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Archive for the 'Events' Category

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

Barney + Peyton Collaboration Surfaces

Blood of Two, the highly secretive collaboration between Matthew Barney and Elizabeth Peyton, was unveiled this past Tuesday as part of the inauguration of Deste Foundation’s Slaughterouse, a new satellite exhibit space located on the Greek island of Hydra. At dawn, a largely notable crowd gathered seaside and watched as local fishermen pulled a glass sarcophagus containing Barney and Peyton’s artifacts from the water, and slowly ushered it up the cliffs to its final resting place within the former slaughterhouse. As expected of Barney, the rest of the ceremony was drenched in cryptic symbolism, including a dead shark and goat herders. Check out The Moment for the full recap.

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

Venice Biennale Roundup

Image: TheArtCollectors/Jeff Newman

With opening week of the 53rd Venice Biennale in full swing, there’s no lack of shortlists and reviews to keep you busy.  Planning a trip between now and November 22? We’ve done the sifting for you – Here’s some reading to get you on the inside track:

Francesco Bonami, director of the 2003 Venice Biennale and curator for the next Whitney Biennial served as guest writer for the New York Times’ The Moment blog last week. Get his inside view of the event here

The NY Times also informs us about Pop Minimalist, John Wesley’s, mammoth retrospective, organized by the Prada Foundation, which runs till Oct. 4th in conjunction with the Biennale. Read on

Artinfo is on the ground and tweeting throughout the opening week, while our friends over at Art Observed caught the early look and posted regular updates during preview weekend. Check them out here

The Guardian’s resident art critic, Adrian Searle gives a video tour of some highlights as well as a more comprehensive and academic review here, or check out the paper’s blog here for a quick don’t-miss list.

The London Times and The Independent also served up overviews.

And for the street art enthusaists, Vandalog has posted a ton of images of the arrival of Swoon’s Swimming Cities in Venice, while Shepard Fairey has kept fans updated on his decoration of the city here and here

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

Serennisima Final Performances + Benefit

Swimming Cities of Serenissima, Swoon’s most recent traveling art armada, has nearly completed its voyage along the Adriatic, arriving at its final destination in Venice. Tomorrow, June 4, the crew will launch three days of Clutches of a Cuckoo, a variety show of sorts, including music from the band Dark, Dark, Dark and live theater performances. Back in New York, Honey Space will hold a silent auction and raffle benefit on Thursday, June 4, to help raise much needed funds for the project. 

For more info on the project, check out our previous coverage of Swimming Cities here

Friday, April 24th, 2009

TACfocus :: FAUST at Grand Palais Tag Exhibit

Our friend FAUST sent over this image of his contribution to T.A.G., on view through April 26 at the Grand Palais, Paris (yes, the same venue for Christie’s recent Yves St. Laurent auction). For the exhibit, 150 internationally know graffiti artists were commissioned to create dyptichs depicting their tag name and their interpretation of “love”.  Here’s what FAUST had to say about his piece. “I depicted a classic redbird train overlooking the city skyline to represent my love for the city but also a nostalgia for the New York that no longer exists.” Nice job FAUST – its a pleasure to see such heavy graf skills combined with fine art training. Click image for a larger view. A few more pics after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

Kidrobot’s Paul Budnitz @ Phillips

Phillips de Pury bravely goes where no one has gone before. The high-end auction house is holding another offering of ‘toys’ this Saturday@Phillips. The historic listings include a full set of KAWS 1999 Companions. The discussion at Phillips entitled ‘De-mystifying New Art Forms’ will be a formal address of this new sector in contemporary art.

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

KRUNK Updates on Dubai’s “Hadiith” Exhibition

KRUNK updates us via SlamxHype on the developments in Dubai’s “Hadiith”: Click here for the latest from Stash. Click here on the latest from Futura. A release will drop soon on the magnificent canvas and baseball-bat installations by Phil Frost, the other artist in the legendary trio contributing to the show in the exotic Middle Eastern playground for the wealthy. “Hadiith”, KRUNK’s second curatorial tour de force, is presented at Cuadro Fine Art. Cuadro will shortly become the city’s first museum of contemporary art, declared by the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates. Keeping its name when the evolution takes place, Cuadro will be allowed to live up to its full potential, as the space is nothing less than spectacular and is situated in the heart of the powerful Dubai Financial District.

Friday, March 13th, 2009

TACfocus :: SCOPE Picks

Josh Keyes at David B. Smith Gallery

SCOPE wins our pick for the best overall collection of galleries and artists on view at the numerous art fairs in New York last weekend. Read on for the full recap, click pics for larger views. Read the rest of this entry »

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

TACfocus :: Camille Rose Garcia – SCOPE Art Fair

Amidst the clutter of the SCOPE Art Fair, Jonathan LeVine Gallery presented a solo installation by Camille Rose Garcia, including new paintings drawings, editioned plush dolls (hand crafted by the artist’s toy company PITCO), and custom wallpaper. Like what you see? – Contact the gallery as there seems to be works still available, from moderately priced small drawings to large-scale paintings.

Click for picks… Read the rest of this entry »

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

TACfocus :: Pulse Picks

Martin Wittfooth at Copro Nason

Here’s our winners from the Pulse Art Fair.

Mogan Lehman presented a successful solo exhibit of recent graphite works by Eric Beltz, set against a backdrop of the artist’s newly editioned wallpaper ($1,200 will get you a roll). We’ve been vocal about Beltz for some time, and it looks as if some major institutions have caught on. Word is one prominent NY museum was amongst the several buyers who snatched up these stand-out gems.

Eric Beltz

Richard Heller, as always, continued to display a talented group of younger illustrative artists including Brendan Monroe, alongside a generous helping from the gallerist’s treasure chest of early Marcel Dzama drawings. Unfortunately some of what we saw here seemed like gallery show leftovers, which later reappeared at our visit to Heller’s booth at the Armory Show, where pockets were undoubtedly flowing a bit more freely.

Copro Nason pulled out some long celebrated heavyweights in their Old School Vs. New School display, including R. Crumb, Rick Griffin, and Robert Williams‘ seminal Appetite for Destruction (which also made an appearance with another gallery at Scope Miami this past December),  juxtaposed against recent works by Ron English, Travis Louie, Laurie Lipton and others. Here, we came across the single most inspiring piece of the entire fair – an ambitious oil painting executed by emerging NY based artist, Martin Wittfooth. Take note.

Additional nods go to Rosamund Felsen Gallery’s display of paintings by Gegam Kacherian, an Armenian trained artist based in Los Angeles, and Al Farrow’s Synagogue sculptures, constructed from gun parts and ammunition, on display at Catherine Clark Gallery.

Read on for our photo recap, click images for larger views. Read the rest of this entry »

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

TACfocus :: Galerie L.J. – Bridge Art Fair

AJ Fosik

Wandering the narrow corridor of bland or just plain bad art that was the Bridge Art Fair, we were saved by Paris’ Galerie L.J. (formerly L.J. Beaubourg), and their international collection of street-inspired artists, including Swoon, A.J. Fosik, Brendan Monroe, Fafi, Koralie, Supakitch, and Alëxone. With such a distinctive showing, the gallery clearly would have been more at home at Pulse or Scope. In fact, many of L.J.’s artists are represented stateside by galleries exhibiting at those fairs, as well as at the Armory Show. Read the rest of this entry »