Art Hag

Objets d'Art | News

It's Friday!  Yay!  Here's a rundown of some news and upcoming events...

~Bushwick Open Studios (BOS) - Check out BOS '10 which will feature over 275 open artist studios, group shows, and events taking place in over 140 buildings occupying more than 4 square-miles of Bushwick as well as bordering 'hoods East Williamsburg, Bed-Stuy, and Ridgewood, Queens.  Learn more at bos2010.artsinbushwick.org.  June 4th-6th.

~Atlantic Avenue ArtWalk - Over 100 artists and 75 galleries and art spaces will participate in the Atlantic Avenue ArtWalk this Saturday and Sunday.  Mosey along Brooklyn's Atlantic Ave between Fourth Avenue and Furman Street and peek into private studios, watch artists paint a rooftop mural, listen to live music, and refuel with deals from participating bars and restaurants.  Learn more at atlanticavenueartwalk.com.  June 5th and 6th.

~Brooklyn Museum's Target First Saturdays - It's time for another installment of the Brooklyn Museum's FREE Target First Saturdays.  In honor of the new exhibit, American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection, the theme of the evening is Brooklyn Chic.  Hear Chief Curator Kevin Stayton discuss the fashionable exhibit, see a screening of the Audrey Hepburn/Fred Astaire flick Funny Face, and stick around for a dance contest and dance party!  More info at brooklynmuseum.org.  June 5th.

~Museum Mile - Tuesday evening welcomes another installment of the yearly Museum Mile fest which offers 3 hours of FREE admission to nine major museums along Fifth Avenue between 82nd and 105th Streets. The avenue will be closed to auto traffic and there will live bands and "art-in-the-street."  The nine participating museums include (starting from the northernmost): El Museo del Barrio, Museum of the City of New York, The Jewish Museum, Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, The Guggenheim, Neue Galerie (check out the excellent Otto Dix exhibit!), Goethe-Institut/German Cultural Center, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  More info at museummmilefestival.org.  Tuesday, June 8th from 6-9pm.

~Work of Art Premieres - Art-loving couch potatoes rejoice!  Bravo's latest competitive reality show Work of Art premieres on Wednesday.  The show pits 14 aspiring, contemporary artists against each other for the chance to win an exhibition at The Brooklyn Museum, a cash prize, and bragging rights.  Actress/art fan China Chow hosts and judges, alongside NY Mag Art Critic (and Face Booker extraordinaire) Jerry Saltz, and gallery owners Bill Powers and Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn (Salon 94).  Playing the Tim Gunn/mentor role will be Simon de Pury of Phillips de Pury auction house.  Read more about the show at bravotv.com.  Premieres Wednesday, June 9th.

~The Artist Has Left the Building - This past Monday, Marina Abramovich completed her 700 hour/3 month interactive performance The Artist is Present at MoMA.  To celebrate, Givenchy and the label's Creative Director, Riccardo Tisci, hosted a celeb and model packed party at the museum Tuesday night.  Click on wwd.com and style.com to see pics of the artist looking refreshed and glam in Givenchy.  

~Kehinde's Kicks - New York-based artist Kehinde Wiley has teamed up with PUMA Africa to create a line of footwear and apparel featuring a bomber jacket, hoodies, and t-shirts in West African textile prints that were inspired by his work, The World Stage: Africa Lagos-Dakar.  In honor of the upcoming World Cup, Wiley has also created four portraits featuring three of Africa's top football players.  Read more at tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com and see the collection at africa.puma.com.

~Darcel Doesn't Disappoint - Check out darceldisappoints.blogspot.com to see the adorable, spectacled cyclops Darcel live "one disappointing moment after another" while covering art and fashion events.  The site's creator, Australian-born, New York-based blogger/artist/animator, Craig Redman recently had a show exhibited at Paris' crazy cool boutique Colette.  Read more about Darcel and Redman at nowness.com.

~Pieter Hugo Pics in Paris - Speaking of Colette, South African photographer Pieter Hugo currently has an exhibit at the Paris shop.  Check it out if you happen to be strolling along Rue Saint-Honore.  Learn more at colette.fr.  Through July 3rd.

~R.I.P. Tobias Wong - And lastly, another sad loss for the art/design world.  Tobias Wong passed away on Sunday at the age of 35.  The witty, provocative, and innovative Wong designed cool, beautiful objects teeming with social commentary.  His dollar bill notepad, sun jar, inverted diamond ring, gold-plated McDonald's coffee stirrer/coke spoon, Warhol print gift wrap, and rubber-coated chandelier were just a few of his notable works.  In 2007, he staged The Wrong Store in Chelsea, a fully stocked and functional shop that was never open.  Read his NYT's obit at nyt.com, read Core 77's tribute to Wong at core77.com, and see a selection of his amazing work at ifitshipitshere.blogspot.com.

I Want My 120 Minutes

Just last week I mentioned that as a wee one I first saw Sonic Youth's Kool Thing video on MTV's Sunday, late-night program 120 Minutes which aired from 1986-2003.  I loved that show because it played alternative/indie videos from bands I actually liked, instead of the mainstream stuff and/or heavy metal they played regularly on heavy rotation (back when they still played music videos).  Never being a fan of Springsteen, Aerosmith, Van Halen, or ew, Phil Collins, I always looked forward to the weekly 2 hour dose of "alternative" music videos.  If, like me, you waited each week to see if they would play The Smiths, Morrissey, The Cure, New Order, Depeche Mode, The Pixies, The The, Siouxsie and the Banshees, or if you fondly remember bands like XTC, Cocteau Twins, Aztec Camera, The Primitives, The Housemartins, Psychedelic Furs, Gene Loves Jezebel, Flesh For Lulu, The Church, The Smithereens, The Damned, The Sundays, Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, Nitzer Ebb, The Mighty Lemon Drops, and so on, you should definitely check out tylerc.com/120minutes.  The site's creator culled together most of the playlists from the show's run and conveniently links to each of the videos.  While you don't see full episodes (so no hosts Dave Kendall or Matt Pinfield) you also don't have to sit through the endless commercials, and you can just click on the clips you want to see.

It's great way to indulge in nostalgia and relive younger couch potato days when U2, REM, and No Doubt were still considered alternative and when "indie" bands, music, and videos were still good - yeah, I'm a geezer...  Below is a video by Echo and the Bunnymen (the first band I ever saw play live) that aired on the January 17, 1988 episode.  Enjoy!

Objets d'Art | News

~Christie's is auctioning off a terrific group of photographs on Monday, December 7th.  The list of photographers is a veritable who's who of photography history.  Included are:  Alfred Stieglitz, Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus, David Bailey, Cecil Beaton, Irving Penn, Horst P. Horst, Ansel Adams, Bernice Abbott, Aaron Siskind, Robert Frank, August Sander, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Wegee, Leni Riefenstahl, Man Ray, Peter Beard, Robert Mapplethorpe, Helmut Newton, Ellen Von Unwerth, Mary Ellen Mark, Nan Goldin, Catherine Opie, Sally Mann, Philip-Lorca Dicorcia, Peter Lindbergh, Bruce Weber, Joel Meyerowitz, Andres Serrano, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and many, many more.

Public viewing times are scheduled from December 3rd - 6th at 20 Rockefeller Plaza.  It would be fun to check out this vast, impressive collection of work. Also, there are a few Edward Weston prints up on the block featuring his muse/wife/model, Charis Wilson, who passed away recently at the age of 95.  Read her obituary at NYT.com.  See Christie's website here.

~I've always been a fan of Todd Oldham.  From his fun clothing designs to his stint as co-host on the original House of Style (I especially loved his D-I-Y segment on how to cut your own hair) to his more recent hosting/mentoring duties on Bravo's Top Design.  He seems like such a creative, crafty, affable guy.  Being a man of many talents, Oldham is now in the book biz.  Following his 2005 book Handmade Modern ("a fairly intense DIY guide to designers like George Nakashima, Charles and Ray Eames, and Isamu Noguchi... not for the clumsy.  Nakashima's bio, for example, is followed by a fourteen-step 'illuminated end table,' which involves 'drilling through conduit'" - New York Magazine), Oldham is releasing Kid Made Modern a super-cool book for tots that gives them "introductions to the mid-century’s great designers in rhyme ('Alexander Girard made it look not very hard'), plus projects to match—mobiles in the style of Alexander Calder, a Fornasetti-inspired découpage desk set. All of them were road-tested on children in his crafts room."

Oldham has also published a $200, 12-pound tome with Ammo Books about Charley Harper, an illustrator who created the artwork for many of Oldham's favorite childhood books.  From 2002 to 2007, Oldham archived and restored Harper's extensive and deteriorating collection of work for the monograph.  Ammo Books recently released a pared down version of the book for a more wallet-friendly $49.95.  The late Harper's graphic, stylized animal illustrations seem to be the predecessor and/or inspiration for many of the prints you see on hipstery t-shrits and crafts today.  Check out his work at Charleyharperartstudio.com.  And read the full New York Magazine article on Oldham here.

~Speaking of books, some good holiday gift ideas might be discovered in the form of art/design books from the Phaidon pop-up store at 100 Wooster Street in Soho (open until January).  If you strike out at the Phaidon pop-up, the shop is conveniently located nearby the Taschen store at 107 Greene Street. If all else fails, Vuitton, Chanel, Miu Miu, and Prada are all in the neighborhood ;)  Read more about the Phaidon pop-up shop at racked.com and check out Taschen's website here.

~Living more simply, f-unemployment, and non-profit arts organizations showcasing artwork in vacant properties — these may be the only good things to come of the recession.  Similar to X Initiative and LentSpace, art is appearing around the city in empty and sometimes unexpected places.  Read more about the guerilla galleries at theartnewspaper.com.

~Art collector Eileen Kaminsky has set up a foundation, the Eileen S. Kaminsky Family Foundation, "to connect artists, collectors, galleries and cultural institutions.  ESKFF is a collaborative effort that facilitates the exchange of ideas and expressions."  A non-profit organization, ESKFF is dedicated to "the development of exhibitions and programs that enrich our understanding of contemporary art."  The foundation will showcase art from private collections from both the U.S. as well as from around the world.  The foundation is currently seeking a permanent brick-and-mortar home base, but you can learn more about it at www.eskff.com.

~And finally, even though it felt a little balmy in NYC yesterday, it's still no Miami Beach.  Check out what is happening at Art Basel Miami here.  Now in its 8th year, the fair, the parties, and the special events continue through Sunday, December 6th.

Objets d'Art | News

*The second edition of the Guggenheim's It Came From Brooklyn is happening tonight from 8:00pm-12:00am featuring Julian Plenti (aka Paul Banks, the singer from Interpol).  As a part of celebrating its 50th anniversary, the museum is hosting the monthly music and literature series featuring artists from Brooklyn.  Also part of tonight's line-up is opening band I'm In You (nice to see they're keeping up with the current trend of HORRIBLE band names); writer/director and Brooklyn Heights resident, Hampton Fancher, who will read a selection by former Brooklynite, Henry Miller; Fancher's neighbor, novelist Rivka Galchen; and comedian/actor Eugene Mirman who will be on hosting duty.  Last month's inaugural show featured bands The Walkmen and High Places and writer Colson Whitehead.  Learn more at Guggenheim.org.

*The 13th Annual DUMBO Art Under the Bridge Festival is happening  this weekend - September 25th-27th.  Alongside open studios and outdoor activities, there will be "touchable, accessible, and interactive art, on a scale that makes it the nation's largest urban forum for experimental art."  Learn more at dumboartfestival.org.

*The Kitchen, a non-profit, artist organization that "identifies, supports, and presents emerging and under-recognized artists" is hosting a block party on Saturday, Sept. 26th from 12-5 on West 19th between 10th and 11th Avenues.  This free, family-friendly event will feature live performances, artist-led activities and crafts like face-painting, puppet and mask-making, temporary tattoos, cookie decorating, hula-hoop (!) and drum workshops and more.  Learn more at thekitchen.org.

*David Zwirner will exclusively represent the estate of late artist Dan Flavin (1933-1996).  Zwirner launched a website on September 18th that, as the NYT's Carol Vogel explains, "is intended as a practical resource for Flavin aficionados, covering issues of conservation and installation as well as the artist's exhibition history and examples of his work," (from Inside Art, Sept. 18, 2009).  David Zwirner Gallery will present Dan Flavin: Series and Progressions in November 2009, showcasing the artist's work spanning his 40-year career.  Learn more at Davidzwirner.com. And see Zwirner's website for Flavin here.

*Los Angeles artist Mark Bradford has won the prestigious John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship!  According to the foundation's website, "The MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world."  This means Bradford, and fellow recipients, will receive $500,000 over the next five years.  Congrats!
See all the 2009 Fellows at macfound.org and read more at latimesblogs.com.  Remember, you can see Bradford's work alongside former MacArthur Fellow, Kara Walker's, at Sikkema Jenkins & Co.  Read my post here.

*Philippe Starck - reality star?  The world renowned French product designer will take on the Donald Trump role a la The Apprentice (or Tim Gunn on Project Runway, if you prefer) in his new reality series Design for Life, which premiered on September 14th on BBC2.  The show pits 12 young British designers against each other, competing in weekly challenges until one by one they get eliminated and the winner gets to work for six months at Starck's Parisian design company .  Each contestant was personally selected by Starck, not the show's producers, based on drawings they submitted.  According to the Independent, "he did not even want to know their names or genders.  He wanted to select ideas that were not necessarily great but that he felt had potential... people who think freely and differently."
Now this is a reality show I'd actually watch!  Argh!  I wish I had BBC2.  Read more at independent.co.uk.

*Ed Ruscha - movie star?  American artist Ed Ruscha will star in a film directed by Los Angeles-based video artist Doug Aitken which will debut on October 23rd on Tiberina Island in Rome.  Read more at theartnewspaper.com.

*And lastly, another of my favorite fashion designers, Martin Margiela, is publishing his first book.  It will document the Paris-based, never-before-seen designer's work including fashion, art, design, and performance.  Originally from Antwerp, the enigmatic Margiela founded his own label in 1988.  His clothing designs range from completely wearable and minimal, to subtle, edgy touches like exposed stitching and deconstruction, to way more out-there ideas like cloven-toed shoes (which I love), glass  slippers (which I don't love), over-sized shoulders, visible nude padding, and a hair coat.  The book, retailing for $100, is published by Rizzoli and will be released in October 2009.  Have a peek inside at hypebeast.com, wallpaper.com, and rizzoliusa.com.

Happy weekend!!!