art - UnBeige

With Martin Parr, Life’s a Beach (Towel)

Stephanie Murg — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:50:20 +0000

Whether you’re bound for the beach or just your own backyard, make it a summer to remember with this bathing beauty, captured in 1997 by photographer Martin Parr while prowling the beaches of Benidorm on the coast of Spain. Our friends at Aperture are celebrating this month’s release of the beach-bag-sized edition of Parr’s Life’s a Beach with not only an exhibition of highlights from his beach photography but also a limited-edition terrycloth tribute (read: towel). Grab yours for $75 here before the supply of 150 sells out, and then toss it lovingly into your Roy Lichtenstein beach bag with some SPF 50 (and a tube of red lipstick?).

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Art Basel Arrives in Hong Kong

Stephanie Murg — Thu, 23 May 2013 01:59:08 +0000

Athens-based Bernier/Eliades gallery at Art Basel Hong Kong. (Courtesy MCH Messe Schweiz)

Art Basel continues its expansion, adding yet another stop on the global art calendar. Post-Frieze New York and pre-Venice, it’s all about Hong Kong, where the first edition of Art Basel Hong Kong opened to the public today. The Swiss company that owns Art Basel entered the Asian market with a splash in 2011 with its acquisition of Asian Art Fairs, the organizers of ART HK. Last year’s edition of that fair, established in 2008, kept the ART HK name, but now the neon pink-and-gray rebrand is complete, and 245 galleries (more than half from Asia and the Asia-Pacific region) have converged on the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill-designed Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention Center for the third event in the Art Basel empire.

“The debut of Art Basel in Hong Kong is but one example of the global reach of today’s art world, and yet I have to think that Art Basel Hong Kong forces a confrontation with its locale in ways that differ from Art Basel Miami, perhaps, or even Art Basel in Basel,” said Pauline Yao, curator at the new M+ museum, at Sunday’s kickoff panel at the Asia Society Center in Hong Kong. “Perhaps this stems from an appreciation of difference and a desire to have a more nuanced understanding of the context here and as well to recognize that Hong Kong has its own legacy of artistic production.” Yao also pointed to the “topophilia” of Hong Kong. “There’s a strong sense of place or love for a certain kind of place which overwhelmingly becomes mixed with a cultural identity,” she said. “So even if we admit that the power of place is increasingly diminished and occasionally lost here it certainly thrives, with implications that are quite complex.”

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Frieze Fatigue? ICFF Exhaustation? Relax with Paul Delvaux

Stephanie Murg — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:15:10 +0000

Paul Delvaux, “La Joie de vivre,” a 1938 oil painting. (© Paul Delvaux Foundation, Belgium)

You came, you saw, you Friezed (and joined the Collective), and then dived straight into NYCxDESIGN and ICFF. In the few days that stand between you and a road trip, body of water, and/or that teetering stack of unread books you can now refer to as your “summer reading list,” soothe your weary eyes with the help of Paul Delvaux (1897–1994). A selection of 20 of the Belgian artist’s quietly seductive works are on view through June 1 at Blain|Di Donna gallery in New York, after which they’ll travel to London.

Produced over a span of 35 years, the works in this non-selling exhibition follow Delvaux as he samples a variety of influences–James Ensor‘s skeletal hijinks, Giorgio de Chirico‘s haunted piazzas, Dalí‘s alienated objects and parched landscapes, Magritte‘s mysterious lovers and bowler-hatted men of mystery–and makes them his own, in a world where mythical figures contemplate crumbling cities (Delvaux studied architecture at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels before picking up a paintbrush), suspiciously lush foilage, roiling seas, and ribbon corsages, abandoned and pinned to the floor.

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JR on HBO: Inside Out Documentary Debuts

Stephanie Murg — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:30:24 +0000

Watch French street artist JR get his TED Prize wish for a global art project in Inside Out, a fresh-from-the-Tribeca-Film-Festival documentary that debuts tonight at 9 p.m. on HBO. Director Alastair Siddons (Turn it Loose) crisscrosses the globe–from Tunisia to Haiti, North Dakota to Pakistan–as people around the world come together to follow JR’s simple directions to “take a portrait photograph of yourself or someone you know and then paste it in the street, using it to stand up for something you care about.” More than 100,000 people responded to his call by uploading their portraits to the project’s website for JR to print and display around the world. Explains Siddons, “This is a film about an artist giving away his method and the inspiring stories that follow that.” Sample a few in the film’s trailer (below):
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School of MFA Boston to Honor Glenn Ligon

Stephanie Murg — Mon, 20 May 2013 10:11:30 +0000

A production still from 2012 episode of Art in the Twenty-First Century that featured Glenn Ligon.

The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston will honor artist Glenn Ligon with its SMFA Medal. First presented in 1996, the award honors individuals “who have made a significant and lasting impact on the art world, and recognizes their commitment to diversifying and communicating with the world through art.” Past recipients include Alex Katz, Kiki Smith, Ellen Gallagher, and Robert Rauschenberg. Ligon will receive his SMFA Medal (complete with red ribbon) this evening at a gala that will take place at the museum and benefit the school. Guests can assess potential future SMFA medalists during a pre-dinner silent auction of student work.
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Metropolitan Museum Unveils Imran Qureshi’s Roof Garden Installation

Guest — Wed, 15 May 2013 09:30:49 +0000

There’s more to the Met this spring than PUNK. Writer Nancy Lazarus headed up to the roof.

(Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art)

And how many rains must fall before the stains are washed clean? This question, posed by Pakistani poet Salima Hashmi, is at the heart of Imran Quereshi‘s latest work, created for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s roof garden. “This is an open space, and there will be lots of rain, so we’ll see what happens,” noted the artist.

During a rooftop museum press conference on Monday morning, the brisk weather cooperated, with partly sunny skies. But the theme of global violence and regeneration still casts a dark cloud over Qureshi’s artwork, on view through November 3.

Born in Hyderabad and now based in Lahore, Qureshi said he worked with the color red more as a political statement than to depict blood, but that changed in 2010, after a suicide bombing in his neighborhood. “When I saw TV images after the bombing, the area had transformed into a bloody landscape within seconds. I was thinking, how could a landscape full of life change so quickly? For me, this altered the meaning and symbolism of the color red.”

The artist specializes not only in expansive installations but also in miniature paintings in the style of the Mughal court. He said he’s fascinated by the New York City skyline, and for him the rooftop perspective reminds him of landscapes and miniature paintings.

Assistant curator Ian Alteveer said it took Qureshi about ten days, including breaks, to create his roof garden work. The artist used high-grade acrylic, rich in pigment and waterproof, so it did withstand the monsoon-like rains of the past weekend.
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Listen Up: BMW Backs Frieze Sounds

Stephanie Murg — Mon, 13 May 2013 09:05:16 +0000

Sound works and art fairs are rarely compatible. There’s the impetus to keep moving (must…see…everything), the ambient murmur, and for exhibiting galleries, the difficulty of peeling off fairgoers to don headphones or enter a booth for a bit of aural stimulation. Frieze New York tackles these problems with the help of luxury cars and technology. The fair, which runs through today, partnered with BMW on Frieze Sounds, transforming a sleek fleet of VIP shuttles into sound cocoons for the duration of the commute to Randall’s Island–of course, it helps that the BMW 7 Series has a sound system that suggests a full orchestra is hiding in the trunk. Cecilia Alemani (pictured), curator of Frieze Projects, organized the program of three specially commissioned audio works by Trisha Baga, Charles Atlas and New Humans, and Haroon Mirza, which are also accessible at a listening station inside the fair. Not a VIP? Not in New York? Not to worry: the Frieze Sounds are now posted online for all to enjoy. So sit back, relax, and pretend you’re being chauffeured to an art-filled island inside a shiny new 740i.

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At Frieze NY, Mondrians Served by the Slice

Stephanie Murg — Fri, 10 May 2013 17:13:52 +0000

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s Blue Bottle Rooftop Cafe has become famous for its art-inspired treats, including a fudge pop based on an Ellsworth Kelly sculpture and confections frosted to resemble those painted by Wayne Thiebaud. It’s the slices of colorblocked Mondrian cake (pictured) that are the sweet treat to be seen with at Frieze New York, where Blue Bottle is one of the many providers of edibles and drinkables. Can’t make it to Randall’s Island? Pastry chef Caitlin Freeman reveals her recipes (and step-by-step assembly instructions) in Modern Art Desserts, new from Ten Speed Press.

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Quote of Note | Alanna Heiss on FOOD

Stephanie Murg — Fri, 10 May 2013 16:22:30 +0000

“Early on a call went out to the entire team to help spread the concrete on the new floor of the restaurant. But the amount Gordon Matta-Clark had ordered was significantly more than was needed, and the concrete truck wouldn’t stop pouring. A great metal chute ran from the truck through our open window. The river of concrete kept flowing–what was in the truck had to come out of the truck. Concrete began to rise over our ankles, well above the level where we thought the floor should be. We shoveled. We tried to make piles we could break up later. We pushed cement high into the corners of the room, we tried to pile it up onto the walls, but it flowed back down onto the rising floor. Outside, the truck driver smoked his cigar and looked bored.”

-Alanna Heiss, curator and former director of PS1 Contemporary Art Center and a director of Art International Radio, shares a memory of the legendary Soho restaurant FOOD in the Frieze New York 2013 catalogue. As part of Frieze Projects, the fair is presenting a special tribute to FOOD in the form of a temporary restaurant where each day a different artist is invited to cook.

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At Frieze, Luhring Augustine Serves Up Tom Friedman’s Jumbo Hostess Treats

Stephanie Murg — Fri, 10 May 2013 06:15:45 +0000

Tom Friedman, Untitled (Hostess Treats), 2013. (Photo: UnBeige)

Twinkies and their eternally shelf-stable sibling snacks have been absent from stores since Hostess shut its doors late last year, but a trio of the company’s beloved treats can be found at Frieze New York, which opens its second edition today on Randall’s Island in Manhattan. Luhring Augustine gallery’s solo booth by Tom Friedman includes this giant Twinkie, Ding Dong, and Sno Ball. The new work, being exhibited for the first time at Frieze, is made of Styrofoam (just like real Hostess foodstuffs!) painted to convincingly evoke spongy, cream-filled goodness. No word on whether Friedman’s snacks were snapped up at yesterday’s VIP preview, but we suspect the work will end up in the hands of megacollector Leon Black. His Apollo Global Management teamed with Metropoulos & Co. earlier this year to acquire Hostess and Dolly Madison products. The $410 million deal closed last month, and four bakeries that produce snacks such as Twinkies, Ding Dongs, and Ho Hos are slated to reopen this summer.

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Frieze NY Is Here: See How to Get There

Stephanie Murg — Fri, 10 May 2013 06:05:13 +0000

From across the pond and into a SO-IL-designed tent pitched on the banks of the East River, it’s Frieze New York, back for a sophomore edition after attracting some 45,000 visitors to its stateside debut last year. The fair, which opens today, is the largest ever hosted by Frieze, according to directors Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover. All that’s standing between you and the offerings of 189 galleries ranging from Air de Paris to Zeno X is the commute to Randall’s Island, the 480-acre park that Robert Moses first designated for recreational use–before that it was home to public facilities such as a boys’ home, a hospital, and a home for civil war veterans, which all sound like promising fodder for future Frieze Projects, the fair’s site-specific program of art projects. Prepare for your island adventure by watching the below video.

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Quote of Note | Francesco Clemente

Stephanie Murg — Thu, 09 May 2013 05:15:53 +0000

“The concerns of a painter are always the concerns of an abstract painter. The images that I use need to be detailed enough to preserve their inherent narrative, and at the same time they have to be open enough not to be too locked into that narrative. For either the abstract or non-abstract painter, the question is exactly the same: how do you hold onto detail and openness at the same time? In the case of these particular paintings, yes there are the metallic grays of the Atlantic Ocean. There is also the red that is contained in the name ‘Brazil.’ But the images are not limited within that context; they open up by association to a lot of other connections and places.”

-Artist Francesco Clemente, in an interview with Alex Bacon for The Brooklyn Rail, on the works in “Clemente > Brazil > Yale,” an exhibition on view through June 2 at the Yale School of Art

Pictured: Francesco Clemente, “Father,” 2006-2007. (Photograph by Beth Phillips)

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Mark Your Calendar: Passport to the Arts

Stephanie Murg — Wed, 01 May 2013 17:10:18 +0000

This 1999 photo taken on the shores of Italy’s Lake Garda will be shown in “Martin Parr: Life’s a Beach,” opening tomorrow at Aperture Gallery. (Photo: Martin Parr/Magnum Photos)

A man recently arrived at a Manhattan federal building to apply for a passport, became agitated, and ended up trying to hide from authorities–in the ceiling. Securing a passport to the arts is much easier–and comes with minimal risk of being arrested and taken to Bellevue for psychiatric evaluation–thanks to The New Yorker. The magazine and its promotions department are gearing up for the eighth annual Passport to the Arts gallery crawl, evening cocktail party, and silent auction (to benefit Creative Time) this Saturday, May 4. A $55 ticket gets you a “limited-edition passport” that each of the 19 SoHo and Chelsea galleries on the self-guided tour will stamp with a replica of a featured work of art. And with a list of participating galleries that includes Jack Shainman, Aperture, and ClampArt, this year’s Passport to the Arts promises to be quite a trip.

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Quote of Note | Richard Misrach

Stephanie Murg — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 22:44:57 +0000

Richard Misrach, “November 20, 2011, 3:36 PM” (2011). Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery.

“I grew up in L.A. and went to Berkeley from ’67 to ‘71. I started out as a math major and ended up in psychology, but that was also when Berkeley was just going insane. I didn’t take formal classes in photography at all. I started taking photographs of tear gassings on the Berkeley campus with my uncle’s camera….I was being exposed to Berkeley street riots and the politics of the time, which was very important to me, but I was also being exposed to the f/64 school of photography—Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange—and I was just falling in love with photography, so I found that that combination of social, political engagement along with my passion for the aesthetics of the medium of photography were coming together very fast and hard. For the last forty years I think my work has reflected those two polarities, and it’s been sort of interesting the way they have been pushed. They’ve never really reconciled—art and politics.”

-Richard Misrach today at Paris Photo Los Angeles, in an on-stage conversation with John Divola and curator Douglas Fogle. Misrach’s work is on view through June 16 at the Cantor Center at Stanford University. A exhibition of his new largescale photos opens next Saturday at Pace/McGill Gallery in New York.

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In Brief: The Age of Image, Cooper Union’s Tuition Decision, Richard Prince Ruling

Stephanie Murg — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 21:37:57 +0000

• “[S]tripped of most traditional linguistic elements, the short film has to move fast, but it must strive not to confuse the viewer with too many objects or jarring cuts,” writes Stephen Apkon in The Age of Image: Redefining Literacy in a World of Screens, new this month from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book inspired this short film (above) by Daniel Liss.

• And speaking of short films, the Tribeca Film Festival has selected the winners in its six-second film competition. Watch all of the jury’s top picks in under a minute here.

• It’s the end of an era for Cooper Union, which will begin charging undergraduates tuition beginning next fall.

• The design community and members of the general public are protesting MoMA’s decision to raze the building that Tod Williams Billie Tsien designed for the American Folk Art Museum. The Architectural League drafted this open letter requesting MoMA to provide “a compelling justification for the cultural and environmental waste of destroying this much-admired, highly distinctive twelve-year-old building.”

• All is fair (use) in love and appropriation? Artist Richard Prince emerged largely triumphant in yesterday’s appeals court ruling on the copyright case involving his 2008 “Canal Zone” series, which used portraits from Patrick Cariou‘s Yes, Rasta book.

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