Paddy has written 24 article(s) for AFC.
Posts by author:
Paddy Johnson Whitney Kimball and Corinna Kirsch
by Paddy Johnson Whitney Kimball and Corinna Kirsch on June 17, 2013
What is happening this week? Thursday is happening. After the Venice Biennale and Frieze, galleries are back on track with mega-Thursday opening nights, boasting the arrival of fun summer group shows. Jew York! The Kitchen! Emerging! Established! All of it’s going into one big pot. Time for some fun.
Read the full article →
by Paddy Johnson Whitney Kimball and Corinna Kirsch on June 13, 2013
Idris Khan and Sarah Warsop "Lying in Wait," 2008. Featured in Art and Auction's 50 Most Collectable list
- Jesus Christ. Nine pages of fawning Turrell profile in the New York Times this morning. Can’t we at least space these out? [New York Times]
- Each of Artinfo’s “50 Under 50” most collectible emerging artists ends in a price range. I’ve never seen so many dollar signs in an artist list. Unsurprisingly, painters are high. [ArtInfo]
- Jerry Saltz raves over the Met’s big in-house reorganization, going so far as to suggest that creating space for 45 extra rooms (once used for rotating exhibitions) may alter the course of art. He notes, “I especially appreciate that the Met did this not by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on some newfangled, architecturally driven, funny-shaped ark of a building with traffic patterns that force you to smell food while looking at art.” [Vulture]
- Rhizome’s Gene McHugh believes artist Peter Van Riper has not yet received the recognition he deserves for his sound or holographic work. The essay is mostly dedicated to exploring his art; Van Riper made some of the earliest holographic images and could be recognized for that alone (he’s better known for his musical work).[Rhizome]
- 3D TV is going out with a fizzle. ESPN 3D, like a handful of others, emerged in 2010 soon after the release of “Avatar”. The lack of popularity, we assume, has something to do with needing to wear those clunky 3D glasses. [Wall Street Journal]
- Josh Baer says Art Basel in Switzerland is the best fair in quality and range of material and laments that more Americans don’t visit. Our thoughts? This year, the fair was spaced two weeks apart from Venice though, so it’s not quite as convenient as it has been previously. [Baer Faxt]
- For those following Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and his associated scandals, police raided the apartment of two suspected drug dealers he was pictured with. I know this sounds terrible, but I hope they find something that incriminates Ford. He’s a destructive mayor. [The Toronto Star]
- Oh, god. Not another art and punk rock pairing. MOCAtv just launched a new series “The Art of Punk”. The first episode interviews artist Raymond Pettibon about how he came up with the band’s ubiquitous four bar logo. He stands around his studio holding a puppy in his arms while pointing to “that motherfucking thing” [the logo]. June 18th will see the launch of “Art and the Dead Kennedy’s”. [MOCAtv]
Read the full article →
by Paddy Johnson Whitney Kimball and Corinna Kirsch on May 21, 2013
- After Time Out Chicago axed their full-time art critic, a flurry of criticism arose about how many full-time art critics are actually out there, and whether freelance critics count. Gallerist NY adds to this debate just by simply stating what critic Deborah Solomon stated on WNYC this week, that there are fewer than ten full-time art critics writing for newspapers. Yes, we know this, but many freelancers out there are upset that “full-time art critic” doesn’t refer to online publications or those who write for several. It’s an issue of legitimacy in the eyes of changing media. For that debate, just take a look at the comments section to this piece. [Gallerist NY]
- Greg Allen is no fan of Architecture Firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s Hirschhorn design, “The Bubble”. Liz Diller wonders if the museum could be an agent for cultural diplomacy and proceeds to present a structure designed to house expensive events like TED, the WEF, and CFR fora. Why ask the question, if the purpose of the venue won’t ever answer the question. [Greg.org]
- E-book revenue increased by 42% last year. Art publications are still harder to find for my Kindle than your fill-in-the blank bestseller. [The Los Angeles Times]
- Fewer couples are having kids in the states, but they’re making way for more puppies. U-S-A! [The Atlantic]
- Bushwick Open Studios starts next week, and runs from May 31st through June 2nd. Here’s the map of the 587 studios listed so far. [Arts in Bushwick]
- Hennessy Youngman has come out with his second lo-fi mix this year, CVS Bangers Vol. 2. Listen to the mellow 80s tracks you’d hear while filling your cart up with Mac ‘n’ Cheez Whiz, interrupted by a blaring airhorn, then Hennessy-designed ads, then someone saying “Obama”. Just Obama. [Soundcloud via Twitter]
- The Asia Society has hired a new President, Josette Sheeran, vice chair of the World Economic Forum. [The Wall Street Journal]
- The Met just appointed a new curator to its Department of Medieval Art and the Cloisters, C. Griffith Mann, since the Cleveland Museum of Art’s chief curator. He’ll be bumping up current curator Peter Barnet to senior curator of that department. [Cleveland.com]
Read the full article →
by Paddy Johnson Whitney Kimball and Corinna Kirsch on May 16, 2013
Eric Fischl, "Woman Surrounded by Dogs", 1979-80.
- A chicken has been slaughtered in the name of art. Heads have rolled. ARTINFO’s Sky Goodden breaks down the event, the aftermath and the precedents. [ARTINFO]
- Smoking pot will give you a skinny waist. There’s probably some other factors contributing to the overall weight of pot smokers, but they’re definitely not as interesting. Now, like a make-you-feel-better pill or healthy vitamin, you can take your pot in liquid form. Sluurrrp. [The Daily Beast]
- 65 year old artist Eric Fischl tells The New York Times he’s been trying to “grow up”. He’s promoting his new memoir Bad Boy: My Life On and Off the Canvas so he’s been talking to a lot of publications lately. [NYTimes]
- Isabella Rossellini as a hamster eating her young in a new web series “Mamas,” and she is amazing at it. [Paper Mag]
- This morning Reuters journalist Felix Salmon showed up on Democracy Now for a roundtable discussion with Cooper Union board member Mark Epstein and current student Victoria Sobel. [Democracy Now, Twitter via @felixsalmon, student @VictoriaSobel]
- Hrag Vartanian produced a great GIF of Christie’s auctioneer Jussi Pylkkanen last night. Also, rich people bought more contemporary art than ever before! Total sale from last night’s auction: $495 million. [Hyperallergic]
Read the full article →
by Paddy Johnson Whitney Kimball and Corinna Kirsch on May 8, 2013
From Alex Bag & Patterson Beckwith's "Unicorns & Rainbows"
- “Long may the monkey king ride the seas of commerce on his dolphin, and long may Gagosian attend him.” Jonathan Jones on why Jeff Koons is a better artist than Damien Hirst. [The Guardian]
- There is at least one performance artist in the world who is bankrolling it, and now she has bought a $2.65 million apartment in SoHo. Dayum, Marina. [Curbed NY]
- Postmasters has moved across the street from Kansas in Tribeca. They’ve got a 4500 square foot space. [Postmasters]
- The saga that never ends: Eugenia and Nicholas Taubman are suing the Knoedler Gallery, Michael Hammer, Ann Freedman, Glafira Rosales and Jose Carlos Bergantinos Diaz alleging they were sold a fake Clyfford Still for $4.3 million. This is one suit of many that have been lodged recently against Knoedler. [Justia Court Dockets and Filings. Via: Baer Faxt]
- Alex Bag and Patterson Beckwith have released a series of clips from their late-night mid-nineties public access show “Unicorns & Rainbows.” There’s not exactly one stand-out here, but if you like the grunge over cute baby animals, then this is your program. [Sex Magazine] Also, Petland’s sign hasn’t changed in 20 years.
- Sotheby’s held its Impressionist and Modern Art sale last night and Paul Cezanne took home the top-selling lot with his 1889 still-life Les Pommes. Those are some $37 million dollar apples. Also to note: LL Cool J was there. [Artnet Tumblr]
- Stranger danger! If left unattended, your house painter just might steal your Picasso. [The Wall Street Journal]
Read the full article →
by Paddy Johnson Whitney Kimball and Corinna Kirsch on May 1, 2013
- White Men Wearing Google Glass. [Tumblr, via Jennifer Chan)
- Thanks to @carla_gannis for this “music that makes you dumb,” a list of schools, followed by their corresponding SAT scores and favorite bands, from Beethoven to Lil Wayne. [musicthatmakesyoudumb]
- In resources: Here’s how to identify seats with power outlets on your flight. [SeatGuru]
- Felix Salmon on the tragedy of Cooper Union. As he tells it, President Jamshed Bharucha is more concerned with global brand-building than he is Peter Cooper’s vision. It hurts to read this story. [Felix Salmon]
- Public disgust and protests by the Hopi people did nothing to stop Paris’ Druout auction house from making record-breaking sales on sacred Hopi objects and artifacts. It’s one of three such recent auctions in Paris. [TAN]
- AFC’s hood gets a new gallery, The Bishop, thanks to two Pratt grad students. [DNAInfo]
Read the full article →
by Paddy Johnson Whitney Kimball and Corinna Kirsch on April 30, 2013
- So, the New Museum is hosting a residency program for the NEA 4. It’s hard to pin down what, exactly, this residency will look like; from what we know so far, all four artists’ projects will be concerned with how to fund performance art. Sadly, Karen Finley’s project shows how to do that, but only by getting away from performance altogether. In “Sext Me if You Can”, Finley will ask audience members to send her sexts, which she’ll then make into paintings to sell at the New Museum. Here’s my preliminary review: Not brilliant. [New Museum]
- Latvia just opened the Mark Rothko Center. Pro: This is the first time any Rothko paintings have made their way to Eastern Europe. Con: The museum only has six of them. [Financial Times]
- The Saudi conceptual artist Abdulnasser Gharem plans to set up the Arab state’s first artist-run foundation in Riyadh. [The Art Newspaper]
- Women: shitting at the workplace should feel empowering. It’s okay to take a dump in a stall. [New York Mag]
- Richard Prince made a composite of all of Jerry Seinfeld’s girlfriends. [Animal]
- The planned alliance of Philadelphia’s rare-book collectors’ mecca, the Rosenbach Museum and Library, with the Free Library of Philadelphia could mean greater access to literary treasures. The editorial here suggests the merger will be less messy than the Barnes move. [Philly.com]
- There’s a war brewing with literary critics, and it’s because, no surprise here, book lovers don’t always get bloggers. Literary critics are whining about The New York Times Book Review because the old school publication’s new editor Pamela Paul has “no writerly or literary credentials”. That’s not exactly true, but that doesn’t stop The Guardian’s Michael Wolff from deriding Paul for working “two years as a blogger at the Huffington Post, which, it doesn’t seem entirely churlish to point out, is not a job.” Unfortunately, that’s the best he can come up with. [The Guardian]
- Canada’s National Film Board gets props from The New Yorker blog for supporting radical filmmaking. [The New Yorker]
- A recent New Yorker piece on Depression journalism has an unnamed New York Times editor calling poor people losers, according to ex-Times writer Charlie LeDuff. [The New Yorker, behind the paywall]
- The oil company Shell bankrolled an eight-year scientific analysis of van Gogh’s true palette. It reveals that his colors were originally more naturalistic. [The New York Times]
Read the full article →
by Paddy Johnson Whitney Kimball and Corinna Kirsch on April 25, 2013
- Alanna Martinez asks if Fab.com is selling an actual Carroll Dunham print at a 75 percent discount. [In The Air]
- The Turner Prize shortlist is out. Tino Seghal (meh), David Shrigley (heh), Laure Prouvost (blah), and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (huh?). [The Guardian]
- Peter Brant is more than just an art collector; he’s been a pal to artists. After Brant bought his first Warhol when he was just 21, Andy and Peter ended up taking trips together: to Aspen, Europe, and closer to home, Montauk. [Wall Street Journal]
- This summer, the Met is coming out with yet another blockbuster fashion exhibition, Punk: Chaos to Couture. (That title probably sounds better when said aloud in a death metal growl.) We kid you not, there will be a CBGB bathroom installed in the Met. [New York Magazine]
- Developers are currently digging up a few more blocks of High Line, north of 30th street, now to be added to the the existing park. [Curbed; Crain’s]
- Gross. Julia Halperin reports more museum woes, thanks to shoddy leadership. After this week’s news that MoMA plans to demolish the old Folk Art Museum building, the US Bankruptcy Court has ordered around 200 works seized from its collection. The works had been promised to the museum in 2005 by its former chairman, collector and jewelry merchant Ralph Esmerian, who later used the same work “as collateral to secure multi-million-dollar loans from Sotheby’s and Christie’s.” Esmerian never repaid his debts, and he’s currently in prison for wire fraud, so Sotheby’s will be selling them off this winter. Christie’s is upset because the work isn’t getting sold at Christie’s. Just drag it right through the mud. [The Art Newspaper]
- Shoddy leadership is a plague. Felix Salmon explains how Cooper Union’s board mismanaged funds they were charged with overseeing, and must now, in direct violation of founder Peter Cooper’s vision, charge tuition. No one has been held accountable. [Felix Salmon]
Read the full article →
by Paddy Johnson Whitney Kimball and Corinna Kirsch on April 23, 2013
- Complex lists Chelsea as the best art neighborhood in the world, for its diversity. They write of Hurricane Sandy that “even the little guys managed to find a way to stay afloat, a testament to the resilience and strength of the community.” Among most notable galleries is Postmasters, which leaves next week to escape the skyrocketing rent. [Complex]
- Thanks to Andrew Russeth for pointing out this jewel on billionaires Joe Nahmad from 2007. He’s rich, but notoriously difficult to deal with. It’s hard to get the Nahmads to pay. They don’t stick to the terms of the deal. Nahmad never tips waiters and once ate 14 croissants for breakfast. [Forbes]
- An art student chopped off a live chicken’s head in the Alberta College of Art and Design cafeteria; it was all part of the student’s loose interpretation on a class assignment to film a protest. Police will not press charges. [Maclean’s, via @CAA]
- Those hoping ArtPrize’s new Executive Director Christian Gaines will curb the amount of kitsch the citywide event has become known for should prepare to have their hopes dashed. Gaines, a former film festival manager, says he has no plans to alter the voting process that’s come to define the event. [Hyperallergic]
- Some architects like the former Folk Art Museum building! More than 30 architects and board members of the Architectural League of New York signed a letter that asks MoMA not to tear it down. The building was designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien Architects. [Architect Magazine]
- Move over, 1988. Hans-Ulrich Obrist and Simon Castets are leading a study of artists born after 1989, called 89plus; the project has just selected 22-year-old Alex Mackin Dolan for a residency at the Armory. [ANIMAL]
Read the full article →
by Paddy Johnson Whitney Kimball and Corinna Kirsch on April 19, 2013
- Boston is on total lockdown after two suspects in the Boston Marathon Bombing held up a 7-11, hijacked a car, and drove to Watertown with the police in pursuit. This resulted in a shootout, in which the brothers, from Chechnya, hurled a bomb at officers. Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, is at large, his brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed last night in a shootout in which the brothers also hurled a bomb at officers. [The Internet]
- That said, there’s not much else to follow in the news right now. We’ve been following The Atlantic Wire’s reporters have been up all night, capturing Google street view shots, scouring Twitter feeds, and the like. They’re one of the better news outlets to follow on this story. [The Atlantic Wire]
- Timeline of the Boston Marathon pursuit. [NowThisIsNews]
- WCVB.com’s (The Boston Channel) wire has continuous live coverage of the lockdown. It’s worth tuning in. [WCVB]
- NPR just interviewed a classmate of the remaining suspect. “This kid is 19 and had a super bowl party this year.” [NPR Radio]
- Pretty much, you can’t leave your house in Boston. Until further updates, the city’s planes have been grounded, public transportation and car traffic halted, and residents told “not to open their door to anyone but identified police officer[s]”. [via @TheMatthewKeys, Wired, and @NickKristof ]
- Everything We Know About The Alleged Boston Bombers. Following all these links should knock at least 15 minutes off your day. [Gawker]
- Reuters Social Media Editor Anthony DeRosa is your must follow on twitter. [Twitter]
- Pete Williams of NBC News is being dubbed the “Reporting Hero” of the Boston Marathon Bombings. If you watch TV NBC is where to go. [Huffpo]
Read the full article →
