14 November 2011
26 October 2011
New Art Dealers Alliance = NADA (HAHA)
"... the only non-profit fair in Miami that is free and open to the public."
"Each NADA gallery will be provided with the opportunity to host a virtual storefront at www.Paddle8.com through which they may accept offers and process transactions on works using Paddle8's proprietary online platform, which leverages technology to facilitate the viewing, curating and acquisition of art."
[via e-flux bulletin]
"Each NADA gallery will be provided with the opportunity to host a virtual storefront at www.Paddle8.com through which they may accept offers and process transactions on works using Paddle8's proprietary online platform, which leverages technology to facilitate the viewing, curating and acquisition of art."
[via e-flux bulletin]
27 September 2011
17 September 2011
Overheard ...
... at The Shortlist espresso bar, Abercrombie St. Darlington, 15 09 2011:
Vietnamese-Australian female: "Do you like abstract art?"
Indian-Australian male: "I can't stand abstract art. [...] Stop just putting things together in a weird fashion and saying 'oh, because it's weird it's art.'"
My faith is restored in the younger generation.
Vietnamese-Australian female: "Do you like abstract art?"
Indian-Australian male: "I can't stand abstract art. [...] Stop just putting things together in a weird fashion and saying 'oh, because it's weird it's art.'"
My faith is restored in the younger generation.
14 September 2011
There is something hyper-self-conscious afloat ... as is only natural, They have taught us well ...
This is an excerpt from an e-newsletter sent by the 'Culture Jammers' at Adbusters about their Occupy Wall St. campaign:
"What will happen this Saturday when thousands of us descend on Lower Manhattan and start walking towards Wall Street?
If the police try to stop us, how will we respond? ...
If the police block us temporarily from occupying Wall Street, then let's turn all of lower Manhattan into our Tahrir Square. Let's sing our songs in the lobby of Goldman Sachs and in Chase Manhattan Plaza; let's wave our signs outside the SEC and the Federal Reserve; let's convene our people's assemblies around the Charging Bull statue at Bowling Green … and if need be, let's set up our encampments in nearby Battery Park and other places until we're ready to walk into Wall Street again …
Anything can and will happen this Saturday. That's the beauty of it! Ultimately, the only thing that matters in how many of us turn up eager to be a part of a spontaneous creative swarm and determined to bring the financial fraudsters to justice.
Bring signs, flowers, food and a revolutionary mood … and a commitment to absolute nonviolence in the Gandhian tradition."
Well, I guess this must be emblematic of the state of politics today. Maybe all we have today in terms of a possible politics is this kind of self-conscious, hyped-up (like a rock concert, no? Don't miss out!), copy-paste, 'meme'-like tactic? I applaud Adbusters for giving it a go. But I can't help feeling there's something strange going on here; 'Let's do it!', response-based indoctrination is all I can sense in these 'wild' words. Is so-called 'revolutionary' action really so self-conscious, I daresay, even pretentious?
Does this sort of 'occupation' really aid in bringing supposed 'justice' (already a term heavily loaded with neoliberal dogma) to those whose lives are really effected by the 'financial fraudsters'? Who are they representing by such an occupation? And, pray tell, who are these 'financial fraudsters', actually?
And who reads Adbusters? Exactly the kind of hipster 'activist' types who like to go to music festivals purporting to be 'green' or 'charitable'. We really need to get off this band-wagon and start to really consider what our actions mean and how we ourselves are implicated in upholding the rule of Capital.
Blame, or the blame-desiring machine that campaigns like this one produce, is one which is equally and to a comparable measure produced by Capital, in fact you could imagine Capital as the author of blame. Who can we blame for the shit we are in? It is certainly someone's fault (not mine!). We only have to find them and out them and things will be better. This is a lie. That someone does not exist, even in the form of a corporation. Blame is a lie that eases the depressive truth that we are all implicated.
The real question of today is how to move from this depressive junction of totalitarian 'safety' measures, States Of Emergency and fear-of-life, and toward a space where we may again have some agency in our lives.
This is not about individual moral responsibility - we are all responsible, together - it is about being aware how all our actions and choices, and the way we interact with others, maintain a certain power-relation that is exactly the one that campaigns like Occupy Wall St. claim to want to dismantle. A big question: How can we take responsibility for our actions whilst also being the victims of them?
It is not the 'financial fraudsters' who we must blame (what, do you want to replace them with some other, 'better' people, who aren't 'fraudsters'?), for they are also trapped within the violence of financial capitalism. It is Capital itself that we must disown. It is Capital, and the violence integral to its existence that we must renounce.
This will occur only slowly and through a progressive reconsideration of how we actually want to live our lives, not how we are told to live by a generation of old rich men in whose interest it is that we never question the world they have given us and never demand anything more than to graciously follow their footsteps into the positions of so-called 'power' they have brainwashed us into desiring.
Meanwhile, the rich men are probably sniggering nostalgically from their 31st floor offices at how naive this little bit of youthful 'unrest' really is.
"What will happen this Saturday when thousands of us descend on Lower Manhattan and start walking towards Wall Street?
If the police try to stop us, how will we respond? ...
If the police block us temporarily from occupying Wall Street, then let's turn all of lower Manhattan into our Tahrir Square. Let's sing our songs in the lobby of Goldman Sachs and in Chase Manhattan Plaza; let's wave our signs outside the SEC and the Federal Reserve; let's convene our people's assemblies around the Charging Bull statue at Bowling Green … and if need be, let's set up our encampments in nearby Battery Park and other places until we're ready to walk into Wall Street again …
Anything can and will happen this Saturday. That's the beauty of it! Ultimately, the only thing that matters in how many of us turn up eager to be a part of a spontaneous creative swarm and determined to bring the financial fraudsters to justice.
Bring signs, flowers, food and a revolutionary mood … and a commitment to absolute nonviolence in the Gandhian tradition."
Well, I guess this must be emblematic of the state of politics today. Maybe all we have today in terms of a possible politics is this kind of self-conscious, hyped-up (like a rock concert, no? Don't miss out!), copy-paste, 'meme'-like tactic? I applaud Adbusters for giving it a go. But I can't help feeling there's something strange going on here; 'Let's do it!', response-based indoctrination is all I can sense in these 'wild' words. Is so-called 'revolutionary' action really so self-conscious, I daresay, even pretentious?
Does this sort of 'occupation' really aid in bringing supposed 'justice' (already a term heavily loaded with neoliberal dogma) to those whose lives are really effected by the 'financial fraudsters'? Who are they representing by such an occupation? And, pray tell, who are these 'financial fraudsters', actually?
And who reads Adbusters? Exactly the kind of hipster 'activist' types who like to go to music festivals purporting to be 'green' or 'charitable'. We really need to get off this band-wagon and start to really consider what our actions mean and how we ourselves are implicated in upholding the rule of Capital.
Blame, or the blame-desiring machine that campaigns like this one produce, is one which is equally and to a comparable measure produced by Capital, in fact you could imagine Capital as the author of blame. Who can we blame for the shit we are in? It is certainly someone's fault (not mine!). We only have to find them and out them and things will be better. This is a lie. That someone does not exist, even in the form of a corporation. Blame is a lie that eases the depressive truth that we are all implicated.
The real question of today is how to move from this depressive junction of totalitarian 'safety' measures, States Of Emergency and fear-of-life, and toward a space where we may again have some agency in our lives.
This is not about individual moral responsibility - we are all responsible, together - it is about being aware how all our actions and choices, and the way we interact with others, maintain a certain power-relation that is exactly the one that campaigns like Occupy Wall St. claim to want to dismantle. A big question: How can we take responsibility for our actions whilst also being the victims of them?
It is not the 'financial fraudsters' who we must blame (what, do you want to replace them with some other, 'better' people, who aren't 'fraudsters'?), for they are also trapped within the violence of financial capitalism. It is Capital itself that we must disown. It is Capital, and the violence integral to its existence that we must renounce.
This will occur only slowly and through a progressive reconsideration of how we actually want to live our lives, not how we are told to live by a generation of old rich men in whose interest it is that we never question the world they have given us and never demand anything more than to graciously follow their footsteps into the positions of so-called 'power' they have brainwashed us into desiring.
Meanwhile, the rich men are probably sniggering nostalgically from their 31st floor offices at how naive this little bit of youthful 'unrest' really is.
04 August 2011
Let me guess ...
... it's about being 'tangled' up?
GEMMA SMITH: Tangle Paintings
Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney, 5 August - 3 September 2011
And ... the compromised position in which the artist finds herself in relation to pretty much everything?
With titles like The Knot, Tight Tangle, Jumble, Big Tangle and the enigmatic Crossposting, it must be exactly that.
Thank God Art let's some people express the world's problems in such a profound way.
GEMMA SMITH: Tangle Paintings
Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney, 5 August - 3 September 2011
And ... the compromised position in which the artist finds herself in relation to pretty much everything?
With titles like The Knot, Tight Tangle, Jumble, Big Tangle and the enigmatic Crossposting, it must be exactly that.
Thank God Art let's some people express the world's problems in such a profound way.
11 July 2011
Automatic-writing-rant
08.07.11
Contemporary Art is boring. It is in crisis. Why the fuck would anyone want to stand in these white, fluorescently lit rooms and look at these abstract, voice-less objects that only 'speak' with the help of a curator-puppet or a whole lot of dense reading material dumped on the innocent spectator, who is expected to, thus, comprehend some deeper meaning or profound message via these anal assemblages of ego-obese objects that no-one needs. Please, spare me this farce of market success dressed up as criticality, this is not art. Spare me the vapid bullshit spurting like projectile vomit from the mouths of "Younger Than Jesus" art school graduates and "curatorial turners", I don't care about your credentials
Contemporary Art is boring. It is in crisis. Why the fuck would anyone want to stand in these white, fluorescently lit rooms and look at these abstract, voice-less objects that only 'speak' with the help of a curator-puppet or a whole lot of dense reading material dumped on the innocent spectator, who is expected to, thus, comprehend some deeper meaning or profound message via these anal assemblages of ego-obese objects that no-one needs. Please, spare me this farce of market success dressed up as criticality, this is not art. Spare me the vapid bullshit spurting like projectile vomit from the mouths of "Younger Than Jesus" art school graduates and "curatorial turners", I don't care about your credentials
05 June 2011
Everything we always wanted to know? ... Really?
I want to know why we are still talking about Hans Ulrich Obrist. Could this book answer my question ... ?
This modest book contains a foreword by Tino Sehgal, an afterword by Yona Friedman and interviews by Jean-Max Colard, Robert Fleck, Jefferson Hack, Nav Haq, Noah Horowitz, Sophia Krzys Acord, Brendan McGetrick, Markus Miessen, Ingo Niermann, Paul O'Neill, Philippe Parreno & Alex Poots, Juri Steiner, Gavin Wade, Enrique Walker.
The press release says: "Everything you ever wanted to know about Hans Ulrich Obrist but were afraid to ask has been asked by the sixteen practitioners in this book."
Hmm, Hans, I actually don't want to know more about you, and I wouldn't be afraid to ask if I did.
I would like to know, however, why of sixteen 'practitioners' there is only one woman involved in 'knowing about' Obrist? Are women that much more 'afraid' to ask than men (93.75%)? (Also, what is a 'practitioner'?)
Haha, pompous men are funny! I don't know what Caroline Schneider was thinking (... well, perhaps I do ... don't forget, if you want to 'know' more about Obrist and/or curating you have to buy this book ... oh, so tempting, Caroline ... I really need yet another self-indulgent account from men talking about themselves and other men whilst being promoted by women ...)
Also, I want to know why I am still talking about Hans Ulrich Obrist?!
This modest book contains a foreword by Tino Sehgal, an afterword by Yona Friedman and interviews by Jean-Max Colard, Robert Fleck, Jefferson Hack, Nav Haq, Noah Horowitz, Sophia Krzys Acord, Brendan McGetrick, Markus Miessen, Ingo Niermann, Paul O'Neill, Philippe Parreno & Alex Poots, Juri Steiner, Gavin Wade, Enrique Walker.
The press release says: "Everything you ever wanted to know about Hans Ulrich Obrist but were afraid to ask has been asked by the sixteen practitioners in this book."
Hmm, Hans, I actually don't want to know more about you, and I wouldn't be afraid to ask if I did.
I would like to know, however, why of sixteen 'practitioners' there is only one woman involved in 'knowing about' Obrist? Are women that much more 'afraid' to ask than men (93.75%)? (Also, what is a 'practitioner'?)
Haha, pompous men are funny! I don't know what Caroline Schneider was thinking (... well, perhaps I do ... don't forget, if you want to 'know' more about Obrist and/or curating you have to buy this book ... oh, so tempting, Caroline ... I really need yet another self-indulgent account from men talking about themselves and other men whilst being promoted by women ...)
Also, I want to know why I am still talking about Hans Ulrich Obrist?!
03 June 2011
RISD arms Class
Taken from Art & Education e-newsletter. All bold and underline rendered so by me, italicised phrases correspond to Bifo.
RISD arms Class of 2011 with Artrepreneur Kits, Including Etsy Fellowship and Square
"For the second consecutive year, Rhode Island School of Design [RISD] is arming its graduates with "artrepreneur kits." This practical parting gift includes tools and resources to help these highly creative thinkers to maximize their potential for innovation and explore entrepreneurial possibilities."
Franco "Bifo" Berardi writes in The Soul At Work (Semiotext(e) 2009):
'Within Semiocapital, then, the production of value tends to coincide with semiotic production. Pressed by economic competition, the production of accelerated and proliferating signs ends up functioning like a pathogenic factor, congesting the collective psyche that is becoming the primary object of exploitation.' (p.134, trans. Francesca Cadel & Guiseppina Mecchia)
RISD continue, "Square, Inc. is again providing Squares and activation codes for graduating students, which enables credit card payments to be processed anywhere via a small square card reader that plugs directly into a mobile phone input jack. In 2010 RISD was the first college to distribute the newly-launched hardware/software combination."
Berardi writes:
'The non-hierarchical character of network communication becomes dominant in the entire cycle of social labour. This contributes to the representation of info-labor as an independent form of work. But this independence ... is in fact an ideological fiction, covering a new and growing form of dependency ... This new dependency is increasingly apparent in the automatic fluidity of the network: we have strict interdependence of subjective fragments, all distinct but objectively dependent from a fluid process, from a chain of automatisms both external and internal to the labour process which regulate every gesture, every productive parcel.
Both simple executing workers and entrepreneurial managers share the vivid perception that they depend on a constant flow that cannot be interrupted and from which they cannot step back save at the price of being marginalised... Cellular phones are probably the technological devices that best illustrate this kind of network dependency. The cellular phone is left on by the great majority of info-workers even when they are not working. It has a major function in the organisation of labor as self-enterprise that is formally autonomous but substantially dependent.' (pp. 88-9)
"Also," say RISD (there is always more!) "Behance, the world's leading platform for creative professionals, is giving graduates free six-month accounts to Prosite, its newly launched online portfolio site. This simple yet sophisticated platform offers unlimited hosting and unlimited project space, with no programming skills required, for 11 USD per month. Behance is also including an Action Journal for each grad."
'Grad'? Great! Rad! But remember, STUDENT DEBT IS IDEOLOGICALLY IMPOSED
RISD President (!) John Maeda is right on the money, he 'notes': "A new kind of art+design-led leadership is needed to innovate in the current global economy ... Artists and designers bring their intuitive, creative thinking to a broad array of fields, and with our Artrepreneur Kit, we are providing them with just a few of the tools and resources that can help launch their work into the public spectrum and help them make a living, in whatever way they choose."
RISD arms Class of 2011 with Artrepreneur Kits, Including Etsy Fellowship and Square
"For the second consecutive year, Rhode Island School of Design [RISD] is arming its graduates with "artrepreneur kits." This practical parting gift includes tools and resources to help these highly creative thinkers to maximize their potential for innovation and explore entrepreneurial possibilities."
Franco "Bifo" Berardi writes in The Soul At Work (Semiotext(e) 2009):
'Within Semiocapital, then, the production of value tends to coincide with semiotic production. Pressed by economic competition, the production of accelerated and proliferating signs ends up functioning like a pathogenic factor, congesting the collective psyche that is becoming the primary object of exploitation.' (p.134, trans. Francesca Cadel & Guiseppina Mecchia)
RISD continue, "Square, Inc. is again providing Squares and activation codes for graduating students, which enables credit card payments to be processed anywhere via a small square card reader that plugs directly into a mobile phone input jack. In 2010 RISD was the first college to distribute the newly-launched hardware/software combination."
Berardi writes:
'The non-hierarchical character of network communication becomes dominant in the entire cycle of social labour. This contributes to the representation of info-labor as an independent form of work. But this independence ... is in fact an ideological fiction, covering a new and growing form of dependency ... This new dependency is increasingly apparent in the automatic fluidity of the network: we have strict interdependence of subjective fragments, all distinct but objectively dependent from a fluid process, from a chain of automatisms both external and internal to the labour process which regulate every gesture, every productive parcel.
Both simple executing workers and entrepreneurial managers share the vivid perception that they depend on a constant flow that cannot be interrupted and from which they cannot step back save at the price of being marginalised... Cellular phones are probably the technological devices that best illustrate this kind of network dependency. The cellular phone is left on by the great majority of info-workers even when they are not working. It has a major function in the organisation of labor as self-enterprise that is formally autonomous but substantially dependent.' (pp. 88-9)
"Also," say RISD (there is always more!) "Behance, the world's leading platform for creative professionals, is giving graduates free six-month accounts to Prosite, its newly launched online portfolio site. This simple yet sophisticated platform offers unlimited hosting and unlimited project space, with no programming skills required, for 11 USD per month. Behance is also including an Action Journal for each grad."
'Grad'? Great! Rad! But remember, STUDENT DEBT IS IDEOLOGICALLY IMPOSED
RISD President (!) John Maeda is right on the money, he 'notes': "A new kind of art+design-led leadership is needed to innovate in the current global economy ... Artists and designers bring their intuitive, creative thinking to a broad array of fields, and with our Artrepreneur Kit, we are providing them with just a few of the tools and resources that can help launch their work into the public spectrum and help them make a living, in whatever way they choose."
21 May 2011
Marcelle Alix présente Marie Voignier
PERFEKT
Portrait de l'artiste [Marie Voignier] et de la galeriste [Isabelle Alfonsi], 2010
photo: Aurélien Mole
direction artistique: Marcelle Alix
Portrait de l'artiste [Marie Voignier] et de la galeriste [Isabelle Alfonsi], 2010
photo: Aurélien Mole
direction artistique: Marcelle Alix
11 May 2011
Heathrow loudspeaker hell
"For security reasons baggage left unattended will be removed and destroyed."
This is not a joke, they actually say this every ten minutes. Imagine if you substituted 'baggage' for 'Passport Control'!
"Will British Airways passenger Margaret Thatcher please return to south security."
This actually happened.
This is not a joke, they actually say this every ten minutes. Imagine if you substituted 'baggage' for 'Passport Control'!
"Will British Airways passenger Margaret Thatcher please return to south security."
This actually happened.
04 May 2011
After Nirvana ?
"_____ __ _______ is delighted to present In Bloom, an exhibition by ________ ______ and _________ _________. For In Bloom, ______ and _________ present a series of expressive oil paintings of jugs.
/
The jugs were not painted from life, and are formed simply of bold, gestural brush strokes that sit over the abstract backgrounds.
/
_________ is interested in the use of text as a framing device for artwork, specifically in respect to its limitations and potential to interfere with understanding.
/
_______ were preoccupied with the issue of authenticity, a quality that is indeterminate or even abstract.
/
In Bloom is intended to be extemporaneous and fresh: a show for springtime."
Dead
/
The jugs were not painted from life, and are formed simply of bold, gestural brush strokes that sit over the abstract backgrounds.
/
_________ is interested in the use of text as a framing device for artwork, specifically in respect to its limitations and potential to interfere with understanding.
/
_______ were preoccupied with the issue of authenticity, a quality that is indeterminate or even abstract.
/
In Bloom is intended to be extemporaneous and fresh: a show for springtime."
Dead
Starting to believe their own lies ...
"CSM* Lifestyle Not Education"
- Canvas bag spotted being carried by a young woman on Old Street, London, Tuesday 3 May 2011.
Lucky, lucky students. What we really need these days is lifestyle.
- Canvas bag spotted being carried by a young woman on Old Street, London, Tuesday 3 May 2011.
Lucky, lucky students. What we really need these days is lifestyle.
09 April 2011
06 April 2011
05 April 2011
4411
Spammer Lauren Payne sent me some great advice today, 4 April 2011:
It made me think: What should I use my coal for?
I need something that'll 'actually work', after all.
What do you do with yours?
It made me think: What should I use my coal for?
I need something that'll 'actually work', after all.
What do you do with yours?
22 March 2011
Home truths
"Can't be bothered with this."
- Overheard on Saturday 19 February 2011 in the Tate Britain's Contemporary Acquisitions gallery (Supported by BP), where the 'Gerard Byrne: 1984 and Beyond' exhibition was held
- Overheard on Saturday 19 February 2011 in the Tate Britain's Contemporary Acquisitions gallery (Supported by BP), where the 'Gerard Byrne: 1984 and Beyond' exhibition was held
10 March 2011
02 March 2011
"Capitalism's Terminal Crisis"
Norwegian model Kat Hessen is the role model of the future.
At the Marc by Marc Jacobs Autumn/Winter 2011-12 show in New York City all is explained.
Before:
After:
Behold! Capitalism's Terminal Crisis is inside us. As Kat teaches us, what choice do we have but to carry on in the face of adversity?
At the Marc by Marc Jacobs Autumn/Winter 2011-12 show in New York City all is explained.
Before:
After:
Behold! Capitalism's Terminal Crisis is inside us. As Kat teaches us, what choice do we have but to carry on in the face of adversity?
17 January 2011
"Damien Hirst's Diamond Skull on view in Florence at Palazzo Vecchio"
"The work stands in the great tradition of the 'Memento Mori', where an image or an object serves to remind us of our mortality," professes the Palazzo Vecchio press release (via e-flux bulletin), which also calls Hirst's For the Love of God a "tour de force".
In the future will archaeologists dig up this old relic and finally understand why the age of capitalism annihilated human life as we know it?
"They were so obsessed with status symbols that they were encrusting their own skulls with diamonds," they'll say, "no wonder they all got blown up in their own nuclear waste, they couldn't see past the shiny lights of their own craniums."
In the future will archaeologists dig up this old relic and finally understand why the age of capitalism annihilated human life as we know it?
"They were so obsessed with status symbols that they were encrusting their own skulls with diamonds," they'll say, "no wonder they all got blown up in their own nuclear waste, they couldn't see past the shiny lights of their own craniums."
07 January 2011
01 January 2011
moonmessage010110 is over (Part IV)
22 December 2010
20 December 2010
14 December 2010
Matt on the Catt / Catt on the Matt
"We found a cat meme collage circulating online, and we ended up making this fake sculpture by art-star Maurizio Cattelan with it...The reception by the art world has been enthusiastic so far." - Eva and Franco Mattes
"In spite of an immediate and enthusiastic reception by the art world, a new sculpture by Italian art-star Maurizio Cattelan currently featured at Inman Gallery Annex in Houston, TX, is actually the work of artist-provocateurs Eva and Franco Mattes—also know as 0100101110101101.org—created by adopting the famous artist’s style and materials." - Inman Gallery
"“He’s a genius,” wrote Jonathan Line on Facebook. “He is the only one able to surprise me every time.”"
∴
"Art-Star" Catt ≈ "Artist-Provocateur" Matt
"In spite of an immediate and enthusiastic reception by the art world, a new sculpture by Italian art-star Maurizio Cattelan currently featured at Inman Gallery Annex in Houston, TX, is actually the work of artist-provocateurs Eva and Franco Mattes—also know as 0100101110101101.org—created by adopting the famous artist’s style and materials." - Inman Gallery
"“He’s a genius,” wrote Jonathan Line on Facebook. “He is the only one able to surprise me every time.”"
∴
"Art-Star" Catt ≈ "Artist-Provocateur" Matt
11 December 2010
09 December 2010
And so it arrives ...
Today, Wednesday 8 December 2010, the term postdemocracy arrived in my world, officially.
First, Julian Assange of WikiLeaks.org is arrested and refused bail supposedly because he is a sexual predator but EVERYONE KNOWS IT'S REALLY BECAUSE THE WORLD IS SHITTING ITSELF THAT THEIR PRECIOUS LIES ARE GONNA GET EXPOSED !!!!! (Since when does any judge/government care if a woman argues that a man refused to wear a condom????)
Second, Hito Steyerl writes this brilliant account, kind of summing up exactly how I feel about, like, everything (but especially 'art'): e-flux.com/journal/view/181
Ha!
02 December 2010
noreply@artandaustralia.com.au
Australia’s longest-running art journal Art & Australia has become the site for the latest project of international artist John Baldessari. The recipient of the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the 2009 Venice Biennale and the subject of a major retrospective at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Baldessari, 79, chose to collaborate exclusively with Art & Australia on the eve of his January project for the 2011 Sydney Festival and Kaldor Public Art Projects, ‘Your Name in Lights’.
For Art & Australia's Summer 2010 issue, Baldessari was given creative freedom to reinvent the magazine’s traditional square format cover. In a playful response to the issue’s theme of sculpture, the artist offers a photo collage of a hand grasping a spider. And for the first time in its 47-year history, Art & Australia's logo has been replaced – with Baldessari’s signature handwriting.
‘It is thrilling to collaborate with John Baldessari,’ says Art & Australia's Publisher/Editor Eleonora Triguboff. ‘He is an artist who constantly pushes the boundaries, and through partnerships such as these Art & Australia continues to reinvent itself as a magazine.’
Art & Australia's Baldessari commission is the latest in an ongoing series of artist projects which have seen celebrated artists such as William Kentridge, Del Kathryn Barton and Louise Weaver use the magazine’s cover as their canvas.
The Baldessari cover commission accompanies an extensive interview with the artist by Art & Australia's Managing Editor Michael Fitzgerald, who writes: ‘His importance as an artist and as a teacher cannot be separated, and nor can the categories of painting, photography, performance and video which he has helped relax over the last half century or so.’
Joining Baldessari in this Summer issue of Art & Australia is an international who’s who of contemporary art, with featured artists including Christian Boltanski, James Turrell, Clement Meadmore, Paul Selwood, Peter Robinson and Louise Bourgeois. Also commemorating the Baldessari cover commission is a limited-edition poster print, available for purchase as part of Art & Australia's ongoing series of artist editions. It coincides with ‘Your Name in Lights’ – a major commission by Sydney Festival and Kaldor Public Art Projects that will see the names of 115,000 Sydneysiders projected onto the Australian Museum facade in January 2011.
[The above text was copy/pasted from a recent email from Art & Australia magazine titled "For Immediate Release: Baldessari creates special cover for Art & Australia", 1 December 2010. All bold, italicised and underlined words rendered so by me.]
29 November 2010
CONSUMPTION
In 1973 Richard Serra and Carlota Fay Schoolman made Television Delivers People.
Who delivers your news?
Who owns your news?
Who owns the internet? (Does the Internet provide for us or do we provide for it?)
Who delivers you?
Found via TheImagist.com
Who delivers your news?
Who owns your news?
Who owns the internet? (Does the Internet provide for us or do we provide for it?)
Who delivers you?
Found via TheImagist.com
27 November 2010
12 November 2010
"booth concepts"
VOLTA says via e-flux:
This bold curatorial emphasis will set a path for VOLTA's future to remain always on the forefront of new ideas.
Exhibiting galleries for VOLTA7 2011 will be selected by a Curatorial Committee composed of art critics and curators of an international pedigree. These include:
Jacopo Crivelli Visconti, São Paolo
Christoph Doswald, Zürich
Jasper Sharp, Vienna
Francesco Stocchi, Rome
Sure, babes.
P.S. Whoa! : http://ny.voltashow.com/Internship-Program.5732.0.html $150 per day! Man, that's really good! $$$chi-ching$$$ ... Do it!
This bold curatorial emphasis will set a path for VOLTA's future to remain always on the forefront of new ideas.
Exhibiting galleries for VOLTA7 2011 will be selected by a Curatorial Committee composed of art critics and curators of an international pedigree. These include:
Jacopo Crivelli Visconti, São Paolo
Christoph Doswald, Zürich
Jasper Sharp, Vienna
Francesco Stocchi, Rome
Sure, babes.
P.S. Whoa! : http://ny.voltashow.com/Internship-Program.5732.0.html $150 per day! Man, that's really good! $$$chi-ching$$$ ... Do it!
26 October 2010
11 October 2010
Moonmessage Part III
06 October 2010
Via EL PAÍS.com, I find Parship ...
Bermused, I conduct an interview with myself:What do websites like Parship offer us?
I guess they give people the opportunity to find love/companionship. I know of many people who have met lovers online, I don't think there is a problem with online-dating per se, but Parship seems to frame it in a strange way, they offer 'professional dating for professional people'.
What does that mean?
I guess it means Parship is for people who don't have time to meet non-professional people, people outside a professional context, or are not interested in non-professional people because they themselves are always working? I don't think we should criticise such people: the reality of the situation is that everyone must work a lot, the majority of their time in fact, to function in this system. Most people have to be 'professional' to exist in this society so maybe that is Parship's angle?
It sounds like you're saying that because most people are 'professional' they have trouble dating/finding a relationship?
I think the issue is the dynamic that emerges when people become automated in a society where work and money are the only value systems. There are two issues here, one being the need for "stable", legitimate, traditional relationships to maintain the economy (i.e. to create heterosexual, monogamous, nuclear families where the woman labours for free [this is simplistic, and arguably passé, but still holds on a fundamental level]). The other being the alienation that people feel not only in their work situations but - because work permeates almost every facet of life - in day-to-day/social/extra-curricular situations as well. Thus there is a collision of people feeling unable to relate to others, combined with the external expectation that states we are only legitimate subjects if coupled.
That's very complicated! Is it simply a question of lack of time these days?
Apparently Parship is 'based on 30 years of scientific research', so it would suggest they've been onto this 'problem' for a while. I would say it's more a sign of the demise of the backbone of capital (nuclear family myth) trying to cover up it's demise with yet another capitalist venture (this is the raison d'être of Capitalism and also why it's so difficult to eliminate - Capitalism reacts rapidly to every change in circumstance, it's a shape-shifter). And anyway, people have time to be on Parship so they have time not to be on Parship, I think it's just a step further in current society's assertion that we are too time-pressed to know ourselves, understand ourselves, and meet others (which I think need not necessarily be in the construct of a "Relationship") who may complement that self.
Are you saying value in the eyes of society only stems from recognition of traditional couple-status?
It's extremely simplistic but, in a word, yes. Those who don't fit into that structure are seen as (for men) either "dirty old men"/womaniser-bachelors or (for women) spinsters/promiscuous hussies. These people are really made into an Other in society's eyes. Some people may disagree, but even homosexual relationships are now being 'accepted' only if they fit into the heterosexual, capitalist model of monogamy (i.e. gay marriage, which needless to say I support despite its paradoxical nature).
Are you crazy? Why are you so cynical and negative?
I'm not negative! I'd say that I'm an optimistic cynic! I'm really still trying to get my head around all of this. But I believe we need to be aware of the structures that surround us so we can fully comprehend where we're at and realise that we can work together to end alienation and establish real community and really fulfilling relationships with ourselves and others!
Hippy.
Your mum is.
26 September 2010
frieze e-newsletter says ...
Espousing Art/Education/Freedom for all is a method taken by the few to sell magazine advertising, "save the arts", maintain sponsorship from freedom-for-all promoters like Deutsche Bank, et al.
09 September 2010
I guess this is the only way today? Artists Space welcomes The James ...
[Please click the pics]
"While before, luxury had been constrained by excess and empty ostentation, The James has evolved the concept to accommodate the more enlightened values and aesthetics of today's culturally minded traveler."
When self-reflexion is commodified
When self-criticism serves capitalism
Self-critique is no longer critical
"While before, luxury had been constrained by excess and empty ostentation, The James has evolved the concept to accommodate the more enlightened values and aesthetics of today's culturally minded traveler."
When self-reflexion is commodified
When self-criticism serves capitalism
Self-critique is no longer critical
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