The Art That Looks Like Other Art (Is It Wrong?) Work by well-regarded Seattle artists appears uncomfortably similar to that of other artists. Idea plagiarism? What's wrong and what's right in terms of originality and art is a matter of serious debate. If no one did anything wrong, then how can a work of art be tainted? Which is worse, theft or ignorance? The Stranger .
The Underground Theatre Of Belarus Their performances are forbidden by Belarus's restrictive regime, which controls every aspect of life in the country, in a manner that has barely changed since the days when it was part of the Soviet Union. So the Free Theatre has to keep one step ahead of the authorities. The Guardian.
Suicide As A Piece Of Art A woman named Jane started a blog and said whe was going to kill herself in 90 days. She got a web following. Turns out, the blog is a kind of "art" project... "It was meant for me and (what I ignorantly thought would be) a small number of people who might find it on BlogSpot. Gawker.
EU Thinks About Turbocharging Musician Royalties The European Union proposes extending musicians royalties for 95 years as in the U.S., up from 50 years, under a plan to avoid cutting off income for artists as they retire. Bloomberg.
Museum of Moving Image paused for upgrade A massive renovation of the Museum of the Moving Image will shutter the New York facility for an extended period. YAHOO
Brown and Putin withdraw their patronage as Russian loan show opens "President Putin and Prime Minister Brown have withdrawn as patrons of the Royal Academy (RA) exhibition which opened last month." The Art Newspaper
The Gemeentemuseum Presents Picasso in The Hague Covering The Artist's Entire Career "If anyone deserves to be called the ‘artist of the twentieth century’, that man is Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973). The forthcoming exhibition Picasso in The Hague covers his entire career and reveals his untiring urge to experiment. The works on show will include not only oil paintings, but sculpture, drawings, prints and ceramics." ART DAILY
Venus banned from London's underworld "London Underground decides image of unclothed Venus is likely to offend commuters" GUARDIAN.
Movable Art - Not In Canada The Canadian government proposes to end a service that transports art beten museums across the country. Museums worry that traveling exhibitions will be dramatically curtailed. National Post.
Fighting Back Against Britain's Ugly Statues From the beaches of southern England to the thoroughfares of London, the fightback against 'bad' public sculpture in the UK has begun. In recent years an unprecedented number of tasteless statues (with the rare exception, such as works by Antony Gormley) have appeared across the country. The Art Newspaper.
Educational Television? Doesn't Exist Aric Sigman says that all TV is bad for young kids. The phrase 'educational television' was, of course, invented by people who make television. To me it's an oxymoron. The Globe & Mail.
American Group Says Canadian Copyright Laws Lacking Canada has taken no meaningful steps toward modernizing its copyright law to meet the minimum global standards of the WIPO internet treaties, which it signed more than a decade ago. .CBC .
Violinist Trips On Stage and Wrecks His Stradivarius Leaving the stage at London's Barbican, violinist David Garrett, 26, one of the UK's foremost young concert performers, had an accident that every world-class musician must dread: he tripped and landed on his violin. The Independent .
Virtually Dance "Understanding that people are often almost more fascinated in how dancers work and how choreography gets made than they are in the finished product, Misnomer.org has already tried a new approach to posting videos of its work online." Voice
Virtual Mayhem, Destruction - An Art Form? "For my money, what makes games unique among all other forms of entertainment is that they allow us to experiment with insanely dangerous physics. Games are only arena of modern life in which otherwise responsible adults are permitted to smash expensive things all to hell, purely for the sheer joy of it." Wired
Publisher To Begin Giving Away Free Books HarperCollins has decided to beging offering free electronic editions of some of its books on its Web site. The New York Times
Where US Presidential Candidates Stand On The Arts The arts aren't an issue in this year's election, and it's even difficult to find out what the candidates' positions are. But here's a helpful guide... DancerUniverse
Dramatic Swiss Art Robbery Nets Van Gogh, Cezanne, Degas, Monet Four paintings by Van Gogh, Cézanne, Degas and Monet worth an estimated SFR180m (£84m) have been stolen from a museum in Switzerland in what police today described as a "spectacular art robbery". The Guardian
Obama Beats Clintons To Win Grammy Obama "beat both former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter to win best spoken word album for his audio version of his book The Audacity Of Hope: Thoughts On Reclaiming The American Dream." Houston Chronicle
Leading Pakistani Artist Murdered Ismail Gulgee, one of Pakistan's most senior and internationally renowned artists, was discovered brutally murdered along with his wife Zareen and a maid in their house in Karachi. The Art Newspaper
Lit Stars Sign Up To Write 15-Minute Operas "Out go the big budgets, lengthy run times and large venues. But in come the stars from the world of literature and music, who have been asked to produce 15-minute operas which will sit beside each other at sold-out shows in small theatres in Glasgow and Edinburgh early next month." The Independent (UK)
What's Holding Back Canadian Movies? "Without subsidies or quotas, what's the incentive for theatres to show an unknown Canadian film instead of a Hollywood movie with more obvious box office potential? They'll say 'We can play a blockbuster with no advertising, no work, do nothing and everyone will come, or we can take your stupid Canadian movie and no one's going to come.' " The Globe & Mail (Canada)
When Everyone's A Writer... Creative writing as an area of study is booming in Australia ... Australian universities now offer more than 70 of these courses. There are numerous mature-age students willing to pay universities $100-plus an hour to sit in a postgraduate writing class. But "the creative writing boom throws up striking paradoxes." The Australian
Is The Art Market Immune From The Recession? The financial markets ae in turmoil. But "most areas of the market seem to be immune from the anxieties that have been taking hold of the outside world." International Herald Tribune
Argentina Looks To Build On Film Success Argentine cinema has carved out a niche at arthouses, taken fest kudos and plied styles like minimalism and comic bathos with taste... But now returns are narrowing as costs rise for studio time, wages and promotion. Debate is raging within the industry over how best to keep Argentina competitive in a Hollywood-dominated world. Variety.
Naxos Net Gamble Pays Off Classical music's scrappiest record label proved to be its most prescient when the internet revolution came upon the world. What put Naxos ahead of the game, and what did founder Klaus Heymann see in the industry that convinced him to make a huge online push when he did? The Guardian.
The Strange Cultural Populism Of Variety Shows There was a time when high- and middle-brow culture coexisted on television, in the form of wildly popular variety shows that showcased everything from dancing poodles to orchestras to The Beatles. Those shows mirrored and even led a mass pop culture that was more populist than what we have today. City Beat.
Are We Over Renzo Piano? Forget the Bilbao Effect. It's not Frank Gehry who has ridden the U.S. museum-building boom, it's Renzo Piano." Piano's new addition to the LA County Museum of Art opens to the public next week, and James Russell says that the architect's work is all starting to look the same, and what used to seem innovative now just seems repetitive. Bloomberg.
Time Running Out For Oscars? Academy Award organisers have said they are 'running out of time' in the search for a deal to avoid the Oscars being hit by the Hollywood writers' strike, even as the guild prepares to present a tentative deal to its members this weekend. BBC.
Spanish Mayor Proposes Paying Kids To Read They would get one Euro for each hour reading. "A recent European Commission study showed 31 per cent of Spain's students were leaving school early. Spanish students were also some of the worst at reading in Europe, with 21 per cent of 15-year-olds having difficulties, compared with the European Union average of 19.8 per cent." The Globe & Mail
It's A Hit! (And You'll Get Your Money Back In As Soon As Three Years!) "If a show with a cultlike following, stellar reviews, a not insurmountable $1 million capitalization cost -- and after some adjustments, a $50,000 weekly running cost -- couldn't turn a profit, then what could?" The New York Times
Music Under The Influence - Drugs, Booze, Everywhere There's a shocker! A new study "calculated that Americans from ages 15 to 18 listening to 2.4 hours of music a day hear 84 references to substances daily and more than 30,000 annually. About two-thirds of the references put drugs, alcohol and tobacco in a positive light by associating them with sex, partying and humor." The New York Times
Want To Save Money? Die "It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that preventing obesity would save governments millions of dollars." Wired
Writers' Strike May Have Long-Term Impact On Post-Production "Insiders calculate that the number of post industry members who have lost their jobs or been put on hiatus is in the thousands. That figure includes great numbers of freelance workers such as editors, assistants and post coordinators as well as staffers at postproduction facilities." Yahoo
Bush Proposes "Zeroing Out" Public Broadcasting Funding The Bush administration wants to hack federal funding for public broadcasting by more than 50% and possibly zero out the budget in as little as two years. Variety
Perhaps He's Referring To Ocean's Thirteen "George Clooney, one of Hollywood's most bankable stars who earns up to £15 million a movie, has taken a swipe at the film industry, saying he believes the golden age of cinema is dead... Clooney places the glory years of cinema firmly between 1964 and 1976 when he says studios produced almost a masterpiece a month." The Telegraph
How Pixar Became A Standard Bearer Pixar is well known for having changed animation forever, by hiring the top talent in the business and spending lavishly on the best technology money could buy. Of course, relying on computers inevitably means dealing with their obsolescence, which often comes astonishingly quickly. The Independent (UK)
Audiences Stunned To Find Sweeney Todd A Musical "Nowhere does the [movie trailer] mention the fact that Sweeney Todd is a musical. In fact, it goes out of its way to conceal the fact that the movie is entirely sung, save for a few snippets of dialogue... Stung at paying to see a collection of tortuously constructed Stephen Sondheim tunes when they were expecting a gory Gothic thriller, a fair proportion of cinema audiences has been walking out of Sweeney Todd." The Guardian (UK)
Gallery Sues To Get Warhol Back "An Andy Warhol painting stolen from a Manhattan art gallery a decade ago has resurfaced at Christie's auction house, and on Tuesday the gallery sued to have it returned. The painting, one of Warhol's Dollar Sign portraits that was created in 1981, is worth at least $100,000." MSNBC
Dutch Plan To Float Above Global Warming Effects The inevitable rise in sea level that comes with climate change is going to make it increasingly difficult to control flooding in low-lying Holland. But instead of cursing their fate, architects are designing a new Holland that will float on water, and the Dutch government seems willing to try out the scheme. NPR.
A Week Of Free Arts? At first glance, this seems like an excellent idea. After all, Labour's decision to drop museum entry charges 10 years ago was a sign that thinking about culture was shifting. And schemes such as Nicholas Hytner's £10 season at the National have made for bigger, broader audiences. But is a week of free events really the best way to give every member of society access to the arts? The Guardian.
Hemingway's Only Play Gets An Off-Broadway Try The story of why "The Fifth Column" has been neglected is a complicated one, involving several mishaps, an inept Hollywood screenwriter, and a 1940 Broadway production of a bastardized version of the play. New York Sun .
Record $847 Million Of Art Offered On Auction This Week The total includes record estimates for Impressionist art this week: 89 million pounds for Christie's today, 82 million pounds for Sotheby's tomorrow and 72 million pounds for Christie's contemporary art on Wednesday. Bloomberg.
Hurky Jerky - How Language Evolves Language evolves in sudden leaps, according to a statistical study of three major language groups. The finding challenges the slow-and-steady model held by many linguists and matches evidence that genetic evolution follows a similar path. New Scientist.
When Pop Culture Supports The Arts Why not sell tickets to rock concerts and use the proceeds to underwrite the classical end of your business? It makes sense on paper, and it's worked before." And yet, "regional symphony orchestras and theater companies are increasingly finding themselves squeezed off the stages of performing-arts centers by high-grossing Broadway road shows. The Wall Street Journal.
Writers' Strike May Soon Be Over Hollywood's striking writers and major studios [have] reached the broad outlines of a new employment contract, resolving key sticking points over how much writers should be paid for work that is distributed over the Internet... A final contract could be presented to the Writers Guild of America's board as early as Friday. Los Angeles Times .
Interactive Theatre (Whether You Want It To Be Or Not) Interactive theater places theater-goers in the middle of things, at times making them performers. The imaginary wall is broken down in this type of work, and the audience has a different experience of what is happening.But what if the audience doesn't agree to being part of the procedings? Chicago Tribune.
Turning Foreclosure Into Artistic Expression Foreclosures are the dark side of the American dream. And, just as many works of art depict the joys of homeownership after long striving... others have depicted with equal vigor the pain of losing those homes -- and losing them because of fast-talking salesmen who peddled not snake oil, but adjustable-rate mortgages. Chicago Tribune.
From The Battlefield To The Stage Author George Packer, who wrote a well-regarded non-fiction book on the American invasion of Iraq, has now written a play based on the tragic stories of ordinary Iraqis who agreed to serve as translators for the Americans and paid dearly for it. "It was the struggles of the Iraqis that stayed with Mr. Packer after the journalism was done, and what prompted him to bring 'Betrayed' to the stage." The New York Times.
Oscar Gets Arty Oscar-nominated films are often small, dark and unintended for mass audiences. They're about art, after all, not commerce. But that's especially true of this year's crop, which has little mainstream buzz and among the lowest box-office totals in recent years. Toronto Star.
Experts Work To Restore "World's First Oil Paintings" A group of Japanese, European and American scientists are collaborating to restore damaged murals in caves in the Bamiyan Valley, famous for its two gigantic statues of the Buddha that were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. The Daily Star.
A Computer Screen In Your Eye Researchers are working on contact lenses that could display information on it. The lenses could use the electronic lens as a cell-phone display, to see who is calling and to watch videos during a commute. MIT Technology Review
How Recordings Killed Music They have conditioned audiences to expect an inhuman degree of performance accuracy, comparable to what a recording studio's editing team can produce by patching together the best moments from multiple takes. Critics, meanwhile, judge performances by the degree of textual fidelity to the 'urtext' -- a score that tries to reproduce the composer's original intent. Wall Street Journal
The Open Door Project The Open Door Project is a contest open to gay men writing fiction with queer content who have not yet published a book of fiction. With a panel of prestigious authors as judges, the project was started by six editors who are searching to fast-track the careers of gay authors focusing on post-AIDS work. The winner will receive a five-day publishing introduction intensive in New York City -- travel and accommodation provided -- including a series of lunches with literary agents, book editors, and other publishing figures, a public reading, and a private cocktail reception with New York's writing community.
More information about The Open Door Project can be found here: http://www.bilerico.com/2007/11/the_open_door_project_calling_all_unpubl.php
Joyce Pensato New York-based artist Joyce Pensato has exhibited widely over the past decades, though there has recently been a refreshed interest in her work, which has continually focused on mutilating and deforming popular cartoon characters in black and white drips, smears and splatters, with the energy of an Abstract Expressionist.
NitWittLeWitt NitWittLewWitt is a series of projects being created by Philipino-born, USA-raised artist Rommelo Yu, based on the works of Sol LeWitt. Yu's work is heavily informed by post-colonial theory and immigrant experience, and seeks not to use LeWitt's work as a means to contribute to an already exhausted discourse on conceptual art, but rather to use it as a Trojan Horse, for which to carry his own politically-charged discourse into the realm of aesthetics. LeWitt's large wall drawings become giant beaded curtains made with children's Ball Pool balls, his solid geometric sculptures become pinatas filled with Felix Gonzales Torres candies, and his star-shaped color meditations become giant rubber stamps to attack your walls with.
Rommelo Yu's work can currently be seen at the Chung King Project gallery in L.A. www.chungkingproject.com
Marcus Lanyon Lanyon utilises a hybrid language of materials to create a 'seductive disquiet'; a simultaneous sense of attraction and repulsion. Themes of mortality, preservation, innocence and violence create narratives that are contemporary and ancient, familiar yet subversive. Like scenes from a fairytale or a chilling dream, the work lures us in only to quietly lift a knife to our back.
Improv Everywhere Since 2001, Improv Everywhere has created over 70 "missions" of public improvisational stunts, meant to disrupt the public in a non-threatening, humorous way. Often incorporating hundreds, or even thousands, of actors (or "agents" as they call them), they have led No Pants parades through the subway, staged a fake U2 concert, confused Best Buy employees by flooding the store with people dressed just like them, and choreographed a brilliant "suicide attempt" by a man in a suit from a ledge only a few feet tall. Their most recent stunt (see video below) took place in the main hall of NYC's Grand Central station, and incorporated 207 agents who all froze in place at the exact same time, for five minutes, before carrying on throughout the terminal.
Learn more about Improv Everywhere here: www.improveverywhere.com
Learning To Love You More Learning To Love You More is a website created by Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher. Viewers are encouraged to accept random assignments, such as "Draw the News," or "Reread your favorite book from fifth grade," and then share the results with other viewers from the site. " Like a recipe, meditation practice, or familiar song, the prescriptive nature of these assignments is intended to guide people towards their own experience," says the site's creators.
I Throw Myself At Men Having been raised in the Southwest, Lily McElroy was surrounded by cliche representations of her own experiences. There were cowboys leaning against fences, and coyotes howling on moonlit nights. In her series I Throw Myself At Men, she attempts to discuss the desire and difficulty involved in making a connection, by photographing herself as she literally throws herself at unsuspecting men. The photographs are comical portraits of this cliche, as her body contorts in mid-air, leaving the viewer to wonder if the men actually catch her or not, but they also play with other cliches of what the Southwest looks like--the decor of dive bars, the styles of bargoers.
With Cheeseburgers Austin-based artist William Hundley's photographs seem to come from pushing boredom to its limits, and often result in curiously breathtaking images. His Jumping Sheets series shows clouds of fabric suspended in public spaces, captured by friends simply jumping while covered by sheets. His With Cheesburgers series places common items from the garage onto pedestals made of McDonald's cheeseburgers, somehow making them look incredibly important.
Idiotarod The Idiotarod is named after and can be considered a tribute to the Iditarod, a brutal 1,000 mile dog-sledding race in Alaska. Started in San Francisco in 1994, The Idiotarod is an urban version, in which five "idiots" tie themselves to a shopping cart and run through the streets of a major metropolitan area. The race usually features people in costumes and themed floats. Though intended solely as amusement, the race gets competitive, and teams are known to sabotage each other in an effort to win. Forms of sabotage include tripping competitors, throwing marbles or large obstacles in their paths, and the spreading of misinformation, such as false route information.
Idiotarods have also taken place in New York City, Phoenix, Chicago, and Washington D.C.
The NYC Idiotarod takes place Saturday, January 26th. See here for more details: www.cartsofbrooklyn.com
The Arrival Shaun Tan's latest book, The Arrival, contains zero words. Instead,
like a silent film, he tells the heartwarming story of an immigrant
trying to find his way in a new world exclusively through breathtaking
sepia-toned pencil drawings. From getting on a steamboat after an
emotional goodbye to his wife and child, we follow him into a strange
surreal world pulled from Tan's imagination--of floating objects,
strange buildings and animals of all shapes and sizes. Through his
visual point of view, we follow him as he struggles to understand a
new language and customs in his search to create a new home.
Thomas Lélu Thomas Lélu works in a variety of styles and mediums, each project
visually different from the others. In his series 'la rumeur,' he
hides the central focus points of found photograhic images with a
single loopy brushstroke, where the many different colors he loads on
the brush mix together to form new ones as they are pressed together
on the image.
Ali Smith Long Beach, CA artist Ali Smith's paintings are sculptural and
seething with color, the mixture of paints applied both precisely and
lawlessly to the canvas, creating exciting balances of form, color and
texture.
Zevs Based in Paris, Zevs has been active in the European street art scene
since the early 90s. Some of his most popular early work consisted of
painting the outlines of the shadows thrown by permanent city
fixtures--street signs, fire hydrants, garbage cans etc. The shadows
were usually not created by the sun however, but at night by ambient
light from street lamps, crossing signals and building security
lights. By day, these outlines gave proof of a second life existing
at night--that not all is completely dark, and not everyone is
sleeping.
He is also known for attacking billboards and other city
advertisements, spraying a dot of red between the eyes of models,
letting it drip down like blood. He has taken this drip technique to
corporate logos as well, and in his first solo show in London at the
Lazarides Gallery, titled Liquidated Logos, he presents them on canvas
for the first time.
Reflection To inaugurate their new location on NYC's Lower East Side, Lehmann
Maupin Gallery will be exhibiting 'Reflection' by Korean artist Do Ho
Suh, a continuation of the Suh show at the gallery's existing location
in Chelsea. The show will feature the latest evolution of Suh's large
scale fabric sculptures made from nylon. 'Reflection' is a recreation
of the gate between the main house and the children's bedroom at Suh's
parent's home in Korea. First exhibited at the Tokyo Hermes store,
this piece consists of two gates made from fabric which are separated
by a translucent floor, appearing to be a reflection. This is a
demonstration of Suh's belief that the gate was intended to encourage
contemplation on how we remember images and space.
Anastasia Khoroshilova Born in Moscow, Anastasia Khoroshilova photographs mostly in the small
towns of her homeland. Her portraits are simple and quiet, but
emotionally charged--most of her models are unposed, and have the same
muted look on their faces, stripped of artifice and psychologically
revealing of the experience of contemporary Russian life.
Thriller December 1 marks the 25th Anniversary of the release of Michael
Jackson's Thriller album, which broke numerous industry records and
introduced a generation of music which set the standards for sales and
celebrity that most pop music still aspires to today.
La Chute Denis Darzacq's series of photographs, La Chute (The Fall), was
inspired by the French Riots of 2005, as well as his memory of bodies
falling from the WTC towers four years before. The series comments on
a generation of youths in freefall, in a society unprepared to catch
them. To create these images without resorting to photoshop, he
sought out Parisian hip-hop and freestyle dancers who were fit enough
to hold the positions he was looking for, and able to take the
constant hits against concrete for up to two hours while he
photographed them, against the most banal modern architecture he could
find.
Partial List of People to Bleach Gary Lutz's new collection of stories is only 56 pages, but calls for
time spent on each sentence, rather than a one-sitting cover-to-cover
read. Many of the characters may seem familiar--near middle-age
loners with no direction--but his precise selection of words, and
short multi-layered sentences, provide a raw insight into the details
of their lives--their strange brainfart fantasies and brutally honest
reading of the world they live in--which empowers the reader in a way
he may not be entirely comfortable with.
Jack Smith Richard Foreman wrote that "Jack Smith is the hidden source of
practically everything that's of any interest in the so-called
experimental theatre today." Most well known for his 1962 film
Flaming Creatures (which was immediately banned, and technically
remains so to this day, though copies commonly float around), Smith
preferred to let people be who they are, rather than try to direct
them--A technique which Andy Warhol and John Waters soon caught on to.
In his own performances, he liked to play with the audience,
frustrate and confuse them, a technique which can be credited to his
lack of popularity today compared to that of his peers. He burned
almost any bridge he ever built, and seemed determined to sabotage his
own career. Surprisingly, the style of "Camp" he created survives to
this day, though it interestingly seems a bit accidental, rather than
the intentional over-the-topness of those who have appropriated it.
Asgar / Gabriel Asgar / Gabriel's works depict what they call "the historization of
the moment" with references to baroque and 19th century paintings.
They see their protagonists as portraits of a generation following the
imperative "you can be anything you want", a generation of ideological
homelessness unabashedly pursuing a new myth moving between ecstasy
and nightmare.
Painting itself is the last step in their long creative process. Asgar
/ Gabriel begin with a photographic sketch. Each sketch consists of
hundreds of compiled photographs borrowed from mass media, their
private photo album and then recomposed and modified on the computer.
Like a contemporary Frankenstein, each of the subjects and
compositions are reconstituted time capsules and commentaries on
modernity's obsession with notions of the "ideal" calling awareness to
the global patronage of this obsessively unattainable modality set
forth and so pervasive in popular culture.
Daryoush Asgar and Elisabeth Gabriel currently live in Vienna. More
of their work can be seen here: http://www.lyonswierortt.com
