Guggenheim gets turned down on its plan to create the Hot Dog Stand Frank Lloyd Wright would have built
The Guggenheim Museum considered the hot dog vendors outside its NYC landmark designed by Wright to not be in keeping with the look and style of the venue and in that vein pitched an idea to the city to build their own. Reports say that they thought the benefits would be increased revenue and a elimination of the generic style brightly colored stands. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission turned down the plan unanimously though saying “It detracts from the landmark and causes it to compete with the main building,” Robert B. Tierney, chairman of the commission, said of the proposed kiosk. “All of our standard appropriateness tests are not met here.” Too bad since I would have loved to see what they would have done, someone needs to publish the spec drawings for that plan. Read more here

TED Prize this year goes to Street Photo-Grafitti Artist “JR the Photograffeur”
Part of me is just glad that the joke awarding of food pundit Jamie Oliver is past and Jr is actually interesting albeit I wish I knew more about his work prior to now. NPR’s blog “The Picture Show” does a good job of covering a broad array of his work so I won’t say more then check it out. Read more here

Stereotypical Art Show Award Goes To Sue Williams: ‘Al-Qaeda Is the CIA’
I read about her show in the New York Times (a article with not a single image?) and was both annoyed by the lack of photos but more so curious as to what this show looked like. After looking up the official 303 Gallery website I enjoyably went through every photo. Sadly not for ascetic reasons or conceptual ones but the show is a virtual cornucopia of the current trends, tropes & stereotypes of the gallery scene today all in one places. There is the mish-mash theme, publicly antagonizing titles,  the glory in “shitty drawing”, the mix of rich color highly elaborate wallpaper with monochromatic underplayed items, the go to masturbation references, war of the sexes & ironic elevation of the sensational and banal. I would have been able to win my Art World bingo game for the month but was just missing either deer illustration, skull illustration, taxidermy animal or human silhouette. Maybe next time. Read more here & See more here

NUDE in Chicago
Part of the Sculpture Objects & Functional Art (SOFA) exposition this year in Chicago (Nov 5th-7th) will be a exhibition of sculpture being built at booth 920 with help from the audience.  Chicago artist Dana Major Kanovitz will be building the sculpture out of paper that the audience will hand to her. This is part of the larger series on show at the Perimeter Gallery which is showing a group show of artist who are looking to take a new stab at the oldest of genres in art, The Nude. You can read the press release and see images here

Danes get upset over Lego Sex
Employees at the town hall of Roskilde near Copenhagen have taken offence at the work on show in the building, paintings of two men made of Lego figures having sex. According to Danish press reports, artist Svend Ahnstrøm’s piece, which shows ‘Kurt and Anders’ pleasuring themselves in a public park, has prompted three internal complaints. But no objections have been raised about Lego depictions of Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden. “It’s hard to believe that something like this can offend people in today’s Denmark,” said Ahnstrøm. Deep down I wonder if his real thought was “Three people? a lousy three people? Seriously people are too lazy to protest….” cause look at the work and sing “One of these things is not like the others, One of these things just doesn’t belong” the artist even agrees since he places Kurt and Anders at the bottom of his page last on his site. See more here

Mall in Manchester, England creates replica of Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s Tomb & Treasure
Read more here

Dutch Venice Biennale 2010 – Dutch pavilion
The Dutch pavilion is very interesting this time round and “we make money not art” does a good job of covering it. Read more here

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Artist Tony Fitzpatrick Runs for Mayor of Chicago
Read his facebook postings to follow the story but with Daley stepping down after 21 years the race begins and Tony Fitzpatrick has some fun points to be made. read more when someone makes a website for him?

British Artists Protest 25% Cut in Arts Spending
In hopes of bridging the substantial budget deficit Brittan faces the coalition government is proposing a max 25% cut in Arts spending. Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor and David Hockney, counter that “radical cuts to current levels of arts funding will decimate what has been one of the U.K.’s chief success stories over the past 20 years, and will bring an end to the U.K.’s reign as a global capital for culture.” read more here

Ansel Adams Story Continues, With a Showdown
A new gallery showing is opening now with 20 prints — hand-developed and signed by Adams himself and guaranteed to be authentic by the Duncan Miller Gallery in West Los Angeles, which is putting on the show, shown side by side with prints from the embattled garage-sale find of Rick Norsigian, the Fresno resident who believes he has find of 65 negatives shot by Adams next to the more famous “Uncle Earl” Brooks, the previously unknown photographer they contend is the man who actually shot the pictures in the Norsigian find. If your a fan of Adams this would be a one day chance to make the decision for yourself. read more here

Interesting Tale of Dan Colen’s Career From Gagosian Gallery Bathroom to Solo Show
Read more here

Ireland Sparks  Controversy Over Venice Biennale Choices
Emily-Jane Kirwan, a director at the Pace Gallery in New York, has been chosen as a commissioner for the Irish Pavilion in 2011, while Corban Walker, who belongs to the same Manhattan gallery, is Ireland’s official artist in Italy next year. The fight begins in 3….2…..1….. Read more here

Charles Saatchi’s Gift of His Gallery & Many of His Works to British Government an Offer too Good to Refuse or Trouble in the Making?
Charles Saatchi announced in July that he was in talks with the government to create a Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) for London. Turning over his Saatchi Gallery and 200 works of art worth a reported £25m to the British public. The offer which has been reported as a suprise to the goverment is now raising concerns about financial stability. Read more here

Danish art pranksters mock Spain’s royal family
The provocative Danish artist group Surrend have placed posters around Barcelona that mock Spain’s censorship laws as applied to the Spanish royal family. The posters depict several drawings that have been made unrecognisable by being painted over. A slogan at the top of each poster says: “Things we are not allowed to draw”. Next to each obliterated image is a sentence such as “The Royal Family having a lunch nap” and “The Royal Family having sex”. Read more here

Chicago Typefaces, Unlike Anywhere Else
The NPR picture show name dropped a blog that showcases the comercial typefaces that pepper Chicago, both new and old, and give the city some of it’s unique character. I am a bit biased but having visited/worked/lived many other places I can agree that when it comes to Architecture & public graphics Chicago is on a level of it’s own especially in the States. read more here

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Well that’s not true, in the end both of the new Millennium Park pavilions will be deconstructed and recycled. The Burnham Plan in Chicago has announced two new pavilions that are going to be installed June 19 through October 31, 2009 in Millennium Park.

The First is by Zaha Hadid and described as:

“A tent-like structure made of light weight aluminum and dressed in a tensile fabric. The exterior skin rises and falls along its aluminum ribs—the lines for which were derived from the diagonal lines and avenues in Burnham and Bennett’s 1909 Plan. Louvers in the pavilion’s ceiling will bring an interplay of light and shadow into the space as the sun changes position during the day. Exterior lighting will highlight the pavilion at night.

The interior of the Hadid Pavilion will serve as a screen for an immersive video installation created by UIC-trained and London-based artist Thomas Gray for The Gray Circle. This film will tell the story of Chicago’s transformation, including visions for Chicago’s future by local architects.”

It then goes on to mention the sinuous discourse and usual puffery.

The Second pavilion is by UNStudio and is listed as:

“Highly accessible and functions as an urban activator. Framed by Lake Michigan on one side and Michigan Avenue on the other, it relates to diverse city-contexts and scales. The edges of the roof are parallel, but toward the center there is more complexity in the form.

At night, UNStudio’s pavilion becomes a responsive architecture with LED lights that change color and pattern. These lights will be in constant flux as the number of visitors to the pavilion changes. Programmatically the pavilion invites people to gather, walk around and through the space—to explore and observe. It’s sculptural form and reactive lights will spark curiosity and wonder in its visitors.

The UNStudio pavilion is made of steel, clad in plywood, and is covered in high-gloss white paint to reflect the city and pavilion visitors.”

Now we ask you in both comment form and poll, who will survive? The winner will go one on one in a death match with a pavilion built to look like Tony Fitzpatrick.

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