Art School: Propositions for the 21st Century
Jesi Khadivi04.05.10
A plentiful supply of images, music and video are offered by the bandwidth you’re using right now and so contemporary art seems increasingly interested in offering something that the internet cannot: experimental settings in which face-to-face community can occur. If the marketplace, the church and the school have been traditional public gathering places, school is certainly the model that has been most readily adapted for art experiments. With an array of contributors, this collection presents rad examples of school-as-art-project as wells as challenges to the underlying assumptions of accredited art schools. While the collection’s purview is primarily community projects and MFAs, it seems worth noting that, with state budgets strapped across the country, public school arts education — like the perenially murdered Kenny of South Park — is once again on the chopping block.
Self-Erasure: Banksy Hunting in Utah
Rob Tennant02.25.10
As Salinger’s recent death reminded us, a quest for invisibility magnifies a certain type of public fascination. During the lead-up to this year’s Sundance Film Festival –– where Exit through the Gift Shop, a film by/about British graffiti artist Banksy was set to premiere –– there were rumors he would unveil his identity, and then works resembling his began to appear around Salt Lake City and adjacent areas. Rob Tennant tells the story with an eye for the role of new media as an archive of ephemeral street art and with the patience to psychoanalyze his hometown. Photos by the author.
Inspirational Critique: a conversation with Malik Gaines and Alexandro Segade of My Barbarian
Jesi Khadivi02.15.10
I first saw My Barbarian perform as the grand finale of Liz Glynn’s "24-Hour Rome Reconstruction Project (or Building Rome in a Day)" at Machine Project here in Los Angeles. Compressing the 1200 year history of ancient Rome to 24 hours, participants built an impresive scale model of the city, from cardboard and hot glue until at the stroke of midnight My Barbarian arrived in the role of Visigoths to sing and perform while participants destroyed the replica they had spent all day creating. This is just one of the many historio-critical-performative-collaborative projects My Barbarian (Jade Gordon, Malik Gaines, Alexandro Segade) have been a part of. Jesi Khadivi, curator of Berlin’s Golden Parachutes gallery, interviews. -BB
Art: Amy Granat: The Sheltering Sky
Alyssa Bianca-Pavley01.30.10
Amy Granat’s video exhibition creates an environment through projected images and the use of light. The show is inspired by (and takes…
Paul Chan: Sade for Sade’s Sake at Greene Naftali Gallery, NYC
Thom Donovan12.10.09
There’s long been a mantra of "art for art’s sake," which sometimes unfortunately dumbs down the conversation or waves away dismissively the curious – but maybe less schooled in art theory – viewers or fans of art. For the most part the saying has its place. But now with someone like Paul Chan, an artist who is a flag bearer of this generation’s politicized art, he knows when he makes work for a show to be called Sade for Sade’s Sake that it’s gonna provoke controversy, not only because of its subject matter (which always makes a stink with the right), but also for its title framing, toying with the old mantra, which simultaneously supports the playful bedroom side of the notion, but also prods at the the sadistic cynicism that pervades our culture beyond the art world, that which leaves Katrina victims waiting for Godot, and certain prisoners of the war on terror stacked naked like pyramids, barking like dogs. Thom Donovan reviews Chan’s latest show at Greene Naftali in New York.
Art: Tim Burton at MOMA – NYC
Alyssa Bianca-Pavley12.07.09
Tim Burton got his start at Walt Disney studios, where he worked for several years as an animator before jumping to live-action directing with the…
Art: Dotty Attie, What Would Mother Say
Alyssa Bianca-Pavley11.30.09
Dottie Attie’s show at PPOW is a compelling installation, exploring gender ambiguity and the way words can completely change an image. Her…
