Paddy Johnson is the founding editor of Art Fag City. In addition to her work on the blog, she has been published in New York Magazine, artreview.com, Art in America, The Daily, Print Magazine, Time Out NY, The Reeler, The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, and New York Press, and linked to by publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Boing-Boing, The New York Observer, Gawker, Design Observer, Make Magazine, The Awl, Artinfo, and we-make-money-not-art. Paddy lectures widely about art and the Internet at venues including Yale University, Parsons, Rutgers, South by Southwest, and the Whitney Independent Study Program. In 2008, she became the first blogger to earn a Creative Capital Arts Writers grant from the Creative Capital Foundation. Paddy is also the art editor at The L Magazine, where she writes a regular column.
Paddy has written 1546 article(s) for AFC.
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Paddy Johnson
by Paddy Johnson on November 7, 2017
This week on Explain Me, William Powhida and I talk to Kenny Schachter about the art world and it’s problem with truth. In addition to a bunch of talk about the upper tier—Schachter’s speciality—we grill him on the troubles of the middle tier, which he mostly describes as cyclical and thus not as bad as they seem. Tune in for the back and forth on this—we disagreed. We also discuss the market for Yayoi Kusama, Joe Bradley, Israel Lund, and a slew of unnamed middle tier artists trying to make a go of it in an unfriendly market environment.
You can always find the podcast on Art F City, but remember we’re also on iTunes and Stitcher. Also, we have another bonus episode slated to run at the end of the week filled with reviews and news, so look forward to that.
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by Paddy Johnson on November 3, 2017
The only thing online opera star (and
AFC benefit host) Joseph Keckler needs to complete his persona is a massive following of rabid internet followers he can manipulate for his own evil ends. Today, he came one step closer to achieving AFC’s goal for the performer by releasing a sequel to “
Shroom Aria” called “
Strangers from the Internet“. In it, he regals his earlier reckless behavior on schrooms, where he invited online strangers into his home but no one came. Several years later, still reeling from the trip, he imagines a scenario in which these same strangers try to break into his house.
Keckler casts himself as an out-of-touch lord living in an opulent Victorian mansion who refuses to accept the presence of the rabble—youtube commenters, twitter trolls, etc—to his own great peril. Eventually, reality breaks down the doors. Performer Sheila Plummer (who bears a striking resemblance to
Louise Fletcher), and a rag tag group of internet misfits find their way into the mansion and threaten attack.
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by Paddy Johnson on October 18, 2017
The new Explain Me podcasts have dropped! This week William Powhida and I did more than we anticipated, so there are two podcasts. The first is a discussion with L.A.Times Staff Writer Carolina A. Miranda (also known as @cmonstah on Twitter) about what David Geffen’s $150 million donation to The Los Angeles County Museum of Art means to the institution. We get into the politics of architecture and discuss speculation over where Geffen’s own collection will land. Later we discuss the recent anti-gentrification protests in Boyle Heights, and how their take-no-prisoners approach has forced one gallery, PSSST to close. Long story short, when it comes to the LA art scene, Miranda is pretty much the most informed human being on the planet. So, we had her on the show. Listen to the podcast below, on Stitcher, and on iTunes.
In part two, “Making Monstrosity Visible in Three Parts”, Powhida and I get to discussing some art. We talk about the Trevor Paglen exhibition at Metro Pictures, which is creepy as fuck. (We also take issue with New York Magazine critic Jerry Saltz’s review on the subject.) We look at Ellie Ga at Bureau, who sensitively touches on the horror of the Syrian refugee crisis. And finally, we take a look Omer Fast show at James Cohen gallery, which is currently at the center of controversy. Numerous protestors have taken issue with Fast’s decision to transform the gallery into a Chinese bus station, and have accused the artist of yellowface. We take a look at the protestors message, Fast’s installation and videos and try to identify where things went wrong. It’s a great discussion and one I hope you’ll tune into. Listen to this podcast below, on Stitcher and on iTunes.
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by Paddy Johnson on October 2, 2017
Good evening! Hello! I started a podcast with artist William Powhida! You read that right. This right here is the inaugural episode of “Explain Me”, an art podcast that talks about the latest art news and exhibitions through the lens of politics, money and the moral of responsibility of artists. To do this, we bring together the point of view of an artist and a critic, a perspective you won’t get anywhere else.
We release a new episode on Mondays of the first and third week each month. We’ll always update the blog with a link, but you can also find us on iTunes and Stitcher.
In this first pod, we discuss Documenta’s massive overspending and near bankruptcy, the closure of Bruce High Quality Foundation University, and a new development along the 7 line describing itself as New York’s best installation. We also talk about a few shows we’ve seen recently in Chelsea: Kara Walker at Sikkema Jenkins, Christian Marclay at Paula Cooper, Tom Friedman at Luhring Augustine, Franklin Evans at Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe, Maya Lin at Pace, Robert Motherwell at Paul Kasmin, and Celeste Dupuy Spencer at Marlborough Gallery. Expect honesty. Expect opinions. And expect freewheeling conversation fueled by camaraderie and a general disappointment with the ways are turning out for us all.
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by Paddy Johnson on September 27, 2017
The idea for Catbox Contemporary had been percolating for years. Founder and artist Philip Hinge hatched the idea of starting a miniature gallery just after he finished grad school at VCU in 2014. The plan was to launch exhibitions inside one of two kitty apartments in his cat tree. It wasn’t until January 2017 that he opened the gallery in his Ridgewood apartment but now it’s taking off.
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by Paddy Johnson on September 22, 2017
With the news that Documenta14 director Adam Szymczyk has led the massive 50-million dollar budget quinquennial into more than 8 million dollars of debt, it may be heartening to hear that there are other similarly named events that have managed to stay well under budget. Take The Backyard Biennial, which launches tonight (amongst the chaos that is Bushwick Open Studios) and runs through next weekend. According to Patrice Helmar, the organizer of the event, and proprietor of the backyard venue in Ridgewood Queens, the entire show was put on with a budget of zero dollars. The biennial includes the work of over 60 artists and takes place in queens.
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by Paddy Johnson on September 15, 2017
It’s 85 degrees out right now, but we might as well admit it’s not summer any more. All of which is to say, it’s time to get back to work. As such, we’ll be resuming limited posting next week. By that I mean you can expect the blog to be updated about once a week with reviews and opinion posts by yours truly, along with any announcements of events we’re launching. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, I’m continuing to work on a few projects we’ll be announcing soon. I can’t wait for that!
So keep your eyes peeled, and in the interim enjoy the limited posting. I promise to deliver only the best of what I’ve become known for: articles that are full of unfettered opinion, and copyediting errors—typically published at least a day later than I’d hoped.
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by Paddy Johnson on July 28, 2017
Let’s not sugarcoat this week—the news has been terrible from start to finish, even though the Democrats have had some victories. So let’s take a break and spend some time with the beloved bear cam before Trump’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, pulls the plug on this too.
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by Paddy Johnson on July 28, 2017
- Probably the most salacious news broke late yesterday and has nothing to do with art. Trump’s new Director of Communications, Anthony Scaramucci, called up the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza, talked about killing leakers, firing his entire department to get the leakers, and described Steve Bannon, the White House’s Chief Strategist, as a cock sucker. The New Yorker reached out to Bannon for comment but received none. [The New Yorker]
- Healthcare lives to see another day thanks to three Republicans who voted no and 49 Democrats, making the vote 51-49. The Republican representatives are: Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Thank you. Again, nothing to do with art, except for how thousands of artists depend on it. [The Internet]
- Oof. Over in Toronto, 401 Richmond Street, a long time location for artist-run centers, festivals, theatre companies, supportive arts institutions, artist studios, etc learned they’d be getting an enormous tax increase. The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC), which calculates commercial property taxes, decided that 401, which enjoys subsidized rent because they do not bring in a lot of money, should pay the same tax rate as everyone else on that block. Bad news for the art community. [Canadian Art]
- Jerry Saltz gives MoMA’s redesign a resigned thumbs up after getting a tour with the architect Liz Diller, a partner in Diller Scofido + Renfro. Diller talked about trying to solve problems of flow with Saltz, which he appreciated. Ultimately, he thinks Lowry is the problem, not the architects. [New York Magazine]
- The Artist Pension Trust is having troubles. The business pools work by thousands of artists to provide them future financial security, and recently announced it would begin charging for storage. Many artists involved are not happy about this. [artnet News]
- Governor Andrew Cuomo floats the idea of selling naming rights to subway stations as a way of earning additional cash. It doesn’t seem like such a bad idea to me, though it may increase the disparity between “rich” stations and “poor” stations if they aren’t smart about how they sell the product. [Curbed]
- For those who missed Up Close: Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel at the WTC Oculus, I’ve got good news—Gothamist has great pics. [Gothamist]
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by Paddy Johnson on July 27, 2017
Congratulations to Lorna Mills for having her gif featured on Wonkette and captioned appropriately, “Clusterfuckery. Heinous clusterfuckery most foul.” Hard to imagine a more fitting GIF for the political stories as of late, though I wish this one involved just a tad more ass fucking. Then it would be perfect.
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