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artAlma Thomas and the Fight Over Art in the White House
Who knew that 2009 was going to be the year that modern art got high-profile political again? Just a few months back, we had Glenn Beck telling us about the evil communist indoctrination elements found within the exterior of Rockefeller Plaza and now we have the decision not to hang painter Alma Thomas' "Watusi (Hard Edge)" piece in Michelle Obama's office. Thomas' work had come under attack when it was mentioned that the First Lady would like to hang some of her work in the White House. According to the Washington Post, conservative sites started arguing that Thomas' work plagiarized Henri Matisse -- their point, we suppose, was that by hanging her work, Michelle Obama would therefor become pro-plagerism? Whatever the case, and not to exaggerate too much here, this is clearly the worst instance of pointless, partisan, arguing-just-to-argue ever in the history of universe. Unfortunately, the Post continues, the White House has decided to not hang the painting, claiming it just didn't work in the office after all, but perhaps they just wanted to quiet this absurdly focused pressure. And this apparently wasn't the only piece to catch heat. Does anyone have any info on obtaining Canadian citizenship? We're sick of this. Banksy's Anti-Graffiti Graffiti Gets Graffitied
The most popular vandal in all the world, Banksy, keeps on getting a taste of his own medicine. Just this year, his work has been accidentally painted over and purposefully defaced during his big show in Bristol. But as we've also seen over the past couple of years, people have been defensive of Banksy's work, even receiving requests that he show up to tag in their towns (perhaps due to some correlation with how much his work goes for at auction?). Now the news comes that while neighborhood residents and officials were meeting to discuss what to do with a Banksy on one of their walls, whether they should keep it or not (the vote was an overwhelming yes), nogoodniks were graffiting all over Banksy's graffiti. So now, we're assuming, Banksy's piece, and all of this new street art will be removed. And if that hasn't already gotten too meta for you, here's a quote from one of the neighborhood voters about why they think the piece was defaced: "The image actually criticised mindless graffiti so perhaps it isn't surprising that the sort of people who do that sort of thing should attack it." Art Institute Picks Their Collection's Most Frightening Pieces
As a lame adult now too old to go out to raucous parties, but young enough not to have kids yet, this writer's connection to Halloween has sadly become distanced. As such, he hasn't really been on the lookout for much spooky, seasonally-appropriate pieces to share with you here. Fortunately, our pals over at Chicago's iconic Art Institute have come through at the eleventh hour for us with their recent post to their Facebook page: In honor of Halloween, we took an office poll: what's the scariest/creepiest/spookiest work in the collection? Here are some of our picks. Therein you'll find ten decidedly scary pieces, like Francis Bacon's Figure with Mean (6 out of 10 on the creepy scale), Irving Penn's famous The Angel photograph (3 out of 10), and for those with a decidedly popular phobia, Bruce Nauman's video installation Clown Torture (8 of 10, regardless if you previously had a fear or not). A thanks to the Art Institute for bringing the high brow to a purposefully low brow holiday. We applaud whoever decided this would be a fun idea, because it most certainly is. Ice House Detroit Freezes the Abandoned
Just this past weekend, a friend was talking about Roger Hiorns' Turner Prize-shortlisted piece "Seizure." If you aren't familiar with it, the quick synopsis is that Hiorns dumped gallons and gallons of copper sulphate into a sealed, abandoned apartment, waited a few days, sucked all the liquid back out, and what was left were these beautiful, blue walls of crystals. So it's funny that piece should come up right before we'd heard about this project in Detroit starting to make the rounds here on the internet, which sort of sounds like the American version of "Seizure." It's Gregory Holm and Matthew Radune's plan to pump water into an abandoned house this winter and let it freeze, essentially creating a gigantic ice block around the structure. Throughout the process, Holm will be photographing the effects the ice has on the house, with the whole purpose of the project serving as a statement about Detroit's foreclosure plague over these past decades. The two are currently raising money for the project on their blog, so if you're feeling generous and dig the idea, drop them a few bucks. London Calling: Tracey Emin Making Art to Order
At Lehmann Maupin, the New York gallery, visitors can fill out questionnaires from the British artist Tracey Emin asking, for example, "Do you believe in God?" and "Is there any color that makes you violently sick?" From the answers, Ms. Emin will create a drawing and a neon piece. The first of her custom-made pieces was sold to Amy Phelan...four other buyers followed.And fear not, stateside Emin fans! The bespoke fun comes to New York on November 5 with the opening of "Only God Knows I'm Good," an exhibition of new work by Emin at Lehmann Maupin's Chrystie Street gallery. Exploring the artist's favored themes of love, sex, and lust will be 53 works, including a large-scale film projection, never-before-seen neons and sculptures, a collection of embroideries and monoprints, and "NEON LIFE: A Portrait," the made-to-order project that debuted at Frieze. Museum of Arts & Design Showcases Works on Paper that Work on Paper
Print may be dying, but paper endures, whether cut, burned, shredded, scribbled on, or sculpted into elaborate art installations. The Museum of Arts & Design tears into the topic with "Slash: Paper Under the Knife," the third exhibition in its Materials and Process series. On view through April 4 of next year, the exhibition explores the creative possibilities of paper through the works of paper-loving artists such as Olafur Eliasson, who in 2006 reproduced a cross-section of his house (at a scale of 85:1) on 900 sheets of laser-cut paper in a sort of anti-pop-up book, and Kara Walker, whose painstaking paper cut-outs explore themes of race, gender, and the shadier side of American history.
Occupying one corner of the gallery is Pietro Ruffo's "Youth of the Hills" (2008), a six-foot-long tank that is studded with nails and covered in cut paper and Hebrew prayer script. More politically-charged paper sure to please the design crowd is the work of Sangeeta Sandrasegar, whose cut-outs insert war imagery into the distinctive shapes of iconic chairs designed by the likes of Marcel Breuer and Charles and Ray Eames. "The chair and image provoke constructs of looking/seeing: as bystander, spectator, onlooker, observer, and as such the range of power/powerlessness these positions convey," writes Sandrasegar on his blog. "Additionally, between the depicted image of war and the chair template lie other gulfs of of contrast: between first and third worlds, the safe worlds in which designer furniture exists, and the unsafe worlds in which bombs and raids exist, creation and destruction, wealth and poverty." Previously on UnBeige: 1 Saturday, 24 Galleries: The New Yorker Hosts Passport to the Arts
Bauhaus Dressing: Josef Albers Loved a Good Salad Bar
What do pioneers of twentieth-century modernism eat for lunch? Kentucky Fried Chicken (extra crispy), served on a three-tier hospital-style rolling cart. That was a typical—and presumably finger-lickin' good—meal at the suburban Connecticut home of Josef and Anni Albers, according to Nicholas Fox Weber, who shared it with them on a fall day in 1970. Weber sheds new light on the life and work of the Alberses, Walter Gropius, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in his forthcoming group biography, The Bauhaus Group (Random House). Among the delicious revelations in the advance excerpt that appears in this month's issue of ARTnews is that of Josef Albers' deep appreciation for the salad bar at a Boston chain resturant called the Plank House. "For this," writes Weber, "there were many reasons": The clear plastic domed shield that served the purposes of hygiene while one looked at the produce was...a perfect match of a modern material with multiple goals. The array of salads and condiments thrilled him—especially the pickled beets and the various seeds, which reminded him of some of the tastes and textures of his youth. But what was best of all was the way that the serving bowls and the plates were all kept chilled. He noted particularly how the metal containers retained their coldness even longer than other vessels.Hungry for more? Read the full excerpt here. Painter's Art Pranks Seem Too Banksy-esque
We're all for fun art pranks. Love them, even. We saw the first Yes Men documentary and we'll likely see the new one, too. But if you're going to pull one, make sure you're not just copying someone else, okay? Otherwise, it just comes off as contrived, because that's a word that artists don't usually like to be associated with. Guilty party is the New York-based painter Mat Benote, who secretly hung his artwork on the walls of a variety of museums like the Saatchi Gallery and the Brooklyn Museum, some of which stayed up for a couple of days before officials noticed them and they were removed. If that sounds at all familiar, it should. Banksy did the exact same thing back in 2005, which by our count was the first big step in turning him into an internationally-recognized household name. Case in point: shortly thereafter he'd landed on NPR and was the subject of a feature story in the New Yorker. Benote has also tried to remain mysterious, not telling the Daily News what part of New York he lives in, nor how old he is. This also sound like some super famous street artist you've heard about? In fact, it sounds so similar that maybe it is Banksy and he's just offering up a critique about the uniqueness of art or something? For a little more reading, here's an interview with Benote who has apparently been doing this for a while and often gets this Banksy critique. Shepard Fairey, Raymond Pettibon Catch Waves for Charity
PreviouslyDonald Fisher Decides to Keep Art Collection in San Francisco, Headed to SFMOMA Armed Thieves Stage Daylight Heist of Magritte's 'Olympia' Taco Cart Art Spices Up the High Line At Hammer Museum, Nic Hess Climbs the Walls Art Award Finalists Upset Over Dane Mitchell's Trashy Win Interaction with Interactive Yoko Ono Piece Causes a Stir FOX's Glenn Beck Turns Into an Art Critic, Warns Us About Rockefeller Plaza's Various Evils Jimmy Fallon Imagines the Voice of Georgia O'Keeffe Banksy-esque Piece Found at Bristol Zoo Georgia on My Mind: O'Keeffe Gets Whitney Show, Lifetime Biopic Battered Books, Tattered Covers: The Photos of Cara Barer and Abelardo Morell Public Art Fund Appoints New Director Will Fisher Collection Leave San Francisco? Bizarre Kanye West Show at PS122 Finds Kanye West in the Audience Jeff Koons: 'We Are Ourselves Inflatables' James Rosenquist Reveals Jasper Johns, Jokester! Friday Photo: Two for the Road Wall Street Bull Artist Sues Random House, Authors over Book Cover Friday Photo: Livestrong Lowrider In Venice, an Artist Thinks Inside the Box Fisk Univeristy Gets the Okay to Sell Georgia O'Keefe Collection Banksy Pops Up in Western Africa Fred Tomaselli's Read, White, and Blue Banksy Defaced Again in Bristol Carsten Höller and Fondazione Prada Double Your Pleasure in London Thomas Kinkade Forced to Pay Gallery Owners Millions Over Sales Scam A Look Back at 47 Years of Lincoln Center Art Posters and Prints An Open Letter to Artists: Stop with the Pipe Bomb Art Already Artist Katie Holten Takes All the Trees, Puts 'Em in a Tree Museum 'Sarah Jessica Parker Horse Painting' is Deemed the Threshold of Tolerance Viktor Pinchuk Revealed as Damien Hirst's Fourth Diamond Skull Investor Walker Art Center Re-Stages 'Man Walking Down the Side of a Building' John Baldessari, Yoko Ono to Receive Lifetime Achievement Awards in Venice Hauser & Wirth to Open NYC Gallery Hell, Heaven, and Hockney at Christie's Who's Afraid of Roy Lichtenstein? Banksy Gets Painted Over by Volunteer Graffiti Clean Up Crew In Philadelphia, a Push to Return New Deal Murals to Public View Baseman's Holiday: L.A. Exhibition to Celebrate 'Beauty of Bittersweetness of Life' First Look: Rem Koolhaas-Designed Prada Transformer Lands in Seoul The Future of Panel Discussions: A Panel Discussion A 'Museums in Recession' Timeline and the Shepard Fairey/AP Battle Gets Absurd Damien Hirst Gives Away Album Cover Painting Steven Heller Defends Shepard Fairey Using History as His Guide Ovation TV to Spotlight Outsider Artists Marilyn Minter on the Big Screen Mark Essen and the Future of Video Games as Art Reviewing Shepard Fairey's First Retrospective Christopher Knight Defends the Selling of Art to Aid Museums On the Care and Feeding of Damien Hirst Animal Carcasses Glamour Asks Top Female Artists to Define Glamour Larry Gagosian the Magnificent Lance Armstrong Teams with Nike for 'Stages' Art Tour The Armory Show: 243 Galleries, 1 Grinning Golf Cart YSL Sale Brings in Record $484 Million Eileen Gray 'Dragons' Chair Fetches $28 Million on Day Two of YSL Sale 'Buying Binge' at Paris YSL Auction; World (Probably) Not Ending Artists Gang Up on Damien Hirst for Being a Greedy Bully Back to the Futurism: Otis College Celebrates Movement's 100th Anniversary MoMA Updates Identity, Acquires Giant Collection of Fluxus Art Damien Hirst Opens Second Retail Outlet Dr. Sketchy Teams with Ron English for Launch of ArtStar Series Christie's Prepares for YSL Mega-Sale BMW Art Cars Hit the Road: First Stop, LACMA Christie's Teaches Old Dog New Tricks Artist Andrew Wyeth Dies at 91 Maria Lind Recognized for Curatorial Achievement Alex Katz Gets Fashionable in Paris Fisk University Continues Court Battle in Trying to Sell Off Georgia O'Keefe Collection Shepard Fairey's Obama Lands a Spot in the National Portrait Gallery Jeff Koons Defeats Louis XIV Descendant in Court Battle Over Versailles Exhibit Stephen Sprouse Mania!: 2009 Brings Retrospective, Book, Website, and New Louis Vuitton Collection Time Flies at the Guggenheim: Museum's 24-Hour Marathon Program Begins Tonight Relative of Louis XIV Heading to Court to Try and Remove Jeff Koons from Versailles A Post-Holiday Treat for Knitters A Post-Holiday Treat for Knitters The FBI's Elite Art Theft Squad Whitney Names Curators of 2010 Biennial Damien Hirst Picks a Fight with Sixteen Year-Old Artist Over Crystal Skull On 60 Minutes, Morley Safer Asks Julian Schnabel 'Were You a Doper?' Phil Hansen Tapped for Grammy Artwork Sao Paulo Art World Suffering Severely, Particularly This Year's Bienal In New Work, Cindy Sherman Becomes Women of a Certain Age Takashi Murakami Goes to Hollywood Happy Wayne Thiebaud New Yorker Cover Week! Friday Photo: Wall-to-Wall Sol (Lewitt) Armory Show to Expand, Renovate Venue Star Wars' Modern Art Connections Emily Jacir Wins $100K Hugo Boss Prize Metallica Drummer's Basquiat Boxer Sells for $11.9 Million at Christie's |
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