Coyne of the Realm At first one might not know what to make of the mass of wax ("specially formulated," at that) and "human and horse hair, ribbons, pigments, black spray paint, fabricated rubber, wire tree branches, curly willow, chicken wire fencing, wire, acrylic primer, silk flowers, bows, acetate ribbons, wire, feathers, plywood, metal hardware, pearl-headed hat pins, and tassels." … [Read more...]

Bruce Conner: Luke                             Not Lukewarm You get beautiful blurred images, motion streaks, bare-chested male "zombies" shoveling dirt, moody music, behind-the-scenes views of a movie scene; nearly Muybridge-ian, almost dancelike motion-analysis of lumbering extras, key grips, gaffers, best boys, and script girls in jagged slow-motion; … [Read more...]

                A Prison for Art I have always found the Barnes Foundation just a bit too hard to get to and some of its rules strange. There's not enough parking. You have to pay in advance by credit card when you book and there are no cancellation refunds. With your online confirmation, you will learn: All coats and similar bulky garments, which do not fit flush against the body, must be checked in the Coat Check … [Read more...]

                                     Museums Without Boards? Although Artopia is still on vacation, the following items of interest in regard to museums are offered for your perusal: #1. If you want a humorous, sarcastic take on art museums, then The Art Museum Activity Book by The Guerrilla Girls, published by Printed … [Read more...]

Artopia on holiday until Monday, January 3, 2005. … [Read more...]

                     Jeff Koons, Lifeboat, 1985     Whatever Happened to the East Village? 1960-62 I don't just mean the neighborhood, although I first lived there on Avenue D and 8th Street when it was still called the Lower East Side (or as someone tried to re-christen it, the Loser East Side or the Looser East Side), when there were jazz bars like Slug's and you could rent a … [Read more...]

The Other Martha ... Martha Rosler, as opposed to Martha Stewart. The link is the home. For one Martha, the home -- and now perhaps the jailhouse -- is the theater of sales; for the other Martha, the home itself is a sign in the battleground of signs. A new survey of Rosler's telling photomontages at Gorney Bravin + Lee (534 West 26th St., to Jan. 8) presents generous samples of two of her classic sequences: one called "Beauty Knows No Pain or Body Beautiful" (1965-04) and the other "Bringing … [Read more...]

The Death of James Lee Byars If you were to design your own memorial, what would it be? It is not clear if James Lee Byars (1932-1997) meant The Death of James Lee Byars as a memorial, but it now functions as one, the way the Ana Mendieta silhoueta of lit candles placed at the end point of her Whitney exhibition earlier this year did. The Death and a few other Byars works are now at the Whitney (945 Madison Ave. at 75th St., to March 5). For those interested in the Dada/Fluxus wing of art or … [Read more...]

        Six Ways of Looking at the New MoMA MoMA from 54th Street 1. Cash-Flow A former director of a nonprofit art institution might look at the newly expanded MoMA -- Super-MoMA, MoMA IV, and MoMA Redux -- in a particular way. He or she would see income-generating party spaces. Earned income equals cash-flow solutions. (How the Museum of Modern Art became The Modern and then MoMA is another story. Branding is all. For a more friendly tag, I suggest the name … [Read more...]

Daniel Rothbart, Meditation/Mediation (Camels, Wadi Shlomo, Israel) Camels Munching and the Mississippi Passing By In a Roman backyard near a big tree, a man singing softly to himself walks around a circle of twelve cast-aluminum bowls of various sizes; he stops, kneels down and sings into the largest bowl; then he gets up and taps it with an aluminum gong-striker that looks like a giant sex-toy. The man is the artist Lucio Pozzi. An anonymous "Algerian Entertainer" in an Israeli hotel is seen … [Read more...]