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Episode 331: Venice 2011

Christopher — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 05:16:38 +0000

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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.

Two Danes, A Nude & A Hotdog Place

Christopher — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:22:45 +0000

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

Lets Run For Mayor of Chicago! and Other Links

Christopher — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 17:56:50 +0000

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

Indianapolis Museum of Art to Present Allora and Calzadilla in U.S. Pavillion at Venice

Claudine Isé — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 22:15:19 +0000

The Indianapolis Museum of Art announced today that it will represent the United States at next summer’s Venice Biennale, June 4 through November 27, 2011. They will present the work of Puerto Rico-based artist collaborative Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla. According to the New York Times, this is “the first time a collaborative, rather than a single artist, will represent the United States and the first time that a combination of performance and installation will occupy the pavilion.”

Allora and Calzadilla, you’ll remember, had a solo exhibition in 2007 at The Renaissance Society (you can view a video of the artist talk they gave at The Ren here, and Hamza Walker’s essay on the duo here). They’re also featured in art:21′s documentary Paradox, available for viewing here, and Eyeteeth blogger Paul Schmelzer conducted a great interview with these artists during their residency at The Walker Art Center).

Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, from Landmark (footprints) (2001).

(Via Eyeteeth).

Episode 239: Mads Lynnerup

Christopher — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 19:27:17 +0000

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This week: Patricia sits down with artist Mads Lynnerup during his recent sojourn in San Francisco. They talk about spotting Cyndi Lauper at the New Museum, precocious nerdy kids at the Guggenheim, navigating the ever-growing professionalization of the art world, everyday routines, and the merits of being a prankster.

Mad Lynnerup was born in Copenhagen, Denmark and lives and works in Copenhagen and New York. He completed his MFA from Columbia University in 2007 and received a BFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 2001. He has shown his work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; P.S. 1 and Socrates Sculpture Park, both New York; and Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw. Lynnerup works across such diverse media as video, sculpture, drawing, and printmaking. Many of the themes in his work have roots in his constant interest in the everyday and his surroundings.

This is the third collaboration between Art Practical and Bad At Sports.

Image: Routines (Sønder Boulevard), 2008 (video still); installation, video and poster series. Courtesy of the Artist and Baer Ridgeway Exhibitions, San Francisco.

Links:

artpractical.com

Interview with Mads Lynnerup

Mads Lynnerup Official Site

The Wedding at Cana: Peter Greenaway’s Vision

Claudine Isé — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:20:38 +0000

Although it sounds like I won’t be missing much by not attending the Venice Bienale this year (oh hell, who am I kidding? or any year except one, when someone else was paying for it), based on some of the write-ups I’ve read, there are two events taking place there that I truly regret not being able to see for myself.

The first is Swoon’s Huck Finn-style floating barge, which I blogged about a few weeks ago and which has received in-depth coverage in New York magazine. More than I want to see the thing itself, though, I think what I really want is to be friends with Swoon and her deck mates.

Peter Greenaway at the Palladian Refectory

The second is Peter Greenaway’s multimedia installation based on the Italian Mannerist Paolo Veronese’s gigantic painting, The Wedding Feast at Cana. Now, Greenaway isn’t someone I’d necessarily want to be buds with (I don’t think I could keep up), but he’s long been one of my favorite filmmakers (though I admit it seems a bit strange to talk about work like Greenaway’s in terms of ‘favorites,’ like it’s an ice cream flavor or something.) His early films, like The Draughtsman’s Contract (1982), A Zed and Two Naughts (1985), The Belly of an Architect (1987) Drowning by Numbers (1988) and his most mainstream “commercial” success, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989) are the films I know best; his later forays into installation and site-specific projects I’m less familiar with due to sheer lack of access to them.

Greenaway’s take on Wedding at Cana is part of an ambitious multi-part project in which the filmmaker/artist plans to bring nine classic art historical paintings to life in a modern context. Greenaway has already created installations revisiting Rembrandt’s The Nightwatch at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (via Greenaway’s film and an accompanying installation Nightwatching, made in 2006) and Leonardo’s The Last Supper in Milan (in a 2008 installation titled The Last Supper).

Greenaway’s “vision” of the Wedding takes place at the Palladian Refectory, the site where Veronese’s painting was first situated. Now, however, a facsimile of the work, commissioned by the Giorgio Cini Foundation, exists where the original once stood. Greenaway’s website describes the installation thusly:

“The Wedding at Cana facsimile, set in the original architectural context for which it had been conceived – the Palladian Refectory – offers Peter Greenaway the opportunity for an innovative and original interpretation via a state-of-the-art interplay of images, lighting, music, voices and sounds that will seem to emerge directly from the painting and the walls of the Refectory. The performance – a true multimedia event lasting about 50 minutes – makes spectators relive the episode of the marriage feast at Cana where Christ accomplished his first miracle, as narrated in the Gospel of John. Greenaway points out to the public the painting’s scores of characters, from the servants preparing dishes, to the banquet guests, to the guests of honor – Jesus Christ and his mother Mary – seated at the center of the painting’s architectural composition, in an on-going crescendo culminating in the narration’s crucial moment: the miracle of water turning into wine.”

Here’s a small image of the Paolo Veronese painting that’s under Greenaway’s scrutiny:

(click on the picture to be taken directly to the Wikipedia site containing a much larger file, which also gives you the ability to zoom in close on different parts of the painting).

There is an unofficial and no doubt surreptitiously shot video of the piece online to be found here; the quality is not great of course, but it gave me a little sense of what Greenaway is trying to accomplish. Better still, Roberta Smith has written a lengthy article on Greenaway’s Venice installation for the NYT today; it contains a great full-color installation shot which I’m too chicken to lift and post here. And Wired U.K. posted a brief, tech-oriented interview with Greenaway about the project last week.

I’d like to make a special request to any of you out there who went or are planning to go to Venice, saw this installation, and would care to comment on it, good or bad. Make me jealous: tell me all about the piece. What was it like? Did you think it worked? Was it smart or silly, and/or did you enjoy it?

Thanks.

Fridays Links Roundup

Meg Onli — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:19:39 +0000

On this weeks roundup we check out the conservation of contemporary art, AFC’s recap of Venice and Basel, and most importantly cats getting stoned via boing boing. Hope everyone has a great weekend and maybe well see you at galleries tonight.

Paddy Johnson’s recap of this years Art Basel and Venice Biennale. It didn’t sound like we missed much.
Ed Winkleman’s post on starting a commercial art gallery in a poor economy.
“Millennium Park’s tradition of dazzling and delayed public art goes on“
Becky Smith is closing Bellweather in New York after 10 years.
Art 21 has a great post by Richard McCoy about the the conservation of contemporary art.
Turner Prize winner Steve McQueen will be showing his Deadpan in Times Square.
Dieter Rams on Plural Blog
“Judge Slams MoMA, Guggenheim on Secret Holocaust Art Agreement.” That doesn’t sound good.
Offworld has a sneak peak at a follow up to my favorite Iphone game Rolando 2!!!

Friday’s Links Roundup

Meg Onli — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:40:30 +0000

Wallpaper* Magazine's colection of Tart Cards

Hope everyone has had a great week. On this weeks roundup we check out Murakami’s latest video for Louis Vuitton, a new article on Marina Abramović, and Wallpaper Magazin’s collection on Tart Cards. Have a good weekend and hopefully we will see you at the closing of Green Lantern.Viva La GL!

Lori Waxman has a great article on the Tamms Year Ten mud stencils in New City.
Takashi Murakami released his new ad for Louis Vuitton, Superflat First Love. Why do I feel like I have already seen this?
Wallpaper Magazine lets designers take a stab at London’s tart cards. Here are my faves: 1, 2, 3,
Art Review has a write up on Marina Abramović.
Disco jail? Adrian Searle’s video of the Venice Biennale highlights.
Want to know what is going on at Basel besides Brad Pitt and his new Neo Rauch? Check out what Art Fag City is checking out here, here, and here.
IDK if anyone has said this but ThreeWalls has extended their residency and project deadlines until July 1. So, get on it.
Camera or Voltron? The toy I always wanted.
The Museum of Modern Art will be hosting a retrospective of Tim “I ruined Planet of the Apes” Burton on Nov. 22

Wednesday Clips 6/10/09

Claudine Isé — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:59:54 +0000

R. Crumb's Book of Genesis (via boing boing)

Here’s hoping Meg’s sister “Peanut” Manuel kicks some ass at the US Boxing Championships!!

*Bruce Nauman’s Topological Gardens wins Golden Lion for best Pavillion at Venice Biennale (Art 21).

*John Baldessari and Yoko Ono receive Golden Lions for lifetime achievement in Venice (Unbeige). Go Santa!

*Marguerite Horberg plans Porto Luz, a new artistic center for Bronzeville (Chicago Weekly).

*What to wear during an Orange Alert? interviews Green Lantern Press editor Tobias Bengelsdorf.

*This site could become indispensible: The Auteurs.com, which lets you stream hard-to-find foreign films directly to your computer. Pretty inexpensive, and some are even free (via Avant/Chicago).

*Google sends cease and desist letter to Yoooouuu Tuuube creater David Kraftsow: read Rhizome’s interview with Kraftsow about it here.

*You need ideas? They got ideas, lots of ‘em: Ideasonair.net (via Artipedia).

*Eight museum shows you won’t be seeing in L.A. anytime soon (plus other cancelled shows across the country). Can someone scoop up MOCA’s cancelled Luisa Lambri show and bring it to Chicago? Pleeeaaase? (Culture Monster).

*World of Warcraft: The Exhibition (via Provisions Library).

*Drawing the webiverse: The Internet Mapping Project (via boing boing).

*Even the Louvre is worried about its future now (Unbeige).

*I am so pre-ordering this: R. Crumb’s upcoming Book of Genesis comic; excerpted in the New Yorker. (via boing boing, which has scans of the excerpt available on their website).

*Berwyn resident John Sisto discovered to have kept over 3500 religious artifacts and antiquities from Italy, 1600 of them stolen. (New York Times, Chicago Breaking News).

Friday’s Links Roundup

Meg Onli — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:57:43 +0000

In this week’s roundup we look at a video of crash test dummies (do you remember that horrible band? I know Richard does), the Venice Biennale, and some Nazi zombies, just to name a few. I don’t know about you guys but I’m going on vacay next week. Anyone know anything good to do in Denver?

OMG. Død snø looks like it’s going to kick some serious Nazi zombie ass.
Art Observed has a great links roundup to get you (not) in the mood for the Venice Biennale.
Former BAS guest Francesco Bonami is guest blogging over at The Moment.
Old GM crash test video from the 60′s are positively terrifying. I laughed so hard at work I think I scared my coworkers and am thankful I grew up in the 80s. Seat belts people.
Chicago Tribune had a papercraft tribute to Sen. Roland Burris.
Google introduced the Wave. I watched an hour of the hour and twenty min demo and then asked myself why I had watched it for that long.
This week I hit a new personal low when I Google image searched “ Maru the Cat” and found an image of myself on the second page.
Everyone went crazy for The Beatles Rockband intro. And yes I think it does live up to all the hype. Well at least the first half, I am not a big Yellow Submarine fan.
The Seeker told us about James Felix McKenney’s AUTOMATONS.
Gary Hustwit’s new Documentary Objectified starts tonight at the Gene Siskel Film Center.
Seriously WTF?!

Bad at Sports » Venice Biennale

Episode 331: Venice 2011

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