dramatic update of the day.

you are following me on twitter, right? that's where i let my hair down and spill all the art beans! i even include you in on my romantic on-again/off-again relationship with contemporary art...mmm...steamy!

death and decoration

"...No one (we assume, although actually it's questionable -- it might really be everyone) wants paintings just to be commodity objects. We want them to have significance and meaning. We have got ourselves into a wrong mindset where we think if there aren't obvious meanings then there isn't any meaning at all. Or if there is, it's not for us. We ask for all sorts of additions and backups. We can't accept visual meaning or formal meaning as enough. We believe it's decoration only -- we're right to think "decorative" is somehow wrong. It can be supremely right but in the ordinary usage of the word it's wrong. The decorative meaning of Rothko, for example, is powerful: he really could decorate a room...
***
But death is not really a runner nowadays for art.
***
The market works out what will sell. Out of an initially earnest bubbling up of contents from the artistic cutting edge of the 1970s emerges popular content obsessions like death and madness, which hark back to romanticism -- not because we're getting more sincere and poetic but because being so unhinged from anything meaningful or important we'll sample anything temporarily for fun.
***
If we stop and reflect for a moment, we're still a bit baffled: we can't see clearly what the connection was between art-world interest in deconstruction and the rise of fair ground meaning or lurid or fake meaning. One minute we were busy learning that we are constructs and then in the blink of an eye it turned out any old unthinking lunges at identity would do. The lesson the art market drew was that you could make money from identity and diversity..." /// PUT DOWNS AND SUCK UPS: MATTHEW COLLINGS' WEEKLY VENTINGS ABOUT THE ART WORLD NO 23: PAINTING AND MEANING, saatchi-blog

just read it, OK

Eight Fallacies About Contemporary Art /// The L Magazine

don't be soooo depressed

...As many undergraduates fret about graduation, at least one subculture of students in the expensive college landscape is exuding a decidedly morose state of mind: art students. Like many undergrads seeking specialized humanities degrees, student artists wonder what viable place they can occupy in a tightening economy, which now is luring young people into more stable careers in government, the sciences, health care or consulting...
***
Richard Freeman, a Harvard professor and National Bureau of Economic Research director, said young artists can take comfort: Young bankers are almost on par with them in choosing risky careers. Freeman, though, is hopeful for humanities majors. "If you think of a place like McKinsey consulting, and you come with an art degree, they may prefer you because they're looking for creative thinkers," he said...
***
...And some offer positions that seem to exploit young people's desperation to gain a foothold in a creative industry. "The one thing I am dealing with is that paid internships are not paid anymore," Ammadi said. "Employers ask, 'Can we get students to volunteer?'...
***
In one of her recent photo classes, Nizborski was showing classmates and the professors a project titled "Middle American Recession," a series of images of her sister, her sister's husband and their three kids in Missouri. Nizborski's sister works part time and the brother-in-law had been forced to cut back his weekly hours at a job at a concrete plant. Nizborski said her photo subjects seemed a bit baffled by her path. "They were like, 'What do you go to grad school for?'"///Art Students' Predicament: Special Skills but Limited Prospects, Ian Shapira/// Washington Post

whatcha gonna do with all that art you made

"...Something much more subtle than a classic boom-bust cycle is going on. The art world is punishing the overly prolific, those artists who responded (in retrospect, perhaps too hastily) to stiff demand by upping supply. “There’s a winnowing,” says artnet.com critic Charlie Finch. Who was especially productive before the recession hit? Murakami and Hirst, still both under 50, get singled out by critics, as do Cecily Brown, Dana Schutz, and a host of contemporary Chinese artists. Artists whose work is plentiful or sells in editions—including many photographers—are now seeing softer numbers than those for painters like John Currin..." ///Alexandra Peers, Little Warhols; NY Mag

Twitter report: "just saw" _______ artist

AndrewGauthier: Standing behind Chuck Close at the Whole Foods meat counter is weird.

MissPainterly: Saw Tracy Emin today, Cavendish Sq. Ive made huge life decisions on the back of her words, so much to say to her,but I walked on by & smiled

smiledannapamela: Just met dash snow and his baby mama.

jcapDesign: Saw Dash Snow and Terry Richardson, just handing out, in Nolita on Saturday afternoon.

Headline of the Day: What's the point of art criticism?

What is the point of art criticism?
It's easy to dismiss it as trivial entertainment, but today's culture of gallery obsession and mediocre art being talked up by fools makes art criticism more crucial than ever
–jonathan jones blog/guardian

nice flashy title but fluffy, obvious information (read the headline, skim to the bottom and then think for yourself.) what really gets me going is when "critics" act only as press agents: insert gallery name here, describe show here and make one vague statement about the overall direction here. with the old breed of ink-stained pseudo-scholars in the hole (papers/mags lay off art writers first, obviously) and a vast world of bloggers, i have yet to find a trustworthy, reliable batch of emerging critics. even the (in)famous jerry saltz posed the same question on his facebook page, asking who you read for art criticism, getting a number of results, all of whom i believe to still be hit or miss. maybe blame it on too much information/art/news out there to really focus, or is it just tepid reviewing? i think there is uncharted territory for criticism coming - if art can grow so too can the way we write about it.

can't a farming college get an art break?

Construction of Eli Broad's new museum in Michigan pushed back

I didn't know that MSU's art program could tell the difference between a tube of paint and a beer can? (just a little Michigan college humor, kids)

Broad went to MSU for undergrad; I did not know that, seeing as his name is plastered everywhere here in LA. Can't MI suck a little more arts money from him? Come on MI, put on a little more lipstick and hike that skirt up, now that the State ain't taking you out for corndogs anymore.

TRYHARDER featured in gus23

see feature:
April Art Attack! Must Read Blog: TRYHARDER

“PLEASE NEW MUSEUM SHOW MY WORK”

I think they should have just stuck with the banner as their art....STORY HERE via C-monster

thoughts about museums in the news

Why museums have become our home from home : People are visiting our galleries and museums at a startling rate. Is it the cafés, the absence of swearing... maybe even the art? /// Hugo Rifkind, The Times UK

"...So, here's theory No1: museum numbers are up, because, quite suddenly, museums aren't much like museums.
*
This is what you might call the “dumbing up” theory. In other words, museum numbers are up because people are getting cleverer. (opposite to the dumbing down theory)
*
That brings me to theory No3. Museum numbers are up because museums are safe. “They attract only a certain type of person, let's face it,” says Margaret Child, 79, from Essex, visiting the National with a group of older ladies and then heading off to see Sunset Boulevard: “In any museum, do you ever hear the F-word?
*
Free entry has a huge amount to do with this. That should probably be Theory 4, the credit-crunch theory.
*
People are flocking to museums because museums are the best public space we have..."

in the news

$18 for Art Institute?
ADMISSION MAY JUMP 50% | Less than three years ago, entry was free
(suntimes)
By Dave Newbart
"Like Edvard Munch's famous work now featured at the Art Institute of Chicago, the museum's proposed admission fees might make you want to scream. The institute is asking the Chicago Park District Board to approve a 50 percent increase in the admission price -- from $12 to $18 -- at its meeting today. Under the plan, students and seniors would see prices rise from $7 to $12, a 71 percent increase..."

it's herrrrrreeeee....

from ARTNET:
ART PERFORMANCE DEBUTS ON FACEBOOK
Performance art has definitely entered its 2.0 phase. Facebook, the increasingly popular online social-networking tool, is now the site for a day-long online performance by Boston artist Rachel Perry Welty. Called Rachel Is, the performance takes place via Facebook’s signature "status bar," which Facebook users routinely fill in to mark their mood, activity or general presence. Welty promises to update her status every minute for about 16 hours, from the time she gets up in the morning till she goes to sleep at night. "My hope is to raise questions about narcissism, voyeurism, privacy, identity and authority in a technological world," she writes. To view the performance, however, computer-savvy art-lovers have to join Facebook and request to become one of Welty’s friends -- which suggests that at least part of the artist’s activities will be Facebook "housekeeping."

guess who wants to learn to paint...

"...'You know, in all my years of interviews, no one has asked me about my artistic skills,' he said, excitedly, still clutching our hand. (He held it for like a MINUTE. We died.) 'They saved all my doodles from the White House. I do know that,' he added. 'I used to doodle during all the White House meetings and someone thought they were worth saving. Maybe they weren’t bad!...'"
NY mag /daily intel

new levels of art market delusion

"...Unfortunately, most of what I’ve been hearing has been only a slight variation of the above 'pretzel logic.' It’s kind of like someone who has their home on the market and refuses to adjust his price to the new reality. The seller has an emotional attachment to his property, leading him to believe that his home is different. It hasn’t gone down in value because it’s such a beautiful house, while his neighbors’ homes have declined in price because they’re not as nice as his..." THE PRICING ISSUE by Richard Polsky

TRYHARDER in Culture Monster/LA Times

Big thanks to Christopher Knight, of the LA Times, for adding TRYHARDER to his art blogroll favorites!

.....hmmmm could I be the smart snark or sociability...I'll take it!

I still enjoyed this review too. ha

extra extra

Art Fag City has a juicy list of the Worst of the Web 2008. Thank goodness someone else points out the disaster of Deitch's musical website. ///ArtFagCity

The New Factory: In Brooklyn, an Industrial Artists’ Colony ///NYmag

Art Hoax Unites Europe in Displeasure - could there be a better
headline? ///NY Times

The New Art Form: If Jackson Pollock Were a Gamer ///NYmag

The White House Reimagined - ...What if the White House, the ultimate architectural symbol of political power, were to be designed today?...///NY Times

Time for a cull in the art world - The art world is plunging, along with the rest of the economy. Hooray /// Times Online

art blogger giving me ideas...

Congratulations to (Paddy) Art Fag City for making her 2008 fundraising goal!

She managed to raise over $7,600 of contributions for her single efforts running her supreme art site.

Art Fag City

tate britain's green tree

Make Your Own Xmas source and more info HERE

"...This year's creation by Bob & Roberta Smith has an ecological and recycling theme. Called "Make Your Own Xmas", it's big, ramshackle wooden structure made of recycled materials, including sandwich boards, tape, signs and an oil drum. Eight bicycles of various sizes have been fixed to stands around the "trunk" (bottom), each holding a generator that is connected to a set of light bulbs that decorate the tree. When happy children and chuckling adults hop on the bikes and pedal hard, the lights go on..."

tate britain

red light specials /// art miami

...It’s Kmart special time at Art Basel Miami and its satellite fairs. With collectors being “outright ruthless” in their negotiating, complains one dealer sourly, and sellers in a mood to comply, it’s all about markdowns and modest expectations. Art worlders who believe “Go big or go home” didn’t come this year...At many booths, $30,000 seems to be a magic number, as if all the art dealers in the world had met secretly at Sant Ambroeus to decide that would be the starting price point of the year for wealthy collectors... And Miami pioneer art dealer Diana Lowenstein, who opened twenty years ago, this year is offering three exhibitions, one featuring all artworks priced at $999 — her gallery was packed.

Alexandra Peers/Vulture