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This week: Happy 2012! We kick off the new year with Mark Staff Brandl reporting from Venice 2011!

A Venice Biennale 2011 extravaganza. Mark Staff Brandl is in the City of St. Mark. Brandl, the Central European Bureau and VaporettoShark, traverses and discusses his way through this huge international festival with sporadic assistance from Peter Stobbe, Claudia Tolusso, Manuela Gritsch, Elisabeth Payer, Tamara Remus, Lucas Malsch, Adam Vogt, Sarah Rohner, Johanna Gschwend, Marc Bless, Manuel Ackermann, Chandra Marquart and others from the Art Academy of Liechtenstein. He covers many of the national pavilions at the Giardini park, discusses much of the Centrale and even works his way through all of the massive Arsenale. Furthermore, at the end Dr. Mark and Dr. Peter visit and discuss some thrilling old paintings at the Accademia, the wonderful Venetian Museum and go to a retrospective of Julian Schnabel in the Museo Correr, located in the Piazza San Marco. Whew. Viva la Serenissima!

This is the 54th incarnation of this show, probably the most important contemporary art exhibition. It takes place once every two years, the first Biennale being held in 1895. The Exhibition this year, titled ILLUMInations was curated by Bice Curiger; it is the largest yet, spreading over 108,000 square feet between the Giardini and the Arsenale, and features 83 artists from all over the world. The Accademia art museum is situated on the south bank of the Grand Canal, within the sestiere of Dorsoduro. It was founded in 1750 and contains among a huge number of others, works by Bellini, Guardi, Giorgione, Pietro Longhi, Lorenzo Lotto, Mantegna, Tiepolo, Titian, Veronese, Vasari, and Mark’s great favorite: Tintoretto. The Museo Correr is the civic museum of Venice and extends along the south side of the Piazza. It holds art, documents, artifacts, and maps that chart the history of Venice across the centuries. It has also has shown one person exhibitions of contemporary artist such as Anselm Kieffer, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, and Enzo Cucci.

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This week: Mark Staff Brandl reports from Art Basel 2011!

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Painter and Bad @ Sports NYC correspondent, Tom Sanford will moderate a panel of 5 other painters who will talk about painting. Kamrooz Aram, Holly Coulis, David Humphrey, Dike Blair and Deborah Kass not only represent three or four generations of New York painters and are all prominent voices among their cohort, but also represent a wide variety of approaches to the medium.

These, “the Painters of Painting”, will discuss the current concerns in painting as well as painting’s enduring relevance as a humanistic and idiosyncratic antidote to the prevailing corporate culture of consensus and commodification.

Tom’s wrap up e-mail sent to all involved afterwards-

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Sanford 
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2010 7:13 AM
To: Tom Sanford
Subject: Thanks from PAINTERS/PAINTING

Hi Guys

I just wanted to send y'all a note to thank the many many of you who

came out to the panel and offer my apologies to those who weren't

able to get in! I am so sorry that a super turnout put apexart in the

position that they had no choice but to not allow a few people in. It

was totally packed inside - i actually had an audience member sitting

on my lap for most of the talk. But thank you all ever so much for

making the effort, i sincerely appreciate the overwhelming show of

interest!

The incredible turn out certainly speaks to the great enthusiasm for

painting in the medium's global capitol city and I think the talk was

a success. The panelists (David, Deb, Holly, Dike & Kamroos) were

charming and interesting and insightful, i did my best to keep us on

course, and Steven Rand and the apexart crew (Cybele, Julia & Julien)

were gracious and generous hosts.

Best of all the audience has plenty of great questions comments and

the occasional well timed out-burst! Special thanks to for really

great questions and comments from Daniel Davidson, Alfred Steiner,

Michael Anderson, Carlos Fragoso, and George Rodart among others

whose names I didn't know - great hustle guys!

Anyway, thanks a million for all of your support and interest and

remember the most important thing is to keep those brushes wet - and

Michael Anderson pointed out with the optimism that we all share for

painting and picture making "There are about 9 million new kinds of

paintings yet to be made!!"

Cheers

Tom

Mark Staff Brandl has released a full length video version complete with illustration of his speach presented at the CAA (College Art Association, art historians organization) annual conference in Chicago this past week as well as at the Kunstschule Lichtenstein, in 2010. It concerns description and criticism of the standard conceptions and models of fine art history and the history of comics, while offering a new one model for conceiving of and teaching these histories.

Also Mark Staff Brandl gave a video interview with Columbia College while in town that is fun as well.

Today marks the start of the 2010 College Art Association (CAA) Conference, the annual conference for college professionals working in the field of visual arts. If you’re in town for the event, don’t miss Duncan MacKenzie and Richard Holland presenting in person on Friday on the topic of “meta-mentors” and the role they play as producers/founders/meta-mentors of the entire Bad at Sports universe! Their panel, titled Meta-Mentoring: Opt Out of Obscurity, will take place on Friday February 12th at 12:30 pm at Columbus GHIJ, Gold Level, East Tower, Hyatt Regency Chicago. Duncan and Richard will be talking about the history of Bad at Sports, the process of putting the show together, the role they play as artists and cultural producers, and so! much! more! So come armed with your questions, your autograph books and 8 x 10 black and white glossies…and get ready to be meta-mentored by Bad at Sports!

Be sure and check out some of the panels listed below, featuring B@S’ fellow contributors, friends, and other groovy folks of note. (For the full schedule of panels at CAA, click here.) PLUS: Students at Columbia College are blogging the entire conference! So we don’t have to! Thank you Columbia College Students!  Without further ado, let the academic hob-nobbing commence!

On Thursday: