"Yummy Smurf Cake." Source: bluebuddies.com
I don’t know about you but I can’t get enough. I promise not too play with my food too much (maybe) but I can guarantee I will be asking for seconds. It’s one of the busiest weeks in the Art World and a lot of it is happening in New York City. Although I have been on the verge of art overload, with my eyes literally buzzing the other night from over-stimulation, I won’t be shouting mayday because I have the optimism that I will experience something intriguing the very next moment just by default. My favorite so far is the muli-layered curatorial contrast between the more traditional yet uber-commercial Armory Show and the INDEPENDENT.
Meanwhile, I bet you all are still hungry as well – so here you go!
- It’s Pure Beauty! Otherwise known as an exhibition of that very name, featuring John Baldessari, which opens in Spain; the Whitney Biennial in NYC; Shrewd & Sassy Survey of American Arists opened in Nebraska; Collier Schorr’s German Faces at the Modern Art Gallery in London…Nicole Caruth Rounds Them Up here. At 19 additional bits and bites, this week’s most recent roundup is a whopper!
- EDUCATION | Teaching with Contemporary Art. How do you hold an art exhibition in your hand? Read Part One of this interview with Tod Lippy, founder and editor of ESOPUS magazine, by Joe Fusaro, for some insight into how Lippy has materialized his curatorial vision in a plethora of pages released on two very anticipated dates per year. In Part Two, Lippy talks about the periodical as useful a resource for educators.
- What are you thinking, I mean eating? Don’t know? Try charting it out. You might get some some unexpected answers. In Gastro-Vision: Stomache, Nicole Caruth gives us the scoop on artist Christina Mazzalupo’s very colorful food diaries. It’s true that what you eat can’t only be measured as a numeric caloric intake.
- How does the Internet see you? Here‘s a new way to ask this androgynous digital connector, in the form of an initial question posed by Aaron Zinman of MIT. Meanwhile, be sure to read on here as there are many other connections made.
- Have you every chosen not to be, well, the most polite that you could be? What was the outcome? Here’s a glimpse into Paul McCarthy’s studio, a workshop that often dares to be irreverent. In this video, Paul McCarthy | Lifecasting, the artist is surrounded by various figurative sculptures, including an oversized bust of President George W. Bush. McCarthy discusses the process of casting from life and the resulting perfections and imperfections. Be sure to also watch Jessica Stockholder | Form. Stockholder discusses the strength of form and the difficulty in articulating the meaning behind abstract shapes from her home in New Haven, Connecticut.
- Inside the Artist’s Studio | Christa Holka. Vanity, queerness, friends, and family. Sometimes the seemingly superficial is actually quite intimate. Holka talks about her photography, past travels, lifestyles, and hopes for the future.
- Welcome Kevin McGarry, our new guest blogger! Kevin is a writer and curator based in Brooklyn, NY. His journalism has recently appeared on Rhizome, T Magazine Blog, and the online editions of Art in America, Artforum and Interview. Read about his first impressions of Skin Fruit, the exhibition curated by Jeff Koons at the New Museum.
- Flash Points: Must Art Be Ethical? What would happen if you took a stray animal off the street and put it in a gallery as a work of art? According to David Yanez, perhaps no other exhibition has caused as much controversy over the ethical use of live animals in art as Exposición No.1., a show by Guillermo Vargas, a Costa Rican artist also known as “Habacuc.” IT took place on August 16, 2007 at Galería Códice in Managua, Nicaragua. YOU ARE WHAT YOU READ.
- The Oscars, aka prom night for Hollywood, are just around the corner! Who does the Academy love more: the noble savage, the noble soldier, or the noble soldier–turned-savage? Are you on the edge of your seat or what? If you answered “or what” to that question, you might prefer to spend this Sunday at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, whose current exhibitions offer an excellent antidote to “movie magic.”
- Building relationships can be hard for some and quite natural for others. What about that space in-between? How does photographer Alec Soth work at his relationships with his subjects? Read The Process Behind the Portrait, an interview with Soth by Rachel Craft.