Coming soon at Dia

Artists on Artists Lecture: Daniel Lefcourt on Imi Knoebel

Monday, September 13, 2010, 6:30pm

Dia:Chelsea
535 West 22nd Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10011
212 989 5566 www.diaart.org

Great quote from the Hemphill press release…

In recent years, the contemporary art audience has often appeared more interested in opening receptions and art parties than in looking at art. But, of course, some parties are more meaningful than others…

This is from the press release for upcoming Renee Stout show at Hemphill. (in Washington DC from September 11 – October 30)

Interesting find at the bookstore

I was at that used bookstore on fourth avenue (accross from Utrecht) this weekend and bought an older Barnett Newman book. I know Newman is not everyone’s cup of tea – but he works for me. That said – make no mistake he was not the most gifted painter – at times his work is downright clumsy possibly brutally done. However the images he created and more importantly the volume and space he is able to present is second to none.

Back to my story, I bought a copy of the Thomas Hess book from 1969 and tucked inside is the checklist from his show of 1969 at Knoedler Gallery (photo above). Interesting enough it shows the provenance of various artworks – no price list though. It’s an interesting document of no real value but interesting none the less.

Fontana Mix (short summer edition)

Dia Beacon News

Susan Sayre Batton has been appointed managing director of Dia:Beacon. Batton will succeed Steven Evans, who left Dia in July to become the executive director and curator of the Linda Pace Foundation in San Antonio, Texas.

John Connelly to close his gallery…

and will become director of the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation.

Accessories To An Artwork, an exhibition by Peter Saville.

Saville’s “Accessories To An Artwork” provides a framework for a collaborative exhibition. It is an artwork which transfers the power of curatorial decision-making to others, namely the individual artists in the exhibition, but also to the individual collector. Saville once observed that, ‘it all looks like art to me now.’

This artwork recognizes that cultural authority is an increasingly do-it-yourself enterprise; the accessory is an accessory for the individual who has chosen to “curate” the world for him – or herself. By placing something atop the accessory one makes a statement as to what is worth looking at.

Peter Saville is famous for the design (and visual brand) of Factory Records. I’ve discussed this more than once on this blog. So I won’t bother you with a recap.

Peter Saville: Accessories To An Artwork

Glenn Horowitz Bookseller
87 Newtown Lane
East Hampton, NY 11937

August 14th – September 26th, 2010

An Open Call for Sound Artists in North Brooklyn

Deadline: Monday, August 30, 2010

The North Brooklyn Public Art Coalition (NbPac) is pleased to announce an open call for Brooklyn–based artists to propose projects for an upcoming sound installation.

Artists are invited to submit proposals through August 30, 2010.  The selected artist will be notified on September 15, 2010.

For more information: http://nbpac.wordpress.com/

Things always have a way of working out…

Broad Museum Could Get Millions Via Developers

The Los Angeles financier Eli Broad may get millions of dollars back on the $100 million museum he is planning to build as part of the Grand Avenue Project, a development of condominiums, cultural sites, stores, offices, and a hotel in downtown Los Angeles, reports Carol Vogel for the New York Times via the Los Angeles Times.

A deal approved last month by the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles calls for Broad’s museum to receive millions of dollars as the Grand Avenue Project moves forward. The redevelopment agency requires developers––in this case Related Companies––to pay one percent of their project’s design and construction costs to create public artworks or to support cultural sites in the neighborhood where they build. The deal, which was approved on July 15, includes the Broad Collection at Grand Avenue and Second Street as the cultural facility that will fulfill a large amount of Related Company’s percent-for-art obligation.

If the Grand Avenue Project costs its estimated $3 billion, the one percent requirement would generate $30 million for arts and culture and Broad’s museum would receive about a third of that under the plan approved last month.

Via Artforum.com

James Rosenquist Cancels Rose Art Museum Show

James Rosenquist has pulled out of his planned September show at Brandeis University’s Rose Art Museum, according to Geoff Edgers in the Boston Globe, but the famed pop artist said that his decision has nothing to do with the controversy swirling around the museum’s future.

Rosenquist said that complications in the aftermath of a fire last year, which destroyed his Florida home and studio, about eighteen-million-dollars’ worth of art and personal items, have made it too difficult for him to participate in the exhibition, which was to have opened September 22 featuring some of his massive paintings, along with other works.

Exile on Main Street

There are at the end of the day two kinds of music people. (by this I mean popular music of the rock and roll variety) You either prefer the Beatles or the Rolling Stones.

This really plays to a way you might answer a hundred other questions – but for the next couple of paragraphs were are going to stay with the Beatles and the Stones. You might know that the Rolling Stones best record “Exile on Main Street” has been re-released on it’s 30th birthday and points to a number of things – but to me, most importantly it shows me how much Keith Richards is overlooked as the true genius behind the stones after the death of Brian Jones.

I’ve been listening to the 72 pressing of “Exile” off and on for the last few weeks and the thing that I constantly come back to is the dangerous nature of the underlying themes and sounds that come from this record. It’s big and sprawling, it’s intimate and sensuous. It’s a big fucking mess of a record that feels like America in that “Beat” sense. Robert Frank having done the photography for the release doesn’t hurt too much either.

At the end of the day, it really does feel like a record that your parents would rather you not listen to. I’m not overly concerned about the scene that the music was made in or the whole tax exile thing – since the immediate scene is lost on me all I have is the music. Really that seems to be enough for me. “Exile…” has become a record for me that – only recently – gave me any reason to listen to reconsider the Stones in any other context than a historical one.

The party is obvious, the casualties are inevitable

– Lester Bangs in his initial review of the Rolling Stones “Exile on Main Street”

Extended Play:

Probably the main reason to write this post was to do this list – I find some of these questions to be really interesting ways to understand someone’s thought process when it comes to certain cultural awareness and peccadilloes.

Beatles Vs. The Rolling Stones
Matisse Vs. Picasso
The Clash Vs. the Sex Pistols
Early Frank Stella Vs. Later Frank Stella
Thin Elvis Vs. Fat Elvis
Manchester Vs. London (as far as music goes)
Batman Vs. Superman (comics not movies)
Gretch Vs. Gibson
Eno Vs. Bryan Ferry
Bakersfield sound Vs. Nashville sound (in country music)
Julie Newmar as Catwoman Vs. Eartha Kitt as Catwoman

Any thoughts – I’d love to hear some of yours…

The new card said…

“Consider different fading systems”

Time to do just that. I was reading a bicycle related blog this morning and stumbled over this amazing post. It’s about bike racing – which I did at one time (poorly, I might add).

The subject is lying to yourself.

Both externally as well as internally, I found myself drifting to thinking about how this plays in the art world as well. Maybe I’m the only one seeing things this way. Maybe not, but a really good read just the same. So take a moment and point your browser or reader at: http://www.rapha.cc/lying-to-yourself-