Archive for February, 2009
Friday, February 27th, 2009
Weekend Gallery Openings
Here’s a brief list of weekend openings (and a couple of shows already on view) on our radar:
Terence Koh, Aurel Schmidt, Dash Snow, Patrick Griffin, Aaron Bondaroff + others – Get a Rope, CTRL Gallery, Houston. Opening Reception: Fri., Feb. 27 – April 18.
Morning Breath + Cycle – Oddities, Ad Hoc Art, Brooklyn. Opening Reception: Fri., Feb. 27 – March 22.
Yoshitomo Nara – Marianne Boesky, NY. Opening Reception: Sat., Feb. 28 – March 28.
Zibiok + Remed – It Hurts, Brooklynite Gallery, NY. Opening Reception: Sat., Feb. 28 – March 22.
Bruno 9li, Lori Field, Tara Lisa Foley, AJ Fosik, Katherine Guillen, Robert Hardgrave, Naoto Hattori, Kristian Kluver & Hiro Kurata – Group Exhibition Part 2, David B. Smith Gallery, Denver. Opening Reception: Sat., Feb. 28 – March 21.
Raymond Pettibon, Daniel Johnston, Ron English, Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo + Gibby Haynes – Rock Paper Scissor, Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica. Opening Reception w/ DJ Shepard Fairey: Sat, Feb. 28 – March 21.
Erik Parker – Crisis Creation, Paul Kasmin, NY. Feb. 26 – March 28.
Ma Jun – Pop Dynasty, Krampf Gallery, NY. Feb. 19 – March 14.
Thursday, February 26th, 2009
TAC Radar :: NY Art Fairs
SCOPE Pavilion, 2008. Image: James Painter Belvin/SCOPE
The Armory Show and its surrounding satellite art fairs open in New York next week. With an enthusiasm for emerging and mid-career artists, we find smaller fairs are often the most interesting. Below is a short-list of galleries on the TAC radar that are exhibiting at the SCOPE, PULSE, Bridge and Fountain fairs.
SCOPE
David B Smith – Josh Keyes, Gregory Euclide
hpgrp Tokyo – Kanako Ohya, Kazuhiro Ito, Miki Kubota, Tadaomi Shibuya, Yasuyoshi Botan
Jonathan Levine – Camille Rose Garcia
Krampf Gallery – Willem Kerseboom Gallery – Ren Zhenyu, Wang Zhijie, Yin Kun, Yoshitomo Nara, Zhang Haiying
Ok Mountain – Anna Krachey, Colin Leipelt, Jesse Greenberg, Okay Mountain Collective
Shooting Gallery – Erik Foss, Greg Gossel, Ron English
PULSE
Mixed Greens – Alessandra Exposito, Kimberley Hart
Morgan Lehman – Alix Smith, Eric Beltz
Richard Heller (also exhibiting at The Armory Show)
BRIDGE
Cinders Gallery
Gallery LJ Beaubourg
McCaig-Welles Gallery
Fountain
Ad-Hoc Art
Glowlab
McCaig-Welles Gallery
Thursday, February 26th, 2009
Win a Swoon, Make a Hippy Happy
To help raise funds for her ambitious new undertaking, Swimming Cities of Serenissima, Swoon is raffling off an original work on wood. All proceeds will go towards realizing this grand vision, comprised of a fleet of hand-made vessels that will set sail on the Adriatic Sea, from Slovenia to Venice, Italy.
Raffle tickets are $30 each, and contestants may purchase multiple entries until March 25th. The winner will be announced March 26th. Go get them here
If you’re not already convinced, take a moment to read this letter from Swoon:
Last year, with a team of about 75 friends, crew, and collaborators, I built a flotilla of rafts out of salvaged bits of New York City. Our precarious floating home traveled 140 miles south along the Hudson River. What left as the refuse of the city’s mega construction returned as six vessels trying to encompass a whole world (the seventh died along the way).
This year, with some of those same vessels, and some new, we begin the second leg of our journey. Our destination? It’s the city whose outrageous countenance, rising straight up out of the ocean like that was a fine sort of thing for a city to do, was our original inspiration. Yes ma’am, we’re headed across the Adriatic Sea toward our first love, Venice.
This year we are a crew of 35, all artists, musicians, crackerjack mechanics, and folks who specialize in big, impossible, ridiculous dreams. We will put on a performance and cobble together a cabinet of wonders. We will, in our form, be working on themes of recycling and reuse, considering the footprint of a human community on the planet, and on issues of climate change. We have not found a solution to floods and sinking cities or where to go next, but we know that it’s important to us to create art and community at the same time as we seek a different relationship to our world.
We are starting in the Karst region of Slovenia (a former forest barren to this day after its large trees were cut for pilings in Venice), and skirting the northern coast of the Adriatic. For fun and a little mischief, we will be crashing the Venice Biennale.
Since we are doing all of this in an otherwise collapsed economy we need lots of help. It’s a big project that we are trying to fund with the help of many small contributions from people who would like to be involved and help us get these crafts afloat — even if you just think we’re cheeky and want to see if we’ll sink. This raffle is just one of the many ways we’re trying to get back on the water.
Thursday, February 26th, 2009
London :: Black Rat Press Print Show
D*Face
In London, Black Rat Press opened their first show of the year with a line-up that including D*Face, Nick Walker, Swoon, Matt Small, Sweettoof, Brian Adam Douglas, Gaia, Lucas Price, Blek Le Rat and Slinkachu. Highlighting the collectability of prints, especially in trying economic times, the exhibition is a strong statement.
Photos courtesy of London-art-scene mainstay and frequent TAC contributor, Romanywg.
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
Poster Boy Slices Again
Just a few weeks after Poster Boy made headlines after being arrested, the subway ad slasher slices again, this time targeting the Museum of Modern Art, who recently launched a major ad campaign, dominating the Atlantic-Pacific subway station in Brooklyn. What is most peculiar is the accomplice who helped Poster Boy pull of the ambitious stunt. New York Magazine reports that Doug Jaeger, the Happy Corp. marketing executive hired to create the advertisments, aided the illusive artist in accomplishing his 2am advertising remix. The pair entered the station in seemingly official MoMA jackets, along with hired models, professional lighting and a photographer, convincing MTA police of their official status.
In an interview with New York, Jaeger shared his reasoning:
“Early on we saw Poster Boy’s work, and we realized it was inevitable that if we did this project, his crew would likely see it as an opportunity….”I don’t know if [MoMA] like for me to be saluting it…but if someone who is getting acclaim as an artist does something to your campaign, does it make it less valuable or more valuable?”
Along with the cynically media-savvy, CBS Outdoor, the ad firm who installed the original campaign, were quick to accuse MoMA of corroboration – a claim the museum is firmly denying.
Images: Doug Jaeger
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
Economy Continues to Batter Museums
As reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Philadelphia Museum of Art announced a 7% staff reduction (comprised of 16 currently held jobs and the elimination of 14 vacant spots), and 5-10% salary cuts for senior personnel. With crucial endowment funds down more than 25%, Chairman, H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest, warned that if “endowment keeps being reduced in value there are going to be further steps taken.
Similar troubles have hit the Detroit Institute of Arts. The Detroit Free Press reports the purge of 63 employees (a 21% reduction of its 301 person staff) and substantial cutbacks in programming. In total the museum will save $6 million from its $34 million yearly budget.
The dismal news has even hit the largest of institutions, arriving at the doorstep of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In a letter posted on the museum’s website (previewed above), Chairman of the Board of Trustees, James R. Houghton, cited a 25% decrease in endowment funds (which provide 30% of operational costs) since June 2008 and announced an all-out hiring freeze and the permanent closure of fifteen satellite museum shops around the country. In addition, Houghton warns of the inevitable future, stating the Met “has also launched a thorough assessment of all of its publications, exhibition programs, and administrative services in a determined effort to reduce costs. Inevitably, there will be additional actions to come.”
Added to an ever inflating list of fiscally troubled institutions, including MOCA, The National Academy, and Rose Art Museum, this news does not bode well for the foreseeable future of public arts.
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
Impostor Dissected Bearbricks
Not Quite…
A new image depicting three colorways of KAWS’ upcoming Dissected Be@rbrick has surfaced on several sites. After minimal scrutiny we believe the three figures picured are not official products, but rather digitally altered hybrids of a Bearbrick (from the look of the grain and shape, a wood one) and original Dissected Companion figure. The actual toy being released (pictured below) is comprised of a standard Bearbrick body and head, as depicted on the OriginalFake website, and will go on sale (only one color for now) in three sizes (1000%, 400%, 100%) at the store on Feb. 28.
The Real Thing. Image via OriginalFake
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
Lackluster Results for Bonhams Urban Art Auction
As anyone with half an ear to the market would have predicted, Bonhams Feb. 24th Urban Art Auction fizzled to a close. Just over 60% of the 78 pieces offered sold, many failing to reach original estimates. A quarter of all lots were comprised of Banksy works, with 65% (13 out of 20) finding buyers. The sale further affirms what many members have been talking about over on TACforum for some time – the graffiti/street/urban art market has long been in need of correction, and mass speculation has finally run its course. Clearly collectors are approaching purchases with much more scrutiny and perhaps we are finally seeing the over-hyped junk of the past few years get what was inevitably coming its way.
Check the rest of the results here.
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
Iconoclast LA Pop-Up Shop
Iconoclast Editions has just opened the doors to a pop-up shop in Los Angeles, open through April 11th. The temporary store features prints, books, and other editions by a wide list of artists including Barry McGee, Ryan McGinley, Chris Johanson, Raymond Pettibon, Todd James, Os Gemeos, Thomas Campell, Steve Powers, Shepard Fairey, Evan Hecox, Ari Marcopoulos, Geoff McFetridge, Mike Mills, Ed Templeton, Clare Rojas and many many more.
It seems Iconoclast is branching out from its most notable previous association with Beautiful Losers, and establishing an identity unto themselves with the recent release of several new editions by a wider group of artists, including David Ellis, Neil Farber and Jimmy Baker.
The Iconoclast Pop Up Shop is located at 451 N. Fairfax, Los Angeles, CA, 90036. The store can be reached till April 11th at (323) 658-8522 or via email at information@iconoclastusa.com
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
Brendan Monroe Book Release
TAC is happy to report the release of Brendan Monroe’s first monograph, published by our friends at Paper Museum Press. The 176 pg. soft cover edition of 2000 includes a fold-out poster dust jacket. The first 30 copies ordered off Brendan’s website will arrive signed, or wait for the special signed and numbered boxed edition, which will include a print and additional zine, limited to 55 copies and due out in March via Park Life.
Click through for a look inside… Read the rest of this entry »