Flash Points

Experience at the Mattress Factory

Flash Points

Experience at the Mattress Factory

by Elizabeth Keller | Oct 12, 2010

As an institution that exhibits contemporary, site-specific installation art through a fully supported artist residency program, we only ever get to experience exhibitions for a few months and then they …

The Bronzed Fonzie and Threats of Being Shived in the Shower

by Mike Brenner | Oct 8, 2010

The Bronzed Fonzie and Threats of Being Shived in the Shower

by Mike Brenner | Oct 8, 2010

The last year my art gallery, Hotcakes, was open, there were a number of significant yet manageable setbacks, but when Milwaukee’s Convention and Visitor’s Bureau got into the business of …

Running a Gallery on a Shoestring Budget

by Mike Brenner | Oct 7, 2010

Running a Gallery on a Shoestring Budget

by Mike Brenner | Oct 7, 2010

Mike Brenner tells some stories about how he survived financially while owning an art gallery.

Flash Points

“Free” and Online Experience

by Rachel Gagnon | Oct 5, 2010

Flash Points

“Free” and Online Experience

by Rachel Gagnon | Oct 5, 2010

Free, an exhibition that opens October 20 at the New Museum, will explore the web’s impact on how we digest information and experience public space through the work of twenty-three …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Enjoying the Steps

by Joe Fusaro | Sep 29, 2010

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Enjoying the Steps

by Joe Fusaro | Sep 29, 2010

Recently I have participated in a few discussions that relate to teaching students about slowing down and examining their process in order to create quality works of art- works that …

Flash Points

Making the Most of It

by Louise ONeil | Sep 24, 2010

Flash Points

Making the Most of It

by Louise ONeil | Sep 24, 2010

I’ve always thought of artists as romantic creatures. Their desires are truly unlike those of any other profession in the world. While many people work their way up in careers …

Flash Points

Come Curious: The Artists Look

by Katia Zavistovski | Sep 15, 2010

Flash Points

Come Curious: The Artists Look

by Katia Zavistovski | Sep 15, 2010

“When I was sixteen and knew nothing about art, I sat through almost six hours of Andy Warhol’s Empire. I did not understand it but thought: this is in a …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Solid Sound

by Joe Fusaro | Aug 18, 2010

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Solid Sound

by Joe Fusaro | Aug 18, 2010

Is sound an element of design right alongside biggies like line, color, shape and texture? Teachers today are faced with the unseemly job of breaking outside “the” seven elements of …

Letter from London

Letter from London: Masterpiece Theatre

by Ben Street | Aug 16, 2010

Letter from London

Letter from London: Masterpiece Theatre

by Ben Street | Aug 16, 2010

On a single day this week I saw a clutch of paintings that would, by most reckonings, be referred to as “masterpieces”: Velazquez’ Las Meninas (1656), Goya’s Third of May …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching with Film and Objects

by Joe Fusaro | Aug 11, 2010

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching with Film and Objects

by Joe Fusaro | Aug 11, 2010

Teaching with film or taking a trip with students to a museum can sometimes be an experience somewhere between total bliss and a dental visit. It can be eye-opening or …

Flash Points

Secrets of Art Appreciation

by Museum Nerd | Aug 9, 2010

Flash Points

Secrets of Art Appreciation

by Museum Nerd | Aug 9, 2010

I am not an “art critic.” I can tell you how I feel about a given work of art, but I may feel differently over time or if I see …

Letter from London

Letter from London: In the Loop

by Ben Street | Aug 9, 2010

Letter from London

Letter from London: In the Loop

by Ben Street | Aug 9, 2010

My favorite things in Pallant House, the excellent gallery of modern British art in Chichester on the south coast of England, are a couple of small models made before its …

Flash Points

Effervescent Condition

by Allison Glenn | Aug 7, 2010

Flash Points

Effervescent Condition

by Allison Glenn | Aug 7, 2010

Effervescent Condition, curated by Fang-Tze Hsu (MA 2010) was the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s (SAIC) contribution to The Power of Copying, a large-scale, international group exhibition held …

The Paradoxical Art of “Inception”

by Nettrice Gaskins | Aug 3, 2010

The Paradoxical Art of “Inception”

by Nettrice Gaskins | Aug 3, 2010

What is so compelling about riddles, mysteries, and puzzles? Most people are fascinated by images and objects that are paradoxical or impossible in real life but look oddly convincing and …

Flash Points

Freewaves: Video Between Their Toes

by Catherine Wagley | Jul 29, 2010

Flash Points

Freewaves: Video Between Their Toes

by Catherine Wagley | Jul 29, 2010

Freewaves turned 20 this year. The grassroots new media organization that began in 1989 with a gaping, loosely defined mission to show Los Angeles to itself celebrated its birthday on …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Dear Oliver

by Joe Fusaro | Jul 14, 2010

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Dear Oliver

by Joe Fusaro | Jul 14, 2010

You know what I like about Oliver Herring? Pretty much everything. Oliver was generous enough to join us for the 2nd year in a row to jump-start the Art21 Educators …

Flash Points

Experience in Art Education

by Whitney Ford-Terry | Jul 14, 2010

Flash Points

Experience in Art Education

by Whitney Ford-Terry | Jul 14, 2010

“An art school, it would appear, does not teach art, but sets up the conditions necessary for creative production, and by extension the conditions for collaboration and social engagement.” — …

Flash Points

Machine Project: A.I.R. at the Hammer

by Mark Allen | Jul 12, 2010

Flash Points

Machine Project: A.I.R. at the Hammer

by Mark Allen | Jul 12, 2010

On a recent weekend at the Hammer Museum, you may have stumbled across other visitors napping on the gallery floor and wondered if they had succumbed to museum fatigue. In …

Flash Points

Looking at Los Angeles

One Day Only De Maria

by Catherine Wagley | Jul 8, 2010

Flash Points

Looking at Los Angeles

One Day Only De Maria

by Catherine Wagley | Jul 8, 2010

In 1969, when Lee Lozano began her Dialogue Piece, a project for which she simply invited artists and others to talk with her, she called Walter De Maria twice, once …

Flash Points

Seeing and Time: Video Art as Experience

by Stephanie Vegh | Jul 6, 2010

Flash Points

Seeing and Time: Video Art as Experience

by Stephanie Vegh | Jul 6, 2010

It is neither a secret nor a surprise to know that, regardless of broad worldly appeal, the average Louvre visitor views the Mona Lisa for a scarce fifteen seconds before …

An unlikely gift horse

by Ajay Hothi | Jul 3, 2010

An unlikely gift horse

by Ajay Hothi | Jul 3, 2010

A short post today and a follow-up, of sorts, to my earlier post Timing is Everything. It was announced on Thursday afternoon that Charles Saatchi would be gifting a substantial …

Flash Points

Creat(ive) Expectations

by Kate Goyette | Jun 24, 2010

Flash Points

Creat(ive) Expectations

by Kate Goyette | Jun 24, 2010

Earlier this spring, I ventured to MoMA with my parents who were visiting from New Hampshire for the weekend. Since I can recall, my folks have consistently supported my own …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Art Beyond Excerpts

by Joe Fusaro | Jun 23, 2010

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Art Beyond Excerpts

by Joe Fusaro | Jun 23, 2010

Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith’s book, “Seen Art?”, starts this way: It all started when I told my friend Art I would meet him on the corner of 5th and …

Flash Points

The Experience of Unknowing

by Ty Clever | Jun 11, 2010

Flash Points

The Experience of Unknowing

by Ty Clever | Jun 11, 2010

“We lay hold of the full import of a work of art only as we go through in our own vital processes the processes the artist went through in producing …

Flash Points

Come Curious

by Katia Zavistovski | Jun 7, 2010

Flash Points

Come Curious

by Katia Zavistovski | Jun 7, 2010

Good experience, bad experience. Life experience, work experience. First experience, years of experience. Learning experience. Sensory experience. Out-of-body experience. Shared experience. We experience life in innumerable, and oftentimes indescribable, ways. …

Pardon This Brief Commercial Interruption: Ghana Think Tank

by Erin Sickler | Jun 6, 2010

Pardon This Brief Commercial Interruption: Ghana Think Tank

by Erin Sickler | Jun 6, 2010

In 2006, Christopher Robbins, John Ewing, and Matey Odonkor came together to form Ghana Think Tank, a problem-creating project with the motto Developing the First World. Drawing from their experiences …

(UC Crisis) Post 3: Try Not to Do This Again

by Catherine Wagley | Jun 4, 2010

(UC Crisis) Post 3: Try Not to Do This Again

by Catherine Wagley | Jun 4, 2010

In a series of special posts, guest blogger alum Marc Herbst and regular contributor Catherine Wagley chronicle the University of California education crisis. Following is Wagley’s take. — Ed. When …

Pardon this Brief Commercial Interruption: Change

by Erin Sickler | Jun 3, 2010

Pardon this Brief Commercial Interruption: Change

by Erin Sickler | Jun 3, 2010

Lin + Lam (Lana Lin and Lan Thao Lam) are the current fellows at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School University in New York. …

Flash Points

Interactive and Participatory Art

by Meg Floryan | Jun 3, 2010

Flash Points

Interactive and Participatory Art

by Meg Floryan | Jun 3, 2010

“Our advanced art approaches a fragile but marvelous life, one that maintains itself by a mere thread, melting into an elusive, changeable configuration, the surroundings, the artist, his work and …

Flash Points

Pardon this Brief Commercial Interruption: Economies of Scale or Too Big to Fail?

by Erin Sickler | Jun 1, 2010

Flash Points

Pardon this Brief Commercial Interruption: Economies of Scale or Too Big to Fail?

by Erin Sickler | Jun 1, 2010

In 1934, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis coined the phrase “the curse of bigness” to describe the disastrous effect that concentrated economic power can have on small business, communities, and …

Pardon this Brief Commercial Interruption: Liz Magic Laser

by Erin Sickler | May 27, 2010

Pardon this Brief Commercial Interruption: Liz Magic Laser

by Erin Sickler | May 27, 2010

Currently on view at Derek Eller Gallery in New York, Liz Magic Laser’s chase (2009) stems from interpretation of Bertolt Brecht’s Man Equals Man (1926), performed by eight different actors …