Capitalism, 2009, 4 video loops, 1'19'' by Istvan Laszlo

Versailles art show hit by injunction bid
From the wet dreams of the marketing people behind Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami’s show at Versailles a descendant of the man who built the Versailles Palace in France is seeking an injunction to prevent modern works by Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami from being shown there. The legal battle is fronted by Sixte Henri de Bourbon-Parme in defence of “respecting the chateau and ancestors.” The ultra-conservative royalist has united with a group, the Versailles Defence Coordination, to file the suit, in which they stake a claim for the “right to access to heritage.” Read more here

Prince Charles offers to oversee London architectural planning
This week in “What could possibly go wrong?” Prince Charles offers to take on key architectural planning role in the vaccum created by the quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation that had its funding axed in the comprehensive spending review. The offer, announced by the foundation’s chief executive, Hank Dittmar, has been met with dismay by leading modernist architects who fear Prince Charles may use the role to advance his own traditional tastes in design. Read more here

Studio Manager Anne McIlleron talks about her boss William Kentridge
William Kentridge who is the focus of Art:21′s first feature length documentary (recently reviewed here and just broadcast on PBS this week) let his Studio Manager Anne McIlleron speak on what looks to be B-roll of the Art:21 documentary, its interesting but I am still of the opinion that William Kentridge wasn’t the best subject in the world to get this kind of treatment, just me I am sure. See more here

Kronos Quartet Interviewed
I cant get enough of Art Babble I admit and  double so for the Kronos Quartet (which Duncan & I caught in concert last time they were in Chicago and were amazing) so when you merge the two together it’s PB&J perfection. See More Here

Chagall’s America Stained-Glass Windows are Back on View in Chicago
What more do you need to say then that, everyone just needs to bring their significant other and get to kissing. Read more here

New Yorker cartoonist Leo Cullum died
Leo Cullum, whose cartoons kept readers of The New Yorker laughing for 33 years, has died. He was 68. Read more here

The art world’s own Bernie Madoff
Lawrence Salander Read more here

Google DemoSlam is previewed
Google has previewed a new site called demoslam built to encourage the creation and rank the best tech demonstrations on the net, part of me has long thought this was something the art world should have created a long time ago, free idea (hey get what you pay for) to whoever has the time and wants to put the work into it, Youtube was built for the Art world and a project like this (even though we all wish it looked like Vimeo). Have at it and God bless at this point I just want a life for a while lol. Read more here

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From happy crabs, dinosaurs, cherry blossoms, skyscrapers & little red ridding hood there is little that has not been depicted on these covers.

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This week: Richard and Duncan speak with Chicago based artist and 2010 Whitney Biennial participant Julia Fish about her work, Japanese architecture and more!

Before that starts, there is a short pithy segment on C2E2, which was awesome (the show not our bit).

Yes I made a stupid Front 242 musical joke which only I will find funny.

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This is a proof-of-concept video by the Japanese design house PROTOTYPE that was built to showcase their new modular interactive large scale touch screen installation process. This concept can be scaled to sizes way beyond the 20 iPod demo and easily maintained, repaired & replaced.

Reportedly it can be built to drag & drop touch react to nearby ipods but until there is video of that it seems unlikely. Still in a Art world where Iphones are king this seems fitting for a install in Basel Miami coming up for sure.

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On Sunday September 7th Japanese artist/designer Nagi Noda passes away. She was 35. There is no word on the exact cause of her death; but people have speculated that it was related to a car accident she was in last year that had left the artist with Chronic pain and other ailments.

“Beyond being a brilliant artist and wonderful talent, Nagi was one of the most incredibly unique spirits that I have known,” says Sheila Stepanek, CEO/EP Partizan US, which represented Noda. “Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends.” Stepanek says that Noda passed “in her Mark Ryden dress, Chanel boots, perfect make-up with Viktor & Rolf lace black eye lashes.”

She is most famous for the commercials she directed for Nike, Coca-Cola, and most recently for LG. She had collaborated with artist Mark Rydan on a fashion line Broken Label. The first time I experienced Noda’s work was her poodle video she had made for the Olympics (above). She will be missed.

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The seated figure of Dainichi Nyorai, or the supreme Buddha, is attributed to Unkei, considered one of the two best sculptors of the early Kamakura period in the 1190s, when the most highly regarded Buddhist art was produced.

It was purchased at auction Tuesday by Mitsukoshi Ltd., one of Japan’s major department stores. Its presale estimate was $1.5 million to $2 million.

The Buddha, made of Cyprus wood, sits in a lotus position wearing princely attire, a crown and jewelry, and hair in a topknot. It is believed to have come from a temple during the Meiji period (1868-1911) when Shinto was adopted as the state religion of Japan, Christie’s said.

It was last known to be in the possession of a prominent Japanese family but its whereabouts afterward became unknown until it was sold to a dealer of Buddhist art in recent years.

“Part of the reason that it went through the roof is that it’s a very, very rare piece and it’s quite unusual for something of this significance to all of a sudden resurface,” said Adriana Proser, curator of traditional Asian art at the Asia Society.

The auction house declined to reveal the consignor’s identity.

The owner, believing the Buddha to be hollow, took the sculpture to the Tokyo National Museum, where it was X-rayed. Three dedicatory objects, representing Buddhist symbols and tied together with bronze wire, were revealed: a wood pagoda, a crystal pagoda and a crystal ball on a bronze stand.

Christie’s said it did not know if there were any plans to remove the objects, which have been sealed inside for 800 years and might provide historical information about the sculpture including inscriptions of the temple or donor, the sculptor’s identity and the date of dedication.

The previous record for a Japanese work of art was $1.76 million for a Rakuchu Rakugai screen, sold at Christie’s in 1990.

Katsura Yamaguchi, Christie’s international director of Japanese and Korean Art, said the sale “is a testament to the extreme importance and beauty of this supreme Buddha, and elevates Japanese art to a new record level.”

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This would over rule a 2003 decision by the Tokyo High Court that banned the book’s sale because it was deemed indecent. Tuesday’s ruling is believed to be the first time the top court has overturned a lower court decision on obscenity.

Publisher Takashi Asai called it “groundbreaking” and predicted the ruling might “change [Japan's] obscenity standard.”

Justice Kohei Nasu said the black-and-white portraits were from an “artistic point of view” and led the majority opinion of the five-judge panel that Mapplethorpe was “a leading figure in contemporary art.”

The justices did, however, throw out Asai’s demand for government compensation of arround $20,000 US.

Japan’s domestic obscenity laws were relaxed in the 1990s but imported publications are handled by customs and the laws still ban images of genitals.

Asai, of Uplink publishers, had argued that the import ban was obsolete, pointing out the Mapplethorpe book was in the Japanese parliament’s library and that copies were offered for sale on the internet.

His company had been selling the Japanese version of Mapplethorpe’s 384-page book since 1994. The book, entitled “Robert Mapplethorpe”, contains 20 close-up photos of male genitalia.

Everything changed in 1999 when airport customs officials in Japan confiscated a copy of the book that Asai had been carrying.

Then Tokyo police visited him and gave him a warning, causing Asai to voluntarily suspend sales of the book in 2000.

Asai decided to go to court and in 2002, he won a case in Tokyo District Court. The government was ordered to give back his book and to pay $6,480 US in damages. But a year later, a higher court overturned that ruling. At that point, Asai took the case to the highest court in the land. Leading to today’s ruling.

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For two days in December, Los Angeles residents were blessed with some of the best public art I’ve seen in quite a while.

A billboard for Takahasi Murakami’s retrospective was bombed by legendary writers AUGER/REVOK.

LA weekly is now reporting that the missing work didn’t get censored, but was actually was picked up by Murakami himself for his KaiKai KiKi studio. Link to LA Weekly Article.

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Then Marc LeBlanc and Brian Andrews talk about how Marc is turning Japanese, he thinks he’s turning Japanese, he really thinks so….

The intro discusses how Philip von Zweck is a thug.

Anthony, please, dear God, talk in to the mic, seriously.

The following blurbs were shamelessly stolen from PVZ’s site:

Marc Fischer is 1/3 of the group Temporary Services, 1/11th of Mess Hall- an experimental cultural center in Roger’s Park (where he co-organizes the Hardcore Histories series), and an artist who curated the prison-themed exhibition “Captive Audience” at Gallery 400 earlier this year. In addition to believing that vinyl remains the superior format for the appreciation of recorded music, Fischer still refuses to own a fucking cell phone.

Anthony Elms overcame his youth as just another punk in Michigan to become the assistant director of Gallery 400, the editor of WhiteWalls, and a writer whose works have appeared in like every freakin’ magazine ever (except Artforum, whatever), plus in some exhibition catalogs for stuff that didn’t happen at VONZWECK, but was still ok. He’s pimped himself out at times; and participated in some panel discussions, but I think the panel discussion is always a bad idea, always. Anthony agrees.

On Public Collectors:
VONZWECK- as an entity, doesn’t care about art. You know it, you always have. But VONZWECK likes administration, and… stuff. Especially other people’s stuff! So does Marc Fischer. He likes stuff so much he’s started a whole new initiative to get to see it, and, being the unselfish soul that he is, to share it.

It’s called Public Collectors and it is founded upon the concern that there are many types of cultural artifacts that public libraries, museums and other institutions and archives either do not collect or do not make freely accessible. Public Collectors asks people that have had the luxury to amass, organize, and inventory these materials, to help reverse this lack by making their collections public. It’s voluntary and it’s free. Not about selling, or buying and not restricted to art. It’s about getting to see something you might not have access to otherwise and exchanges of knowledge.

For this – the kickoff, the ribbon cutting, Marc will be sharing one of his collections: records. That’s right actual records, long players, vinyl, what have you. Many will be on display; many more will be brought to the space for listening on request.

But the idea isn’t just for you to see Marc’s stuff, it’s for you to share your collection(s) and view other peoples’. Other collections are online and many more will be added soon at www.publiccollectors.org.

Gene Siskel Film Center
Helvetica
Marc Fischer
Anthony Elms
Public Collectors Project
Philip von Zweck
Mess Hall
Harold Washington Public Library
Angelo
Bruno Richard
UBU
Jonestown Punch
Steve Lacy
Stephen Perkins/Subspace Archives
Maximum Rock ‘N’ Roll
Tim Yohannon
Magma
Cheetah Chrome Motherfuckers
Bern Porter
Negazione
Declino
The Jesus Lizard
Stoner Rock
Dan Graham
’68 Democratic Convention
Jean Genet
Allen Ginsberg
David Yow
John Miller
Walter Benjamin
University of Chicago
Carol Jackson
Shannon Stratton
Ota Memorial Museum of Art
Le Corbusier
Julia Barnes
Nakaochiai Gallery
Clint Taniguchi
Misako and Rosen Gallery
Will Rogan and Yuki Okumura
Triple Base Gallery
Magical Art Room
Shugo Arts and Gallery Koyanagi
Superflat
Kerry James Marshall

Direct download: Bad_at_Sports_Episode_108-Marc_Fischer.mp3

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