Fischli & Weiss, How to Work Better (1991). Photo: rytc, Flickr
“The public nature of a text-based work will always play with the idea of an official sign, or an advertisement, although the product being sold, or the office behind the sign, is unexpectedly absent.” In addition to a Guggenheim retrospective, Fischli & Weiss are bringing two public art projects to New York that play with expectations of public signage: a cat video in Times Square, and a text piece, How to Work Better, at an intersection in Manhattan. These works play with “the expectations that signs in public space are vehicles for selling, rather than spaces for sharing ideas without any commercial motivation.”
- Walid Raad asks: “Do we really need another artwork to show us, as if we didn’t already know, that the financial, cultural and military spheres are intimately linked?” His current retrospective at MoMA weaves “a set of fantastic tales spun from a few hard facts.” The exhibition, including a performance by the artist, work made under his own name, and pieces by the semi-fictitious Atlas Group, “shows art taking matters into its own hands, temporarily shrinking and vanishing to sustain a radical life of its own.” (The MoMA show Walid Raad closes January 31.)
- Premiering at Sundance, Werner Herzog’s first documentary in five years, Lo and Behold: Reveries of The Connected World, offers “a playful yet chilling examination of our rapidly interconnecting online lives.” The trailer for the film has just been released, inviting viewers to reflect on “one of the biggest revolutions we as humans are experiencing.”
- The College Art Association has announced the winners of its 2016 CAA Awards, which celebrate artists, art historians, critics, and conservators. Noteworthy this year: 100 year-old artist Carmen Herrera and critic Rosalind Krauss are both being presented with lifetime achievement awards for their work. Arlene Shechet and Carrie Mae Weems are also among those honored in 16 categories.
- “Copyright has never interested me. For most of my life I owned half a stero so there was no point in suing me, but that’s changed now and it’s interesting…” Donald Graham is suing Richard Prince and Gagosian Gallery over Prince’s unauthorized use of his photo Rastafarian Smoking a Joint (1996) in the 2014 show New Portraits. The show featured blown-up and modified Instagram images with added comments.
- At 87, Robert Irwin may finally realize one of his ambitious public projects: he’s creating a permanent installation at the Chianti Foundation in Marfa, Texas–as C-shaped building with scrim walls and a courtyard opening up to the Texas sky. In the past, Irwin’s work has been largely missing from the art scene, but the Marfa commission comes amid recent, increased interest in Irwin’s art.
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