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ArtPrize

Wednesday Links: Laying Low, Getting Away, and Moving Out

by Paddy Johnson on October 12, 2016

James Mellick, Wounded Warrior Dogs. Image via: MLive.com

Ooooh. Production drawings from the 1960’s T.V. series, “Batman”. [Batgirl Bat-trap]
Don’t buy your art off e-bay. The company reportedly made 1.4 billion in the in the UK, but paid just 1 million in taxes. (hat tip: Paul B. Davis) [The Guardian]
James Mellick and Stacey Kirby win ArtPrize’s top honors this year. Mellick produced a series of wooden dog sculptures with prosthetics and Kirby a series of performances set within site-specific installations that examine government processes [artnet News]
More on Chinatown’s gentrification—this time with some good news. A small 20-unit apartment building in Chinatown will receive $2.2 million towards not only preserving its affordability but making it more sustainable. [Curbed]
Why You Shouldn’t Live in New York. A new 20×200 print by William Powhida. My favorite line item: Graffiti tours. [20×200]
Speaking of getting away: here are the best places to escape the art world (in L.A.) [Artillery]
File under fodder: according to Time, Ronald McDonald is lying low until the crown craze is over. Is this a bullshit story dreamed up by McDonalds? That mascot’s been laying low for the last 15 years. I thought the company had moved on to new touchstones—like Dash Snow. [Time]

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Wednesday Links: Legions of Frog Profile Pics, Explained

by Paddy Johnson on September 28, 2016

Image via the ArtPrize Facebook page. Artist unknown.

The Anti-Defamation League has listed the meme Pepe the Frog as a hate symbol. I guess that explains why so many Donald Trump supporters on Twitter use Pepe’s image as their profile pic. [The New York Times]
Plans have been unveiled for the new Penn Station within the old Farley Post Office. The new design from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill is obviously better than the claustrophobic conditions under Madison Square Garden, but mostly this design is pretty bland. It just feels like a glass mall or airport anywhere. Yawn. [Curbed]
An article that connects culture wars of 1990s to the rise of gentrification. [The Los Angeles Times]
Related: It’s almost impossible to get a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. If you’re an artist who is being approached on Facebook by a stranger claiming to be an NEA employee trying to give you money, it is obviously a scam. Yes, this is apparently a real problem. [artnet News]
Ella Coon visits Jessica Stockholder’s The Guests All Crowded Into the Dining Room at Mitchell-Innes & Nash. The center of the exhibit is a platform that both references a table and provides a vantage point to look down on the rest of the art, “This bird’s-eye view, however, holds more symbolic clout than this description suggests. And, viewed against the dish of jettisoned shells, which now looks more like the remnants of a seagulls’ bacchanal, it begs the question of what it really means for humans to make and consume anything.” [ARTnews]
Bad at Sports talks with performance artist Sam Hertz. The sound of the actual interview could use some help—lots of philosophical discussion about perception and the nature of knowledge here. “How do you know the snow is white?” Little too much navel gazing here, but still – a reasonable listen for the studio. [Bad at Sports]
One of the few remaining public housing structures left in Chicago after the Hope VI program gutted the city’s affordable housing stock will become a museum. The National Public Housing Museum (NPHM) will open in time for the 2018 Architecture Biennial. [The Architect’s Newspaper]
Voting doesn’t always produce informed consensus. Take the US Presidential race as one example. Take ArtPrize, a 19 day art orgy in Grand Rapids Michigan, in which the public votes for their favorite work of art, as another. We’ve seen plenty of questionable finalists and winners. An article detailing highlights, lowlights and everything in between. Looks like Kiki Smith is a participant this year! [Detroit Free Press]
“Breaking News: Cassils”, at Tufts University in Boston gets a review. In one video now on view, a black and white montage of volunteers at SF Pride pop balloons through the gesture of hugging. It sounds like gunshots and is a memorial to the people who were murdered at The Pulse Nightclub in Orlando Florida. [Hyperallergic]

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Light City Baltimore Happened to a Resounding “Meh”

by Michael Anthony Farley on April 4, 2016

For the past year, residents of Baltimore have been bombarded with hype about Light City, a free festival of music and “light art” in the Inner Harbor. The organizers have repeatedly compared it to South by Southwest and Art Basel (two extremely dissimilar events) and secured roughly $4 million in funding from a mix of public and private sponsors. But it seems like the only people excited about this thing are the people who paid for it.

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ArtPrize Announces $20,000 in Grants for Artists

by Michael Anthony Farley on March 30, 2016

ArtPrize, the Michigan-based public art competition, has announced a $20,000 fund to be distributed via “pitch nights” in four cities. Artists from those respective regions can attend these events in Durham, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, and Louisville and propose public artworks to a panel for the chance to secure $5,000 to realize their projects. The selected artists will then be given an exhibition opportunity during ArtPrize.

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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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The Ten Best Exhibitions of 2014

by Paddy Johnson on December 31, 2014

With this job, you don’t always have a chance to write up all the exhibitions you saw and loved, so for me, the 2014 year-end review is a Godsend. It gives me a chance to give a shout out to everything I saw and loved. And this year, there was an awful lot of it. May 2015 be this bountiful and more.

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ArtPrize to Launch in Dallas, 2016

by Paddy Johnson on November 21, 2014

ArtPrize is coming to Dallas. Yesterday, the Grand Rapids-based 501-c3 announced via email that they have entered into a three-year charter agreement to launch and oversee a new, independent non-profit named ArtPrize Dallas. Following the format of ArtPrize Grand Rapids, the event will be held in the city of Dallas for 19 days, and will offer up to $500,000 in cash prizes and grants to artists. ArtPrize Dallas is slated to launch in April 2016 with Executive Director Ariel Saldivar at the helm. Prior to this, she worked as the Associate Director of the Dallas-based Goss-Michael Foundation.

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Tuesday Links: Nine Inch Nail Art

by Paddy Johnson and Corinna Kirsch on October 14, 2014

Does nail art mean we’re turning into post-human cyborgs? [Rhizome]
“I put a giant 10-foot vagina in the world and people respond to giant 10-foot vaginas in the way that they do.” Carolina A. Miranda interviews Kara Walker on her Domino Sugar project. [Culture: High & Low]
As we mentioned yesterday, Karlheinz and Agnes Essl, founders of the Essl Museum, had 43 works from their private auction put up for sale at Christie’s last night. To be honest, sales “fell flat,” according to The Art Newspaper. That didn’t stop Christie’s from trying to sell works after the auction; the house sold Gerhard Richter’s “Net” straight after the auction close. I guess you can you do that? [The Art Newspaper]
Frieze opens its doors to VIPs today. Journos don’t have their write-ups ready, but we’ve learned that there’s a new section for performance called “Live.” [Twitter]
Can’t get enough Frieze news: Cory Arcangel and a Frieze staff member will perform a new piece by the artist, which is to download and watch Anchorman 2. Very Arcangel. Very ironic. Very 2000. *eyeroll* [@cory_arcangel]
Adult goths, bow down before this new review of NIN’s 1989 album Pretty Hate Machine. It’s been 25 years since the album’s original release, and the ensuing commodification of teenage angst. [The Quietus]
Beginning this December MoMA will present a 50-film screening of Robert Altman films. [Artsbeat]
“I think that humor is always a reaction to a feeling of impotence or despair, and for me the moment we are living in right now is very dark, with conflicts dividing people in a violent way and having an impact on culture and trade.” Camille Henrot on the relevance of humor in art. [Artspace]
Bloomberg Philanthropies has announced the creation of “Public Art Challenge,” a series of million-dollar grants to three cities in the United States to create temporary art projects that “celebrate creativity, enhance urban identity, encourage public-private partnerships and drive economic development.” Could this mean more cities hosting ArtPrize-inspired exhibitions? [Artsbeat]
Man arrested for aggressive mopping and threats. [Fox]
It’s restaurant week in Queens! [It’s in Queens]
Governor Cuomo’s “Women’s Equality Express” campaign bus looks like a tampon box. [The Daily News]
Follow up to yesterday’s Baby Pac-Man link: Pac-Man air hockey. The goal is to smash all the “baby” pucks with your mallet. Where can we play? [YouTube via Ben Gonyo]

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