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Greg Allen gives us the scoop on how big art auctions work. “People come to me and want to bid with a signal that they don’t want anyone else to see. He may hold his pencil in his mouth, or say, ‘I’m bidding as long as I have my legs crossed.’ And I’ve got their number, and they never show a paddle. That’s the way it’s done.”
Genealogy of Influence: “a graph of biographical entries at Wikipedia with connections denoting creative influence between philosophers, social scientists, writers, artists, scientists, mathematicians”. Reminds me peripherally of Simon Patterson’s The Great Bear (a print of which is hanging behind me right now).
Video of artist Stephen Wiltshire drawing a huge panorama of Rome entirely from memory. (via nickbaum)
Update: Video of Withshire drawing Tokyo from memory. (thx, eric)
Extreme trees planted and shaped by arborsculptor Richard Reames.
A list of 20 works of art you need to see before you die. They want to make a list of 50…suggest your favorites in the comments.
Interview with Cory Arcangel about his new show at Team Gallery. “I made the conscious decision that the viewer shouldn’t have to understand it; it should stand on its own and be beautiful. Anyone can have an art moment with my work, regardless of their technical knowledge.”
An artist diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, William Utermohlen dealt with his illness by painting self portraits. (thx, ajit)
Artist Liz Cohen fixes up old cars and then photographs herself with them as a bikini model. Here’s a recent article on Cohen’s work in the Phoenix New Times and an older article from Wired. (via art fag city)
Let’s say, like Steve Wynn, you’ve punched a hole in your Picasso. Here’s how to fix it.
Hasan Elahi ran into some trouble with the FBI in 2002 (they thought he was a terrorist) and ever since, he’s been voluntarily tracking his movements and putting the whole thing online: photos of meals, photos of toilets used, airports flown out of, credit card receipts, etc. His goal is to flood the market with information, so it devalues the information that the authorities have on him.
The Brian Eno/Will Wright session kicked things off quite well at PopTech. Lots of interesting stuff to say about this one, but I quickly wanted to highlight two things that Eno and Wright said independently in their presentations. Eno:
Art is created by artists so that the viewer has the opportunity to create something.
Later, Wright said in relation to games:
The real game is constructed in the player’s head.
Eno started his presentation by wondering about a overall system for describing culture, from high to low. He and Wright may be onto something here in that respect.
77 Million Paintings, a generative artwork by Brian Eno. “Work that continues to create itself in your absence.”
Netlag: infovisualization of the world made of exterior web cams over time. So as the day goes on, you can see Europe light up, then the eastern seaboard of the US, then the western US, and so on.
Onstage at PopTech just now, Brian Eno said that a musical piece by Steven Reich had a huge influence on how he thought about art. He said that Reich’s piece showed him that:
1. You don’t need much.
2. The composer’s role is to set up a system and then let it go.
3. The true composer is actually in the listener’s brain.
I’d never heard of Reich, but the name sounded familiar when Eno mentioned it. I realized I’d seen it yesterday when reading about Cory Arcangel’s show at Team Gallery in reference to his piece, Sweet 16:
Cory applied American avant-garde composer Steven Reich’s concept of phasing to the guitar intro of Guns and Roses’ track Sweet Child O’Mine. Rather than use instruments, Cory took the same two clips from the song’s music video and shortened one clip by a single note. As the videos loop, the two intros grow farther apart until they are back in sync.
He’s veered away from video games, but Cory’s new work is looking really interesting these days.
Thoughtful review of the Picasso and American Art show currently on at the Whitney.
Update: Nora Ephron was present at the accidental violation of Ms. Marie-Therese Walter by Wynn and tells her story on Huffington Post. (via zach)
A collection of artists each picked a page from The Pat Robertson and Friends Coloring Book and “colored” them in. (thx, gk)
Painting and painting and repainting art works on a wall for a week. (Make your own timelapse movies with Gawker.)
Facadeprinter is a paint gun that prints images on the wall from 20 feet away. See also the opening credits of the A-Team.
Photographs of female anatomy for artists, just in case you don’t have the resources to hire live nude models. Male anatomy photos available here. NSFW.
Museum camouflage photographs by Harvey Opgenorth. (via nick baum)
Chris Spurgeon reports on an “astonishing art installation” going on right now in London called Bridge by Michael Cross. It’s a flooded church with carefully placed stones that let you walk on water across the room.
“From September 27th - October 21 the Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators will host ‘30 Years of Fantagraphics,’ a retrospective art exhibition of over 100 pieces of original art published by the Seattle underground giant.” Artists in the exhibition include Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, and Robert Crumb.
If you asked me today to choose a medium in which to focus my future artistic energies, I’d have to go with the photo can. After finding this great Photojojo tutorial yesterday on using tin cans and glass jars as photo frames, I selected three recent pictures I’d taken and made this can triptych:
So cool! And simple too. I didn’t follow Photojojo’s directions exactly and I have a few observations to offer for those looking to play around with this:
Good luck!
Barnaby Furnas’ “flood” paintings are quite impressive in person…check them out at the Boesky Gallery in Chelsea through Oct 18. Their sheer size and the degree to which their creation must have been out of the artist’s control is intriguing.
Tough art history quiz: who did ths painting…an elephant, an artist, or a preschooler? I play a similar game when I go to contemporary art museums: art or fire extinguisher? (via cyn-c)
Photos of a piece by artist Sharon Baker, a full-sized replica of herself made of dough and then baked. At the show she cut it up and served herself to guests. (An obvious move with a name like Baker.)
On TV tonight: Ric Burns documentary on Andy Warhol. Part 2 tomorrow night.
Update: NY Times piece on the Warhol documentary.
Update: The Nation has some thoughts on the doc as well.
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