As part of the Art Los Angeles Contemporary art fair, which took place January 27-30 at the Barker Hanger of the Santa Monica Airport, the crew from Art Practical produced “In and Out of Context: Artists Define the Space between San Francisco and Los Angeles,” a series of conversation that imagined the two cities as “a continuously evolving constellation of dialogues, shared interests, and overlapping approaches.”

In this episode Patricia Maloney, Catherine Wagley, and artist Elyse Mallouk tailgate with LA-based artists Lisa Anne Auerbach and Michael Parker from the back of Auerbach’s aqua blue Mini Cooper, parked behind the airport hanger. As prop planes rumble by on their way to takeoff, Auerbach and Parker discuss topics ranging from torn porn and being one’s own bumper sticker to the Shakers and how artists can make change in the work.

Lisa Anne Auerbach’s practice is interdisciplinary and takes the form of photography, publications and, more often than not, knitting. Combining humor with a biting critique of the complacency and routine of modern life, her work inserts itself into the visual and social fabric of the communities that she engages. She received her BA from the Rochester Institute of Technology and her MFA from Art Center College of Design. She is represented by Gavlak, West Palm Beach, Florida.

Michael Parker work makes use of the concept of Temporary Autonomous Zones to produce microtopias, experiments that are situated between idealist notions of community and pragmatic methods for narrating the actions of individuals and groups. He received his BA from Pomona College and his MFA from the University of Southern California. His work was recently featured in in “Landfill, Part 2.” in Art Practical.

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This week: Amanda and Martin talk to artists and gallerists at differing 2011 NY art fairs. Breaking away from the megahub of the ARMORY, we visit exemplary booths at the Manhattan “satellite” shows, getting a feel for the variety within the ever growing gala.

With Volta’s one-artist-per-booth, we focus on Bradley Castellanos at MARX & ZAVATERRO with his ominous photomontages. Kimberly Johansson of Oakland’s Johansson Projects introduces us to Jennie OTTINGER and her lively novel-inspired pieces before a surprise by a mock art tour.

The SCOPE fair finds interviewing in a bodega cooler typical of the art installed by artist Andrew Ohanesian. At SPINELLO PROJECTS we meet with featured artist Barnaby Whitfield and Paul Bruno of DIRTY MAGAZINE. Bruce Livingstone and Peter Teodoric talk about the SAATCHI ONLINE project.

On the Hudson River’s panhandle barge, Tom Burtonwood of WHAT IT IS captures the boisterous atmosphere of the floating FOUNTAIN fair.

The party continues with Amanda speaking with Hudson of FEATURE INC. at INDEPENDENT fair’s second year after its’ upstart inauguration.

Martin Esteves can be found here… http://thelifeofstmartin.blogspot.com/

There you will also find his textual perceptions of the Armory.

Tom (Golden Tunnel)" 2010 by Ryan McGinley

Photos from Artissima, Turin’s contemporary art fair
“We make money not art” has uploaded a few of the many images they took at Artissima, Turin Italy’s contemporary art fair. If the photos shown are indicative of the rest of the show it looks to be something not to be missed. Read more here

This week in “Can’t Muster the Engergy to Not Even Care About This” is a toss up
Cant decide which is of less interest, work begins on Lady Gaga’s 8 wax figures at DC’s Madame Tussauds or Sophie Crumb (daughter of Robert Crumb) releases a book of drawings that make her father look like Albrecht Durer. Read more here & here

Someone is selling off their VIP Access to Art Basel Miami Beach
Someone has put their VIP packet up on Craigslist for a minimum of $500 which gets you access to all the major events hosted by Art Basel and the Satellite Fairs. It doesn’t get you into the Delano Hotel though unfortunately you still need an even rarer commodity to do that, an actuall young & sexy woman on your arm to get the pleasure of paying $16 for a mojito. Buy your way in here

The British Government denys export license in effort to keep a Turner Painting Sold in Auction to Getty Trust  in British Hands
The British government has announced Wednesday that the required export license for “Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino,” which Turner painted in 1839, will be held up through Feb. 2, and potentially until Aug. 1, to give potential buyers who want to keep the painting on British soil a chance to match the J. Paul Getty Trust’s bid. Read more here

Rochelle Slovin Director of Museum of the Moving Image To Step Down After Renovation
Read more here

Amedeo Modigliani Nude Painting fetched a record-setting price of nearly $70 million
A wise woman with striking red hair told me a few weeks back that the nude is coming back stronger then ever and she may just be right. Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu assis sur un divan (La Belle Romaine) [Nude Sitting on a Divan (The Beautiful Roman Woman)], a canvas from an important series of nudes, drew five telephone bidders into a heated competition at the fall sale of impressionist and modern art ultimately selling to an anonymous buyer for $68.9 Million US. Read more here & here

The New York Times covers Olivier Zahm & Purple magazine
Read more here & here NSFW

The LA Times Wrings it Hands over Art Walks
The LA Times asks do Art Walks help or hurt the local scene, they might as well ask does wine production effect gallery openings; its a zen question that keeps getting asked and its ultimately pointless. Just be glad people show up at all since the overlap between the two worlds is so small if it was a Venn diagram it would look like a pair of spectacles. Read more here

The Art Newspaper Asks Does Sex Sell at Frieze
Read more here

Superheroes in Court! Lawyers, Law and Comic Books
Currently on display at Lillian Goldman Law Library’s rare book exhibition gallery at Yale the series showcases examples of images of superheroes in the dock, comic books about lawyers and examples of legal disputes and Congressional inquiries involving caped crusaders. My artist sense tells me somewhere a lawyer who loves comics is currently on kayak.com reserving a seat on the next flight to New Haven, CT. Read more here & here

Merchandise Mart adds LA to the portfolio of Art Fairs
Planed to open in fall of 2011 (want to lay odds it is close if not the same time as Scope: London & Zoo?) the Chicago based Merchandise Mart has hired MOCA’s Adam Gross as director of the event. Read more here

The Art on the Walls of Wall Street 2
Even though the original Wall Street film was a better story and all around film it did lack in a few areas most of all it’s representation of art. Work, design and taste that is so garish and laughably over the top that it is highly distracting from the story being told. In the sequal the art is more established and used as pantomime of the duplicitous emotions, mood or subtext of the film. The NY Times wrote and interesting article on the process. Read more here

Egyptian Van Gogh Heist now thought to be an inside job
A while back there was the report of a Van Gogh theft from the Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum which had the art security equivalent of a ADT window decal and nothing more (seven out of 43 security cameras functioning and none of the alarms attached to the museum’s paintings) now the talk is that it was an inside job. This very well may be true but llet me ask how hard was the planning session for that theft? How complex could it have been since the only thing to slow one down from a theft was remembering if it was a push or pull door at the exit? Habib el-Adly, Egypt’s interior minister, said the loss was a “difficult lesson”…. Read more here

Google brings a rough version of a actual usable universal translator
called “conversation mode” which in the art world we could all use more then we would like to admit.

Youtube & The Guggenheim have released their short list for the “Play” Biennial and there is a God since my favorite art video not only is back from the dead but has a new work out. Strindberg and Helium at the Beach tell the tale of a fatalistic Swedish playwright and his best friend a bubble gum pink ballon named Helium. Even though Bad at Sports didn’t make the short list if “Play” does nothing more then vault artist Eun-Ha Park and Strindberg & Helium back into production I call it a roaring success.

• What is this you say? The Art world has a habit of being delinquent on payments (even more so since October of 2008) and that can have larger ramifications throughout the entire ecosystem? Balderdash I say, pure poppycock; where did I put my monocle. Read more here
• A new Art Fair called of all things “VIP” that has no physical location and is 100% virtual on the net, marketing is not discussed nor noticable yet, there is no meet and greet which is the cornerstone of art, you will be expected to buy without ever seeing the work in the flesh & they want to charge $20,000 a booth and be held 22-30 January. If this didn’t have Gagosian, Sadie Coles, Emman uel Perrotin and David Zwirner involved I would be rolling on the floor laughing, oh wait I still am. Laugh more here
• Auction house Christie’s has hired, from outside, a former publishing, record company and Disney executive as its new CEO. Read more here
• Chuck Close does a public interview at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he discusses his life, art, and the creative process. Watch more here
• The Art Institute of Chicago Sues the Engineering Firm that built it’s Modern Wing citing cracks in concrete floors, condensation clouding the main vestibule glass and an air-conditioning system that can’t maintain a safe climate for artwork. The estimated cost of repairs is $10 million. Read more here
• Stuart E. Hample, Humorist and Cartoonist, Dies at 84. Read more here Also Howard Brodie, Combat and Courtroom Artist, Dies at 94 Read more here
• Deep in us we all love science and have had great joy in the data coming from the Large Hadron Collider and even more in the sillyness surrounding it but it’s interesting to watch scientists fall all over themselves trying to address what would happen if the beam hit anything organic. Watch more here

One more video from the “Play” Biennial, this is fun lol.