free metrocards instead of arrest records and a night in jail. Activists are trying to call attention to this absurd policy by giving out free metrocard swipes in low-income neighborhoods. [Elite Daily]

Hate read: this piece equates the late Tony Goldman’s art-branded gentrifications schemes with social practice and community arts. Like, not as a criticism of community arts’ vaguely colonial undertones, but as an endorsement of art as a tool for developers. Seriously? [The Huffington Post]

Related: a household now needs to earn $158,000 annually to rent a two-bedroom in New York City, according to HUD metrics. This is so unacceptable. [Curbed]

Who is Yusaku Maezawa, the handsome billionaire from Chiba who pretty much single-handedly rescued the market with almost $100 million in contemporary art purchases last week? He’s a fashion mogul, former musician, and philanthropist with a foundation in Tokyo and a guest house for artists in London. Dear Mr. Maezawa, please bring us to Japan to see your collection, love AFC. [Observer]

This is adorable. Virginia Beach Arts and Humanities Commissioner Ben Loyola is offended by the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art showing Mark Ryden, who uses Catholic imagery in subversive-cheesy ways, and “paintings of nude portraits in all positions.” He’s upset taxpayer money is funding this. Ben, if you need a theme for a party to raise awareness about your concerns, I suggest the 1980s. [WAVY]

Unsurprisingly, more powerful figures from the art world have been named in the Panama Papers. The latest are gallerist Dominique Lévy and Miami mega-collector Ella Fontanals-Cisneros. If you really need to stash assets in a non-taxable form, can’t you just buy more art for your personal museum? [artnet News]

Your animal video of the day: Panda & basket. Cleaning up leaves is a much harder job than it looks when there is a panda involved. [YouTube]

Hip-hop artist The Game commissioned a $65,000 portrait of Prince from street artist Madsteez. I want to see this on the hood of a car. [Complex]

Ben Davis thoughtfully reflects on Jordan Wolfson’s installation at David Zwirner, which focuses a human-like robot being tortured. Davis concludes that Wolfson has a violent need to command the attention of the viewer. [artnet News]

The Handicraft Building in Minneapolis, which was erected in 1907 to house women artists and craftspeople, is being partially demolished and renovated into luxury apartments. This is terrible. Dozens of artists will be displaced, in addition to artist-run galleries. This follows a pattern in downtown Minneapolis, in which small-scaled historic structures are being demolished to make way for larger developments. [City Pages]

In other real estate news, artist-run space Essex Flowers is relocating to Chinatown, where they’ll have a bigger space. [ARTnews]

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Wednesday Links: Will the Children Who Sewed these Shirts Ever Make it to NASA?

by Paddy Johnson Michael Anthony Farley Rea McNamara on December 30, 2015

Old Navy tells you to give up already. [artnet News]
The New York Times has published their annual round up of obituaries. Ellsworth Kelly and Mary Ellen Mark were the two artists whose deaths were cited, but it was a tough year over all. We lost Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy, Times writer David Carr, baseball player Yogi Berra, and Gov. Mario M. Cuomo. We need to find a cure for death. [The New York Times]
Painter Johanna Barron has been attempting to recreate the CIA’s collection of Washington Color School artworks based on rare photos and anecdotes. She doesn’t have a lot to go on: all of her Freedom of Information Act requests for images and descriptions have been mysteriously rejected. Don’t we, as the American public, technically collectively own the CIA and by extension its art collection? I can never figure out how our government is supposed to work. [Hyperallergic]
“I was having my second Frogasm of the night when dinner got weird.” That is the way to start a review. Pete Wells offers a report on Señor Frog’s in Times Square, a Cancun, Spring Break type restaurant that greets diners with its dress code signage, “Do not show underwear”. The whole piece is hilarious. [The New York Times]
Particle physics can be fun. Here’s a list of all of Richard Feynman’s diagrams, which can be drawn. [Quantum Diaries]
Is there such a thing as documentation porn? If there is, then I nominate the slideshow of images from Olafur Eliasson: Baroque Baroque at the Belvedere Museum’s Winter Palace of Prince Eugene. The solo exhibition, on until March, features works from two private collections, are installed in one of the most storied Baroque edifices in Vienna. [Artsy]
For the headline alone: “Bushwick Had the City’s Most Burglaries This Year Because Gentrifiers Forgot to Lock Doors”. [Brooklyn Magazine]
Vladimir Putin’s 2016 calendar is, as expected, bizarre and wonderful. One shot has him shirtless while fishing, the other cuddling a puppy. The image for March has him smelling a flower, with a wistful glance into the distance accompanied by the caption: “I like all Russian women. I think Russian women are the most talented and the most beautiful.” [Express.co.uk]
Related: it’s been a month so far, but the friendship between a Siberian tiger and a goat in the Primorsky Safari Park in the Russian Far East continues to endure. The goat, Timur, should have been tiger food but now enjoys long walks with Amur the tiger, sometimes playing tag and hide-and-seek. [Observer]
This looks like the most fun place on earth. The Cuban government gave musician X Alfonso permission to turn a state-owned factory in Havana into a late-night art gallery, performance/screening venue, and discotheque. In the not very-originally-named “The Factory” one might encounter $2 mojitos, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and art that actually sounds pretty good. [The Washington Post]
Here’s a different type of story involving art appreciation and pandas on camera than one is accustomed to hearing around the AFC offices: a man in a panda mask brazenly stole artwork from a Nebraska fast food restaurant. It’s all captured on surveillance cameras for posterity. [WOWT NBC Omaha h/t Hyperallergic]
In depressing news from earlier this month, a Virginia school cancelled classes after a teacher gave students an Arabic calligraphy assignment. [Gawker]

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Rob Pruitt’s Panda Paintings Have a Starring Role in Kingsman: The Secret Service

by Corinna Kirsch on February 17, 2015

Pandas make the villain.

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Finally, the Calendar You Never Asked for But Always Wanted

by Paddy Johnson on November 12, 2014

What do nude pandas look like? What do naked artists wearing panda hats look like? On November 18, 2014, those questions you never asked will be answered. This is the date we launch Art F City’s 2015 panda calendar and print series, Artists as Pandas in the Nude—it will be an event to behold. All calendars and prints will be available for FREE with a tax-deductible donation to the blog.

Check back on the 18th and GET READY FOR SOME FUR. In the meantime, you can find out more after the jump.

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Today’s Pandacam Calendar: Panda Drawing and Shadow Puppets + Panda Aerobics

by Corinna Kirsch on October 10, 2013

We’ve got a panda puppet performance, and even more panda aerobics!

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Black and White: Whatever Happened to the Panda Flash Mob?

by Whitney Kimball on October 8, 2013

Color Wheel is a new series in which we identify a trending color in art for the week and post a daily image that illustrates its popularity. In honor of PandaCam, this week’s color is black and white. Readers are invited to send us images they have on hand so long as they match the profiled colors and we’ll post the best ones we receive.

Back in 2010, a panda bear flash mob stormed Rob Pruitt’s show at Gavin Brown. The bears were needed to protest the show because Pruitt had used T-shirt graphics of pandas, without citing the emerging designers Jimiyo and AJ Dimarucot.

All this is to say that if you or anyone you know was part of Panda Mob, you are needed. Please send Pandas and heads this week, during business hours, to:

PandaCam
319 Scholes Street
Bushwick, NY
11206

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pandas

Today’s Pandacam Calendar: Panda Drawing and Shadow Puppets + Panda Aerobics

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