In the Guardian today Jonathan Jones equates Jasper Johns' Flag painting with The Great American Novel. He very quickly touches base on a number of Meta-naratives that are imposed on the artwork since it's creation in 1954 or 1955. He argues that the flag paintings are a love or leave em' kind of thing.

Jones further asks you to Look closer - to experience the work in itself. Mentioning that the original has fragments of headlines and photographs clipped from newspapers, sunk beneath the soft waxen surface of the work. Clearly he is trying to connect a political resonance with current event with the flag artworks - and I think this is interesting and silly at the same time. However after setting up an argument that is somewhat interesting concept he never delivers. I would have loved for Jones to expand his thoughts on The Great American Novel as it relates to the flag paintings. this seems like an opportunity missed.

The Story is here

Labels: 50's, international, New York, Painting

I apologize for the recent political nature of a number of the last few post, however I thought that this was too good to pass up. It's from the Guardian.

A Timeline of the world economy versus AC/DC album releases.

1973:
AC/DC form in Sydney, Australia.
Economy: Start of the oil crisis, which saw the price quadruple

1980:
AC/DC release breakthrough album Back In Black
Economy: Inflation in UK reaches 20% and unemployment nears 2 million

1990:
AC/DC score comeback with The Razor's Edge
Economy: Recession in UK imminent

2008:
AC/DC top UK album charts
Economy: Biggest world recession in decades looms

Labels: international, music

This post is lazily reposted from Wired...

"There's a voracious bacterium nibbling on Italy's priceless cultural relics — and historians are shouting, "Bravo!" Over the centuries, air pollution has formed a thin black crust on the stone surfaces of statues and buildings, and Desulfovibrio vulgaris vulgaris is being used to remove that crud in a very Italianate fashion: by eating it. Unleashed on works of art and architecture, the bacteria metabolize the sulfate in the crust, converting some of it into — oh, please excuse them — gasses. So far, microbiologist Claudia Sorlini and her team at the University of Milan have applied the biotreatment to parts of their home city's gothic Duomo and Michelangelo's Pietà Rondanini. Next, Sorlini says, she's itching to let her peckish little friends gorge themselves on Notre Dame."

From Wired

Labels: ancient world, Europe, international

Visitors to the current show at the Hydra School Project are initially greeted by a poem/poster by Raymond Pettibon, which states;

"A general surrender of everything.
Anything is relevant.
Whatever's Whatever.
Just let me keep my hair.

Which is a great start to the show, a very bold display of works curated by Dimie Athanaspoulou and Dimitrios Antonitsis. However there is a down side to this approach, while "Anything is relevant" the same could be said that "nothing is relevant" - and to me, while the show is thought provoking, there is a note in the back of my mind that keeps hearing the flipside to Pettibon's poem.

This is not to say that individual pieces don't stand out, Marylin Mitner's photographs clearly steal the show for me - in particular Fuzzy Pam (Pam Anderson), 2007. Fuzzy Pam does not immediately scream Pam Anderson the way that say a David LaChapelle photo might, in fact the lack of focus on Miss Anderson and the lack of hyperstylization of her portrays a softer more complex woman than most would give credit to, and it is that flip of the switch that creates the most interest in this image for me. Vassilis Zidianakis presents us with a small installation of silkscreened plexiglass consisting of eight parts (Hydra + Op, 2008), casually leaning against the wall, these computer generated linear forms overlay and stand apart from each other while pulling back into the the installation as a whole.

Regardless of my constant mental games as they relate to the initial poem, Whatever's Whatever is a strong and gutsy curatorial undertaking, I'm curious to see the next outing from Athanaspoulou and Antonitsis.

Fuzzy Pam (Pam Anderson), 2007, c-print

Labels: international

New Acropolis Study Center
I was informed that I would actually be able to visit the New Acropolis Study Center. I was really excited to do this, however I soon found out that the center is not yet open. I don't know what the problem is - the center was scheduled to open for the olympics - the last one in 2004.

Color Field Painting Conservation
I met an art conservationist (on Hydra, the island I was on) who is well versed in restoring color field paintings, I thought that was interesting - because what little bit I do know about conservation tends to rely on the method of deconstructing the layers of traditionally painted objects. Color field art with its emphasis on staining of raw canvas has always struck me as impossible to truly clean. Believe it of not, he has developed a method that uses bread to lightly scrub the surface. I'm in the process of finding out more and will share as soon as I can.

Guernica Pronounced Too Fragile to Move
Fiona Govan reports in the Daily Telegraph that art experts, after an exhaustive study, have concluded that Pablo Picasso's famous masterpiece, Guernica, is in "stable but serious" condition. The monochrome canvas that epitomizes the horror of modern warfare had "suffered a lot and requires special care," said the head of restoration at the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid.

Labels: Europe, international

Looking at my art you might be surprised to find that I have an above average interest in the game of chess (I joke, but I do...) Bobby Fischer was without a doubt the greatest - and saddest person to ever play the game at its highest level. I'm sure the newspapers have the full story, so I'm going to pass on re-telling the whole thing.

Overall the life story of Bobby Fischer is a sad story that curiously is being played out in a similar parallel in the life of Britney Spears. Before you snicker and think that BF was some kind of fool - he was just the opposite a superior complex thinker who literally was driven over the edge by his own mind.

When you look at Fischer, you see a man whose world outside of chess never became the extension of what he saw in a complex - but highly structured game. In the end, the messiness and randomness of the world will only remember him as someone who fell from the highest highs - to become a powerless eccentric.

Bobby Fischer, April 28, 1962. (John Lent, Associated Press / April 28, 1962)

Labels: Death, international

The almost always interesting BLDGBLOG has a story today about the Australian artists The Glue Society. Here is the down low. TGS have put together a series of "satellite views" showing certain Biblical events as seen via Google Earth.

The artists are now; "aiming to produce further works using the same satellite imagery next year but this time relating to mythological occurrences and major historical events." The future via the past gets more interesting everyday.

BLDGBLOG
The Glue Society
Creative Review

The Glue Society, Moses parting the Red Sea (above), Crucifixion (below)

Labels: international, Photography

The New York Times reported (via the Associated Press) on Saturday that six wooden Brillo boxes in the Moderna Museet are fakes madethree years after Warhol's death. The Moderna said it had investigated the six Brillo boxes after a Swedish newspaper claimed that they were copies. The Swedish paper Expressen claimed that Hulten (a former director at the Museet), who died last year, sold a number of the copies with certificates falsely stating that they were made for a Warhol exhibition in Stockholm in 1968.

Labels: 60's, international, Museums

Glenn Branca
GB will be conducting a performance of his epic Symphony No.13: Hallucination City for 100 electric guitars.

The composition - comprised of four movements; March, Anthem, Drive and Vengeance - has been described by the Village Voice as his "most impressive work ever".

What can I say - wow.

Labels: international

Elisabetta Povoledo writes for The New York Times on saturday, about the digitization of Veronese's The Wedding at Cana being installed on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore a few weeks ago. The article goes into great depth about the painstaking work of how this masterpiece was scanned, scrutinized, and eventually printed, and touched up to become very close to the real thing or at least a photo of the real thing - or something that resembles the original as it now exists.

The group Factum Arte has digitally recreated, in what I understand is in amazing detail and has hung it in the same place it was removed from almost 210 years ago.

Here's a bit of the backstory
Napoleon's forces removed the painting from the refectory of the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore as war booty - cutting the painting into pieces and reassembling it back home. It currently hangs at the Louvre (Paris) directly across from the Mona Lisa and is claimed to be viewed by 9 million visitors a year by the French authorities. (sidebar: do you remember any of the other paintings in that room? - I don't)

Venice has always wanted this painting back - they still occasionally have mock trials of Napoleon and every few years someone wants to sue the Louvre or the French Government for it's return. That return is not going to happen since it was resolved (diplomatically) in 1815.

Back to the story
So what we have is a very serious digital reproduction sitting in place of what is now somewhere else. Do understand that I believe that this digital copy - which took 18 months to do - is probably one hell of an object. However it is not an art object. It carries no authenticity as art. The thing is, I believe in art, the real thing - not copies, duplicates or substitutions. I want to experience, the presence of something, it may be ancient or temporary - but I want to experience that thing. I want to see the same paint, rock or whatever the artist did when he or she made it. This is as close to religion as I have, and I care for it deeply. This "new" The Wedding at Cana bothers me, I feel like it's starting a bit of a trend where this will become an acceptable way to view art in the future. This is the crux of why I'm even bothering to write about this.

A couple of years ago I wrote about a Caravaggio exhibit that exhibited all of his paintings in one place as digital reproductions. People would say "It's just as good" or some such thing - but the truth is the show had the stink of not being real - and the public agreed - the show quietly went away.

I will give credit to Factum Arte who has insisted that the digital work is "not a clone but a deep and detailed study". I just hope that the public understands this when they see a artwork that looks like the real thing in the place where it was always meant to be, and is now for lack of a better word, home.





A Footnote Richard Hell, speaking about his first band, Television, stated; "All we did was cut our hair and played in street clothes, and people, so hungry for the real thing, worshipped us like gods".

Labels: Criticism, Europe, international, Painting

Fernando Botero has donated twenty-five paintings and twenty-two drawings inspired by the abuse of Iraqis imprisoned at Abu Ghraib to UC Berkeley, according to Agence France-Presse. The paintings will be housed at the university's art museum, said Kathleen Maclay, a Berkeley spokeswoman. Botero has stressed that this series is not for sale and will have a home in the United States or Baghdad.

Labels: international, Painting

By purchasing both Andre Emmerich Gallery (NYNY) and Haunch of Venison in europe, as well as teaming up with Jeffery Deitch to organize shows. As far as to what something like this might cost, The terms of the Christie's-Haunch of Venison deal have not been disclosed, but the London rumor mill had Pinault paying 100,000,000 (pounds) for the gallery.

Labels: international