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Phillips

Monday Links: Don’t Blame Roberta Smith for Donald Trump

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on May 15, 2017

Jeff Koons’ sculpture “Play-Doh 1994-2014” has paved the way for Donald Trump, according to Alex Melamid. Is it because there’s a melty orange blob in the center and a weird yellow thing hanging off the top?

Of everything that’s been written about Trump’s unlikely ascendence and the art world, Alex Melamid’s recent piece in TIME might just be the most specious and bizarre. According to Melamid, artists and critics have created a culture that idolizes avant-garde thinking, infantilism, and publicity above all else—thus legitimizing Trump’s outrageous approach to candidacy and governing. Two of the most laughable moments: Melamid citing Roberta Smith’s praise of Jeff Koons’ “Play Doh” sculptures (because the average Trump voter is an avid NYT Arts reader, I’m sure?) and the wildly out-of-touch statement “plagiarism in the arts has mutated into what’s now called appropriation, a term stripped of any negative judgment.” LOL. [TIME]
For anyone else who ever thought the Harvard campus reminded them of Hogwarts, you’ll enjoy this bit of news that sounds like something out of Harry Potter. The Harvard Art Museums is restaging “The Philosophy Chamber,” a sort of wunderkammer from the university’s early history that became the basis for the museums’ present collections. [The Harvard Crimson]
A lottery has opened for affordable housing units in a new Long Island City high rise, starting at under $1,000/month. Apply now! There are only 34 slots, sadly. [Curbed]
Coming as a shock to no one, Anne Imhof’s “Faust” has snagged a Golden Lion at Venice. The “health goth”-esque performance was by far the most talked-about piece of the Biennale. [ARTnews]
Adiós Utopia: Dreams and Deceptions in Cuban Art Since 1950 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is being lauded as the biggest and most important exhibition of Cuban art in recent history. Patricia Restrepo, however, feels that the Cisneros-backed show is lacking in nuance. We haven’t seen the show ourselves, but if you’re in Texas, it looks like a must-see. [Terremoto]
AFC friend Jeanette Doyle has launched “CF” at the Research Pavilion in Venice and is looking for artists and curators to participate. The framework: you chose a nation you want to represent and an art work and stage it. CF will present these staged works via a series of projections chosen at random with the help of a computer algorithm. Deadline for submissions is August 11th. Submit here. [Art & Education]
Steven H Silberg has launched an art-making project titled “In Care of the White House”. Artists are invited to create works in response to the Trump administration, which the organization will document and send to the White House, with the idea that all the pieces will end up as a document of dissent in the National Archives for posterity. [In Care of the White House]
Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips are looking to auction off over $1 billion worth of art this week, including a 6-foot Basquiat at Sotheby’s that’s valued at $60 million. These auctions are being watched closely as a litmus test for the art market. Since Russian and Middle Eastern bidders have retreated from the auction scene due to lower oil prices, it’s been a buyer’s-market-boon for American and Asian collectors. But now the market might’ve bounced back, as the auction houses are hoping. [CNBC]
15 Art Deco buildings not to miss. [Curbed]

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Thursday Links: Welcome to the Kakistocracy

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on November 17, 2016

T. Rutt, “Flag desecration artwork” (2016)

Apparently there’s a Greek word to describe our current state of affairs: kakistocracy. “n. 1829, ’government by the worst element of a society,’ coined on analogy of its opposite, aristocracy, from Greek kakistos ‘worst,’ superlative of kakos ‘bad’ (which perhaps is related to the general IE word for ‘defecate’;” [Dictionary.com]
Max Robinson’s review of Arrival pretty much sums up everything I was thinking when I (Michael) saw the film Tuesday night. Except I was also thinking “This is The Notebook meets Contact.” [City Paper]
Looters have been pillaging Italy’s earthquake damaged towns for artwork. This is so sad. [The Daily Beast]
Miami’s Red Dot Art Fair won’t be showing art collective T.Rutt’s “T.RUMP” bus, a repurposed Trump campaign bus that has been used for anti-Trump protest art during the election. Eric Smith, president and CEO of Redwood Media Group, which owns Red Dot, has decided to revoke T.Rutt’s space in light of the election results and potentially inflammatory nature of their work. To which we say, fuck you. Also, has anyone ever cared about Red Dot? (We stopped reviewing the fair in 2008 because they made the art viewing experience so depressing it wasn’t worth it.) We’re pleased to say Satellite, where we’ll be exhibiting, offered T.Rutt a booth, but didn’t have a place to park the bus. [Hyperallergic]
Finally some good news for the gays: Kensington Palace is opening an exhibition about the wardrobe of Princess Diana. [artnet News]
Rob Pruitt had been planning an exhibition at Gavin Brown Enterprises of his celebrity look-a-like paintings. Now, he’s made an eleventh-hour decision to show a selection of his portraits of Obama instead, citing the election as impetus. [ARTnews]
Lincoln Center has named Debora L. Spar its new president. Spar replaces Jed Bernstein who was forced to leave after failing to disclose an affair with a woman he’d promoted. Spar will be the first woman to lead the center, which is the nation’s largest performing arts non profit. [The New York Times]
Finding substantive auction coverage isn’t easy. With the exception of ARTnews, I haven’t read a single report that’s noted that Gerhardt Richter’s Düsenjet, Phillip’s top selling lot in yesterday’s contemporary evening sale, was guaranteed. These reports shouldn’t just offer up a bunch of numbers but account for the conditions informing the sales. [ARTnews]
Inside the most terrifying place in the world: the factory in Japan that churns out rubber Donald Trump masks. Apparently they’re having trouble keeping up with demand. This video is so creepy. [The Guardian]
Temporary Art Review is releasing a special anthology binder, To Make Public, sampling five years of critical, artist-centric writing. [Temporary Art Review]

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Tuesday Links: ICP Gets Obliterated and Post-Brexit Auction is Sluggish

by Paddy Johnson and Rhett Jones on June 28, 2016

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Phillips ran their 20th-Century and Contemporary Art auction yesterday with lackluster results. The sale totaled 11.9 million GBP, a 34.6 percent drop from last year. The sell-through rate was only 68 percent. Could the Brexit have contributed to the mood? Josh Baer seems to think the effect will be minimal with the market being global. But doesn’t globalism mean that we’re all connected so we’re more not less sensitive to shifts in the economies of others? [The Art Newspaper and Baer Faxt]
Another day, another huge museum gift at work. The Philadelphia Museum is showcasing the collection of Keith and Katherine Sachs—a collection that, according to Newsworks, is expected to transform the museum into a powerhouse of contemporary art. [Newsworks]
That universally mocked, live action Tetris movie trilogy really is happening. Its producer says that it has to be a trilogy because the story they are telling is just TOO BIG. He added, “We’re not going to have blocks with feet running around the movie. But it’s great that people think so. It sets the bar rather low!” [The Guardian]
In the latest effort to teach kids the principles of coding from an early age, Google has made a set of electric toy blocks. When the blocks are snapped together they can create real computer programs like a musical instrument or a messaging app. They’re also pretty great to look at. [Wired]
Wow, Jason Farago haaaates the inaugural selfie exhibition at the ICP’s new space on the Bowery. He complains that they set aside no space for their permanent collection of 150,000 photographs (the space isn’t large enough for that, though) and that the current show is little more than an aggregation of artworks, reproductions, considered pieces and throw-away snaps. “This is an exhibition that should have remained a Pinterest board”, Farago concludes. Ouch. [The Guardian]
Hyperallergic’s Elyssa Goodman seems to get a lot more out of the exhibition but we’re a bit confused about the message. In one passage she discusses photographing herself in a mirror used to display Warhol Polaroids, purposefully obscuring her face with the Warhol so that “self-identification and public visibility” actually overlap. What does this mean? [Hyperallergic]
A new investigation has concluded that Nazi-looted art was sold to high-ranking Nazis at a deflated price rather than being given to victims families. The art was originally recovered by the Monuments Men and was turned over to the Bavarian government on the condition of it being used as restitution. [artnet News]
A 5000-year-old pay stub now in the possession of the British Museum shows that ancient workers were paid in beer. At the time beer was a hearty, starchy brew that could double as a meal. [ars technica]

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Wednesday Links: Cave, Hands, Reptile, Not Human

by Michael Anthony Farley and Rea McNamara on March 2, 2016

pig beach

Sans context, arguably the day’s creepiest-sounding headline: “Cave Art Hands Made by Reptile, Not Human”. [Discovery News]
When it’s cold, I like to compare airline tickets on Flight Scanner — somewhere, anywhere, warm. Right now, I’m looking at the Bahamas, solely because I want to visit Pig Beach! It’s actually called Big Major Cay, and is a mysterious island where dozens of feral pigs live. Wouldn’t it be fun to swim with pigs? They’re highly social and smarter than dogs, dolphins and three year olds. They like to play and relax in the sun—I’ll take hanging with a pig over a parrothead at a surf bar any day. [National Geographic]
Hrag Vartanian was at yesterday’s Met Breuer press preview, and wasn’t impressed, especially by its main exhibition of the so-called “unfinished”, “an almost exclusively Eurocentric stroll through Western art history.” Ouch. [Hyperallergic]
Phillips CEO Ed Dolman says the art market is in a period of consolidation. Apparently only 51% of lots at their “New Now” auction of emerging art on Monday reached buyers. [Bloomberg]
On the mainstreaming of selfie feminism, it’s uncomplicated relationship with narcissism (largely shaped by the baggage of “basic bitch” white feminism), and how artists — specifically, black women, femmes, and gender-nonconforming — can potentially “demolish the gaze”. [The New Inquiry]
Miri Regev is Israel’s new Minister for culture and sport and she sounds horrible. She’s threatened to defund “disloyal” artists, punish theater troupes who refuse to perform in the occupied territories, and banned a book about an Israeli-Palestinian couple from schools. [The Guardian]
OK, this is pretty great: a UK firm has created an official “period policy” for female staffers. [The Guardian]
Instagram of the Day: Veteranas and Rucas, an archive of photos from the 1990s Chicano underground. [KCET]
Silvia Killingsworth, currently managing editor of the New Yorker, has become the editor of The Awl and The Hairpin. She starts in April, and will be overseeing a revival of both sites. [The Awl]

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Friday Links: Warhol’s Piss Paintings are Better Than Anything Pigasso Can Paint

by Paddy Johnson and Rea McNamara on February 26, 2016

Newfoundland finally has its own “Pigasso”: Izzy, a two year old pig who plays the piano, dabbles in ring toss and paints. She uses her head and snout, and already has a Facebook page selling her works for under $20. Paddy thinks Warhol’s piss paintings are better, but with the Canadian dollar just three quarters of the American, it’s at the very least an easy way to build that animal art collection.) [CBC News]
Sotheby’s CEO confirms their most recent sales period is lower than in the 2013 and 2014 periods. On top of that, even though overtures are made that they’re focusing on retaining talent, two of their top dealmakers have bounced: Alex Rotter, co-head of their contemporary art department and David Norman, co-chairman of their Impressionist and modern art world-wide. The exits follow the November exodus of senior experts following a management shake-up. [Bloomberg News]
Jim Windolf, the New York Times’ Men’s Style editor, is live-tweeting the late delivery of a Will Forte profile from writer George Gurley. Trigger warning: any writer who has pushed back at a deadline might suffer PTSD flare ups in reading the despairing communiqués from Gurley. [@jimwindolf]
Related: turns out writers and spies have a lot in common — isolation, loss of perspective, a willingness to disappear, alcoholism. [Lapham’s Quarterly]
Barry Schwabsky punctures the mythic balloon of Black Mountain College, the subject of a touring exhibition that’s been at Boston’s ICA and is now at the Hammer until May. “Why the recurring preoccupation with a short-lived, unaccredited school at the back of beyond, which never had enough students to pay its way?” he asks. While Schwabsky acknowledges its creative optimism and “infectious sense of possibility”, he points out its illusions: the school’s impossible internal politics, and “an education philosophy based on ‘the whole person’ gave no indication of how to square the conflicting goals of community and individuality.” [The Nation]
The digital age has flooded us with images and reproductions of everything and anything. That has its ups and downs, but certainly one “up” is that this iconic Gordon Parks photograph of Ella Watson is available for anyone to purchase and put up in their homes thanks to 20×200. The image shows Watson, an African American, with a broom and a mop standing in front of an American flag. Parks once called the photograph an indictment of America. [20×200]
Artprize has announced its partnership with Independent Curators International (ICI). ICI will develop three curatorial mentorship programs intended to pump up the experience of curators and partner institutions participating in the ArtPrize Fellowship for Emerging Curators. [Artprize]
There is an editor asleep at the wheel over the Observer. Ryan Steadman interviews NewHive curator Lindsay Howard about online art, and begins his questions with the following outdated cliche “The Internet Art is still so new to the art world that it feels a bit like the Wild West”. Later he tells Howard she “legitimized” digital art by organizing the first auction of digital art at Phillips. Howard, in her answer, not only doesn’t challenge the assumption that only the sale of culture legitimizes it, but fails to mention the collaborators who approached her with the idea to do the auction in the first place: Megan Newcome and Annie Werner. Other than that, a great interview. [The Observer]

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Monday Links: Ben Carson in a Bathrobe. Ben Carson with Jesus.

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on November 9, 2015

Ben Carson in a bathrobe.

The art market is a fickle, frenetic creature. Maybe it always has been? Historian James Hamilton, author of the new book A Strange Business: Art, Culture, and Commerce in Nineteenth Century London argues that we might understand today’s art economics better by looking at the triumphs and failures of the business of art in the past. [History News Network]
Can’t wait to talk about what rich people are buying this week. The contemporary auctions began yesterday at Phillips and will run through Thursday. Phillips brought in just over their low estimate of 64 million with 66.9 million. Josh Baer described the results as in line with the quality of the work. [The New York Times]
A retrospective of the late Martin Wong’s work is presently on view at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. This seems to be in keeping with the trend of nostalgia for the grittier pre-Giuliani city at so many institutions and galleries—or at least for representations of it. Wong’s paintings are full of dilapidated buildings, seedy hotels, and even some kissing firemen. [ARTnews]
Here’s a painting of GOP Presidential hopeful, Ben Carson with Jesus. [The Guardian via Hyperallergic]
Mayor Bill de Blasio has a new plan to speed-up evictions of NYCHA tenants with criminal records. Under the new policy, public housing residents will be evicted two weeks after being arrested. This sounds like a horrible idea that might leave little room for appeals and will likely exacerbate the city’s homelessness crisis. Given the NYPD’s history of unlawful arrests and racial profiling, this is likely going to hurt more vulnerable people than protect low income residents from “dangerous criminals”. [Curbed]
ArtPrize Dallas has been cancelled. The event, which invites residents to vote in a public art contest anyone can enter has been wildly successful in Grand Rapids. However, Dallas, which would have held its first event in the spring of 2016 had troubles. Executive director Ariel Saldivar cited fundraising issues as the problem, but the letter announcing its closure does little to hide Saldivar’s bitterness about the process. Was there was more going on behind the scenes? Saldivar writers that “despite the visionary understanding of our supporters, there were a few who saw the concept as threatening to the status quo.” [MLive]
Mélanie Joly, the new Liberal Minister of Canadian Heritage says that she will double the Canadian national arts budget from 180 million to 360 million, thus restoring the cuts to arts funding by the Conservative Party during their tenure. [CBC]

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Wednesday Links: Rhizome Subject of Tom Moody’s Ire

by Paddy Johnson Michael Anthony Farley Rea McNamara on November 4, 2015

Screen shot of Liam Gillick and Nate Silver’s “Either We Inspire or We Expire” (2012), a web-based work that’s part of their “First Look: New Work Online” monthly series currently running as the splash page for the new Rhizome.

Rhizome has relaunched its website. It looks like art. Plus side to this: it’s their mission to support art. Down side: navigation is hard to get used to. We haven’t had a chance to really dig into the site, but Tom Moody has expressed some discontent with changes on the site. Some of these complaints appear to have been worked out already. Comment threads, for example, look fine now, whereas they did not last night. Searching the artbase still proves to be an issue, though. [Tom Moody]
Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips are locked in an insane competition to woo estates ahead of this month’s auctions. Sotheby’s offered to take a “mere” $1 million commission on a collection that includes a Van Gogh valued at $50 million. Others are offering exorbitant guarantees, such as $40 million to the seller of a Warhol Marilyn. It seems as if they might’ve just screwed themselves in an attempt to screw each other. [The Wall Street Journal]
But maybe the auction houses have good reason to be confident: yesterday Sotheby’s sold Carl Kahler’s 1891 painting “My Wife’s Lovers” (the famous cat lady painting) for $826,000, more than double its $300,000 estimate. [artnet News]
So, this is insane: 30% of artists’ studios in London are projected to disappear in the next five years. This probably explains why a proposal from Assemble, the Turner Prize-nominated architecture collective, to convert a south London car park into artist studios is gaining support. The proposal would convert the park into 800 “ultra-affordable” studios, charging £150 per month for rent. Unfortunately, you’d only have the space for five years—the park is slated to be demolished by then. [The Art Newspaper]
Vancouver is widely known as one of the most “Asian” cities outside of Asia, where half of its residents are of Asian descent. So it makes sense then that the Vancouver Art Gallery would create a new seven-member advisory “Asian Art Council” to help them increase their engagement with Asian art. And VAG isn’t alone—other institutions like UBC’s Museum of Anthropology are going in the same direction, with Asian-themed exhibitions planned in the new year. [Vancouver Sun]
19 year old Instagram model Essena O’Neill has quit the social media site after becoming disenchanted with it. She became obsessed with likes and obsessively staged poses. The Washington Post notes that artist Ben Grosser came to the same conclusion after building a plug-in called Facebook Demetricator. The tool removes the “likes” from all Facebook posts. Grosser posted the user results in 2014 following two years of study: people felt less stressed and performative using Facebook without seeing their likes or friend counts. They also felt less compelled to use the service at all. [Washington Post]
Yes, this really did happen: last weekend, a fight broke out in Innisfil, Ontario, leaving a man dressed as the Tin Man with injuries sustained by his friend, the Scarecrow. The police report then concluded that the “the Scarecrow didn’t have the brains to stick around, and ran away with the Cowardly Lion.” On top of that, witnesses included Dorothy and Glinda the Good Witch. [National Post]
Art Handler Magazine has launched a support page. Become a donor. [Art Handler]
Art collective Chim↑Pom on opening a new gallery in what sounds like an amazing Tokyo neighborhood (their neighbors are anarchists and experimental fashion designers) as well as their exhibition Don’t Follow the Wind. The show was installed in the radioactive Fukushima evacuation zone and is accessible to viewers only via a “non-visitor center”. [Blouin Artinfo]
Good news: Toronto’s Power Plant is renewing its emerging curators programme for another two years thanks to additional funding from its funder the RBC Foundation. [Power Plant]

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Thursday Links: Everyone Loves Frieze, Hates Henry David Thoreau

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on October 15, 2015

Still from Toshio Matsumoto’s “For the Damaged Right Eye,” 1968, now on view at the Japan Society.

For a New World to Come: Experiments in Japanese Art and Photography, 1968-1979 is on view at the Japan Society through January 10th. This looks like it will be a good show. [Blouin Artinfo]

Frieze week is being described as a test for the art market following a record-breaking spring but a tumultuous summer. The verdict? Sales seem to be off to a pretty good start. [Bloomberg]

In related news, Phillips’s auction sold out on the first day of London’s art-buying week, signifying that the art market is still strong and that the auction house might be a challenger to the supremacy of Christie’s and Sotheby’s. [Art Market Monitor]

But the best part of Frieze week is probably Misako & Rosen’s booth, where Ken Kagami is drawing personalized caricatures of fair attendees’ penises and breasts. [artnet News]

Flux Factory’s Fall Benefit Banquet has arrived. It’s a five course vegetarian meal and open bar for $85 on November 6th. Pick your tickets up. [Eventbrite]

Submissions close on Saturday for Platform Gallery’s second annual juried exhibition. I (Michael) am on the jury along with Alex Ebstein and Wickerham & Lomax. You should apply! Prizes! [Platform]

Wow. Here’s 5,000 words on how American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister,development critic, surveyor, and historian Henry David Thoreau was the biggest dick ever. [The New Yorker]

Galleria Continua, the Italian gallery that represents Anish Kapoor, is opening a location in Havana, Cuba with an exhibition by Kapoor. I wonder if other galleries are going to follow as the country’s relationship with the global community improves. [The Art Newspaper]

Today, the Detroit Institute of Arts is hosting an event to unveil a new government website that catalogs all of the art in the federal U.S. General Services Administration’s Fine Arts Collection. [ABC News]

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Selling Women: A Very Unpopular Choice at Phillips’ “Under the Influence”

by Corinna Kirsch on February 18, 2015

Part one: We look at the spring iteration of “Under the Influence”, to be held this March at Phillips in New York.

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Friday Links: A Sad Day For No Bullshit Journalism

by Paddy Johnson and Whitney Kimball on February 13, 2015

Zoo security drills prepare workers in the event of an escaped animal.

Media journalist and staunch New York Times defender David Carr died suddenly last night after collapsing in the newsroom. A video of one of his finer moments, grilling the journalistic stunt style of the VICE editors. “Just because you put on a safari helmet and looked at some poop doesn’t give you the right to insult what we do.” [YouTube]
The most honest, beautiful and horrifying account of addiction we’ve ever read, by David Carr. [The New York Times]
The best slide show we have ever seen. Zoo security drills for when animals escape. Incredible. [The Atlantic]
Record prices set for Ai Weiwei and Mark Bradford last night at Phillips London. [Baer Faxt]
Also, Christie’s has acquired Collectrium, an online database management system akin to ArtBinders that helps gallerists manage their inventory and track their sales. Wonder how Christie’s will use this software. [Baer Faxt]
I have no idea what the hell is going on with this booby performance costume at the #CAA conference, but I will be investigating further. [@nikkigphd on Twitter]
GIF artist Rebecca Mock has accused Diplo of ripping one of her GIFs to promote his new song. [Dazed Digital]
Weird. A listicle on the relationship details of art world power couples because Valentine’s Day. Many of those on the list are dead. Still, stories about people brought together by shared intellectual interests is better than the usual crap. [artnet News]

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