Category: art

This is just a snapshot. I would not even have considered showing this. If you ware going to post pictures you need to make sure it is of something unusual or with a personal vision. Otherwise you are going to loose the interest of your audience. George Spelvin [Nikon D200, Nikon D70s backup, 17-35 f/2.8, 80-200 f/2.8, 4GB Microdrive (2), Photoshop CS, Epson 2200]

Great Photographers on the Internet [theonlinephotographer via kottke]

Drawing Restraint, the exhibition of Matthew Barney’s complete series of works of the same name, opened this week at SFMOMA. It originated last summer at 21C Museum for Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan, which was the occasion for the production of Drawing Restraint 9, Barney’s latest film, a collaboration with Bjork.
SFMOMA is the only North American venue for the exhibit, which runs through Sept. 17th. Many of the DR9-related sculptures were presented this spring at Barbara Gladstone in New York, but most of the series hasn’t been seen for quite a while, and definitely not all together.
As if that weren’t enough, the show features a “Matthew Barney Learning Lounge” for deciphering the artist’s work. There’s also an audio tour, of course. But along with Acoustiguides and podcast/mp3 versions, SFMOMA has also made the Drawing Restraint audio tour available to visitors via cell phone.
So if you dial 408-794-2844…whaddya know, it works. Here’s a little directory to the ten audio segments. To heighten the effect, immerse yourself in a vat of petroleum jelly while you listen.
20# Drawing Restraint intro, 4th fl landing, looking at DR14, created by scaling the walls of the museum, then worked his way under the bridge to draw, suspended.
21# DR1-6 videos, objects, and drawings. discussed by Nancy Spector, also videos of DR10-13
22# Path, Notes on Hypertrophy,, etc., drawings that followed the early studio DR works.
23# DR7, 1993, discussed by Nancy Spector
24# Ambergris, explained by Barney: “the idea that the diet of a whale contains things it can’t digest.”
25# Holographic Entrypoint, based on a flensing deck of a whaling ship, discussed along with the Ise shrine by Benjamin Weil
26# Occidental Guest cast from a room used in DR9, with film spoilers by Barney.
27# Occidental Restraint, 1,600 gallons of molded-then-collapsed petroleum jelly, discussed by Nancy Spector, then Barney talking about the connections between whale oil, petroleum, and the cast plastic.
28# Cetacea [left], part of the Field Emblem, discussed by Benjamin Weil.
29# DR8, glass tables containing delicate drawings: “Look closely at those drawings. Quite a few are erotic in nature.”
See exhibition details and download options for Drawing Restraint, which runs through Sept. 17 at SFMOMA [sfmoma.org, thanks to jason]
Ping Magazine covered the 21C Museum and has pictures of the Barney exhibition there. [pingmag]

Q. The Times could set a much needed precedent by creating a culture-news blog that profits from the eyes of an editor, rather than the current norm in blogdom, which is for semi-informed scribblers to post unedited ramblings, and often to claim bragging rights for scooping the dailies. An online column devoted to culture would bring the authority of the Times newsroom to the increasingly fast pace of the Internet. Such a feature could– [&c. &c. and I relish the opportunity &c. &c. demonstrate my expertise &c. &c.make a meaningful contribution to your firm. &c. &c. Some examples of my work are can be found here. &c. &c. ]
-Jason Edward Kaufman

If you’d like to pitch a job or story idea to NY Times culture editor Sam Sifton, send him an email at Talk to the Newsroom.
And you can ask him any questions you have about culture coverage in the paper [hey, self-informed scribbler Theresa Duncan got one!], too. The answer will be, “Um, we’re already doing that like a junebug on a frying pan,” but still, it’s fun to ask.

I’m skipping Art Basel this year–got a trip to Iceland and all–with the result that I hear my foreigner neighbors watching TV all day across the courtyard. They may not be able to comply with a “reserved parking” sign, but they can sure cheer the hell out of a soccer game.
Anyway, I’m sad to be missing this art critic match-up tomorrow, which should be exciting, even if it ends 0-0. I know the concept of seeking out poor people–or critics, same thing–at Basel seems counter-intuitive, but take a chance on this one:

“Artworld Evolution, or Future Babylon?” A freeform conversation with art journalist Marc Spiegler and critic Jerry Saltz of the Village Voice.
Between a booming market, rapid internationalization and radical expansion, the artworld’s border lines have become ever more ambiguous. But with collectors and artists curating shows, fairs functioning like biennials, gallery spaces playing kunsthalle, critics not criticizing, and auction houses hyping young stars, all the old roles and assumptions have gone wobbly. So, who will shape the future of art-making and who will shape the future of the art-market? And is there a difference between the two? Q&A follows.

Hmm, is the NYT liveblogging this?
June 14: Art Lobby, near the cafeteria in the Art Unlimited Hall, 17.30-19.00

Nickyskye on Metafilter:

Joseph wrote me love letters in which he couched his sexual interest in metaphors. I was told he used the image of a bird for penis and nest for vagina. His letters were full of birds and nests.

Just when you think there are no stones left to unturn in one woman’s firsthand account of being used–as a child, by her mother–to procure art from the pedophilic Joseph Cornell, there’s one more eye-popping anecdote. She took her only remaining Cornell to the art dealer, Richard Feigen, to sell, in order to finance a trip to India:

Mr. Feigen said that he too had been in India, to meet with the Maharaja of Indore who owned several sculptures by Brancusi, including the elegantly simple, bronze one called Bird in Space. The Indian government would not allow the Maharaja to export this valuable piece of art, so Mr. Feigen took a risk and decided to package the sculpture as a brass lampstand so it could exit India, which it did. He said that it was his first major art deal and that the sculpture sold for one million dollars.

The perfectly symmetrical irony, of course, is that Brancusi’s Bird In Space was the subject of a famous court case when it was first exhibited in the US in 1926. Customs agents, not believing the work was art, had attempted to charge import duty on the machined metal object.
In 2004, The Art Newspaper wrote about the Maharajah’s Bird In Space:

What happened to the Maharajah of Indore’s Brancusi birds?
In 1973 the Tate wanted to buy Brancusi’s black marble “Bird in space” through dealer Richard Feigen. The sale fell through because the trustees believed the work had been “smuggled” out of India.

Seems like the trustees were right. The National Gallery of Australia had no such qualms, because it bought two of the Maharajah’s three versions of Bird In Space, even though “the original limestone bases had been destroyed in India.” Brancusi, of course, considered the bases as integral to the works themselves.
That brass lampstand, by the way, ended up at the Norton Simon Museum, a 1972 purchase.
Flights of Fancy: Joseph Cornell and his muses [metafilter via tmn]

Yeah, I’ve got a post about the MoMA gig with Jim Mangold on Tuesday, which was a lot of fun. Great guy.
But first, this picture from Curbed, which was taken on 21st Street between 10th and 11th Avenues:

Now compare it to this 2003 shot from the same block:

In the end, we’re all just food for worms, boys, warming the bench until Miuccia comes.
Art is in the Eye of the Property Holder [curbed]
Elmgreen & Dragset, Opening Soon / Powerless Structures Fig. 242, 2003 [tanyabonakdargallery.com]

After conducting the biggest contemporary auction in Sotheby’s history, Tobias Meyer told Artforum’s Sarah Thornton, “The best art is the most expensive, because the market is so smart.”
Uh-huh. This is the market that paid a million-one for a generic Yoshitomo Nara painting just because it’s big. Meanwhile, one of the last Robert Smithson non-sites in private hands–and artist hands at that, the piece was being sold by its original owner, Keith Sonnier–sold for just its high estimate, $374,400 [or $300K+ plus the 20% or so premium].
The market may be smart at the top, but there’s definitely a soft-headed center, too.
Yoshitomo Nara, “Missing in Action,” 1999, est. $200-300,000. Sold for $1.08 million at Christie’s [5/10/06].
Robert Smithson, “Shells and Mirror,” 1969, est. $200-300,000. Sold for $374,400 at Christie’s [5/10/06].

1) Truckload of Missing Art Found in Trailer Park, by Alan Feuer, NY Times.
2) A–
Actually, we have winner right there.

You’d never know it from the market today, but according to the Guardian’s Jonathan Jones, art and money do NOT go well together.
That’s his explanation for why Damien Hirst sucks so bad these days–because he has 100 million pounds–and he’s sticking with it. Same thing happened to Dali and Warhol, the chumps. Got all caught up in the money and the fame and the trappings and neglected the art.
OK… never mind that alongside his sellout portrait factory, Warhol did make interesting and even important work throughout his career. And never mind that Dali was the diametric opposite, a fraud who exploited his early influence and flooded his own market with counterfeits and crap. Who IS Jones’ idea of an artist who doesn’t let making a ton of money bring his art down?

The most brilliant concealer of wealth was Picasso. From his 30s onwards, the modern master could afford the best studios and houses. But when we look at his painting of his studio on his Cannes estate we don’t think of him as rich in the same vulgar way as Dali. This is because Picasso lived for work…

Uh-huh. Because with only 10,000,000 ceramics and that Frankie Goes To Hollywood album cover, the Cannes Estate Period produced some of Picasso’s most important works.
Do rich artists make bad art? [guardian]

Just came across the transom from e-flux:

Serpentine Gallery and e-flux announce Agency for Unrealised Projects (AUP)
For every planned project that is carried out, hundreds of other proposals by artists, architects, designers, scientists and other practitioners around the world stay unrealised and invisible to the public. Agency for Unrealised Projects (AUP) seeks to document and display these works through publications, a developing archive and a physical office, in this way charting the terrain of a contingent future.
Unlike unrealised architectural models and projects submitted for competitions, which are frequently published and discussed, public endeavours in the visual arts that are planned but not carried out ordinarily remain unnoticed or little known. The aim of the Agency for Unrealised Projects (AUP), starting from an archive amassed by Hans Ulrich Obrist over the last 10 years and continuing to invite submissions by artists, is to give life to these as yet unachievable plans, by making them available to the public to be disseminated, discussed and most importantly, to be realised.
This is the first in a series of new projects and programmes for the Serpentine Gallery devised by Julia Peyton-Jones, Director, Serpentine Gallery and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director, Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects.
The Agency for Unrealised Projects (AUP) will also be the first in a programme of research and collaborations with e-flux, under the name Institute for New Social Research, initiated by Julieta Aranda and Anton Vidokle.

I suddenly feel the need for a more institutional-sounding name.
Forthwith please direct all correspondence to Greg Allen, Managing Director, General Research & Entertainment Group.
Previously: I wrote about HUO’s Unrealized Projects [with a ‘Z’] research last year for the NYT.

That fall the curious flocked to Gladstone’s gallery to watch a film depicting him scaling the gallery walls with the help of ice screws. It ended with Barney inserting the last screw into his anus. Stardom came instantaneously.

Unfortunately, the rest of “Barney’s Voyage,” Julie Belcove’s profile of Matthew Barney and Drawing Restraint 9 for W Magazine, is not available online.
But Randy Kennedy’s profile for the Times is, and he clears up the whole “Bjork and Matthew Barney live in New Jersey!” mystery that had the Noel Coward people so up in arms.