Art History Exposed: Ode to Joy The Bruce High Quality Foundation’s “Ode to Joy” at the Brooklyn Museum, through September 22, is not only high quality, but droll. Smart Art returns. We are so tired of ego-tripping nonentities pretending to be artists. We are so tired of art fairs and art investments. So tired of curators sucking up to galleries and the foundations established in behalf of dead artists….Well, … [Read more...]
Nude Descending a Bookcase: New Duchamp Interviews
Love in the Afternoon To understand contemporary art you must mis-understand Marcel Duchamp. The readymade is the template for all things postmodern. But how do you choose which store-bought object to sign? The broken and mended Bride Stripped Bare by Bachelors, Even is the clue to the real meaning of the readymades. The readymades, … [Read more...]
Why Artists Fail: Sherrie Levine and Maurizio Cattelan
Surely we all agree that artists are the center of art, if not the art world. In order to get more artworks out of them, we try to be kind and as far as possible let them call the shots. High hopes are endemic. Nevertheless, sometimes gallerists, curators, and critics are more talented than the artists they serve. When an artist verges on megalomania, failure is likely. Even Picasso listened to gallerists, curators, and critics. Maybe not enough, but … [Read more...]
De Kooning Revived: Anger, Amour, Anxiety
Willem de Kooning’s difficult masterpieces, recently so unfashionable, can now be seen with new eyes. De Kooning’s work for decades was virtually blacklisted by Greenbergian formalists, but MoMA makes amends with a well-chosen and complex survey. “Willem de Kooning, A Retrospective” at MoMA to January 9 is the must-see of the fall season. Jackson Pollock was great, but so was de Kooning, and we are here reminded why. Of course, the single minded cannot allow anything but a single line. … [Read more...]
GAGOSIAN MAD AVE CLOSES. AND OTHER SHUTDOWNS…DALLAS, SPAIN
ARTOPIAnews GAG SHOP MAD AVE VENUE SHUTTERED NOT the gallery, for all you fans of schadenfreude; only the books, trinkets, and art souvenir outlet. Can the landlords now command a higher rent? LINK. Story and image, thanks to artnet.com NIEMEYER MUSEUM CURTAINS AFTER 62 DAYS! 103-year old master-architect Oscar Niemeyer, who designed Brasilia, must be in shock; his new museum in Spain just opened..... and then, after 62 days, closed. … [Read more...]
NOT ONE ARTIST GETS GENIUS AWARD THIS YEAR!
ARTOPIAnews Not One Artist Awarded MacArthur This Year. Shame, shame. This is not to say the recipients are unworthy. But why nominate or evaluate artist candidates if the results are so insulting? For the record, you can’t apply and all nominators, evaluators, and juries are top secret and, therefore, unaccountable. Salvation Army Buys Museum Will … [Read more...]
Not Just the Whitney Biennial
Theaster Gates: Cosmology of Yard, 2010 Beyond the Moat No fancy title. Only 55 artists, all American. A few midcareer artists. More than half of them female. You win some, you lose some. Reading the reviews, you would think "2010," the Whitney Biennial, was a revolution of some kind. Please. Except for the long-demanded (but apparently unplanned) increase in the number of women, it is back to square one, save a single exception. With more and more … [Read more...]
Ken Friedman: Fluxus Prodigy
Refluxions A recent exhibition at the Stendhal Gallery in Chelsea gave pause for thought. And another chance to play catch-up with Fluxus, during what might be a Neo-Fluxus period. Solidified just before Conceptual Art per se, Fluxus was truly international. To the accusation that Fluxus is just Dada in sheep's clothing, Fluxians would reply that unlike Dada, their religion accentuates the positive rather than the negative. Fluxus is often humorous, but humor in art is no laughing … [Read more...]
Governors Island: New Haunts for Art
The Plot Site-specific art has subjects. Content needs to be parsed. In the best examples, the artworks initiate a kind of dialogue between place and viewers, illuminating where we are. Dreary forms of personal expression are at least once removed. Furthermore, it gets art out of galleries, museums and penthouses. What I have never said before is that site-specific art harkens back to a time before easel paintings and the tchotchkas and … [Read more...]
On Kawara: Just in Time
Kawara Has Not Dated Who would have thought that On Kawara would now look like a major artist? His work has a certain Dada purity. One of the things Kawara does, has done, and continues to do - since Jan. 4, 1966 -- is paint the date wherever he is, in white on a monochromatic ground. Of course, it gets more complicated. The date is not painted every single day. Furthermore, some days he paints the date two or three times. I assume that whoever buys a date painting is … [Read more...]