Virgil Abloh, J.W. Anderson, Diplo e Ricky Martin erano tutti presenti al progetto di partito di Carsten Höller
Benzoino Luccello
Se fossi a Londra intorno al 2008, potresti ricordare Il Doppio Club: un incongruo pop-up a tema congolese, ospitato in un magazzino del nord di Londra. Creato dall'artista Carsten Höller e bizzarramente sponsorizzato da Prada, il club / bar / ristorante temporaneo ha attratto celebrità, modaisti e club per oltre otto mesi. Probabilmente passerà alla storia come la più eccitante esperienza della vita notturna mai vista nella capitale.
L'EVENTO DI APERTURA DI MIAMI DOPPIO CLUB DI PRADA. FOTO: PIETRO BJORK
Quasi un decennio più tardi, Il Doppio Club è riportato in vita per la sedicesima edizione di Arte Basel Miami. Per soli tre giorni, questa seconda iterazione dell'installazione artistica esperienziale ha preso il sopravvento in uno studio cinematografico degli anni '20 con un'imponente line-up, titolata dalla Principessa Nokia, Metodo Uomo e la Madonna Nera. È stato lanciato con una prestazione di Wyclef Jean, che ha radunato Miuccia Prada, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Chloe Saggio e Ricky Martin nel suo giardino tropicale illuminato al neon.
Il Prada Doppio Club Miami - in contrasto con la sua edizione originale di Londra - ha una divisione estetica, tra monocromatico e iper-policromatico. Mentre lo spazio esterno sabbioso e il suo palapa bar sono illuminati da neon colorati perfettamente proporzionati, la sezione interna sembra di entrare in un film di Tim Burton - nero, bianco e nient'altro consentito. "Prendo particolare attenzione ai dettagli", spiega Höller, che aveva incaricato i buttafuori di confiscare le cannucce colorate all'ingresso del secondo spazio, per preservare la sua identità estetica.
VIRGIL ABLOH. FOTO: GETTY
L'artista tedesco nato in Belgio è noto per la natura interattiva del suo lavoro - spesso associato al movimento dell'estetica relazionale - in cui la percezione e il processo decisionale sono centrali. Per il suo sondaggio presso la Hayward Galleria nel 2015, i visitatori sono stati confrontati con una serie di scelte: tra la porta A e la porta B per entrare nella galleria; inghiottire una pillola da una pila sul pavimento o no (pensa Il Matrice blu e rosso); è stato buttato giù dal museo da una delle due gigantesche diapositive attaccate alla facciata della Rivasud (che ha fatto il suo acclamato debutto alla Tate Moderno nel 2006). Lo stesso concetto si applica al club di Miami, dove le persone dovevano scegliere tra due contesti drasticamente contrastanti (sebbene fossero liberi di viaggiare da uno all'altro).
E mentre il "divertimento" gioca chiaramente un ruolo importante nel lavoro di Höller (è in qualche modo sconcertante pensare di essere stato addestrato come scienziato agricolo), Il Doppio Club va ben oltre il puro divertimento. È un viaggio in cui arte, design e musica coesistono.
"IL PRADA DOPPIO CLUB MIAMI", UN PROGETTO DI CARSTEN HÖLLER PRESENTATO DALLA FONDAZIONE PRADA MIAMI, 5-7 DICEMBRE 2017. FOTO: CASEY KELBAUGH CORTESIA FONDAZIONE PRADA
"A volte vengo a conoscere le culture attraverso la musica", ci dice Höller, indicando la line-up caraibica e sudamericana del palcoscenico all'aperto (un momento saliente del secondo giorno è stata una performance del locale, 7-pezzo Tallawah Mento Banda ). "Volevo celebrare queste comunità, che sono così centrali nel tessuto culturale di Miami", continua. Nel frattempo, la musica elettronica pesante ha dominato lo spazio al chiuso, grazie a spettacoli come Mimi Xu (conosciuto anche Coniglio Nebbioso) e il produttore di Chicago la Madonna Nera.
Allo stesso modo, nel 2008 a Londra, il dialogo tra culture occidentali e congolesi è stato al centro dell'attenzione. Höller (che divide il suo tempo tra la Svezia e il Ghana) ha viaggiato in Congo estensivamente negli ultimi 20 anni. Questo interesse, senza dubbio, fu alimentato dalla sua educazione in Belgio, la cui violenta eredità coloniale segnò profondamente il paese centro-africano. "Volevo adottare un approccio più positivistico", racconta Höller. "Il Congo è un posto enorme. Volevo celebrare quella cultura in tutta la sua vitalità e potenza. "
HANS ULRICH OBRIST E CARSTEN HÖLLER. FOTO: PIETRO BJORK
Ora, Arte Basel Miami - uno dei momenti più esclusivi dell'agenda culturale internazionale, in cui l'uno per cento affluisce da tutte le parti del mondo - non è esattamente l'ambiente ovvio per un autentico scambio culturale. Quindi, la diversità ha in qualche modo abbandonato l'agenda, a favore dell'esperienza esperienziale glamour e guidata dal marchio? "Tu hai l'intrinseca diversità di Miami, e in più la natura internazionale di Arte Basel", spiega l'artista. "Era una folla molto variegata, imballata dall'inizio alla fine."
Indipendentemente da ciò, Il Doppio Club sarà probabilmente ricordato come la cosa più bella che è successo a questa edizione di Arte Basel Miami. E, chissà, potrebbe anche creare un campo in una città vicino a te in futuro: "È certamente una possibilità", dice Höller, che ritiene che gran parte del suo lavoro possa essere concepito come un doppio club. Si spera che la prossima tappa duri abbastanza a lungo per segnare davvero la coscienza collettiva locale.
"IL PRADA DOPPIO CLUB MIAMI", UN PROGETTO DI CARSTEN HÖLLER PRESENTATO DALLA FONDAZIONE PRADA MIAMI, 5-7 DICEMBRE 2017. FOTO: CASEY KELBAUGH. CORTESIA FONDAZIONE PRADA
previously, suddenly related: Rem Casafresca
]]>Here are photos of Betty Parsons' sculptures on the dining tables at the opening dinner for the National Gallery of Art's first exhibition of modern art, held in 1973. On the walls are many Rothkos.
The exhibition, American Art Art Mid-Century, curated by visiting MoMA alum Bill Seitz, was made up entirely of loans from private collections, because the NGA had basically no modern works, and had only barely begun to even accept works by still-living artists. [That Gorky, Kline, Newman, Pollock, Rothko, and David Smith were all dead by 1973 hadn't helped them get into the collection.]
When J. Carter Brown became the NGA's director he made the controversial decision to hold VIP dinners in the museum itself. NGA president Paul Mellon's wife Bunny, renowned for her gardening and interior design acumen, took upon herself the role of planning flowers and decor for many of these special events.
I have yet to track down the checklist, but the show's press release [pdf] says there were 26 works by 23 artists installed in the temporary exhibition galleries on the main level. Yet these photos show at least eight Rothkos, in a room which I believe is on the far west end of the ground level.
According to Bunny Mellon: The Life of an American Style Legend, by noted centenarian socialite biographer Meryl Gordon, Mrs. Mellon asked Parsons to provide some of her painted found wood sculptures-a letter in the Archives of American Art [p.23] says "10 or so," but Gordon says 14, and I count like 28-to "adorn [the] tables" at the dinner. Parsons' datebook [p.132] shows she attended.
Mrs. Mellon was a frequent customer and friend of Parsons. Parsons exhibited her own sculptures and paintings in Washington DC's Studio Gallery beginning in 1972, and would later show Bunny's daughter's artworks in New York. There is an invoice [p.16] in the Archives of American Art for printing table cards for the NGA dinner. I think they're the gilt-edged ones in the bottom of the picture above.
It struck me that as a dealer, Parsons had been instrumental in the careers of many of the artists in the show. Yet her own artwork was being relegated to decoration. But Gordon notes that Bunny also loaned the Rothkos. Which might mean Bunny's concept for the dinner was a two-artist show. Notice above, the table under the Rothko which has nothing but Parsons sculptures on it. Also, wow, every place setting has its own ashtray and embossed matches.
Quoting Lee Hall's 1991 illustrated biography of the gallerist, Gordon wrote that Parsons worried the partygoers "will hate my work." She also wrote that all "her table sculptures for the National Gallery sold out." Wait, what?
These photos, from the National Gallery of Art, are in the gloriously digitized Betty Parsons Gallery papers at the Archives of American Art. [aaa.si.edu]
Meryl Gordon spoke about her biography of Bunny Mellon at the NGA on October 15, 2017 [nga.gov]
The press release for American Art at Mid-Century says the show is the first of two, but I haven't found the second [nga.gov, pdf]
Buy Bunny Mellon: The Life of an American Style Legend via Amazon [amazon]
In writing yesterday's post, I realized I've come back to Ellsworth Kelly's "Notes of 1969" before.
What strikes me now, besides the quote I used for yesterday's title, was this:
Everywhere I looked, everything I saw became something to be made, and it had to be exactly as it was, with nothing added. It was a new freedom; there was no longer the need to compose. The subject was there already made, and I could take from everything. It all belonged to me: a glass roof of a factory with its broken and patched panels, lines on a road map, a corner of a Braque painting, paper fragments in the street. It was all the same: anything goes.Sometimes I feel this, too, but with guilt or ambivalence, not freedom so much. I also think about how brick walls have become surfaces, and how most bricklayers now have been replaced by machines.
Download and listen to Better_Read_018_Ellsworth_Kelly_Notes_of_1969.mp3 [mp3, 6:35, 6.7mb, via greg.org]
Previously:
related/impetus: I Found An Object And Presented It As Itself Alone
not really related, but I do want to own this Google search: Ellsworth Kelly Dancing Monkey
very much related, 2012, still thinking about how to handle these: Google Art Institute Project
2011: What I Looked At Today: Ellsworth Kelly's Writing
In a 1969 text published in 1979 and revisited often since, Ellsworth Kelly looked back at how he learned to look:
Looking through an aperture (a door or a window) is a way that I have been able to isolate or fragment a single form. My first memory of focusing through an aperture occurred when I was around twelve years old. One evening, passing the lighted window of a house, I was fascinated by red, blue, and black shapes inside a room. But when I went up and looked in, I saw a red couch, a blue drape and a black table. The shapes had disappeared. I had to retreat to see them again.As we come to understand Kelly's work as his direct presentation of objects he encountered, it will change the way we, too, see the things around us.
In completely unrelated news, here is an extraordinary traveling awning salesman's sample from the 1940s.
dimensions: 19 1/4" x 18" x 10 1/2"
Ellsworth Kelly "Notes of 1969" [pdf] was originally published in 1979 by the Stedelijk in Ellsworth Kelly: Paintings and Sculptures 1963-1979 / Schilderijen en Beelden 1963-1979. What we all need, though, is the Ellsworth Kelly Catalogue Raisonné. [wfu.edu, amazon, amazon]
The "Roofing Salesmans Sample" [sic] is lot 1118 in Dan Morphy's December 9, 2017 advertising auction update: sold for $225. [liveauctioneers via @presentcorrect via @marybanas via @bshaykin]
On May 6, 2017, The New York Times reported, Jared Kushner's sister met with potential investors in Beijing, trying to raise $150 million for the family's Jersey City real estate project. She was promoting the EB-5 visa program, which essentially sells US green cards for making a $500,000 investment. Her PowerPoint slide showed photos of "EB-5 Visa Key Decision Makers," including Senators Grassley and Leahy; DHS Secretaries Jeh Johnson (ex-, obv.) and Gen. John Kelly (now ex-, too, obv., and White House chief of staff); -and her brother's father-in-law (and boss) Donald Trump.
Jared Kushner still owned major stakes in his family's business at the time, having transferred only some of his holdings to his other family members when he became a White House employee. He would subsequently revise and refile his financial disclosure forms repeatedly to include previously undisclosed conflicts, contacts, and investments.
Kushner had tried mightily during the transition to secure Chinese investment in his company's overleveraged flagship property, 666 Fifth Avenue. His efforts failed, and his partner, Vornado, has since declared that their ambitious plan to redevelop the office building into a multi-use megatower-and refinance it at a much higher valuation-was no longer feasible. The property is on track to go bankrupt as early as 2018, putting the Kushner's equity at risk.
Our Guernica Cycle - EB-5, 05.06.2017 is the second painting in an ongoing series. I now see the Our Guernica Cycle as proceeding in roughly chronological order. It is November, and the outrageous Guernica moments since May are obviously piling up like leaves in the gutter. But the pace of disaster puts us all at risk of forgetting or acquiescing to the obvious wrongs of just a couple of months ago. If painting can do anything at all, it should be able to recalibrate our narrative clocks a bit.
So here is a painting, and a pyramid of prints, of the US president's family hyping his political power to sell visas in exchange for investing in their private real estate company.
While it is similarly painted in China, in the attempted style of our still-most-relevant painter,
George W. Bush, EB-5, 05.06.2017 obviously differs from the Ivanka / Merkel 03.17.2017 work in several ways. For one thing, it's done before you decide to buy it. I honestly cannot imagine how this helps. But then, given what we all knew going into it, I could not imagine why anyone, including me, would want to have an awful painting of Ivanka & Merkel in my life, either. Even more than before, this is a case of urgency, of feeling the need for an image of a moment of a crisis to be produced, disseminated, and preserved, even while the crisis continues. To bear witness, to #neverforget.
This work is further complicated by having the actual picture of Trump in it. Could it be any tougher of a sell? On the bright side [sic], the execution of the image is, I believe, more skillfully Bushian than ever. So at least it's a good bad painting of a corrupt cabal. Right? And anyway, the gradient is probably the best part.
The Modified Kinkade Pyramid is in effect, and all prints will be available in the identical sizes and editions as the first work. However, blighting the image by hand will only take place upon request. So please make a note if you want more blight. The print was made available first to original Kickstarter backers, and now it is available generally, for a limited time. It is discounted 10% because y'all are all VIPs to me, but also to take into account a better sense of actual production and shipping costs. As before, any surplus will be turned back into producing the next images in the Cycle.
Literally no one has asked, but it is possible that the first print, Ivanka / Merkel 03.17.2017 could be made available as well.
Thank you again for your engagement during this ongoing disaster.
[via paypal]Previously: UPDATED: Our Guernica Cycle - Ivanka / Merkel 03.17.2017
]]>Art and the Mnuchins can never get too far apart from each other. Today Steven Mnuchin was photographed by the Associated Press holding the printer's proof for a new print edition, Untitled (Mnuchin Gallery). It is issued in a signed and stamped edition of 10, plus 4 artist proofs.
Half of the edition is a #monochrome painting on an uncut 50-subject sheet of $1 bills signed by Steven T. Mnuchin. If you asked me this second the only possible color would be black, insta goth dom leather glove black, into the conscienceless pits of hell black, fund passthrough tax cuts by raising taxes on everyone else and gutting health care soul black, but that might change.
Robert Rauschenberg, Untitled (paper painting), 1953, 18x14x4 in., shoe box tissue paper, glass, wood base. lost or destroyed.
The other half is 50 $1 bills signed by Steven T. Mnuchin, shredded by hand, in an appropriately scaled perspex display case inspired by Robert Rauschenberg's lost Untitled (Paper Painting) of 1953. All examples are accompanied by an engraved, signed and stamped certificate of authenticity.
As moneyfactory.gov [srsly] has only begun producing Mnuchin notes today, and moneyfactorystore.gov only offers uncut notes from 2013, with former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's signature on them, the actual release date for this edition is still to be determined. You may add your name to the waitlist.
Previously: Untitled (Mnuchin Gallery), 2017, pdf
Related: Untitled (Crystal Bridges), 2015
2011: ArtCash by Warhol, Rauschenberg, et al for E.A.T., including bills featuring the ur-print-your-own-money traitor Jefferson Davis
Mike Kelley, Entry Way (Genealogical Chart), 1995, via phillips
Mark Lombardi, Banco Nazionale del Lavoro, Reagan, Bush, Thatcher, and the Arming of Iraq, c. 1979-1990 (4th version), 1998, collection: moma.org
So far you are not sending me all the Ellsworth Kelly postcards like I asked, so I am forced to find them myself.
Summer (Blue Curve), 1984, paper on postcard
Oh wow, here is something wonderful which I have never seen before: a set of Ellsworth Kelly postcards. Four identical postcards, each with a varied but similar collaged element, a very Kelly-esque quarter circle, rotated within a frame, and titled with the four seasons.
Autumn (Red Curve), 1984, paper on postcard
They're almost Kelly paintings, but not quite: the blue curve seems to have a gradient, and the yellow curve looks like it's covered in raindrops. They're affixed on a tsuitate, a stationary, single panel Japanese screen that blocks views and drafts through a doorway. The combination of primary curves collaged with Asian art reminds me of some works Gabriel Orozco showed at Marian Goodman in 1994; they were remixes of overlapping circular cutouts from exhibition catalogues for Chinese scholar rocks and Ellsworth Kelly paintings. They were fantastic, and all sold, alas, and I am baffled that I can't find a single image of them online right now.
Winter (Black Curve), 1984, paper on postcard
Anyway, the image Kelly set each curve into is Japanese, a woodblock print. It turns out it's by Kitagawa Utamaro, an illustration from a 1789 collection of New Year's poems called Waka Ebisu. I can't yet figure out where Kelly might have gotten his postcards; maybe his 1984 exhibition history will yield a clue. [update: nope.] But Harvard has the print. The Met has the print, but has never shown it. The British Museum has the whole portfolio, and the best online documentation. The British Library's online resource is a copyright-grabbing embarrassment. If I make my own Kelly Four Seasons collages, I'll use their paranoid watermark jpg just because.
The scene is titled Saru-hiki [Monkey Trainer] and shows a troupe of performers visiting the house of a daimyō during New Year's. Musicians accompany a dancing monkey in a kimono as the refined ladies of the house look on, some peeking around the tsuitate and others watching from behind semi-opaque bamboo screens called sudare.
Kelly presumably sent the postcards to his partner Jack Shear, because Shear donated them to MoMA in 2011, in honor of four refined ladies of that house, who have long supported Kelly and his work: Kathy Fuld (Spring); Agnes Gund (Summer); Jo Carole Lauder (Autumn); and Marie-Josée Kravis (Winter). So who does that make the dancing monkey?
Ehon waka Ebisu 絵本龢謌夷 (The Young God Ebisu, an Illustrated Book) [britishmuseum.org]
Previously, related: Ellsworth Kelly Postcards: Wish You Were Here!
Happy apparent Birthday, Ivanka!
I've been staring at her distorted portrait for so long, it took the shock of the news yesterday to make me realize I have not actually, officially, gone public with the results of the first picture I Kickstarted. "Our Guernica, by Our Picasso," an historic painting to mark the moment last March when Ivanka Trump turned up in a White House meeting with the leader of the free world, Angela Merkel, executed in the style of George W. Bush.
In the course of production of the pyramidful of print editions, plus some canvases, the project became Our Guernica Cycle, and Ivanka/Merkel 03.17.2017 became the first image, unfortunately, and not the last. I've now lived with these images for almost six months. All but two of the project backers have received their merch [the last two canvases are staring at me right now, set to be shipped before the opioid crisis is solved.]
And a new image is complete. It is a moment for reflection. Also a moment to celebrate getting these things out of the house. And I'm still asking the question I started with: what is art supposed to do? What is a painting for? The image I ended up with is terrible. In the process of applying the Kinkade-ian custom "highlights," I realized they could only and ever make things worse. I started calling them "highblights," or just "blight." I gave backers the choice between "more blight!" and "it's bad enough!" and they split almost evenly. With the last works going out the door, I am still undecided.
What does it mean, too, for an artwork to be experienced only [or largely] privately, by its purchasers? It is the antithesis of a Guernica; it's My Own Private Guernica. Our Guernica.
The greatest outcome from this project has to be the show of support, the collective, shared outrage combined with an open-eyed engagement with art, even knowing it will not solve the horrible problems looming all around us. 59 people bought prints that didn't exist of an image that hadn't been created yet, in order to see it happen. And that is amazing, and I am very grateful. Maybe the real Our Guernica is the friends we make along the way.
Six months later, though, we're obviously not through this. The world has not ended [I'm writing this at 11:39 on Monday night. Oh, I'm just about to publish it at 1PM on Tuesday.] The world has not ended, but our town square is still being strafed by Nazis. So Our Guernica is Our Guernica Cycle. What does that mean?
In the spirit of #thisisnotnormal, I've been working my way through images and possibilities, with the goal of accurately witnessing and capturing the political horrors and threats that surround us. Even more than Guernica, I've been thinking of Goya, whose Disasters of War series, 80+ prints whose creation occupied decades, and which Goya did not anticipate publishing in full in his own atrocity-rattled lifetime. I've especially come to appreciate the Chapman brothers' Insult to Injury project, [above] where their clownish embellishments of a Goya Disasters of War portfolio condemned the folly of Bush & Blair's Iraq War. [Called it, obv.]
So I expect this series will go on a while. After the backers were taken care of, I used the rest of the Kickstarter project funds to commission the next painting. It, too, has arrived. I think I will invite the original backers to order one first, but it should be available soon. It, too, was created with instructions to look like George Bush had painted it. The Chinese painters I'm working with seem to have gotten a little better at this bad style. Perhaps that will be when we know the Cycle is complete: when the #ChinesePaintMill system designed to industrialize Gerhard Richter's paint-from-photo tactics can successfully reproduce the clumsy expressionist facture of the man who is still, alas, America's most relevant painter. So stay tuned.
Our Guernica, After Our Picasso [kickstarter]
Previously, related: On Coming Around on Insult to Injury
I'm stoked to be speaking this coming Sunday, Oct. 29, with Anne Doran and Deborah Treisman, about their new book, The Dream Colony: A Life in Art by Walter Hopps. The discussion and book signing will take place at Alden Projects™ on the LES, starting at 6pm.
Todd Alden has an incredible-sounding show up right now which provides a nearly perfect backdrop and context for a discussion of Hopps and the emergence of the post-war LA art world: a collection of 66 exhibition posters for Ferus Gallery, which Hopps founded with Ed Kienholz, which was then taken over by Irving Blum.
I imagine the talk will draw heavily on Doran & Treisman's book, which they created from over 100 hours of interviews with Hopps; and on the posters themselves, which Hopps, and later Blum, often created in collaboration with the budding artists themselves, including Ed Ruscha, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol.
It should be a great talk about a great read in a great show, so do try and come.
You could buy The Dream Colony now via Amazon, but why not get a copy from the authors on Sunday night? [amazon]
Ferus Gallery: Between The Folds runs through Nov., 19, 2017, at Alden Projects™ [aldenprojects.com]
This installment of Better Read is the text of the found net artwork, Embroidery Trouble Shooting Page, which was repeated as untitled (etsg) in 2015.
When I first found the page, I marveled at its beautiful folly, and dreamed of printing it as a book. Then of using it as an abstract painting composition generator. Then I accepted responsibility to publish and preserve it after its original code changed. And since then, I've explored the possibilities and process for printing it as a single, giant page. I expect it would fill a wall. If you have any thoughts or tips for capturing a rendered webpage as a single image, I hope you'll get in touch.
Download better_read_017_etsg_20171018.mp3 from greg.org [mp3, 5:35, 2.7mb, via greg.org]
Previously: Untitled (Embroidery Trouble Shooting Guide)
untitled (etsg), 2015 [etsg.greg.org]
What's the opposite of a collection? The "Tommy Hilfiger Collection" is being auctioned this week, and it is as pure and empty and hollow and pointless as the man himself and everything he's ever done. In a way, maybe that achieves a certain level of genius, or whatever its opposite is. A thousand crappy livesful of junk goes up for sale every week, I'm sure, but there's something useful to understanding the concept of a brand to see how slapping the name Tommy Hilfiger on a thing somehow makes it worth less.
To save Martin Wong's amazing accumulation of tchotchkes and mementos from his mother's house, and keep it from being dumped on eBay, Danh Vo transformed the entire collection into a single artwork of his own, which was acquired by the Guggenheim. Vo cast a light on the failings of our cultural memory, and our institutions, even as he successfully navigated his and Wong's works through the gantlet of conceptual and procedural obstacles. This added depth, resonance, and interpretation to objects, a collection, which might otherwise be seen as insignificant.
This Tommy Hilfiger Collection is the diametric opposite: these objects were acquired and accumulated in the deluded, aspirational pursuit of luxury, fame and glory as ends in themselves, and they suck. They should be scattered to the wind, abandoned and forgotten. It's not that they don't have any meaning; they literally mean nothing. Nothing is their meaning. Even paying attention to them here, now, as I type, or as you read, causes only the regret of lost time, and foolish error to well up inside. But it's too late now, all we can do is try to move on.
]]> Top: Lot 341: Tommy Hilfiger Judas Priest JacketLot 225: Painted Tray "In The Style of Hermes" [emphasis added, because Hermès. Also they're on 1st dibs and a chain of other sites that probably stretch back to alibaba.] [update: lmao, it disappeared. it was at $700 or so, and now it's gone. because it was junk.]
Lot 222: Vintage Tennis Racket Chandelier made of vintage tennis rackets, can lights, and zip ties. Put it together with the tennis racket chair, and you can recreate Tommy's overly literal tennis pavilion for yourself. [update: $300 for the chandelier, a bizarre $800 for the chair.]
Move over, baby shoes, we have a new saddest-six-word-story in the world: For sale: Kids' headboards. On brand.
Lot 190 and Lot 191 Two Pairs of Twin Upholstered Headboards.
Lot 205: Beige Suede Headboard
The fake Hermes #painting pushed me over, but it was these headboards that dragged me to the edge. I know from headboards. From headboards-as-paintings. From headboards as markmaking narrative colabos with the greasy haired heads of celebrities. And yet. These headboards are flying out of the truckbed of my practice and landing on the shoulder of the 10 near West Covina, and no one gives a damn or stops to pick them up. [update: lmao $75/pr for the diptychs, and $150 for the suede. ew.]
Lot 333: Tommy Hilfiger's Tommy Hilfiger Suits
"from the wardrobe of Tommy Hilfiger...Both are labeled 'Hilfiger Collection' with hand written bias labels are inscribed 'Tommy Hilfiger Capo Personale.'" aka, the world's sorriest zip. [update: are you serious, $500 so you nestle yourself up in that guy's ballsweat?]
Lot 320: "Photograph of Tibetan Freedom Concert
The event occurred at Polo Fields Golden Gate Park on June 15-16, 1998. The singer is wearing Hilfiger clothing." "The singer" is Wyclef Jean. The event was in 1996. "19 by 25 inches, framed." Maybe I should make this into a carpet? Just keep walking. [update: $100, same as the autographed notecard from Rosie O'Donnell. I confess, this was the only sad object I came close to considering. Instead I have $100, so I'm good.]
The Seal of the President of The United States is the official coat of arms of the U.S. Presidency, and is based on the Great Seal of the United States [below], which is used by the federal government to verify the authenticity of certain official documents. The basics of the current design go back to 1877. After a formal redesign was initiated by Franklin Roosevelt, it was taken up and finalized by Harry Truman in 1945.
Counter-die for the Great Seal of the United States
In that redesign, based on a painting provided by US Naval Commodore Byron McCandless, the eagle was switched from facing to the left-in the forward direction when used on a mounted flag-to facing right, dexter, the standard direction in heraldry. A press release of October 25, 1945 says the eagle faces "right-the direction of honor-but also toward the olive branches of peace" it holds in its right talon.
The Seal design has been unchanged since 1960, when the 50th star was added to its border recognizing the inclusion of Hawai'i in the United States.
The Seal is used on the lectern for presidential press conferences. It appears on the side of Air Force One, Marine One, and presidential limousines. It is affixed to the balcony of the White House for state arrival ceremonies. The Secret Service is authorized to use the Seal of the President on merchandise it sells for charitable fundraising in its White House Online Gift Shop.
The law governing the use of the Presidential Seal is contained in Title 18 U.S. Code § 713. It is primarily concerned with using the Seal to falsely imply endorsement or support for commercial activities by the Government or the President, and with the wrongful exploitation of the Seal for commercial gain:
(a) Whoever knowingly displays any printed or other likeness of the great seal of the United States, or of the seals of the President or the Vice President of the United States, or the seal of the United States Senate, or the seal of the United States House of Representatives, or the seal of the United States Congress, or any facsimile thereof, in, or in connection with, any advertisement, poster, circular, book, pamphlet, or other publication, public meeting, play, motion picture, telecast, or other production, or on any building, monument, or stationery, for the purpose of conveying, or in a manner reasonably calculated to convey, a false impression of sponsorship or approval by the Government of the United States or by any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.In 1972 Richard Nixon promulgated regulations about authorized uses of the Presidential Seal by issuing Executive Order 11649. The Seal, it states, may be used by the President. It may be reproduced for "Use by way of photographic or electronic visual reproduction in pictures, moving pictures, or telecasts of bona fide news content." It is permitted "in libraries, museums, or educational facilities incident to descriptions or exhibits relating to seals, coats of arms, heraldry, or the Presidency."(b) Whoever, except as authorized under regulations promulgated by the President and published in the Federal Register, knowingly manufactures, reproduces, sells, or purchases for resale, either separately or appended to any article manufactured or sold, any likeness of the seals of the President or Vice President, or any substantial part thereof, except for manufacture or sale of the article for the official use of the Government of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
In 1976 Gerald Ford amended EO 11649 by issuing EO 11916, further authorizing "Use in encyclopedias, dictionaries, books, journals, pamphlets, periodicals or magazines incident to a description or history of seals, coats of arms, heraldry, or the Presidency."
Section 2 of EO 11649 goes on to echo 18 U.S. Code § 713 (b) in constraining commercial exploitation of the Seal:
The manufacture, reproduction, sale, or purchase for resale, either separately or appended to any article manufactured or sold, of the Seals of the President or Vice President, or any likeness or substantial part thereof, except as provided in this Order or as otherwise provided by law, is prohibited.
greg.org, Untitled (Presidential Seal), 2017, digital print on bond in acrylic message holder. Sheet: 14 x 8 in. Folded: 6 x 8 in., ed. 25 + 5 AP
An adaptation of this blog post incident to the description or history of seals, coats of arms, heraldry, or the Presidency is now published as a books, journals, pamphlets, periodicals or magazines, in a signed, stamped, limited edition of 25, with 5 artist proofs, three of which have been placed in or reserved for in libraries, museums, or educational facilities, with absolutely and unequivocally no impression of sponsorship or approval by the Government of the United States or by any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof.
Digitally printed in color on 14 x 8 inch white bond, it is folded by hand and stored in a decommissioned EZ-GO message holder in clear acrylic, so you can hang it on your fucking golf cart.
Untitled (Presidential Seal) is $20, shipped.
[via PayPal]ARTIST PROOF UPDATE: It works.
Last night, while I was experimenting with polishing a painting, I listened to a particularly unsatisfying discussion from the Salon series at Art Basel 2013 titled, "How Is Art History Made?" Moderated by curator Monika Szewczyk, Seth Siegelaub and Adam Szymczyk talked about their Kunsthalle Basel project, which put a series of art world structure-related questions by Siegelaub, translated into six European languages, on posters around town during the fair.
Siegelaub began his remarks by admitting he didn't have any answers, he was just asking the questions, the main one being, basically, is Art History ultimately a history of the market? There was apparently an agreement not to name any artist names, so the discussion remained very general, which is not to say theoretical.
Ultimately, the only satisfying thing was that the panel's question-as-title about a question-as-project led directly to the frustrated audience member's statement-as-question. A woman off camera, unidentified, on the front row, with a Chinese accent, had apparently, and not unreasonably, assumed the officially organized event would answer the question of its title. It had not, and so she had just one simple question.
It begins at 37:00. My interest is to accurately document the experience of the text, so I have preserved grammatical usage. Linebreaks are intended to approximate pauses:
Previously:
Statement-As-Question from Fractures of the Civilization
'I'm Going To Fail,' or Protocols of Participation
You mentioned at the very beginning, "What is Art History?" what are the elements that are made up of Art History, and the very fundamental meaning of art, came from 13th century, from different influences, you know, date back to Italian, Latin, and so on, I'm sure you guys are better person to explain this.
So fundamentally, if you check out any dictionary-except the one in Australia, I'm sorry to say-
[Szewczyk: In where?]
Australia. Yes, that one. I'm sorry, she's Australian, in the sense [presumably gesturing to an Australian woman of her acquaintance]
It says that art is defines as something novel, and is, uh, unique, and it must contain skill. So I have checked out not all the dictionaries, but as many as I could. It says all this.
The question is, now, days, does art fit into these three meanings? Also, when you create art, it involve time, and skill, and processes, and a lot of knowledge. That makes art.
Therefore, artist is a contributor. The people who appreciate art, or art lover or whatever you call, is become a person who distribute art because art goes from an artist's hand to an owner's hand, an institution or individual, et cetera, so that information of art is disseminated to his or her surrounding, small, and become a bigger way. Uh, all vehicles of dissemination of information, of course Internet is included.
So now,
the thing is,
you mention just now, when art influence something, the value- it adds value.
Now my silly little question is like this:
With all these things I've just mentioned in the background, and here we are sitting in Art Basel, and if I understood correctly, uh, Art Basel is, if I may call it an establishment, a commercial institution with a lot of cultural value, et cetera,
all the art displayed here goes through a filtering system
Uh, first begin from the artist, then through the dealer, to the committee of the Art Basel, and then collectors, and then- in a sense, it depend on how you look at it, it can be hierarchical, it can be relational,
but, whatever it is, it means, in the end,
some people get here, some people don't get here.
Now, how do you get here? So from my study that I found out, was also very interesting, tied up to this word called 'movement.'
If you have something which none of the people have heard of it, then are you being accepted? So this is a question of acceptance.
Because except, the question, when people ask the question, why do they ask the question? Because they have a given answer. Question is made out of answer, not the other way around.
You want to find out, how is acceptance?
And when you have something new, how do you gain acceptance? Acceptance then makes history.
So this is my question, and I need your enlightenment, thank you.
The name is made up, but the art and the person are real, and so is their family. Tracking down and meeting Vern Blosum was a huge treat for me, and I'm saddened to learn the artist has passed away.
Several years after it acquired a Blosum painting, The Museum of Modern Art grew concerned that the artist did not exist, and that perhaps, as rumored, the painting was a prank. Leo Castelli, whose gallery had sold many Blosums to prominent collectors in the early days of Pop, but who never gave Blosum a show, provided the museum with an artist bio. The Modern went so far as to search local archives for birth announcements and certificates in Blosum's claimed home state of Colorado, around his claimed birth date in 1936. When they couldn't find any, they put the painting in storage, where it remained for nearly 50 years.
It's interesting that the brief announcement of Blosum's death put out by the artist's gallery contains this fictitious birth information. When I met the artist occasionally known as Blosum, I was assured that the MoMA bio was not untrue. So from the artist's view, there is apparently some significance in its details. I expect I will look into this delta, but now is not really the time.
Previously: 2010: Anyone tell me about Vern Blosum?
2011: Verne Blosum found, or rather, found by Verne Blossum
Yesterday was a rough day to be a human being. Turning to art as a supposed respite from the outrages and insanities of the culture swirling around us proved only somewhat effective. Not in a position to handle the news of the day, I turned to the injustices and emotions wrought by Vogue.com's freshly published, half-baked writeup of a wedding four months past.
The couple, profligate European randoms, heirs to immense enough fortunes but seemingly bereft of wisdom or self-awareness, are made to sound like they think they invented the seven figure wedding. The illogics and contradictions of the narrative continued to bug me across the day: Kim & Kanye were not permitted to have their wedding in Versailles, and were forced to settle for a rehearsal dinner in l'Orangerie, but this former Lanvin intern is so well connected, she could pull it off? Except weddings are not permitted in public buildings in France, so they either had a stealth ceremony, in which case, are they legal? Or they got married in the mairie like everybody else, and had a little religious after-thing, followed by dinner, in one of the five event rental spaces at Versailles-l'Orangerie.
And the bride didn't have time to get shoes made, but she had time to fill the 156-meter long gallery with a rug, custom embroidered with an Erté-inspired design from the invitation. [Except she did get shoes made. And I have been staring at this rug, and is it really embroidered or just printed?]
On the bright side, karmically speaking, May 28th was brutally hot in Paris, 32 degrees, 12 degrees above average, so all 450 guests had to schlep from the entrance of Versailles, out across the garden, down the 100 Steps, and then double back, a 20 minute trip, in eveningwear, only to reach the historic greenhouse spaces that could not be air-conditioned because of "legalities." [The bride said the forecast had been for rain. Think about that for a second.]
But back to that rug. It is now my second textile work, with each repeat of the rug design comprising a separate example from the edition. Let's chop that thing up. Like those wheelie-marks-on-plywood paintings Aaron Young made at the Armory that one time, with the motorcycle gang. Or maybe the proper reference are the verre églomisé mural panels Jean-Théodore Dupas designed for the grand salon of the SS Normandie, an indeterminate number of which were salvaged and dispersed when the great French ocean liner burned and sank in New York harbor in 1942.
History of Navigation reverse gilded glass panels from the SS Normandie, 1934, collection/image: the met
Anyway. 156m space, 450 guests, two tables, 110 meters long, 12 meter wide space, 3m wide rug, maybe 4m repeat? We may have lost a few sections when the wedding couple processed their horses down the aisle.
The happy couple gets one, of course, and the calligrapher, and the fashion show producer/wedding planner. Probably set aside one each for the parents, who, though presumably footing the bill, go entirely unmentioned. I'm going to err on the side of caution and say it's an edition of 15, with 3 or so APs.
I'd probably have a slightly easier time getting a hold of the rug if I held off posting this, but I'm fine to let it play out.
the wedding write-up and slideshow [vogue]
the calligrapher/graphic artist who did the invitation which was adapted for the carpet [stephaniefishwick.com]
previously: Untitled (I Can See Russia From My House), 2017
Untitled (Mnuchin Gallery) is a 2017 work comprising a 2012 technical paper by four economists in the United States Treasury Department's Office of Tax Analysis. The paper explained a revision to the Treasury's methodology for analyzing the impact of corporate income taxes on companies, owners, and workers. It did this by examining the type of income (capital or labor/wage) and the distribution of those income sources across the entire taxpayer population. It was found, for example, that the top 1% of households accounted for 49.8% of total capital income, but only 11.5% of labor income.
The purpose of the study was to understand the impacts of tax-related policies and forecasts more accurately, and in greater detail, in the hope that more accurate data will lead to better-crafted policy and legislation.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has spent several months making claims about lowering corporate income tax rates that are directly contradicted by the findings of the study, and the calculations of Treasury Department's career economists. So he had the study removed from the US Treasury website, and a spokesman has disavowed the methodology as "the dated staff analysis of the previous administration." No alternate methodology or analysis has been offered.
Steven Mnuchin, like his father Robert Mnuchin, was a partner at Goldman Sachs. Like is father, he collects modern and contemporary art. One Mnuchin is in the business of conferring relevance on objects by exhibiting them, the other by suppressing and disappearing them. This work is a family reunion of those two tactics.
Untitled_Mnuchin_Gallery.pdf [34pg, pdf, via wsj]
]]>When it was first shown at Finch College Gallery in 1967, Grace Glueck said Tony Smith's The Maze "evokes the feeling of an endless forest."
When he published it in Brian O'Doherty's editions 5+6 of Aspen: The Magazine in a Box, Smith said it was "a labyrinth rather than a monument," and gave anyone who wished permission "to reproduce the work in its original dimensions (in metal or wood).
I would now like to tie it all together by giving anyone who wishes permission to reproduce The Maze in its original dimensions in fake boxwood hedge walls.
Most off-the-rack fake boxwood hedge walls are eight feet tall and often include a fake planter base. Most are also 15 inches thick. A real fake boxwood hedge wall The Maze will observe Smith's original specifications, and use fake boxwood hedge walls seven feet high and 30 inches thick. Two will be five feet long, and two will be ten. They should not have a planter base.
There are many fake boxwood hedge wall solutions providers out there, but might I suggest you consider Make Be-Leaves, who already seems 3/4 of the way there with the 7-ft walls above?
fake UV boxwood hedge plantscape...
Among their many successful installations is this fake boxwood hedge plantscape on the CPK vu terrace of a Madison Avenue real estate investment firm. And yet it manages to be only the second greatest fake thing in sight. What the actual f.
... with a fake Koons balloon dog made from, what, garbage bags [?], image: makebe-leaves.com
And here I thought I'd end this post with the Tony Smith Die made out of fake rock veneers.
The Maze, (1967/XXXX), Tony Smith [greg.org]
The Maze Collection
Previously, shockingly related Tony Smith moment: The Allure of Permanence
Not related: Jon Rafman stickin' his VR in a flimsy astroturf hedge maze [thestar, thx @briansholis]
Aall thanks go to @ftrain, whose tweet of an aerial photo of a Google corporate event was filled with an extravagant architecture of fake boxwood hedge walls.
Scanning the catalogue for this month's Christie's sale turned up something unexpected: an affordable Jacob Kassay painting. Two of them, in fact. After his ominously seductive debut show opened at Eleven Rivington in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, Kassay's silvered gesso canvases were transmuted into auction gold. Shiny objects reflecting distorted images of their viewers, Kassay's paintings were the first to get churned and flipped in a frenzied art market obsessed with declaring-and cashing in on-a steady stream of new stars.
It's the kind of limelight that can wreck a girl's practice, if not her complexion, and Kassay has been reticent, even diffident sometimes, of the hype. He's generally refused to engage the art market star process, at least on anything other than his own terms. For a while he refused to have his picture taken. His website, a kaleidoscope of semi-transparent images, would kick you off after a few seconds, presumably when you're just tryna do some research for an upcoming auction.
Kassay has also always been fairly specific about images of his shows, especially photos of his silvered paintings. So it should make all the sense in the world that he'd care about the proliferation of auction-related reproductions of his work. What was more surprising, though, was the apparent removal of all images of his work from Phillips' website.
Sotheby's has done this for a while now, removing images of works shortly after the sale is completed, but this is the first time I've seen all of an artist's images removed from a site. Or should I say, replaced. If you thought Kassays all looked the same before, well, brother, you're in for a treat. I'd like to see these in mirror finish, please.
[FWIW, this particular pair, from 2010, was flipped at Phillips in 2011 for $104,500. If there's anything more alluring than a shiny object, it's two. And if there's anything more seductive than that, it's a 90% discount. [Update: indeed, they sold for $8,000 bid, $10,000 with premium. That is some Cady Noland-level collector anxiety inducement and value erasure. Well played.]
Sept 28, 2017, Lot 247: Jacob Kassay diptych, 2010, est. $10-15,000 [christies]
8 Nov 2011, Lot 205: Jacob Kassay, Untitled diptych, est. $30-40,000, sold for $104,500 [phillips]
You rarely get to see more than one Ruth Asawa wire lobe sculpture, and you almost never get to see works on paper. So get to David Zwirner's place, because they have it all right now. It is probably the biggest assemblage of Asawa's work since the 2006 show at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.
And I guess I wasn't attuned to it at the time, but Asawa's rubber stamp drawings from Black Mountain College are extraordinary. Here's one made with the BMC laundry stamp. Her sculptures have always felt like line drawings in space, and these feel like word sculptures on paper.
Another thing I was not paying enough attention to in 2007: one of Asawa's BMC laundry stamp drawings was used as the basis for a mattress ticking? How did that happen?
Ruth Asawa, thru Oct 21, 2017 [davidzwirner]
Ruth Asawa, a Pioneer of Necessity, by John Yau [hyperallergic]
Ruth Asawa's Black Mountain Work [ruthasawa]