Winter Storm Stella has forced most of the city’s museums to close today, including the Whitney. Today was supposed to mark the member preview and VIP gala for the Whitney Biennial.
We’re just hours away from the epic snowstorm that will likely ruin your commute. Snow tends to be pretty inconvenient for adult humans. All other mammals, however, have a much better time during Winter. Those who aren’t hibernating seem downright ecstatic, likely because they know they will be immortalized in adorable GIFs for all of posterity.
Oh my god. Magnetically-levitated bonsai plants exist and they are so beautiful/cool it’s insane. [Kickstarter]
Applications are now being accepted for Open Space’s Seventh Annual Publications & Multiples Fair. This is always really great and a super-affordable way to show off your work or publication at a well-attended event. [Open Space]
How a Chinese street vendor, a Spanish waiter, and Manhattan’s oldest art gallery swindled $80 million from collectors via forgeries. Certain players are heading to court this week. This is a juicy, juicy read. [New York Post]
An SUV plowed into a taxi yesterday morning, pushing the latter through the storefront of Vancouver’s Fragrant Wood Gallery. [CBC]
Wow. Here is a 55 minute doge video, which tracks the dog and its owner on a leisurely walk through a Japanese village. They shop, have a snack, eat lunch, and paint a plate together. Busy day. [Amebe Fresh TV via Metafilter]
“If we are looking for something radical, it is not always about shocking people. It is about being more pernicious, about getting under people’s skin,” Gregor Muir, director of London’s ICA is desperately seeking a new generation of artists to dethrone the not-so-Y-anymore YBAs. [The Guardian]
The Housing Development Fund Corporation, or HDFC gives residents of low income co-ops a means of taking ownership from negligent landlords. First, though, they must be trained. The program’s not performing as one would hope. 33 of these cases made Public Advocate Letita Jones’ worst landlord list of 2015. [Curbed]
Tom Grotting has been taking advantage of Minneapolis’s unbearably cold winter by making public sculptures out of frozen-in-mid-poze pants. The internet loves these. [City Lab]
Someone should introduce wintry sculptor Grotting to Emilian Sava, the redeemed protagonist of what has to be the best headline we’ve read this week: “Swedish man creates giant snow penis to say sorry for destroying smaller snow penis”. [CBC]
No such luck for New Yorkers: Tompkins Square Park’s snow penis has been destroyed. [EV Grieve]
Luxury developers Chetrit Group purchased the iconic Sony building on Madison Avenue with the goal of converting it to condos for the 1%. There’s concern over the future of Dorothea Rockburne’s abstract murals that presently hang in the lobby. Rockburne has apparently been trying to contact The Chetrit Group for two years, while the developers claim they have been in fact been in contact with the artist. [Curbed]
A slideshow picturing New Yorkers in the snow this weekend after Jonas hit the city. So. Much. Snow. [Gothamist]
It’s time someone finally produced a peer-reviewed paper that ranked the butts of every Super Bowl player. This study divides asses into the following categories: Flat Butts, Long Butts (sister to the flat butt), Middle of the Pack, Honorable Mentions, and Best in Show. One quibble with the results: What the hell is Luke Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks doing in “Middle of the Pack”? Clearly that ass deserves better. [Buzzfeed]
Be nice to your New Yorkers today because yesterday sucked for thousands of us. Snow, a flaming umbrella, and signal-related delays contributed to three-hour-long delays on the 7-train (with commuters stuck inside), and malfunctions on the L, J, and M, leaving many with no cross-borough subway transportation. [Gothamist]
Mayor de Blasio, in today’s State of the City address, will stress the administration’s aim to build 1,500 below-market live-work spaces for New York City artists by 2024. [WNYC]
Interstate Projects Curatorial Director Jamie Sterns blogs about her recent visit to the Serpentine Galleries, and a flock of ravenous birds. One particularly enjoyable line, regarding a performance by Beth Collar: “It felt so familiar in its vague poetics and predictability of mumble-core Dadaism.” [Ya Ya Ya]
More blogs: WOW HUH, a group art blog, that we assumed was defunct, has posted six essays this month. Mostly by artists, and full of real opinions: Carlos Rosales-Silva writes “ It is increasingly difficult to be an artist in this moment. I am having a hell of a time imagining what utility art has in the fight against the deeply-ingrained, white supremacist system of law in this country. Now, to read all of them. [WOW HUH]
“Maybe the algorithm and social media soul is now so intertwined and interdependent that it makes little sense to even separate the two?” What does this mean? No idea, but it’s from a Rhizome interview with artists Daniel Rourke and Erica Sourti, and it’s not any clearer in the context of this mostly descriptive review of End User at the Hayward in London. [Hyperallergic]
Hayward Gallery of London has hung a huge Cold War Missile high on its facade for its show History Is Now. Had the missile, named Bloodhound, been launched as an attack, “the western world would have been engulfed in a barely imaginable catastrophe.” [The Guardian]
On the outskirts of Basel, Switzerland, you’ll be able to find Keanu Reeves. On February 8, he’s giving a talk and reading on Gauguin at the Foundation Beyeler. [Observer]
Google has a “Bad Ads” team which filters scammers. Thank you, Overlord. [The Verge]
In nerd news: a database of unpublished sci-fi and fantasy authored not by the typical white males. [Double Diamond]
Stay inside, New York. There are many ways to die by snow today. [The Awl]
Attendance at the Frick has more than doubled now that they’re borrowing Vermeer’s “Girl With the Pearl Earring.” Frick staff lets on that over 100,000 visitors have made their way into the collection since the October opening of Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals. [Real Clear Arts]
Can the art world ever recover from the influence of celebrity and entertainment on art? “No way,” remarked one curator at the Centre Pompidou-Metz. “And why would we, with such crossover programming in the upcoming year like Paparzzi! Photographers, Stars, and Artists?”* (*NOT A REAL QUOTE, BUT THIS IS A REAL EXHIBITION.) [e-flux]
Residents and business owners in the LES and and East Village want to keep SantaCon’s drunken hordes out of their streets. Let the protests begin. [Bowery Boogie]
Wow. Larry Gagosian has some harsh words for the new breed of collectors and partiers coming out to Miami. “Two years ago, the audience was a little more interesting from the perspective of the galleries that come here.” [Women’s Wear Daily, Alain Servais]
Bored much? Try cat petting, the computer game. [@PixelatedCowboy]
Ah! LACMA is starting up its Art and Technology program again—the very same one from the 1960s. They sent Claes Oldenburg to do research at Disney; John Chamberlain to Rand Corporation; Richard Serra to Kaiser Steel. Now it’s different; mostly, the program gives office space at the museum. [The New York Times]
Missed this one last week, but the Van Gogh Museum is authorizing 3-D reproductions of Van Gogh’s masterworks. $35,000 for Starry Night, y’all. The first round will debut in January, at the L.A. Art Show. [Los Angeles Times]
Do subjective end-of-year lists not make you angry? Then go ahead, read Complex’s 25 Most Important Artists of 2013 list. Francis Bacon, who just sold the world’s most expensive painting at auction barely scrapes by in the 22nd slot; Robert Indiana is just a nudge ahead of him at 21. Top artists include those who have collaborated with Lady Gaga (#10: Inez and Vinoodh) and Pharrell (#5: Daniel Arsham, #8: JR). Celebrity art collaborations ≠ Most Important Artists. [Complex]
Fiercely Independent. New York art news, reviews and culture commentary. Paddy Johnson, Editorial Director Michael Anthony Farley, Senior Editor Whitney Kimball, IMG MGMT Editor
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