NEWSgrist - where spin is art
An e-zine covering the arts since 2000
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Vol.5, no.30
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read it on the blog:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com
Archives:
http://newsgrist.net
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Sunday, December 12, 2004
Tansey's West Face: Of Paradoxes & Giant Snowballs
via NYTimes:
Find the Hidden Philosophers
By MIA FINEMAN
MARK TANSEY'S ambitious new painting "West Face" appears to be a suavely
rendered picture of a band of hikers trudging up a snowy mountainside. But
look closely, and you'll find a landscape treacherous with puzzles,
paradoxes, hidden images and allusions. […]
His latest work, now on view at the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea, teases
the eye as well as the mind. Nothing in these six large paintings is quite
what it appears to be. A portrait of Karl Marx lurks in a giant snowball;
faces emerge in the shadows; a rocky cliff shifts from concave to convex
and back again. […]
Sunday, December 12, 2004 at 10:48 AM in Art Exhibitions | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/12/tanseys_west_fa.html
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Cory Arcangel: Page Scraping, Disassembly, and Other Assorted Techniques
for Making Art from Other People's Code
Supermario
Announcing a lecture/demonstration by Cory Arcangel at 6:00 PM on
Thursday, December 16, in the LeRoy Neiman Gallery in Dodge Hall on
Columbia University's Morningside Campus at 116th and Broadway (see map).
Cory Arcangel is a computer artist whose work has been exhibited in the
Whitney Biennial, the American Museum of the Moving Image, Eyebeam, Foxy
Production, the Tate Britain, and Team Gallery. He is a founding member of
BEIGE, a group of computer programmers and enthusiasts who recycle
obsolete computers and video game systems to make art and music, and a
member of RSG (Radical Software Group).
In this presentation, "Page Scraping, Disassembly, and Other Assorted
Techniques for Making Art from Other People's Code," Cory will demonstrate
his work and discuss its relationship to technology and media culture.
Cory writes:
My work is inspired by and functions as a means to understand my own media
saturated existence. Since the present and future is filtered through the
past, my work with digital media technology is directly informed by my
time spent with television, music, video games and early Macintosh
computers. This interest focused and crystallized during my time spent as
a classical guitar major and TAMARA student at Oberlin Conservatory of
Music and College. I used the knowledge, discipline and dedication
acquired in my studies of classical music and applied them to the
similarly structured environment of working with computer code. This
lecture will focus on my tendency as an artist to work fluidly between
sampled images, music, and code.
This is the fifth lecture in a series on Open Source Culture.
The Art & Technology Lectures are organized by the Digital Media Center
and sponsored by the Computer Music Center. Streaming video of the
lectures is produced in partnership with the Columbia Center for New Media
Teaching and Learning.
Sunday, December 12, 2004 at 10:34 AM in Performances | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/12/announcing_a_le.html
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Saturday, December 11, 2004
Kincaid vs. Koons: Differentiate Your Brand, Baby!
[image: screenshot from The Official Thomas Kincaid Website's splash page]
There has been some musing once again over "Hi vs. Lo Art," this time over
at Insurgent Muse (thanks From the Floor!), this time regarding Thomas
Kincaid and Jeff Koons, and wondering if there is in fact a difference:
Insurgent Muse:
For a while now I've been fascinated and apalled by Thomas Kinkade, you
know, the "painter of light" who does all those cottage paintings that get
sold in the mall. They are the most horrific paintings I have ever seen,
but I am totally fascinated by the fact that the man is a multi-million
dollar industry, I mean, he has a fucking housing development for
christsake! You can actually live in a Thomas Kincade painting. So I was
really amused when I was reading this interview with John Baldessari on
Artnet and Baldessari brought up the topic of Kinkade:
JB. Yeah, you know something that just struck me, do you know the artist
Thomas Kinkade, who does these schlock paintings? He's a huge industry. He
has all these satellite galleries that sell his work. He's licensed all of
his imagery so there's all his tchotchkes out there. It's enormous. Just
enormous. There's even now been a housing development with cottages that
look like his paintings.
ND: A housing development? Where?
JB: It's up in Northern California. So anyway, the point I'm trying to
make, if you listen to Kinkade's argument, it's exactly the same argument
as Jeff Koons. Exactly. "This is what America likes." The only difference
is that they operate in two different territories. Jeff operates in the
avant-garde art world, and this other guy operates on the other end of the
spectrum, but they talk exactly alike. He went to art school, he went to
Art Center. He just figured out what America wants. They want Hallmark
Cards. […]
Okay, stop there and scroll down to Comments, particularly greg.org's:
JB's comments included, this sounds like a typical artworld misreading of
Kinkade's work and why he's supposedly so popular. So while this kind of
Koons-bashing is fun, it primarily serves to pat our artworld selves on
the back for making it out of the suburbs alive.
Kinkade's original system was designed to sell mass reproductions of his
paintings (which he never sells, only licenses)with carefully gradated
levels of "originality" and "master's hand"-style touches. The "personal
touches" mentioned above aren't grandma's photos, but brush-applied light
highlights. Kinkade-approved journeymen would come to the mall gallery
and, for several thousand more dollars, personally dapple sunlight on your
print (ed. 1339/2500). The Master himself would do it sometimes, for tens
of thousands of dollars.
Kinkade was selling kitschy, sentimental pictures, but he was doing it
through mass-manufactured originality. Yet it was actually more like
conceptual art, in a way; it absolutely relied on selling the aura of "the
art world" (but not the "avant-garde") and its implied promise of status,
connoiseurship, rarity and increasing value, etc.
Except that Kinkade broke the promise; he started licensing the same
images to the cards, posters, coffee cups, etc. and essentially flooded
the market with low-priced versions of what was supposedly so rare and
artistic. The market for his high-end products tanked, and he's been sued
by collectors and his franchisee/dealers for destroying their
exclusivity-based value proposition.
And the pressure to expand sales came precisely from being a publicly
traded corporation. But that "marketing and branding" critique could just
as easily be applied to any artist who gets attention–and high
prices–for his work, including Baldessari.
I mean, you could just as easily say JB's merely differentiating his brand
from Koons, thereby helping the Sonnabend corporation reach different
segments of the six-figures-and-up art market.
Moral to the story? Mmmm, differentiate your brand, baby!
Saturday, December 11, 2004 at 10:40 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/12/kincaid_vs_koon.html
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Thursday, December 09, 2004
ArtForum's Best
[image: Pedro Almodvar, Bad Education, 2004, still from a color film in 35
mm, 105 minutes. Enrique Goded (Fele Martnez). ArtForum]
The December ArtForum has many categories of "Best of 2004," some of which
can be read online, including Music, Film, and teasers from the Top Ten
lists of 13 different critics, as well as Martin Herbert on London and
Barry Schwabsky on the Bienal de So Paulo.
Much of BookForum's contents can be read online as well – check out the
nifty shot of Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty on the cover:
DEC/JAN 2005 TABLE OF CONTENTS
(not including all the good stuff that you can only read in print)
POET WITHOUT A HERO
Marjorie Perloff on Anna Akhmatova
THE COWBOY IN THE LIBRARY
Pamela M. Lee on Robert Smithson
SENSATION UNDER GLASS
James Gibbons on Nathalie Sarraute
FINDING THE RIGHT WORDS
Morris Dickstein on Irving Howe
ARTS & LETTERS
Benedict Andersonon Herman Lebovics's Bringing the Empire Back Home:
France in the Global Age and Andrew Ross and Kristin Ross's
Anti-Americanism
Andrew Hultkrans on Sean Wilentz and Greil Marcus's The Rose and the
Briar:Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad
Deirdre Bair on Suzanne Kirkbright's Karl Jaspers: A BiographyNavigations
in Truth
COLUMNS
Brooke Comer talks with Ali Salem
Ammar Abdulhamid on young Syrian intellectuals
Brian Thomas Gallagher on M.F.K. Fisher
FICTION
Ethan Nosowsky on Svetislav Basara's Chinese Letter
Kathryn Harrison on Marilynne Robinson's Gilead
Rick Moody on Jos Saramago's The Double
Bruce Hainley on William Corbett's Just the Thing: Selected Letters of
James Schuyler and Ron Padgett's Joe: A Memoir of Joe Brainard
NOTED
Bryan Walsh on Ma Jian's The Noodle Maker
James Poniewozik on Chris Lamb's Drawn to Extremes: The Use and Abuse of
Editorial Cartoons in the United States
Thursday, December 09, 2004 at 04:37 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/12/artforums_best.html
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Picture Critiques (Holidays on Ice?)
There's a post by "anon-51763186" over on Craig's List:
RANT: Picture Critiques
I am better than your kids.
If you work in an office with lots of people, chances are that you work
with a person who hangs pictures up that their kids have drawn. The
pictures are always of some stupid flower or a tree with wheels. These
pictures suck; I could draw pictures much better. In fact, I can spell, do
math and run faster than your kids. So being that my skills are obviously
superior to those of children, I've taken the liberty to judge art work
done by other kids on the internet. I'll be assigning a grade A through F
for each piece:
Kelly, age 9
This was a Christmas gift from Kelly to her parents. Good job Kelly, now
pack up your shit and find a foster home. If my kids tried to pass this
off as a gift, they'd come home from school and find all their shit
outside in a box. What a lousy gift, seriously. You give them video games
and toys, and they give you some half-assed drawing with a crooked tree. I
wonder how much a gift like this would set someone back. Five, maybe ten
minutes to find a napkin and some markers?
Grade: F
[and so on…]
Thursday, December 09, 2004 at 04:17 PM in Misc. | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/12/picture_critiqu.html
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Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Art critics are hot! (McEvilley Hits SVA)
[image: Artnet mag]
via Artnet News:
McEVILLY HEADS NEW ART CRITICISM PROGRAM
Art critics are hot! New York's School of Visual Arts is launching a new
MFA degree in art criticism and writing in fall 2005, headed by legendary
classicist and art writer Thomas McEvilly. According to the new chair, a
veteran of Rice University, Yale and the School of the Art Institute of
Chicago, the coursework will be rigorous, and complemented by lectures by
critics visiting from around the world.
Books by Thomas McEvilley;
More books listed on Amazon.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004 at 08:19 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/12/_art_critics_ar.html
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Beach Bums: Art Forum + Miami Basel
[image via Artnet: The Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, with
Rolls Royces]
via Modern Art Notes:
ArtForum joins the century
ArtForum has started a blog – kinda. It's more of a long-format diary,
but at least ArtForum is beginning to revamp their website. The entries
are a little long to be true blog entries, there's nary a link to be
found, and they're more concerned with scene than art, but hey, maybe with
ABMB out of the way they'll become more truly blog-like. Or maybe, given
the academic dryness of the magazine, they'll become as stiff and
unreadable as, well… let's just see how they do. We're rooting for them.
Speaking of ABMB, I'll try to have some ABMB posts up on Wednesday and
Thursday. (I'm in NYC today.) For now, Walter Robinson at Artnet does his
usual post-event bang-up job.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004 at 08:01 PM in Art Exhibitions | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/12/beach_bums_art_.html
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Pew Survey: File-Sharing + Artists
via Public Knowledge:
Pew File-Sharing Survey Gives a Voice to Artists
A report from the Pew Research Center finds artists are divided but on the
whole not deeply concerned about online file-sharing. Only about half
thought that sharing unauthorized copies of music and movies online should
be illegal, for instance. And makers of file-sharing software like Kazaa
and Grokster may be unnerved to learn that nearly two-thirds said such
services should be held responsible for illegal file-swapping; only 15
percent held individual users responsible.
Note: the Pew Report is here [PDF]:
http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Artists.Musicians_Report.pdf
The NYTimes article by Tom Zeller is here:
The battle over digital copyrights and illegal file sharing is often
portrayed as a struggle between Internet scofflaws and greedy
corporations. Online music junkies with no sense of the marketplace, the
argument goes, want to download, copy and share copyrighted materials
without restriction. The recording industry, on the other hand, wants to
squeeze dollars - by lawsuit and legislation, if necessary - from its
property.
The issue, of course, is far subtler than this, but one aspect of the
caricature is dead on: the artists are nowhere to be found. A survey
released yesterday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, an arm
of the Pew Research Center in Washington, aims to change that. The report,
"Artists, Musicians and the Internet," combines and compares the opinions
of three groups: the general public, those who identify themselves as
artists of various stripes (including filmmakers, writers and digital
artists) and a somewhat more self-selecting category of musicians.
Most notably, it is the first large-scale snapshot of what the people who
actually produce the goods that downloaders seek (and that the industry
jealously guards) think about the Internet and file-sharing […]
Wednesday, December 08, 2004 at 07:55 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/12/pew_survey_file.html
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Nixing The Artful Ipod (Or: Negativity @ Apple + Ebay)
Remember our recent post:
Unauthorized iPod U2 vs. Negativland Special Edition ?
Well, here's follow-up via Wired News (thanks t.whid!):
EBay Negative on Negativland IPod
By Katie Dean
02:00 AM Dec. 08, 2004 PT
EBay removed a modified U2 iPod from its auctions Monday after Apple
Computer complained of copyright violations, to the wonder of several
intellectual-property attorneys.
Francis Hwang, an artist and director of technology at Rhizome.org,
purchased a U2 iPod and loaded it up with seven albums from Negativland, a
collage band that mixes original music with audiovisual clips from other
artists and corporations. Hwang wanted to make an artistic statement about
sampling and free culture, and planned to donate the proceeds of the sale
to Downhill Battle, a music-activism group.
This unauthorized iPod modification is an artful mashup of the forces of
corporate megarock and obscure experimental music, and a provocative
symbol of the ongoing struggle between those who would confine culture and
those who would free it," Hwang wrote in the auction listing. "With the
recent release of Apple's iPod U2 Special Edition, and the continuing
legal battles over the sampling and copying of music, there has never been
a better time for such a tribute to the impact of technology on the flow
of culture."
The iPod U2 vs. Negativland Special Edition commemorates a 1991 copyright
battle between the two groups. Negativland released a single that parodied
U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" without permission. The
collage group believes the song, and its other creations, are fair use.
U2's label, Island Records, sued Negativland and the case was eventually
settled out of court. Negativland's controversial song, "U2," is illegal
to sell in the United States and was not included in the auction.
Hwang's auction offering included all the standard features of the U2 iPod
plus the addition of the Negativland albums loaded onto the device. The
Negativland CDs were also included. Hwang also meticulously modified the
cardboard box, labeling it iPod Special Edition U2 vs. Negativland and
adding pictures of the collage band to the box. Hwang also included a
disclaimer in the auction that states that Apple did not authorize the
work, so there is no confusion for the buyer.
Hwang, an iPod and PowerBook owner and self-described "Apple snob,"
thought the revamped iPod would be funny and raise awareness of a case
that is still relevant today, especially with the popularity of mashups.
"It just feels right to me that I should be allowed to do this and I'm a
little surprised that they reacted this way," Hwang said. "I think it's
pretty unfair and I think it's unfortunate."
The item received nine bids – topping out at $455 – before it was pulled
"because an intellectual-property rights owner notified us … that your
listing infringes the rights owner's copyright, trademark or other
rights," according to an e-mail Hwang received from eBay.
EBay spokesman Hani Durzy said that the company has a program in place
that allows copyright owners to report specific listings that violate
their rights. Also, because the listing made it clear that the item was
unauthorized, the listing was removed.
Apple did not respond to requests for comment.
Several intellectual-property attorneys said they didn't see a reason for
removing the listing.
"If he's just modifying the box, he's just reselling the box that the
goods came in," said Scott Hervey, an attorney based in Sacramento,
California. Plus, "there's no copyright infringement of the sound
recordings."
"I don't see anything and if (Negativland) is not making a stink about it,
then there's no problem," Hervey said. Negativland could presumably
complain that its pictures are being used without permission.
"We always have to be careful when people invoke intellectual-property
rights in order to stop things that have nothing to do with IP," said Fred
von Lohmann, senior IP attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"I'm a little surprised that Apple would complain but I'm doubly surprised
that eBay would remove the auction."
Wednesday, December 08, 2004 at 11:53 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/12/remember_our_re.html
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