Walking on Hell's Roof Looking at the Flowers

The Most Magical Time of the Year

2011-12-12T22:45:00.002-05:00

It is the end of the semester and I am grading and reviewing so the blog is going to be on haitus for a little while. But I'll have some good stuff for you when I get back to it!

Buzludzha Monument

2011-12-05T07:44:00.000-05:00

"The Buzludzha Monument was constructed in 1981 to commemorate the founding of the Bulgarian Socialist movement nearly a century before, but now stands as a symbol of its failure. "

You all know how much I love decaying monumental soviet architecture. There is something so touchingly innocent and naive about the future it was supposed to have represented.

Via Architizer

A Norwegian Tower Built for Monster-Watching

2011-12-02T08:27:00.000-05:00

"...the town municipality conceived of a series of look-outs around the lake that would provide shelter for hikers, birdwatchers, and monster-seekers."

All my yes to this. All of it.

Via Architizer

The Death of Film?

2011-12-01T07:54:00.001-05:00

I agree with Scott Tobias' fears about the death of celluloid and attachment to it as a material.

Via The Onion AV Club

Second Paris

2011-11-30T17:08:00.000-05:00

Apparently that Tokyo II plan I talked about a while back is not the first plan for a backup emergency city. This one was too fool German Bombers.

I present to you Paris II via Architizer.

Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture

2011-11-29T11:24:00.000-05:00

Emily Colucci has some great thoughts on why "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture" at the Brooklyn Museum is such an important show. I want to see it even more now.

Via Hyperallergic

Painter's Palettes

2011-11-28T07:33:00.000-05:00

This will only be of use to obsessive painters like myself, but here is a fantastic post of great painters responding and listing their color palettes. Now if only I could figure out what was on Morandi's....

Painting: Powers of Observation

Yvonne Rainer Denounces Marina Abramovic's Planned MOCA Gala Performance as "Grotesque"

2011-11-23T09:08:00.000-05:00

I love Marina Abramovic but I agree with Yvonne on this one. Humiliating yourself for art is brave. Paying those in need of money to do so for your art is craven and wrong.

Via Art Info.

Leonardo da Vinci Exhibition Shown in Cinemas

2011-11-22T09:45:00.000-05:00

This is among the dumbest things I have ever heard of.

Via the BBC

The NYC Marathon Route’s Evolving Neighborhoods

2011-11-21T10:02:00.000-05:00

I love running, I love urban planning, and I love metadata, so I really love this.

The NYC Marathon route’s evolving neighborhoods, infographics from the New York Times.

Cyborg Yeast Genes Run by a Computer

2011-11-18T12:47:00.000-05:00

"Scientists have succeeded in forming a "feedback loop" between a computer and a common yeast to precisely control the switching on and off of specific genes."

via The BBC

The Light House

2011-11-17T08:26:00.000-05:00

I love natural light and I want to live here.

The Light House via Architizer

Game Theory 101

2011-11-16T09:53:00.000-05:00

My friend Presh over at Mind Your Decisions has recommended a great introduction to game theory book and interviewed the author, you should check it out here.

Tokyo II

2011-11-15T11:12:00.000-05:00

Soon Tokyo II might not just be an Anime concept. Insane, brilliant, and only in Japan.

Plans to build a back up Tokyo in case of disaster, via Architizer

Devil's face revealed in Giotto fresco in Italy

2011-11-14T09:52:00.000-05:00

Oh Giotto, you clever devil.

Via the BBC

Pauline Kael vs. Joan Didion

2011-11-11T10:37:00.000-05:00

More Pauline Kael gossip... this time the inside scoop about her feud with Joan Didion.

via The Awl

The Common System

2011-11-10T10:14:00.000-05:00

Really digging this combination of images and words.

via But Does it Float

"According to the common system, before the creation of Matter, there was nothing but God, whose essence is immutable, and cannot be the pre-existent subject of Bodies"

The Groucho Marx / T.S. Elliot Letters

2011-11-09T11:08:00.000-05:00

I can't imagine much better that correspondence between these two. And it exists!

coverage via The Economist

George Dyson on Cognition

2011-11-08T07:28:00.000-05:00

" I think that we are generally not very good at making decisions. Mostly, things just happen."

George Dyson on Machines and Cognition. Via The European.

Russia's Aesthetic Revolution

2011-11-07T12:50:00.000-05:00

The Independent on how soviet building changed the world of architecture.

Here.

Living Bridge

2011-11-04T09:02:00.000-04:00

If you are into green architecture, talk to these people. They've had it down for centuries.

Video here.

Donald Judd or Cheap Furniture?

2011-11-03T10:41:00.000-04:00

A fun little quiz that tests your eye for minimalism. For the record I got 100% without cheating.

Donald Judd or Cheap Furniture? Online Quiz

Remembering Emma Goldman

2011-11-02T09:32:00.000-04:00

The personal is political, and it is worth remembering that Emma Goldman knew it first.

The Chronicle of Higher Education on Emma Goldman's legacy.

Mark Grotjahn

2011-11-01T07:52:00.000-04:00

Sometimes even gossip about painters is worthwhile. I love Mark Grotjahn, drunk or sober.

"Intoxicated Mark Grotjahn Passes Out And Still Has Good Night", via the Huffington Post.

Jered Sprecher: Interview

2011-10-31T09:04:00.000-04:00

I really dig Jered Sprecher's work and have featured him here before. Check out his interview over at Painter's Bread.

Pauline Kael Revisited

2011-10-28T14:21:00.000-04:00

Pauline Kael is one of my heroes. She was the one who helped me fall in love with film, and when I was 20 I used to leave screenings and walk home alone holding imaginary conversations with her in my head. I had a plan to go down to New York and meet her but she died in 2001 before I could put it in motion.

Nathan Heller has written an excellent piece about her and why she still matters in the New Yorker an you should read it. Go out and by some of her books too while you are at it.

John McAllister

2011-10-27T09:04:00.000-04:00

Blogger Caleb De Jong on John McAllister's Damned Sparkling Pomp Show.

Looks like it is worth a visit.

The Inequality in US Arts Funding

2011-10-26T14:22:00.000-04:00

The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy has published a report that spotlights arts funding. Quote:

"… the majority of arts funding supports large organizations with budgets greater than $5 million. Such organizations, which comprise less than 2 percent of the universe of arts and cultural nonprofits, receive more than half of the sector’s total revenue. These institutions focus primarily on Western European art forms, and their programs serve audiences that are predominantly white and upper income. Only 10 percent of grant dollars made with a primary or secondary purpose of supporting the arts explicitly benefit underserved communities, including lower-income populations, communities of color and other disadvantaged groups. And less than 4 perfect focus on advancing social justice goals."

Shocker.

Via Hyperallergic

DeCordova Biennial Artists Announced

2011-10-25T08:58:00.001-04:00

The DeCordova Museum has announced its list of artists for the next Biennial. Forget the ICA and the Foster Prize, the DeCordova is where you can see the really interesting contemporary New England artists.

The World's Oldest Paint Factory

2011-10-24T08:58:00.000-04:00

The oldest known profession.

"Digging deeper in a South African cave that had already yielded surprises from the Middle Stone Age, archaeologists have uncovered a 100,000-year-old workshop holding the tools and ingredients with which early modern humans apparently mixed some of the first known paint."

via the New York Times

Twisting Buildings

2011-10-21T20:16:00.000-04:00

I know I've been plugging Architizer Blog a lot lately. But it is pretty great.

Twisting Buildings (Photo Manips)

R.I.P. Stephen Meuller

2011-10-18T09:43:00.000-04:00

R.I.P. Stephen Meuller.

Obit via the New York Times

Eero Saarinen’s TWA Terminal

2011-10-17T09:17:00.001-04:00

The TWA Terminal at JFK is finally being restored. Too late for the free open house but this is still exciting news.

via Architizer Blog

The Primitive Cathedral

2011-10-14T19:34:00.000-04:00

The cathedral literally returns to its roots. Very nice.

"In 1987, Dutch artist Marinus Boezem planted De Groene Kathedraal (The Green Cathedral), an arboreal tribute that recreates the plan of Reims Cathedral, whose stone columns have been replaced with tall Italian poplars. The trees aren’t expected to reach their peak growth until 2015, when their imposing height will match that of Reims itself." via Architizer Blog.

Dissolve My Nobel Prize! Fast!

2011-10-13T07:53:00.000-04:00

A true story of how Niels Bohr and Georgy de Hevesy fooled the Nazis with chemistry.

via NPR

but does it float

2011-10-12T08:26:00.000-04:00

A new painting blog I've been digging. Posts combine images of paintings and quotes. It reminds me of my journal at 16 in a profoundly more intelligent way, and I dig it.

but does it float blog.

Spaulding Gray's Journals

2011-10-11T14:16:00.000-04:00

I still miss Spaulding Gray.

The NYT has a profile in the Magazine along with some excerpts from his journal.

Roland Space Echo

2011-10-10T18:04:00.000-04:00

I met my true love at a noise show last weekend.

I love you Roland RE-201.

Maurice Sendak Interview

2011-10-07T15:49:00.000-04:00

I like a good old curmudgeonly children's author with some weltschmerz.

Maurice Sendak interviewed in the Gaurdian

Bon Anniversaire, Le Corbusier

2011-10-06T23:00:00.000-04:00

I agree, Architizer Blog. I agree.

City Geometry, Seen from Above

2011-10-05T15:44:00.000-04:00

Nice perspective.

photo set via the New York Times

Coconut Records "West Coast"

2011-10-04T15:40:00.000-04:00

This performance took place on Dec. 13th 1998 at Stadtisches Museum Abteiberg, Monchengladbach, Germany.

It makes me happy.

Artists Documentation Program

2011-10-03T15:33:00.000-04:00

This was sent in by Rick S. Thanks Rick!

The Artists Documentation Program (ADP) interviews artists and their close associates in order to gain a better understanding of their materials, working techniques, and intent for conservation of their works.

website here

Four Lessons Teachers Can Learn from Jay-Z

2011-09-30T15:28:00.000-04:00

This... is actually not as silly as it sounds.

via Good

Mark Edmunson, "Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here"

2011-09-29T15:25:00.000-04:00

I assigned this to my students on day one this semester, but I think it is a good refresher for all of us about what education really is as well.

Mark Edmunson, "Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here"

Evil People in Modernist Buildings in Popular Films

2011-09-28T15:21:00.000-04:00

The best idea for a zine I've seen in ages, if any loyal NYC readers find a copy of this please mail it to me.

"Evil People in Modernist Buildings in Popular Films" via Architizer Blog

Build a house for less than $5000

2011-09-27T15:18:00.000-04:00

I will live in a house like this some day.

Pictures of a house that Simon Dale built for his family in Wales in 4 months for $5000.

Robert Saplosky on the Uniqueness of Humans

2011-09-26T15:13:00.001-04:00

A wonderful talk by Primatologist Robert Saplosky about what makes humans unique in the biological kingdom. Well worth your time.

Video via Stanford University.

Is it Punk to Grow Old Ungracefully?

2011-09-23T10:10:00.000-04:00

Serious feminist critique + humor = awesome.

Thoughts on Martha Wilson's new show at PPOW Galley by Emily Colucci here.

How to Break the Cycle of Remedial College Classes

2011-09-22T10:06:00.000-04:00

How to break the Cycle of Remedial College Classes (via Good). I teach freshmen and this rings true. We need to look into this.

Denver's New Clyford Still Museum

2011-09-21T10:01:00.000-04:00

Good news! Denver is opening a Clyford Still museum. Peter Plagen's thoughts on it here.

The Aritst is Present (8 Bit Version)

2011-09-20T09:57:00.000-04:00

The Aritst is Present (8 Bit Version) by Pippin Barr. Meet a virtual Maria Abromovic in a virtual MoMA here.

New Hotel in Prata Sannita, Italy

2011-09-19T09:51:00.000-04:00

For better or worse I'm a sucker for romantic decay. Man do I want to sleep here.

Summer School at PS1

2011-09-16T09:46:00.002-04:00

"Summer School at PS1" (via Hyperallergic). Quote: “The museum is a participatory social space.” (Klaus Biesenbach, director of MoMA PS1) Excuse me what? Either all of those words don't mean what I thought they meant or this sentence is clearly false. Am I the only one that thinks the emperor is naked here?

Osaka Station 3D Water Printer

2011-09-15T09:39:00.000-04:00

Yes to this. Just yes. (Video)

RIP Richard Hamilton

2011-09-14T07:44:00.000-04:00

British artist Richard Hamilton, regarded as a pioneer in the field of Pop art, has died at the age of 89 following a short illness.

Museum Bows to Pressure and Cancels Palestinian Children's Art Show

2011-09-13T00:08:00.000-04:00

If you are afraid of children's art then you have my pity because life in the world must be truly intolerable and you probably see enemies everywhere. But the Museum of Children's Art should have stood up for this show.

Museum Bows to Pressure and Cancels Palestinian Children's Art Show. Via Hyperallergic.

Joseph Beuys sings New Wave Pop. Seriously.

2011-09-12T20:40:00.000-04:00

Joseph Beuys sings New Wave Pop. About Reagan. Seriously. I love it.

David Hockney's New Video Still Composites

2011-09-09T12:19:00.001-04:00

David Hockney: still one of the youngest, most innovative painter out there? Yes indeed.

An article about Hockney's new video still composites. Too few artists actually question the nature of seeing anymore.

BIG Architecture

2011-09-08T12:24:00.006-04:00

And now a good architecture interlude. The Danish group BIG Architecture is kicking ass with their new designs. (via HyperAllergic)

Wim Wenders + Dance

2011-09-07T12:13:00.001-04:00

Wim Wenders shot a 3D dance film. I want to see it.

Post It Wars!

2011-09-06T12:10:00.000-04:00

The Continuing Destruction of the NYC I Loved

2011-09-05T23:02:00.000-04:00

Bye bye 5Pointz Arts Center.

From the NYT.

Jared Sprechter @ Stephen Zevitas

2011-09-02T08:12:00.001-04:00

I really enjoyed Jared Sprechter's last show at Steven Zevitas. It's so rare to find fun abstraction that is also so formally complex. So I think you should check out his new show opening this month.

Jared Sprechter @ Stephen Zevitas, Boston

The Danger of Making College Too Career Focused

2011-09-01T17:01:00.000-04:00

This really rings true for me.

Spiral @ The Studio Museum in Harlem

2011-08-31T22:28:00.000-04:00

Important. And I bet you know nothing about it.

"Spiral: Perspectives on an African-American Art Collective presents works by members of the historic Spiral group, taking as its starting point a recent exhibition of the same name at the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama. Spiral was a New York–based collective of African-American artists that came together in the 1960s to discuss their relationship to the civil rights movement and the shifting landscape of American art, culture and politics."

Spiral @ The Studio Museum in Harlem

Sotheby's Art Handler Lock Out

2011-08-30T18:54:00.000-04:00

Solidarity brothers and sisters.

From Hyperallergic.

Robert McCann @ the University of Kansas

2011-08-29T17:55:00.000-04:00

Wish I could make it to Kansas to check this out. The Paintings look good.

Robert McCann @ the University of Kansas

A Hidden Leonardo Mural in Florence

2011-08-26T13:57:00.000-04:00

Trying to unearth a hidden Leonardo Mural in Firenze with science.

From the NYT.

Your Filth Elder

2011-08-25T13:51:00.000-04:00

"I'm John Waters and I hope I can be your filth elder..." John Waters interview about contemporary art with big think.

Window Doodles

2011-08-24T13:46:00.000-04:00

I expect to see some of these crop up in boston soon loyal readers.

Pace and the Business of Art

2011-08-23T13:44:00.000-04:00

Good article on our puppet masters from the WSJ. The infographic is spectacular.

Chris Martin in D.C.

2011-08-22T13:41:00.001-04:00

Chris Martin has been one of my favorite NYC painters for a while now. It is nice to see him finally getting a richly deserved major retrospective.

Long Beach has Esthetic Police

2011-08-19T17:35:00.000-04:00

Police Say They Can Detain Photographers If Their Photographs Have 'No Apparent Esthetic Value'

Wow. Just wow.

The Man Who Knew Infinity

2011-08-18T15:16:00.000-04:00

"Roman Opalka, the French-born Conceptualist painter based in France and Italy, died on Aug. 6 near Rome, after a brief illness, just three weeks before his 80th birthday. A key figure in the Conceptualist movement during the mid-1960s, Opalka was fixated on the notion of infinity. His obsessive, lifelong project was to paint the numerals consecutively, one to infinity. Beginning in 1965 in his Warsaw studio, he devoted his life to carrying out the plan."

Full Obituary from Art in America here.

Cindy Sherman of MAC Cosmetics

2011-08-17T15:42:00.000-04:00

This leaves me tied up in knots and all kinds of conflicted.

Cindy Sherman of MAC Cosmetics

Chris Burden

2011-08-16T13:29:00.000-04:00

It's hard to believe that there was a time in the mid 1970's when this Chris Burden performance was broadcast as a national prime time TV ad. Times have changed, and not for the better.

RIP Bill Blackbeard

2011-08-15T13:23:00.000-04:00

Bill Blackbeard was one of the first people to curate and preserve the art of comic strips. We all owe him a debt; he will live on in my life through my love of Krazy Kat.

NY Times Obit Here.

The Infinity Burial Project

2011-08-12T13:15:00.001-04:00

"The Infinity Burial Project founded by Jae Rhim Lee, proposes alternatives for the postmortem body that promote and facilitate an individual engagement with the process of decomposition. The Project features the development of a unique strain of mushroom that decomposes and remediates toxins in human tissue, the development of a decomposition ‘kit’, burial suits embedded with decomposition activators, and a membership society devoted to the promotion of death awareness and acceptance and the practice of decompiculture (the cultivation of decomposing organisms)."

Rackstraw Downes

2011-08-11T13:11:00.000-04:00

Hyperallergic has some good thoughts on Rackstraw Downes here.

Museum Admission Prices

2011-08-10T13:20:00.001-04:00

Once again Hyperallergic hits it on the head. It is criminal that a working family can't afford a day at a museum. Fuck you MoMA and fuck you MFA for jacking admission again. I have students who live blocks from the MFA and literally can't afford to go. All of my rage for this. ALL of it.

‘The Women In Our Life’ at Cheim and Reid Gallery

2011-08-09T13:03:00.000-04:00

An excellent post by talented art blogger Caleb De Jong.

The Women in Our Life

Christopher Wilmarth at Betty Cunningham Gallery

2011-08-08T13:08:00.000-04:00

Another excellent post by talented art blogger Caleb De Jong, about one of the great underrated modernists.

“’No longer is heavenly distance the preferred escape. The learning self defends.’

What I am trying to say here is that with my work of the past eight years I have tried to make sculptures that evoke a spiritual disembodied state close to that of reverie; the kind of perfection that I found during my ‘revelations’ or ‘epiphanies’. I have avoided in my recent sculpture poetry directly tied to the imperfect, earthly world of flesh and matter. I have the need to be in and of that imperfect world again and make my poems from its stuff…” - Christopher Wilmarth

Christopher Wilmarth at Betty Cunningham Gallery

Vacation

2011-08-01T11:34:00.000-04:00

The blog will be on haitus this week and so will I. If you are in Provincetown I will see you tomorrow, if not I will see you next week.

Edward Hopper @ Bowdoin College

2011-07-29T07:54:00.000-04:00

Saw this show last weekend. The earlier landscapes were particularly loose and beautiful and gave me a new insight into Hoppers evolution as a painter. See it if you are passing through Maine.

Edward Hopper's Maine

Crowdsourcing The Magnum Archives

2011-07-28T07:39:00.000-04:00

Magnum is recruiting taggers to help make its photo archive more easily accessible.

Via the NYT

Radical Marching Bands Documentary

2011-07-27T07:50:00.000-04:00

I love love love the idea of radical marching bands. Who knew there was a movement?

Well there is and there is a documentary about it.

Marching For Change

Minimal Relations

2011-07-26T07:33:00.000-04:00

Brilliant.

"Minimalism has been touted for it's 'non relational' compositions. But, Barbara Rose was married to Frank Stella, Lucy Lippard was married to Robert Ryman, and Rosalind Krauss conducted and extended affair with Robert Morris. So it seems much of Minimalism's critical reception was composed of nothing but 'relations'."

- Loren J. Munk

Boston: Lucy Parsons moving, Rough Mountain Opening

2011-07-25T20:45:00.000-04:00

Glad the Lucy Parsons Center is moving to my neighborhood and glad the old space is being put to good use. Read about the win win for Boston here.

Ibraaz - Art and Ideas in the Middle East and North Africa

2011-07-22T20:45:00.001-04:00

Ibraaz—a new online publishing forum for writing on visual culture in the Middle East and North Africa.

Seems like a forum we should all encourage and keep up on, no?

What's Right With the Art World

2011-07-21T07:07:00.000-04:00

Because sometimes I forget. Drawing by William Powhida.

Merlin James @ Sikkema Jenkins

2011-07-20T08:03:00.000-04:00

Merlin James @ Sikkema Jenkins

The Fine Art of the Heist

2011-07-19T00:04:00.000-04:00

I want to read this.

"'Stealing Rembrandts' tells the story of modern art theft through the thefts of a single artist's work. It is a clever strategy, and Rembrandt a natural choice. The 17th-century Dutch master was heroically prolific; more than 2,000 of his paintings, drawings and etchings survive. Some of his canvases have fetched auction bids in the tens of millions of dollars. And because Rembrandt was a painter of masterly economy, his works tend to be small and portable. As a result, Rembrandt is among the most often stolen artists, topped only by Picasso. Some 80 of Rembrandt's works have been pilfered in the past 100 years..."

Read the rest of Benjamin Wallace's review here in the Wall Street Journal.

Combat Paper Project

2011-07-18T08:23:00.000-04:00

You should support this, or at least check it out.

"The Combat Paper Project utilizes art making workshops to assist veterans in reconciling and sharing their personal experiences as well as broadening the traditional narrative surrounding service and the military culture.

Through papermaking workshops veterans use their uniforms worn in combat to create cathartic works of art. The uniforms are cut up, beaten into a pulp and formed into sheets of paper. Veterans use the transformative process of papermaking to reclaim their uniform as art and begin to embrace their experiences in the military."

The US Re-Imagined Based on Cell Phone Connections

2011-07-15T08:48:00.000-04:00

This page provides MIT's visualizations of communities based on their anonymized, aggregated call and SMS connections.

I love you MIT.

Best Biennial Ever

2011-07-14T08:22:00.000-04:00

TED talk by Shea Hembrey who became 100 different artists and staged his own biennial. Brilliant.

Kim Dorland

2011-07-13T08:28:00.000-04:00

This looks interesting.

Kim Dorland @ Mike Weiss NYC

Lost Library by Joy Garnett

2011-07-12T07:53:00.000-04:00

Lost Library is a new social media project by painter Joy Garnett. She writes:

"I am sharing the library that I’ve been accumulating for 15 years by giving some of it away. Every day I will pick a good window well in Soho, deposit some books, and immediately tweet the location with a photograph and the hashtag #LostLibrary.

These are books for people to browse and to take away if they like. Begun on June 19th 2011, Lost Library is an ongoing social media performance."

Shapeshifters

2011-07-11T07:52:00.000-04:00

The fabulous Laurel Sparks curated a show in NYC called "Shapeshifters".

You should go and see it.

Frank Stella Revisits Philip Johnson's Glass House

2011-07-08T09:28:00.000-04:00

Frank Stella Revisits Philip Johnson's Glass House (via Youtube)