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Bill de Blasio

Thursday Links: Let’s Talk About Butter Sculptures

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on July 27, 2017

Photographer Paul Raftery has documented the bizarre architecture of Kazakhstan’s post-Soviet capital Astana. The city looks like a weird low budget sci-fi show’s CGI landscapes brought to life. [Dezeen]
BienalSur, a new biennial organized by the Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero of Argentina, launches this Fall with 379 projects scattered across different continents. This biennial format is sort of uncharted waters—Buenos Aires is the hub, but the focus is on South America in general, and projects will take place as far away as Paris and Tokyo. [The Art Newspaper]
The American Alliance of Museums and the Association of Art Museum Directors have both come out against the Berkshire Museum’s plan to sell 40 artworks to line its endowment and renovate its building. “One of the most fundamental and longstanding principles of the museum field is that a collection is held in the public trust and must not be treated as a disposable financial asset.” [The New York Times]
Ralph Steadman and Ceri Levy got a profile of their collaborations over at VICE. They make cheesy activist drawings of endangered animals, which are relevant because Steadman used to collaborate with Hunter S. Thompson, a well-known journalist and founder of the Gonzo journalism movement. (Thompson’s significance is never explained.) Anyway the drawings look exactly as you’d imagine—contrived splatter, extreme poses, compositions that all sit in the middle of the page. They’re no Walton Ford, that’s for sure. But the author seems to believe that if Steadman played into artist stereotypes more, and was “weirder, hermetic, less astonishingly prolific, and more pretentiously grandiose”, he’d be recognized as one of the truly great artists of our time. Sure. [VICE]
Why is today such a slow art news day? (Yes, we saw the Dana Schutz controversy. Lay off her, already.) I literally just found myself reading this blurb about butter sculptures at the Ohio State Fair, fascinated: “The American Dairy Association Mideast says the sculpture unveiled Tuesday salutes chocolate milk as the official drink of the Ohio High School Athletic Association. It’s the first time the butter sculpture has included color. Cocoa was added for the bottle.” [Seattle Times]
Thank fucking God. The MTA board has pushed back against the authority’s ambitious new rescue plan that would include more fare hikes. The authority’s chief financial officer, Robert E. Foran, pushed for those hikes, but the board thinks the money needs to come from other sources. Andrew Cuomo, the state governor has promised half the funds for the rescue plan, but New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has resisted giving the authority the rest. The mayor needs to man up. [The New York Times]
TRIXI studios has used new ARKit software to develop an augmented reality version of A-Ha’s “Take on Me” video. Is this the future of music videos? [The Verge]

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Tuesday Links: Famous New Media Artist Jeremy Bailey Promises Personalized Exhibition in Your Web Ads

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on July 18, 2017

Baltimore Clayworks, a much-beloved ceramic studio and education nonprofit, is filing for chapter 7 bankruptcy after 37 years. Frustratingly, it seems like the board didn’t cooperate with the community in attempting to resolve their cash flow problems, and instead were relying on a real estate deal that fell through. [The Baltimore Sun]
Speaking of closures/real estate deals, The Hard Times continues to roll out the best headlines on the internet: “Record Store You Didn’t Shop at Becomes Condo You Can’t Afford”. [The Hard Times]
I guess this is what it looks like when a reporter who begins with no knowledge of the art world writes about the art world’s transition to online sales. That transition is tracked wholly through Artsy – when other companies are described they’re lumped into categories so broad they misdescribe them. Quotes sometimes come from sources who aren’t exactly authorities on the subjects they discuss. That’s just a result of not knowing much though. The story has an extra grating edge because it’s a tale of privilege (Carter Cleveland is the son of an art historian and financier) soliciting funding for a company that tailors to privilege (art collectors). AND the company’s entire spiel-using the site is so easy it’s “almost pedestrian”—contains a whiff of class appropriation. That said, the article does contain some useful tidbits — the company now reports $20 million a month in facilitated sales (whatever that means). Glad it’s doing well. [The Verge]
The list of amenities at this artist residency is pretty funny. Highlights include “List of extreme activities all around the country” and “Bulgarian phone number – SIM card”. Sign us up! [Art Connect
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house famously straddles a waterfall. Unfortunately, the rapids were a little too rough recently and caused exterior damage, including to the Jacques Lipchitz sculpture “Mother and Child,” which Wright himself selected for the site in 1941. [Architectural Digest]
The NYT has an adorable blurb about the unlikely friendship between Jamie Wyeth, Andy Warhol, and Archie Warhol, the painter’s dachshund. [The New York Times]
Here’s a slideshow of Columbia University’s new Lenfest Center for the Arts, designed by Renzo Piano. It’s an “eh” building. Functional, but I believe Paddy once accurately described the exterior as looking “like a pharmaceutical company’s corporate campus”. [Dezeen]
Politicians about to re-enter an election campaign need to stop getting on the train anytime a problem is announced and start solving the problems. Bill de Blasio doesn’t need to ride the 7 train to see a Mets game, he needs to fix it. [Curbed]
Speaking of Curbed, we’ve noticed Famous New Media artist Jeremy Bailey has taken out an ad that appeared on the site for his “The You Museum”. The project “curates personalized exhibitions that are delivered to you via banners on the websites you visit most.” We want this. [The You Museum]
Brooklynites rejoice: Deborah Kass’ “OY/YO” sculpture is back! It’s been moved to the Williamsburg waterfront. [untapped cities]

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Tuesday Links: How Art Lead to Pasteurization

by Paddy Johnson on June 20, 2017

Jeff-Koons-Gazing-Ball-Paintings-at-Gagosian-Gallery-Installation-View-e1450498853608

Ouch. Jeff Koons has reduced his studio staff by half. The gazing ball paintings aren’t doing very well. (Surprise, surprise. They’re terrible.) [artnet News]

Wow. Ben Davis really doesn’t like documenta 14. He calls it “deliberately irredeemable”. A fun read. [artnet News]

Ew. A noose has been found hanging from a lamppost outside the National Gallery of Art. [Hyperallergic]

How art lead to pasteurization. [The New York Times]

Activist group Care2 is calling on Bill de Blasio to make some of the rainbow colored sidewalks honoring the LGBTQ community permanent. That would be so cool! [Curbed]

I bet Londoners can’t wait for it to rain now. Burkinabe architect Diébédo Francis Kéré has unveiled this year’s Serpentine Pavilion, an blue structure with a latticed canopy that will turn into a waterfall when it rains. It was sunny the day it was unveiled. [Dezeen]

“This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.” John F. Kennedy once said, referring to the arts. The Kennedy Center will open its expansion in 2018. A great little profile on Kennedy’s relationship to the arts. [The Washington Post]

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Monday Links: Tiffany & Co., Museums, Shia LaBeouf Want You to Join the Resistance

by Michael Anthony Farley on February 20, 2017

Via Medium Quality Screen Captures. I would kill for some context on this one.

The Shia LaBeouf saga continues. After the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens kicked LaBeouf’s anti-Trump installation “HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US”, the actor/artist relocated the piece to the El Rey Theater in Albuquerque New Mexico. It’s already back up and running. [Independent Journal Review]
From rehangs at the Whitney and MoMA to The Brooklyn Museum’s #J20 programming, Andrea K. Scott rounds-up how New York’s museums are protesting the Trump administration. [The New Yorker]
Karen Pence wants to use her new position as “Second Lady” to raise awareness about the benefits of art therapy. One would imagine that after decades of marriage to Mike Pence, she must be a therapy connoisseur. [PBS]
Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer opposes Bill de Blasio’s “mansion tax”, which would add a 2.5% sales tax to homes over $2 million to fund much-needed affordable housing. That’s because the vast majority of New York City’s priciest property sales are in her borough, unsurprisingly. She claims this puts an unfair burden on Manhattanites. But aren’t so many $2+ million sales investment properties for foreign buyers of pied-a-tierres for the globe-trotting ultra-rich? If anything, the tax might have the additional benefit of cooling the luxury market slightly, which would be a boon for most actual Manhattan residents. If you live in Manhattan, it might be worth giving her office a call. [Curbed]
Kota Ezawa has installed his illustration-like reproductions of missing paintings from the infamous Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist at the museum. These are surprisingly lovely. [artnet News]
Miami’s once-scrappy Borscht Film Festival turns 10 this week, and is now a fully-grown-up institution… sort of. They’re celebrating with all kinds of hijinks from a viking funeral to a jetski parade. This would be an excellent time to schedule a last-minute Miami trip. [The Miami Herald]
Bad And Nasty is planning a “Not My President’s Day” of art and activism across the country. In Baltimore, for example, protest/activities/performances are planned across several blocks of the Station North Arts District. [Facebook]

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Thursday Links: NYPD Gets Brooklyn Museum Mini-Retrospective, Louise Blouin Gets Layoffs

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on January 5, 2017

museum5n-11-web

Huh. The NYPD gave mayor Bill de Blasio a presentation about the city’s dropping crime rates in the form of a photography exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. Why? To celebrate the fact that crime rates have dropped more in Brooklyn than any other borough. [New York Daily News]

Dystopian product of the day: Fisher-Price exercise bike/iPad holder for obese toddlers. Was this actually inspired by that exercise bike/video game episode of Black Mirror? [Gizmodo]

Good news for curators and the despots who want to lend them artwork: President Obama has signed into law a bill protecting foreign-owned artworks from confiscation if they are in the United States for the purpose of an exhibition. The exception to this rule is Holocaust-looted pieces. This follows a years-long lending frieze between Russia and the United States over disputed Jewish texts seized in the Bolshevik Revolution. [Artforum]

Headline of the day: Man Warned Woman He’s An Asshole, So It’s Fine. Pretty much every woman has dated this man and regretted it. [Reductress]

Someone bought an apartment in Queens that came with a mosaic of early-aughts pop star Mandy Moore in the shower. [Curbed]

Google has added a virtual reality “Artist in Residency” program, which actually sounds like they’ve just hired/invited (Google won’t discuss compensation) a group of artists to advise on the development of their new Tilt Brush tool. [Mashable]

Louise Blouin Media appears to be in the midst of a major staff shakeup. They’ve dismissed Modern Painters editor-in-chief Scott Indrisek, among others, potentially over budget cuts. What kind of budget cuts? “The kind in which you terminate your editor-in-chief midway through the closing of your March/April issue,” Indrisek said in an email. [ARTnews]

Two juveniles were shot in Jacksonville Florida last Friday during an art walk. The victims are fine – they suffered non-life threatening injuries. There’s almost no information other than this. [First Coast News]

The most popular searches on artnet are pretty much entirely photographers known for nudes and street artists. [artnet News]

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is promising a new terminal and transportation options for JFK. Ugh, stay away. It’s not that these airports don’t need work but that every time Cuomo gets involved the projects become cash giveaways to private partners and the construction is done in the most ass backwards way possible. Case and point: thanks to the renovation projects and ill-conceived interim traffic management at LaGuardia it often takes two hours just to leave the airport. [Gothamist]

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Tuesday Links: Anish Kapoor Gives “Exclusive” Pigment the Finger

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on December 27, 2016

anish-kapoor

After Anish Kapoor secured the exclusive rights to light-absorbing pigment Vantablack, artist Stuart Semple created “The World’s Pinkest Pink,” which is available to everyone except Kapoor. Kapoor responded to this dig with the above Instagram photo, wherein his middle finger is dipped in Semple’s pigment. This seems like the kind of drama one wouldn’t expect Kapoor to have time for. [artnet News]

Beginning with David Bowie, J. Kelly Nestruck looks back at artists who died in 2016 and the ways in which they “performed” their deaths. [The Globe and Mail]

George Michael died this weekend. Here’s a look at why he mattered beyond the music. Think making gayness more interesting and less threatening, and erasing the barrier between who should and should not sing a soul song. [The New York Times]

Last week we previewed the new artworks in the Second Avenue Subway. It didn’t occur to me though, that Vik Muniz’s “Perfect Strangers” mosaic features what appears to be New York City’s first depiction of a gay couple in a permanent, non-political piece of public art. [AP]

Photographer Wing Shya’s aesthetic emerged about two decades ago, while working as an on-set photographer for filmmaker Wong Kar Wai during Hong Kong cinema’s golden age. Today, his gorgeous photos maintain a cinematic quality, even as the city’s culture and economy stagnate under mainland Chinese rule. [CNN]

Famed minimalist and art critic Donald Judd amassed a tomb of writing over his life, but never used a typewriter. This news comes in a profile by Randy Kennedy on a new collection of the artist’s writings and his children’s role in shepherding the project. [The New York Times]

Best new architecture in NYC. In a surprise to no one, Santiago Calatrava’s Oculus makes the list, but not without some heavy caveating. (Late opening, political tomfoolery, shopping mall effect, etc.) [Curbed]

The Denver Art Museum’s upcoming renovation proclaims to be fairly sensitive to the existing facilities. Nevertheless, there’s apparently some controversy over relocating Edgar Heap of Birds’ outdoor sculpture “Wheel”. This editorial doesn’t really explain what that controversy is, though. [Denver Post]

Great. The GOP is connecting Democratic senate candidates in New York to Mayor de Blasio and corruption wherever possible. And of course, it’s an easy attack to launch because the administration has been plagued by corruption. [Politico]

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Tuesday Links: Cats Continue to Serve Public Good Online

by Paddy Johnson on December 20, 2016

Behind this kitten lurks something much more sinister.

A chrome extension that replaces pictures of Donald Trump with kittens. [Business Insider]
We’ve all seen this by now, but Russia’s ambassador to Turkey was shot while giving remarks at Contemporary Arts Center in the Cankaya area of Ankar. [The New York Times]
Andrew Russeth’s Top 10. My favorite list so far. Just the right mix of the expected and shit you didn’t even know was shown. [ARTnews]
Jonathan Jones’s Top 10. My least favorite list so far. It begins with Pablo Picasso and Hieronymus Bosch and ends with Douglas Gordon. Sure, sure on the old time-y stuff, but every contemporary art pick is tacky as hell. [The Guardian]
A look at the art on the 2nd Ave Subway line. Ugh. A tacky Vic Muniz picturing a girl and her runaway balloon. But there’s a good Chuck Close, so maybe it evens out. [The New York Times]
38 more units for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s affordable housing project. [Politico]

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Friday Links: Brooklyn Museum, Vanessa Beecroft Unsurprisingly Court Respective Controversies

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on September 9, 2016

Vanessa Beecroft Kanye

The Brooklyn Museum has named David Berliner president and chief operating officer. Given the museum’s PR problem with accusations of being pro-developer (and by extension, pro-gentrification) this is an odd choice. Berliner served previously as the chief operating officer of Forest City Ratner Companies, the developers who controversially created Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park using eminent domain to displace residents. [ARTnews]

Wow. Kanye West and Vanessa Beecroft can’t seem to stop doing controversial/dumb things. For their latest collaboration, they left models (“multi-racial women only”) standing for hours in the blistering sun on Roosevelt Island for so long that several women fainted and audience members (not production crew) felt so bad that they brought them bottles of water. Why? According to Beecroft, “The long wait before, I believe it was planned because [West] wanted the audience to get into this state of having to observe and having to stay.” [artnet News]

As New York rents skyrocket, in conjunction with higher labor and food costs, the city is hemorrhaging restaurants. Chefs are instead heading to midwestern cities to open places that can afford a “neighborhood” feel or culinary risk-taking. Meanwhile, landlords are ending up with vacant retail space or some combination of banks and Duane Reade locations. [Food Republic]

This post’s title-“Time to Let People Decide if 9/11 Sculpture is Art or Exploitation”-is pure click bait but the post isn’t. Reading through the article we watch the writer cite her own past criticisms of Eric Fischl’s sculpture back in 2002, Eric Fischl’s response years later and her reassessment of her position now. It’s rare to see that kind of bravery in writers. [The New York Post]

In other WTC news, a design has at last been chosen for the complex’s performing arts center. The winning proposal comes from Brooklyn-based firm REX, headed by former OMA architect Joshua Prince-Ramus (who spearheaded the famed Seattle Central Library alongside Rem Koolhaas). It’s a translucent marble box that slightly recalls OMA’s Casa da Musica, or perhaps I.M. Pei’s East Gallery. Those buildings are successful because they feel sturdy, timeless, and permanent yet lightweight and welcoming (as opposed to the 1 World Trade Center tower) and the performing arts center looks to hit those same notes. [Curbed]

It only took three weeks for New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Councilman Jimmy Van Bremer to sit down for the meeting de Blasio promised in their latest skirmish over affordable housing, but it happened. Van Bremer has not backed down on his position that the so-called affordable housing at Phipps House slated for Queens is not a good idea. Now, a coalition of nearly a dozen community and arts organizations (Art F City included) will hold a summit on Sunday, Sept. 18, to discuss the Phipps Houses plan, the overdevelopment of western Queens and the SBJSA. [Times Ledger]

Not so sure about the photos on this site, but what the hell: YaPhoto is a new photography platform that’s launched in Cameroon with the mission of promoting an emerging community of Cameroonian photographers. [YaPhoto]

Art Basel has announced Buenos Aires as its first partner in the vaguely-defined Art Basel Cities Initiative. This is intended to “develop a program of cultural events designed to celebrate the city’s vibrant arts scene and raise its profile in the international art world as part of its economic development.” [Miami Herald]

We’ve never heard Joan Semmel’s theory that feminism comes into fashion when the market is down, because women’s art is less expensive. We’re not sure how this theory follows the rules of supply and demand. Art market experts, is this true? Anyway, an interview with painter and feminist Joan Semmel. [Hyperallergic]

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Tuesday Links: Extremely Un-First-Family-Appropriate Behavior Abounds at RNC and Abroad

by Michael Anthony Farley and Rhett Jones on July 19, 2016

Ayanda Mabulu’s extremely-NSFW painting of South African president Jacob Zuma… which we have censored with a Pokemon.

While giving her speech at the Republican National Convention last night, Melania Trump plagiarized an entire paragraph from Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic Convention speech. The campaign just straight up denies this happened. It’s insane. [CNN]

Resource for artists and professionals: Clarion List has links to things you need often like framers and things that are extremely specialised like art risk consultants. [Clarion List]

Parviz Tanavoli, the Iranian pop artist who was mysteriously detained earlier this month has had his passport returned to him and he is free to travel. He promptly left Tehran for Vancouver. [The Art Newspaper]

Wow, two days in a row we get something dumb from Jonathan Jones, what are the odds? Today, he enlightens everyone on the topic of “artwashing.” It’s a tough subject that Jones breaks down for you like this, “There is such a thing as civilisation – and it has a way of looking a bit like “gentrification.” Yes, low-income neighborhoods are uncivilized. This makes art look bad. [The Guardian]

The Prado’s Hieronymus Bosch exhibition marks one of the only times in the past five centuries that this many of the artist’s works are together in one place. Insane. [New York Post]

“When I see Ayanda Mabulu, I am going to wrap my fingers around his neck and throttle him.” -Edward Zuma, son of South African president Jacob Zuma on a painter who has criticised the administration. [News24]

17 buildings by Le Corbusier have been designated world heritage sites by UNESCO, including the the National Museum of Western Art, in Tokyo and the Unité d’habitation in Marseille. [Curbed]

Mladen Stilinović, the Croatian conceptual artist whose contributions to the tiny country’s contemporary art scene helped put it on the map, has passed away at 69. [artnet News]

The de Blasio administration has tapped Toronto’s Adam Giambrone as the new Brooklyn-Queens “Streetcar Czar”. Let’s hope Giambrone has learned what makes streetcars suck so much from Toronto’s example: trains don’t do well in mixed traffic. Seriously, every time a car double parks or hits a train the whole damn system gets held up. Why do people keep talking about streetcars like they’re the technology of the future? They made sense in the Victorian era when they didn’t have to share the road with someone’s Hummer. If this idea is going to be remotely usable in New York, they’re going to have to close the streets and give this baby signal prioritization. [Curbed]

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I Won the Housing Lottery & Got a Poor Door

by Joyce Yu-Jean Lee on June 10, 2016

One of the most common questions artists ask each other at openings is, “Where do you live?” Perhaps equivalent to the typical New Yorker’s “What do you do?”, most of the artists I’m meeting these days live in Brooklyn. On the rare occasion an artist like me answers “Manhattan,” eyebrows raise.

At least this has been my recent experience, so I quickly caveat with, “I won the housing lottery.” This usually provokes responses like, “Wow, that’s like winning the lottery!” Yes, it is. In fact, the odds were approximately 0.06%.

But being a lottery winner isn’t all limos and 6,000 square foot living rooms.

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