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Berlin

Monday Links: Anti-Trump Artist Threatened

by Michael Anthony Farley on March 20, 2017

Thomas Gainsborough, “Mr. and Mrs. William Hallett,” aka “The Morning Walk.”

Marina Abramović, Laurie Anderson, Jasper Johns, and Cindy Sherman are among the artists who’ve signed a petition against the Trump administration’s proposed federal budget. Under Trump’s plan, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) would be totally defunded. [artnet News]
This is scary. Artist Karen Fiorito has received multiple death threats since creating an anti-Trump billboard. It was commissioned by Phoenix art gallery La Melgosa, and alludes to Nazism. [The Independent]
Also scary: German police now suspect a Belgian man killed Berlin-based artist Ewa Kowska in a sex game gone wrong. The artist’s body was found with multiple stab wounds, which the killer tried to cover up by setting fire to her apartment. [The Local]
Oh man, I have to see this. Apparently the finale of Tracey Ullman’s Show features a wine-swigging “troubled artist” character inspired by Tracey Emin. [Mirror]
The Lower East Side’s 100 Gates Project, which pairs artists and small businesses for murals on bodega shutters, is heading to East Harlem and Staten Island. Will the Instagrammers seeking street art selfie backdrops follow? [Curbed]
For some reason, 63 year old Keith Gregory attacked a 1785 Thomas Gainsborough painting (above) with a sharp object in the National Gallery in London. [The New York Times]
Kerr Houston’s writing about Penelope Umbrico make me like Penelope Umbrico. [BmoreArt]

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Monday Links: Neo-Nazis and Robot-Designed Architecture Sound Like the Plot of a Straight-to-VHS Sci-Fi Flick

by Michael Anthony Farley on February 27, 2017

La Pyramide (1973) in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, by Rinaldo Olivieri

La Pyramide (1973) in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, by human Rinaldo Olivieri (not an AI!). Photo by Iwan Baan.

New York’s Center for Architecture has a show about postcolonial African modern architecture and it looks amazing. Apparently, somewhat paradoxically, African nations celebrated their independence from European colonial powers by commissioning avant garde works from European architects. These are so cool. [Dezeen]

A group of alleged neo-Nazis and a group protesting with the Industrial Workers of the World got into a physical confrontation inside the Minneapolis Institute of Arts this weekend. No art was damaged. [StarTribune]

“There have people using their own fecal matter in a harmful way in the bathrooms, in the showers, all over the bathroom,” a RISD student discussing the poop swastika found on campus. I can’t tell if I’m more weirded out by the sudden rise of neo-Nazis or the sheer amount of poop-related news we’ve been reading lately. What the hell is wrong with people?? [New York Daily News]

How Jamillah James became the head curator of LA’s new-ish ICA. Spoiler: not via grad school. [Hyperallergic]

LD50, the London gallery which hosted a controversial show about the alt-right, may be closing. The gallery has since been targeted by intense protests. [The New York Times]

For the first time in Europe, Cindy Sherman’s recent self portraits as aging Hollywood starlets are on view all together. The show is at Sprüth Magers in Berlin, and this series looks so good. [artnet News]
“Watson,” IBM’s AI, has been tasked with learning to think like Antoni Gaudi. It’s been designing organic/modernist sculpture. Maybe one day, it will design buildings. [Forbes]

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No Paintings for Old Men: I’m Done With Amy Feldman

by RM Vaughan on February 24, 2017

I have to hand it to NYC-based painter Amy Feldman: not every artist can cause me to temporarily lose the will to carry on writing and the energy to carry on chronicling our bankrupt, post-meaning culture. What, I wondered as I walked around the palatial Blain/Southern Gallery, is the damned point anymore? Confronted on all sides by Feldman’s aggressively vacuous, massive canvasses, I can’t even argue conclusively that Feldman’s work is good or bad. It operates so outside of any qualitative value scale that I understand—as if attacking the very idea of value—that it defeats all rational readings of art or art making. All I can do is respond. And respond I must.

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The AFC Guide to Inauguration Resistance Actions

by Michael Anthony Farley on January 17, 2017

I think I have more Facebook invitations to different demonstrations in Washington D.C. and New York this Friday than I have friends. If you live within a hundred miles of either city, it’s likely you already have inauguration protest plans. For those of us not presently near the respective political and media capitals, it can feel like we’re left out of the party. But don’t fret: we’ve reached out to artists in seven cities where we have a large number of readers—Baltimore, the Bay Area, Berlin, Chicago, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and Philadelphia—and got the scoop on where you can go while joining us in the #J20 art strike. It’s incredibly inspiring to see hundreds of thousands of RSVPs across the country and beyond. And after the demonstrations, we’ve found some fun nighttime activities to raise funds and solidarity for the long fight ahead.

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Tuesday Links: Star Trek: Voyager is 22, Red Hook Artists’ Home a “Bargain”, Zaha Hadid Was Super Rich

by Michael Anthony Farley on January 17, 2017

OMG! Star Trek: Voyager premiered 22 years ago, as of yesterday. I feel old. [Facebook]

Shepard Fairey, Jessica Sabogal and Ernesto Yerena have created a series of protest posters that are free to download in anticipation of the #J20 strike and demonstrations. Unfortunately, there are new (draconian) restrictions on bringing signs into certain parts of the capital on inauguration day. To get around this, they’re raising funds to take out full-page ads in Washington newspapers and to distribute hard copies in the District. So far they’ve raised over $1 million. [Kickstarter]

Apparently the late, great Zaha Hadid left behind a £70.8 million fortune. Unfortunately, übercapitalist dickhead Patrik Schumacher is the executor to her will (a decision I doubt she would stand behind given his recent inflammatory comments about affordable housing). The other check-writers include her niece Rana Hadid, artist Brian Clarke, and former Serpentine Gallery chairman Peter Palumbo. The have 150 years to figure out how that money gets dispersed, via the Zaha Hadid Foundation. I hope those three vote to dole it out for innovative affordable housing. [Dezeen]

As opposed to participating in the #J20 strike, many museums are offering free admission on inauguration day, with programming such as a marathon reading of Langston Hughes’s 1935 poem “Let America Be America Again” at the Brooklyn Museum. The National Museum of Women in the Arts is closing on Friday, though, but will reopen for the Women’s March on Washington the next day, offering a “nasty women” tour of its galleries. Diversity of tactics is good for resistance. Disappointingly, the Guggenheim and MoMA, among others, have offered asinine, relatively apolitical statements about their decisions to remain open. [ARTnews]

London’s gallery-sharing event Condo 2017 sounds so smart and so successful. This is the kind of cooperation that will keep brick-and-mortar arts spaces alive. [artnet News]

Are memes the key to making the art world less elitist? Probably not, but Katie Fustich thinks they might be. How is Jaimie Warren not mentioned in this article? [Salon]

Wow. The Asheville Art Museum is beginning an $18 million, 18-month demolition/reconstruction project that will see the facade of its historic home seemingly half-swallowed/penetrated by a transparent glass box. It’s hard to tell from the renderings if this can be pulled-off effectively. [abc 13 WLOS]

Two Brooklyn artists are selling their historic 11 bedroom, 5,000 square-foot-home (with wraparound deck and killer waterfront views) for the relatively low price of $1.25M. Here’s the catch: it’s an old ferry with an insane history. 11 very smart artists should form a coop and buy this immediately. It’s one way to survive gentrification and/or sea level rise in Red Hook. [Curbed]

Potsdam, just outside Berlin, is getting a private museum from billionaire Hasso Plattner. The star attraction at the new Museum Barberini is will be Edvard Munch’s “Girls on the Bridge,” which recently sold for $54.5m at Sotheby’s. It’s believed Plattner was the buyer. If you’re a Munch fan, you can see it starting January 23rd. [The Art Newspaper]

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Monday Links: Giant Video Hitler, Clown Art, Denver Airport Conspiracies, and Syria’s Westeros Tourism

by Michael Anthony Farley on October 3, 2016

Brian Belott.

As part of the “Berlin Leuchtet” light art festival, the collective RE:SORB decided to project a giant talking Hitler face, Blade-Runner-geisha-billboard style, onto the side of a building. Apparently people were so freaked out a man actually called the police. [RT]

And in other “insane dictators/questionable A.V. decisions” news, the Assad regime is trying to lure tourists to Aleppo with video ads featuring the Game of Thrones theme song. You would think the Syrian government would want to distance itself from references to a drawn-out, convoluted civil war with a byzantine cast of characters no one can follow featuring Medieval-style religious cults, beheadings, and rape. I’m not sure how many tourists this tactic is going to lure. Maybe Gary Johnson? [CNN]

“I believe that our world is very open to clowns: [Jeff] Koons is a clown. [Mike] Kelley’s a clown. Duchamp is a clown. Joe Bradley is a clown.” Brian Belott on absurdism. The artist has lit his hair on fire for YouTube and glued rocks to a calculator. There’s also an anecdote in here that explains why perishable paintings are a kinda terrible idea. [ARTnews]

The huge Denver International Airport is pretty weird, in part because it’s full of creepy public art about the apocalypse and mosaics of genetically modified STD viruses. This has lead to plenty of conspiracy theories involving underground bunkers, the New World Order, and aliens. Rather than attempt PR damage control, Heather Kaufman, the airport’s director of Arts and Public Events, is embracing the airport’s bizarre reputation and hosting a series of screenings, exhibitions, and other events inspired by DIA conspiracy theories. This is the coolest public art story ever. [Westword]

A British reality tv show might have just uncovered a forgotten Raphael. [artnet News]

Matt Furie, the guy who first created “Pepe the Frog,” discusses the character’s origins and how it feels to have your artwork become “the new swastika.” Man, the internet is terrible. [The Creators Project]

Galeria Millan’s new annex in São Paulo is so cool. The gallery’s facade comprises just sliding doors, so the white-box exhibition spaces open to the street and a small courtyard. [Dezeen]

Isaac Kaplan looks at actions before-and-after earthquakes in Haiti, Italy, and beyond in regards to preserving cultural heritage such as art and architecture. [Artsy]

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Thursday Links: Climb Hudson Yards’ New Public Art to Appease the Overlords

by Michael Anthony Farley on September 15, 2016

This staircase is Hudson Yard’s obligatory “Public Art Feature.” Or a hive for giant robot bees? Whatever.

Cubans are distributing hard drives stacked with everything from an off-line Craigslist substitute to episodes of Game of Thrones and porn to get around the island’s media isolation and communications woes. [The New Tropic]
A new study confirms that Berlin has defied expectations and continues to remain attractive to artists. Compared to other global cities, it’s still cheaper than most of Europe while still providing great social services. Its economic health, however, is about on par with the developing world according to some questionable metrics. Uh, can New York shed a few Fortune 500 companies in exchange for cheaper rent? [artnet News]
The LinkNYC kiosks will no longer be providing free internet service, because apparently New Yorkers can’t stop watching porn on them. The Giuliani-era culture wars have entered the 21st century, and the pervs have lost another battle. [New York Daily News]
Jonathan Jones weighs in on the Alec Baldwin v.s. Mary Boone debacle with an opinion predicated on the argument that all artworks by the same artist are both objectively and subjectively equal. What? How are you an art critic? [The Guardian]
That weird, dystopian Hudson Yards megaproject is getting a fittingly weird, vaguely dystopian piece of very-expensive public art. Thomas Heatherwick has designed a giant hive-like tower of staircases to nowhere that looks like it will be extremely popular for suicides when the property bubble bursts again. Or as a filming location for young adult sci-fi adaptations in which teenagers have to fight to the death to topple tyranny or something. [Dezeen]
MoMA is making thousands of photographs from its archive of exhibition images public. Be still our curatorial-nerd hearts! [The New York Times]
London is proposing to target specific neighborhoods for preservation and expansion of artist studios, housing, and creative industry jobs. Although the city has remained a center of art and design, there’s considerable fear that rampant gentrification will drive out young talent and cripple the creative sector. The plan sounds vague, but well-intentioned, especially the part about funds to help artists buy property. [City Lab]

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Tuesday Links: Umbilical Cord Art is a Thing

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on September 13, 2016

“Umbilical cord art” is now a trend, according to Buzzfeed.

Strangest headline of the day: “Why I Won’t Judge Women For Making Umbilical Cord Art”. [Refinery29]

Berlin’s legendary nightclub Berghain has been deemed a “high art” institution by German courts. This entitles the club to pay a lower tax rate than an “entertainment” business. ARTnews defends this “art v.s. entertainment” decision by pointing out that Art21 host Claire Danes is a fan of Berghain. But seriously, cities should be doing more to help keep their nightlife afloat. [ARTnews]

Alec Baldwin has escalated his dispute with Mary Boone and is now suing the gallery over a Ross Bleckner painting. Baldwin had approached Boone in the hopes of acquiring Bleckner’s 1996 work “Sea and Mirror.” Instead of tracking that down, Boone just sold Baldwin another, identical version of the painting, also by Bleckner. [artnet News]

Tommy Hilfiger is throwing a fashion-show-cum-carnival on a pier. This is just one of the “unconventional” venues for NYFW shows this year, ranging from public spaces to Department of Sanitation salt storage sheds (yes, really). [Curbed]

Melania Trump used $20,000 of the Donald J. Trump Foundation’s funds to buy a six-foot-tall portrait of the Donald by “speed painter” Michael Israel. To be fair, this was at an auction benefitting a charity for children. But The Washington Post reports that it’s one of many shady dealings at the Foundation. [Hyperallergic]

The Finnish government has refused state funding for the €130 million Guggenheim Helsinki. Several of the politicians who opposed the new museum outpost argued that they would support a privately-funded Guggenheim, but that the Finnish government’s share of construction costs would not be an appropriate use of state funds. [Dezeen]

10 songs that help Pitchfork staffers get shit done. This is the epitome of a music nerd/writer listening list—mostly instrumental and heavy on drone. Pretty much the opposite of anything we’d use to motivate, expect perhaps Daft Punk’s Alive and Rhythm & Sound’s The Versions. [Pitchfork]

Democratic New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo shies away from criticizing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump by name. [Politico]

Shortly after the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro contrived to convert the grounds of an elite golf course into a series of national art schools, housed in creative architecture designed around economic restrictions such as an embargo on imported US steel. Unfortunately, the campus became abandoned and neglected. Today, it’s one of many culturally significant sites in the country that face preservation challenges from the coming tourism boom. It would be so great to see this complex restored and put to use as an art school. Knowing the impact tourism has had on other islands in the Caribbean, though, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see the site ironically returned to use as a golf course, unfortunately. [The Art Newspaper]

Chinese social media users are bashing painter Guo Jia, accusing her of destroying historic frescos she had been tasked with restoring. We can’t find any before-or-after images of her work, but is this the Chinese equivalent of Spain’s “Beast Jesus” in-the-making? [China Daily]

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A Melancholic Stroll through the Sony Photography Awards

by RM Vaughan on September 7, 2016

Only a terribly mean person could find fault with the traveling edition of the annual Sony Photography Awards. As both a showcase of a specific kind of photographic venture (more on that in a moment) and, likely more to the point, a brand-enhancing exercise in “excellence” promotion, the exhibition does exactly what it promises and is devised to do.

The competition specializes in the subset of photography most of us identify with National Geographic Magazine and its world-of-wonders aesthetic.

I know that sounds snarky but I do not mean it that way. Everybody loves this kind of photography, me included, for a reason – it is lovely and provocative, a moment of otherness, of not us/not here viewed from a safe distance. I buy a lot of postcards, and I have no shame when it comes to finely focused close ups of adorable mammals with pink ears.

What prompted my unease after wandering around this exhibition was a strong feeling that in a half-generation or less, shows like the Sony Photography Awards will be, at best, retro-cute, or at worst antique and irrelevant.

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Friday Links: Goodbye, Gawker

by Michael Anthony Farley and Corinna Kirsch on August 19, 2016

Gender Baby

Eyebeam announces the five recipients of its 2016–2017 artist research residency. Those lucky, talented artists are…Morehshin Allahyari, Nora N. Khan, Mimi Onuoha, Macon Reed, and Karolina Sobecka. Residencies start in October. [Eyebeam]
Ask the Internet, and the winner of the “worst opening credit sequence on Netflix” goes to Orange Is the New Black. More than being annoyed by the jumpy Regina Spektor, writer Christine Elliot argues that the images of incarcerated women belong to a long line of “repressive portrait photography.” Recommended. [Dilettante Army]
On the thriving sales market for exhibition catalogs. [Los Angeles Times]
Trivia: What did Hitler describe as the “most beautiful village in the world”? Why, the 1935 Olympic Village outside Berlin. The site, the first permanent Olympic village, now serves as a museum, but local authorities plan to build 1,000 apartments there. Berlin currently faces a housing shortage, making housing issues a priority for civic officials. [Deutsche Welle]
Gawker, you will be missed. We will miss you so much. [Gawker]
The Ukranian ministry of culture is calling for an international boycott of Russian museums and other institutions that have taken art from Crimea. [The Art Newspaper]
Greenpoint is losing local icon Palace Cafe. After 83 years of hospitality, the family that owns the neighborhood dive bar has announced that it’s closing. No word on the reason why yet. [Gothamist]
As if any of us needed further proof of the decline of Western Civilization, we can now watch the Kardashians argue over a coffee table book about “Le Courvoisier, which is an architect. It’s so weird and boring, but I’m obsessed…it has words, big words.” Very tempted to find a tasteful building designed for easy access to its flat roof so I can throw myself off of it. [Dezeen]
Art dealer Fabrizio Moretti (not to be confused with Fabrizio Moretti, drummer for the Strokes), is suing David Zwirner over an editioned Jeff Koons sculpture that he claims is not number two of three, but rather numbered three in a seemingly endless edition. Yawn. Can’t rich people find something juicier to fight over? When I saw the headline I was totally hoping an art handler broke off Jeff’s dick in a “Made in Heaven” statue or something. Can you even imagine being the Manhattan judge who has to deal with shit like this all day? [artnet News]
Lisa Kuivinen, a 20-year-old School of the Art Institute of Chicago student, was killed when a truck crossed into a bike lane and collided with her. This is really tragic, and based on the photo provided, indicative of everyone’s biggest complaint about most American bike lanes: they’re painted between parked cars and the lanes for vehicle traffic. For the love of god, transportation planners, please just put the parking between a curb-adjacent bike lane and the street. We’re all so tired of people dying from bad design. [The Chicago Tribune]
Cara Ober also recalls her time at the amazing artist retreat organized by the Contemporary. We all miss the goats! [BmoreArt]
Mayor Bill de Blasio makes a convincing argument as to why City Council member Ydanis Rodriguez should’ve supported rezoning a parcel in Inwood district. Basically, the plan offered developers the option to build taller buildings if they include affordable housing. Now, Inwood is just getting stumpy luxury condos with no affordable housing. It seems like another case of knee-jerk NIMBYism getting in the way of productive compromise. [Observer]

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