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Art Fag City announces the launch of a new initiative today; tracking artists who appear on the Colbert Report. The second artist investigating systems of surveillance to appear on the show within the space of a month, Hasan Elahi spoke with Steven Colbert about his website Tracking Transience. The site (or Elahi - we’re not sure which) sends the government daily pictures of his whereabouts, what he’s eating, and even how he’s spending his money to ensure that officials don’t mistake him as a terrorist. A response to being detained by the FBI for suspicion of hoarding explosives in 2002, Elahi explains, “Intelligent forces no matter where they are all operate in a community where their commodity is information, and the reason that information has value is because no one else has access to that information…so the secrecy of that information is what makes it valuable…so by me disclosing all this information [it becomes worthless]”

Of course, the other reason the information he provides has so little meaning is that the site is full of pop up windows and scrolling images making it impossible to navigate. But whatever. Elahi tells Steven Colbert he’s seen a EOP.gov address in his sitemeter, which means he’s had the eyes of the President on his site. “You’ve got a fan!” replies Colbert, which immediately prompted the web professional in me to wonder about the duration of his visit.

Hasan Elahi’s work is currently on view at Artist’s Space in the exhibition The New Normal.

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Bloggy types will have already read about Google’s new artist themes, a nifty background image that renders links and virtually any other type in the igoogle masthead unreadable. Also, thank God there’s a Jeff Koons theme, because he’s really been low on publicity lately. To be honest, if I used igoogle, I would have liked the Vacuum Cleaner image they proposed as his thumbnail, but that’s not what you get. Click on this link and three different Koons themes are shown, one of which is automatically assigned to your masthead.  Given that refreshing doesn’t seem to rotate the Koons’ images, I’m not sure why we’re presented with a choice.  The functionality is so poor, I’m also generally unclear about why anyone would use this.

via:

boing boing
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Ryan McGinley, Ann (Windy Truck), 2007, c-print, 72 x 110 inches. Image copyright of Team Gallery
I have an online exclusive at the L Magazine this week; Ryan McGinley at Team Gallery. A teaser from the review below:

Ryan McGinley critics describe the narrative behind his photographs something like this, “My friends are pretty. And we get naked in the country. Usually there are drugs. Rad! So subversive.” That his 30 plus photographs of nudes in undeveloped landscapes currently on display at Team Gallery might be as vapid as the lifestyle they depict certainly hold weight as a criticism, even if McGinley’s acclaim comes from his ability to transcend the documentary youth culture genre. Earlier photographs, including a picture of a young man riding his bike taken from above in 2000, a 2004 image of a nude woman named Dakota, sipping a drink from a straw in the back of a moving truck, and a number of silhouetted figures captured in the midst of falling evade the cry of overly narcissistic photography frequently attached to like minded photographer Nan Goldin, and at least some of the moral depravity for which Larry Clark has been criticized. At their best, McGinley’s flat, unassuming representation of friends and models exhibit a rare honesty and contemporary uniqueness updating the lexicon of gay photography.

Of course, part of the excitement to these photographs comes from the fact that their attributes are seemingly at odds with a slightly staged look. As former Whitney curator of photography Sylvia Wolf, wisely explained last year to the New York Times, “His subjects are performing for the camera and exploring themselves with an acute self-awareness that is decidedly contemporary. They are savvy about visual culture, acutely aware of how identity can be not communicated but created”.

Given the fact that many of these photographs were partly arranged to begin with, it’s not too surprising that McGinley might grow tired of waiting for a picture to happen, a change in process he noted in the same Times article quoted above. The question of how much the artist gains from staging his work however, plays out rather negatively since much of the narrative remains the same, and many photos now look overly contrived. Even the most successful shots, Ann (Windy Truck), Brennan (Clear Poncho), and Coley (injured), feel a little too posed, the models taking on a strange contemplative sadness overly familiar within the genre. The latter two do a reasonable job at juxtaposing alluring textures such as that of skin with unexpected synthetic and natural materials respectively, but it’s a small success. The weakest works, Together Running, an obscured nudes in mountain Where’s Waldo photograph, and virtually anything from this cliché round of naked hipster women surrounded by fireworks leaves a viewer wondering why so much plotting should be required for such poorly conceived shots.

The rest of the review here.

Left: Larry Gagosian (image nymagazine) Right: Jeff Koons, Hanging Heart, 1994 - 2006, one of five versions, each uniquely colored, high chromium stainless steel with transparent color coating and yellow brass, 106 x 85 x 40 in. Image copyright Sothebys.com

• MoreIntellegentLife features a great profile on mega dealer Larry Gagosian, rounding up a number of observations by art world personalities on the man,

“I have one word for him: fearless,” says Irving Blum, an LA collector and one-time dealer.

Another collector who would not be named qualified that judgment a little: “I don’t know that he’s fearless. What I would say is, he is a person impossible to insult. You could say anything: he’ll call you again. He’s determined. He’s incredibly tenacious.”

Even if Gagosian is the art world’s best businessman, “he’s not a salesman,” says Jerry Saltz, art critic at New York magazine. “You don’t see him working the floor. He’s like a visitor from another planet, an extraterrestrial trying to communicate with our species.”

Even if he is an opportunist, “his opportunism is transparent,” says Peter Schjeldahl, art critic of the New Yorker. “It’s not underhand: it’s all overhand. He is not complicated. He’s like a shark or a cat or some other perfectly designed biological mechanism.”

Even if he is a dealmaker, he is one with rare panache: “Larry enjoys these different types of transactions, that type of energy,” says the artist Jeff Koons. “It’s kind of like a sexual energy.”

Brilliant.

• Anyone checked out the number of gallery openings this week on ArtCal? There’s too much to see. My own list will include checking out the weird plastic chair at Sikemma Jenkins and contemplating whether I like Liam Gillick’s new show at Casey Kaplan this Thursday. Friday recommends are new media based; Rhizome’s New Silent Series in which Trevor Paglen will discuss his work at the New Museum, and Vertexlist’s, Blankly Perfect Summer, an exhibition showcasing emerging talent from Krakow.

• Frieze asks artists, critics, and curators to cite books that influence them in a new web series titled Ideal Syllabus, and manages to get, Nicholas Bourriaud author of Post Production and Relational Aesthetics is their first list maker. Probably the most interesting books included on that list to me were Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, and Ubik by Philip K Dick — both incredibly dude-y novels, and very easy reads relative to his own work. As a side note, I find it amusing that Post Production and Relational Aesthetics, two of the most influential texts to the art world, have virtually no reader reviews on Amazon.

• In other random news, I was on the Charles Cowles website yesterday, an activity of note only because it sucks.

Features are likely to be a bit thin around here for the next couple of days due to deadlines, though the Fresh Links will continue to be updated. In the side bar you can look forward to reading random art news stories and reviews, mixed with such treasures as Cabela’s Bridger Mountain Man Coyote Fur Hat [pictured above]. As if discovering there’s a market for the heaviest fox hats in the world weren’t weird enough, the product reviews are almost predictably even stranger. Says one testimonial,

My grandma always wore possum pants when I was a kid and I wanted to continue in the same tradition….It has kept me as warm as any gutted mammal can during the harsh winters here in old Wisconsin. I do have to be careful not to wear it when my dogs are around since it makes them a little jittery especially when my boyfriend likes to make it “growl” and “bark” at them, sending them into a fighting frenzy. They once ripped it from my head and would you believe the coyote hat put up a good fight against my two dogs. Lucky for the coyote he can’t bleed anymore now that he is gutted and made into a hat.
If you are looking for a hat that not only keeps you warm but brings the spirit of Christmas into the hearts of all, than this is the hat for you!”

Clearly yule tide greetings could not be warmer now that you can receive and give them with a fox on your head. A trend in the making to be sure. Link via Borna.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled 255, via cindysherman.com

• Paul Hasegawa-Overacker felt his identity was subsumed when dating artist Cindy Sherman, and made a documentary that tackles this subject and more titled Guest of Cindy Sherman. It’s a fascinating story line, though not with out note, that it’s mostly the gender reversal that makes it interesting. Typically women dating famous men don’t break up with them — they’re happy for their success.  Of course, this issue is more complicated than I’ve made it out to be since it’s also much more socially acceptable for a woman to take the less dominant role.  An interview with Paul H-O at Salon.

• Of all the controversy Grand Theft Auto IV seems to inspire, I’m surprised I haven’t read more from Serbians upset about the portrayal of the main character, as a Serbian immigrant, assassin, prostitute fucker and murderer, and just all around asshole. The debate that has thus far inspired the largest Wikipedia entry began in September 2007, when Jack Thompson filed a suit against Grand Theft Auto IV, claiming that the assassination target of a mission in the game was a lawyer character based on himself. It’s possible he had a point — the man had previously campaigned against other Grand Theft Auto games, and had stated he would take various measures to prevent the sale of the game by Rockstar to minors — though the court didn’t think so, and the man has been barred from suing to block the sale or distribution of any future games published by Take-Two or any of its subsidiaries.

Meanwhile, the women hating aspects of this game remain largely in tact. This from Feministing (originally via boing boing),

If you get through the trailer you will notice that not only are the sex scenes very real looking, most of the women are killed shortly after forcibly performing sex acts. So, many young men are going to have their first (or already have, as this is not new content for GTA) sexual experiences via GTA and then they are going to kill the women they are sleeping with. The implications of that are mind-blowing. It is no question that GTA is merely reflective of the bigger misogyny embedded in capitalist patriarchy, but the question is why is a game that depicts such violence towards women so popular? How is that acceptable?

I haven’t played the game, so I can’t speak to how it compares to the last, but from a youtube video originally circulated by Ladies of Liberty City (no longer available) there’s no disputing that the game isn’t full of warm fussy feelings towards women. Admittedly, I’m slightly relieved to be more or less disinterested in the aesthetics of the game due to the problematics of the game itself.

• In other unrelated non art stories, I’m vaguely disturbed by the amount of woman hating permeating celebrity blogs lately. In as much I read about how good Madonna looks for her age, there’s almost always someone who’s creeped out by the fact that she’s almost 50, so any amount of sexuality she exhibits is therefore inappropriate. As annoying a personality as she may be, I’m happy that she continues to control the way in which her body is used to promote music sales. Just because you’re 50 doesn’t mean you’re dead.

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It’s website review day here at Art Fag City! Today we discuss two sites only, Frieze, whose new site makes me very happy, and the Eyebeam reblog, a new media website, now trailing behind traditional art publications in what some might argue is their own medium of expertise. Let the reviews begin!

Frieze Magazine

Until recently, I’d been very frustrated by the Frieze Magazine website. Their publication is amongst my favorites, but it’s expensive as hell in the States, and their site barely had any content, there were next to no images, and it was difficult to navigate (the Way Back Machine only provides broken documentation of the website, so those who have never been will just have to take my word for it). Hello overhaul! RSS feeds. Check. Large images. Check. Reviews, news and color coded search functions. Check! Predictably, the content on the site is great, (as far as I can tell, it’s no different than what’s in the magazine). I like that they publish articles tangentially related to art, such as Different Thinking, an interview with Rob Janoff, the designer of Apple’s logo, along side art reviews such as Steven Stern’s excellent Whitney Biennial write-up. My one wish however, is that the site had a blog that updated at least twice a day and open comments, (UPDATE: you can comment in the reviews and comment sections which are web only). Site and magazine specific content gives readers a reason to use both publications differently, and while I’m clearly biased, I really believe blogs add life to otherwise largely static sites.

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Eyebeam’s Reblog

Only two months ago I observed that I’d stopped reading Eyebeam’s reblog, though I wasn’t overly specific about the problems past the site needing a redesign. Certainly, that’s still the case, though to be clear, this would involve rethinking the blog as a whole, since on a very basic level the technology no longer meets the needs of Internet surfers. As websites such as Buzzfeed, Rhizome and even smaller operations like c-monster have shown, web curating on its own (ie simply reposting material) generally isn’t enough; editorial comment is essential. Eyebeam’s software allows rebloggers to do this, but people rarely do because it’s a lot more work and the position is unpaid.

The publishing platform itself can be described as a customized rss feed reader that allows bloggers to republish posts at the touch of a button. Knowing that a variety of source material is essential to any good reblog, optimizing the functionality of the software they’re currently working with involves some rethinking of the recent feed pruning. There simply aren’t enough art website feeds on their list to create a of successful mix of art and technology. Frieze Magazine, Modern Art Notes, Edward Winkleman, RHIZOME, Tom Moody, Art Review.com, c-monster, MTAA-RR, James Wagner, and even myself aren’t in their feeds, and there’s no good reason for this. It’s not like these sites aren’t relevant to new media artists, and a reblogger can certainly manage searching through a few more articles. In addition to this, the only social bookmarking (del.icio.us) feed remaining is the eyebeam-reblog tag, which ensures that only active eyebeam readers have any say in the content. Surely heavy del.icio.us users such as wizardishungry, 53os, eddietainment, and cory_arcangel would add something very significant to the reblog.

In the event anyone is wondering how much progress the Eyebeam reblog has made over the last two years, I’d like to point to their bloglines subscriber numbers, which have actually decreased slightly from 104 readers to 102 during this time. Granted this isn’t empirical evidence the blog isn’t as well read as it used to be — there’s more than one feed reader out there and to be honest I’m sure their traffic has grown — but there’s also a lot more people on the web. If Eyebeam wants their reblog to remain relevant, some effort to address these issues is clearly needed.

Executive Director Brian Newman and some of this year’s Media Arts Fellowship recipients 

The Tribeca Film Institute announced the recipients of its 2008 Media Arts Fellowships yesterday at their cocktail gala.  Supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, many artists may better recognize the granting organization name Renew Media, which no longer reads in the announcements because it joined the Film Institute earlier in the year.

I attended the reception yesterday, not only because the program awarded $715,000 to film makers and media artists, but because this year I had the pleasure of being a panelist.  This year’s new media grantees include Sharon Daniel, Joe Davis, Josh On, C.E.B. Reas, Michael Rees, and Paul Vanouse. Film and video fellows are Julianna Brannum, Andrew Bujalski, Daniel Carrera, Cherien Dabis, Jacqueline Goss, Judith Helfand, Braden King, Billy Luther, Shirin Neshat, Hugo Perez, Laura Poitras, Dee Rees, Jennifer Reeves, Naomi Uman, Lauren Woods, and Jessica Yu.

On a more personal note, I’d like to thank the Tribeca Film Institute for providing such good lunches while we deliberated over the grantees.  As someone who undoubtedly does think better with a pastry in hand, i’m happy to report that the review process was never hindered by a lack of sugar intake.

Admittedly this has little to do with art, but who could resist republishing that headline?  The Toronto Star reports a Canadian study commissioned by the conservative party finds widespread support for Ottawa using  Web 2.0 programs and strategies to more effectively reach the population.

“Adoption of Web 2.0 applications represents an opportunity to transform the `face’ of the government of Canada, to make it appear more approachable and more responsive to Canadians,” says the report’s summary.”

Speaking to popular applications explored for use,

“The survey warns that Facebook and YouTube users log on primarily for entertainment and recreation purposes and would not expect, or necessarily want, to meet official government missives in this “private” space.”

I guess there’s some resistance on the part of Canadians in investing tax payer dollars to create a Canadian Public Service Agency fan page, or a policy status widget.

Tema Stauffer, Ward Bond, “Wagon Train”, Hollywood, CA, April 2007

It was only a matter of time before Ward Bond was featured in our masthead, even if he ultimately comes in the form of wax figure documentation. Not that I have any specific connection to cowboys, it’s just once presented with the option of being personified by one, I couldn’t let the opportunity pass. Art Fag City’s new noble face comes courtesy of photographer Tema Stauffer, who notably has taken more than one pony related picture. Aside from her recent cowboy series, White Horse 2007 [below], is a favorite, as is the dog art she shot in 1999 (not a pony but I mention it on account of the fact that it’s hilarious!)

Shooting animals, landscapes, and people across the country, it’s hard not to describe the work as American in style, though I do so reluctantly given the imprecise nature of the term. In this case, I mean to describe the plain spoken nature of the photographs; what you see is what you get, in all its glory, grit, and whatever else Stauffer decides to throw in. For the next two weeks at AFC it happens to be Ward Bond, but visit her website and you’ll see a lot more.

Artist Biography

Tema Stauffer is a photographer based in Brooklyn. She graduated from Oberlin College in 1995 and received a MFA in Photography from The University of Illinois at Chicago in 1998. Her work has been shown in galleries and art institutions in Chicago, Minneapolis, San Diego, Philadelphia, New York City and Rouchechoart, France. Her solo exhibition “American Stills” was shown at Jen Bekman Gallery in 2004, where she has also participated in seven group shows. The Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College selected fifteen images from this body of work for their Midwest Photographers Project. Tema has been featured twice on 20×200, (here and here), and she teaches at The School of the International Center of Photography.

Stauffer’s Blog: Palmaire

John Constable

Constable’s Skies, an exhibition at Salander O’Reilly Galleries in 2004 evoked idle questions amongst dealers I knew at the time wondering how the gallery could afford to mount a show in which nothing was for sale. I didn’t care then. The collection of paintings was undoubtedly one of the best I’d seen — causing that kind of flip flop you get in your chest when you see works of such astounding beauty and grace — and remains so to this day. Coincidently, I’m not the only one who recalls the show in light of the gallery closure, forced bankruptcy and leins; Men’s vogue just published an article which cites Roger Kimball, a writer for the Wall Street Journal asking the same question.

Speaking of which, not since Vanity Fair’s expose on Michael Jackson’s estate in 2003, have I read such a thorough report on the business and personality details leading to Lawrence Salander’s financial troubles. Kelly Devine Thomas runs through it all in this piece; Salander’s deep personal investment in art, and his strategies in building a stronger market for 12th to 18th century art works, but also what seems near irrational shock that those who lost money or art works would feel so betrayed, and a lavish life style contradicting his claims that his practice was never about money.

The article goes on to detail a variety of financial problems ranging from the nearly 80 million owed in debts, and the unopened show Masterpieces of Art Salander had gambled making close to half a billion on, to a laundry list of disputes the dealer had with his business partners and clients. Amongst the more egregious wrong doings was the unauthorized sale of art works owned by others. And of course, given the number of ownership claims now coming in, as anyone who’s worked in the secondary market for any length of time knows, sorting them out in gallery of that size is exactly the nightmare Thomas describes. To cite just one example, seemingly countless permutations of Bonnard’s nudes exist all titled similarly. Given the variation that occurs when recording size and title, even the most fastidious of us would have problems figuring out who owns what.

Oddly, I still found it hard not to feel sympathy for the dealer. Even in the face of impossibility the man genuinely seemed to believe he would pay off his debts. Thomas closes on a rather down note quoting Salander himself, “My intent was always to pay,” he [says]. “No one is starving here. The injured parties are owed what they are owed, but they made a lot of money with me over the years.” He points to Myron Kunin. “I sold him most of his pictures,” Salander says. “I sold them to him and then sold them for him. I made him a fortune.”

To read the full article click here.

Erik Benson, Staying Up All Night, 2004, acrylic and canvas on wood panel, 40 x 72 inches. West Collection

International emerging artists have until October 1st 2008 to submit their applications to Paige West’s competition. Aptly named the West Prize, a total of $100,000 will be given out to young artists, the grand prize being a total of $25,000 in addition to a West Collection acquisition. Artists applying should take a look at her collection to get a better idea of the kind of work she responds to. It’s no small amount of money being given out, so you’ll really do yourself a favor by doing a bit of research before submitting. Notable artists in the collection include, Amy Bennett, Vic Muniz, Erik Benson, Larissa Bates, Roxy Paine, Eve Sussman and more.

Bennett Williamson of the Double Happiness surf blog wrote the following to me last night an email exchange about April 18th’s summation of the Futures of the Internet panel.

I am interested in the question of the internet leveling things vs. the internet having hierarchy, but less politically and more (in a slightly Convergence Culture way) technically. Less interested in the search engines organizing what is supposed to be an “open playing field” and more interested in how our actions/expectations change as ease of information and exposure to a variety of mediums all gets presented through the same browser screen.

Cultural convergences as I understand it typically discusses the intersection between the commercial and amateurism, a popular point of interest for many surf bloggers. I pull it from the quote above if for no other reason than it’s useful to name. Of course, for me, what an artist does with that material in the process of finding it or after seems to be the point at which art happens, an aspect I think many people find confusing simply because there isn’t enough history and discussion about the practice for many viewers to feel comfortable labeling what works for them and what doesn’t.

Adding to Williamson’s comments about the browser, I’d like to begin by noting that medium specificity has always created unique viewer relationships. People experience sculpture differently than painting for example, because there is a different physical and spatial relationship to the object. In many ways these concepts remain the same when viewing art on a computer even if the variables change. So for example, unlike a photograph or a sculpture, a net artist has less control over a viewers interaction with its framing mechanisms. The size of screen or the color of the browser a user choses to view their work in, vary from household to household, and there’s very little an artist can do to customize that experience. Other aspects remain constant — viewers will experience work on a flat screen, images will be always seen at 72 dpi, they will always be framed by a browser, in all likelihood the smallest screen size will be 800 pixels which informs how an artist works.

All of this of course is old hat to designers and net artists, who have been working with this set of problems for a while. However, for those who don’t think about these concerns all that often, it’s worth remarking that a large part of an artist’s web practice — whether they think too much about it or not — is implicitly concerned with image file management and display. In other words, decisions about the size and placement of a jpg or video file are always being made. In this way, I see a lot of aesthetic similarities between net art to collage and photography, because frame, composition, and layering, are always a concern. This of course, doesn’t speak to the element of interactivity or the conceptual concerns of the artist, but since we’re just talking aesthetics here, those topics are beyond the scope of this post.

A series of posts I really enjoy from Loshadka. Check the blog out regularly - there’s usually something good up.

I like that this jpeg is damaged. Image link.

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Jo Mitchell, Photographing Girl on a Motorcycle, 1999/2007

Maybe it’s the rain, but I haven’t been dying to weigh in on today’s art news stories. If you can forgive the late start, a few links of interest below.

• Jerry Saltz reviews the Dan Colen Nate Lowman collaboration Wet Pain at Maccarone accusing it of looking too much like other shows and calling it flippant, which is precisely the problem with this kind of ticky tack art. Certainly you can identify those who have some skill in arranging objects, but even the good work looks a little too much like everything else.

• Despite a miss leading post title reading Paris Journal, A Break From Music, ArtsBeat the New York Times art blog, will be reporting on music when they return home from Europe. An observation worth remark: Between the New York Times and the NYTimes magazine, the publication hosts three art blogs, none of which feature significant coverage of Fine Art. You’d think between The Medium, The Moment, and ArtsBeat a little more energy could be devoted to the field - there’s certainly a lot more to talk about than art fairs, biennials, and the occasional highly priced auction item.

• Speaking of The Medium, Virginia Heffernan writes Sepia No More for New York Magazine, discussing the flickr style photograph. “While pretty and even cute, these images are also often surreal and prurient,” says Heffernan, going on to describe the digitally manipulated photographs of Rebekka Guoleifsdottir, one of the sites most popular members. Of course, once you see the work being discussed, it’s hard to stay too interested. Amateur art has its merits, but I can’t imagine a less engaging genre than the sentimental pony photograph, or the bright commercial signage landscape that apparently dominates the site. Surely there’s more engaging activity going on there.

• Speaking of photography, VVork links to a Jo Mitchell [pictured above] I quite like despite the fact that it’s flanked by seemingly countless robo-women torsos.

• I meant to link to this last week and then lost track of it: Charlie Rose by Samuel Beckett. Thanks to Greg.org and Steven Stern for that link.

By the end of this week Art Fag City’s Comic Con Versus The Art Fairs quiz will have either stolen or enriched roughly 40 seconds of over 12,000 people’s lives. Either way, we’re pleased! The test asks readers to identify Comic Con and Art Fair attendees; some of whom we felt looked like they could be either, others who were unmistakably from a particular demographic, and a remaining few weird art celebrity picks with some cross over potential. Probably the most amusing result from this quiz thus far comes in the number of readers who identify Eva and Adele and Jocelyn Wildenstein as video game costume freaks (roughly 45%), and amongst the more surprising, was the 89% reader success rate in identifying the over weight man in front of a bunch of crates as a comic book guy. I would have thought that number would be a lot higher!

A special thanks to Art Fag City, Vulture, GalleyCat, Drawn and Quarterly, Boing Boing, readers for participating in the test.

Cash Brown, George, 2008, oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches. Originally via: Daily Serving. Link tip: S. Chernick

Gustave Courbet’s The Origin of the World has inspired a great number of paintings since its execution in 1866, Australian artist Cash Brown amongst the most recent. “I have been thinking a lot about the concept of originality and the derivative nature of so much contemporary artwork”, says Brown, going on to explain, “This led me to think of the beginning of Modernism. Origin, original, beginning, it all seemed a bit obvious…but I liked that about it.” In other words, the root concept lies in the connection between the meaning of the word origin, Courbet’s titling, and contemporary interest in appropriation. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about this project’s depth, and point to a few other variations by the artist here.

On that same note, a google search on the subject provides additional fodder below.

An animation of photo graphics and chanting monks inspired by Courbet’s Origin of the World. This may not even be bad in an interesting way.

Tanja Ostojic, Untitled, 2004

It’s probably unfair to contextualize a mature work commenting on the EU’s politics of non-integration with the rest of these paintings, but I can’t help but find this brand of underwear amusing. Thus, the picture stays.

UPDATE:

Filip Noterdaeme, The Birth of a New Museum, 1991

Filip Noterdaeme of HOMU sends us a painting [above] executed during his final MFA year at Hunter College. The work marries Courbet’s, L’origine du Monde , with Rene Magritte’s generative 1929 painting, La Trahison des Images . This particular piece has quite a bit of history behind it, so I’ve posted the write up from the artist’s website below.

Birth of a New Museum has an interesting history. In the early Nineties, when he was an art student at Hunter College, Noterdaeme invented an eccentric alter ego for himself, a certain Marcellus Wasbending-Ttum, a painter and self-proclaimed “Homoplagiarist.” Under this alias, Noterdaeme created multiple works, some of which he painted himself, some of which, like Birth (originally titled Self-Portrait), were executed to his specifications by a hired professional. When Noterdaeme, acting as Marcellus Wasbending-Ttum, presented the Hunter faculty with this “Self-Portrait,” he found himself accused of plagiarism and was prematurely expelled from the MFA program. Embittered, Noterdaeme destroyed all his artworks - with the notable exception of Self-Portrait - and, for the next ten years, abstained from making art, working as a museum educator for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim Museum. In 2002, Noterdaeme created his own museum, the Homeless Museum of Art (HoMu). When he eventually turned his rental apartment in Brooklyn into a showcase for HoMu, he gave the painting a place of honor in the apartment’s High Gallery and renamed it Birth of a New Museum.

Left: Tom Ford perfume advertising campaign, Right: An ad for Tom Ford Sunglasses, now banned in Italy.

Radar reports The Italian Advertising Institute (IAA) has banned the above right ad for Tom Ford Sunglasses, labeling it “sexually implicit”. “[It] goes beyond acceptable limits for advertising aimed at the general public”, says the institute. Meanwhile, the Tom Ford perfume ads in America, some of which appeared in ArtForum earlier this year, and prompted our discussion, have escaped censorship in this country. Since sexually explicit material doesn’t seem to faze the US at all, if Tom Ford really wanted to piss people off he’d consider dreaming up a line of fragrances that smell like Iraqi oil. He can call the line Haliburton, and see how far he gets with that in this country.

Brian Jungen, Blanket no. 3, 2008, Image copyright Casey Kaplan

My latest review at the L Magazine is up.  The teaser below.

Brian Jungen’s 2006 exhibition at Casey Kaplan wasn’t much to talk about. I’ve never cared for skull art — I can’t keep myself from thinking about pirates and acid trips, no matter the intended metaphor. In that show, presumably, the skull iconography referenced the Wild West, as the entrance featured a number of rear-view mirrors with hanging feathered ornaments, and in the main gallery and back room, respectively, multiple baseball skins were molded into human skulls that lay in a flatfooted arrangement on the floor, and sofa chairs were turned into saddles and mounted on stools. The work in the exhibition was laid too low to the ground and failed to fill out the space enough, making it difficult for most viewers to even catch the theme of the show.

Two years later, the sculptures have gone from bad to worse. Jungen’s current exhibition at Casey Kaplan suffers from both conceptual and aesthetic flaws, though it basically follows along themes he’s been exploring for the last eight years. Jungen, a Dunne-za, First Nations Indian, creates sculptures that reference his heritage, transforming various mass-produced objects into art: this exhibition opens with a plastic gasoline can perforated with small holes forming the shapes of dragonflies. It’s unclear what significance the viewer should glean from the use of a motif popular among college freshmen, though one might infer that the can likely points to gas-huffing, a problem on First Nation reserves in Canada. It may be that the imprinted design is simply meant to create a female counterpart to the other pieces in the show, though such gender oppositions don’t add anything to the interpretation of the work.

The rest of the gallery is filled with woven ceremonial robes made from sports jerseys. Hanging flatly on the wall, and neutered of any meaning past the dull objects they were and have become, the work is surely a low point relative to Jungen’s past successes.  Just last year, the artist created a series of impressive totem poles constructed from hiking backpacks for a show at Catriona Jeffries gallery in Vancouver. In that work, both the materials and the object they represent are as successful in their craft, as they are in concept, each privileging social status, referencing a type of vacation that typically involves a fair bit of work. Admittedly, the artist brings some virtuosity to the actual textile weaving of his newest work — some of the patterns verging on beautiful — but the shirt still looks like a shirt, and a boring one at that.

To read the full review click here.

Jeff Koons at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image via Gothamist.

Jeff Koons has seen more than his fair share of coverage on this blog as of late, so I didn’t go out of my way to attend the press preview at the Met Monday. It is however news, so here’s a summation of thoughts from other sources:

• Unbeige is excited about the specialty drinks that accompany the rooftop sculptures.

• Culturegrrl asks whether the show necessary, and questions whether borrowing from the collection of Steve Cohen makes the work more desirable.

• Ken Johnson thinks they look too small.

• Gothamist has good pictures.