Archive

Monthly Archives: May 2010

Letter from London

Letter from London: Tate at Ten

Letter from London

Letter from London: Tate at Ten

There’s a display outside one of the shops in Tate Modern, showing visitors’ comments written on little cards. That visitors’ comments are encouraged at all, let alone actually displayed in …

Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup

Work by Season 4 duo Allora & Calzadilla is currently on view at the Aspen Art Museum in the exhibition Restless Empathy. The exhibition examines the process of entering the …

Inside the Artist's Studio

Inside the Artist’s Studio: Loul Samater

Inside the Artist's Studio

Inside the Artist’s Studio: Loul Samater

Loul Samater is a Somali artist born and raised in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, but currently based in Beaufort, South Carolina.  She came to the U.S. in 1994 to complete the …

Art 2.1: Creating on the Social Web

Life After Death: An Interview with Eva and Franco Mattes

Art 2.1: Creating on the Social Web

Life After Death: An Interview with Eva and Franco Mattes

The Italian “artist-provocateurs” Eva and Franco Mattes, aka 0100101110101101.org, are no strangers to this site. Our very first guest bloggers back in 2008, when they blogged about their Influencers festival …

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Art21 Extended Play

Florian Maier-Aichen: Infrared Landscapes

Art21 Extended Play

Florian Maier-Aichen: Infrared Landscapes

SUBSCRIBE TO EXCLUSIVE: RSS | ITUNES | YOUTUBE | ARTBABBLE SUPPORT ART21: We’ve reached the halfway point in our 100 x 100 Exclusive campaign and our online fans continue to …

Pardon this Brief Commercial Interruption: Liz Magic Laser

Pardon this Brief Commercial Interruption: Liz Magic Laser

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 …

Looking at Los Angeles

Breaking the Rules: MOCA Reaches Out to a Younger Audience

Looking at Los Angeles

Breaking the Rules: MOCA Reaches Out to a Younger Audience

Last month, MOCA published a new book dedicated to engaging children with its permanent collection.  Aimed at children age 8-12, Breaking the Rules: What is Contemporary Art? exploring works by …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Can a successful work of art make you angry?

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Can a successful work of art make you angry?

Can a successful work of art make you angry, uncomfortable, or confused? This is one of the many questions we engage in as art educators and also one of the …

Open Enrollment

Concentrating on the Social in Portland

Open Enrollment

Concentrating on the Social in Portland

As the distinctions between artist, curator, writer and administrator are increasingly less definite, developments in how individuals should be educated follow these new hybrid categories of working. Recently, an intriguing …

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Alison Ruttan’s “The Four Year War at Gombe”

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Alison Ruttan’s “The Four Year War at Gombe”

I’ve been reading with great interest some of the posts and friendly debates that have taken place recently on this site concerning the relationship between art and science. As I …

Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup

In today’s roundup: football art for South Africa, an overgrown baby in Los Angeles, an origami ship from London, body tissue in Bristol, humans behaving like pigs in Milan, flashing lights …

Pardon this Brief Commercial Interruption: Intro

Pardon this Brief Commercial Interruption: Intro

The United States has always fostered a strange and ambiguous relationship to the arts.  In 1825, John Quincy Adams recommended that the country establish a national university, observatory, and other …

New guest blogger: Erin Sickler

New guest blogger: Erin Sickler

Thanks to Liz K. Sheehan for her series of fantastic and thoughful posts on currencies and cartographies, science and space. Follow her pursuits back on her own site here. Up …

(UC Crisis) Post 2: The Feeling of Embalming Education

(UC Crisis) Post 2: The Feeling of Embalming Education

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 Herbst’s second installment. — Ed. …

Gastro-Vision

Gastro-Vision: Whack! Contemporary Artists and Piñatas

Gastro-Vision

Gastro-Vision: Whack! Contemporary Artists and Piñatas

The much-talked-about Andy Warhol piñata, created by Jennifer Rubell for last month’s Brooklyn Ball, offered a witty art spin on an old party tradition. Instead of the usual candy contents, …

What’s it worth? Artist and community currencies

What’s it worth? Artist and community currencies

The territory of art that responds to, comments on, and intervenes in the art market is vast. There are a range of practices in contemporary art that involve currency as …

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Art21 Extended Play

Beryl Korot: “Dachau, 1974”

Art21 Extended Play

Beryl Korot: “Dachau, 1974”

SUBSCRIBE TO EXCLUSIVE: ITUNES | YOUTUBE | BLIP.TV | ARTBABBLE SUPPORT ART21: We’re approaching the halfway point in our 100 x 100 Exclusive campaign and our online fans continue to …

Flash Points

Multiple Intelligences

Flash Points

Multiple Intelligences

I teach art at a school where the subject is not just a once-a-week occurrence.  New City School is a Multiple Intelligences school where art (using spatial intelligence) is used …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

What Makes Us (More) Human: The Vast Middle Ground Between Art and Science

Teaching with Contemporary Art

What Makes Us (More) Human: The Vast Middle Ground Between Art and Science

Many of you may remember quite a bit of public sparring that occurred between John Hammond and myself over the “What Makes Us Human” post back in September. Since then, …

Open Enrollment

Standing Ovation for Networks

Open Enrollment

Standing Ovation for Networks

With my first year at San Francisco Art Institute done and done, I’m reminded of the big and scary (but fun!) questions I had one year ago. Last August, a …

Mapping our way back

Mapping our way back

Many thanks to all of you who commented on my posts last week, particularly “On teaching art to scientists,” which seems to have resonated strongly with Art21 and PBS readers. …

No Preservatives: Conversations about Conservation

Caring for What’s Living: a Discussion with Norah Fletchall

No Preservatives: Conversations about Conservation

Caring for What’s Living: a Discussion with Norah Fletchall

Indianapolis Museum of Art conservator Richard McCoy talks with Indianapolis Zoo conservator Norah Fletchall about ways in which their professional lives intersect.

Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup

An ancient proposition, a group of Modern women, life-restoring elixir, and more in this week’s roundup: Vancouver Art Gallery has organized Canada’s first solo exhibition of works by Season 1 …

Letter from London

Letter from London: Barnstormer

Letter from London

Letter from London: Barnstormer

“Time-based art” is a great new contemporary art phrase to drop into conversations, with the redoubtable Orwellian tautology of “movement-based dancing” or “sound-based music.” It’s one of those phrases that …

On Location: Inside Art Documentary Production

London Calling, Going Tapeless & Meta Madness

On Location: Inside Art Documentary Production

London Calling, Going Tapeless & Meta Madness

Art21’s Season 6, at least as far as video production is concerned, is getting a little more real everyday.  We’re deep in the throes of pre-producing our first honest-to-god shoot …

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Art21 Extended Play

Julie Mehretu: “Mural”

Art21 Extended Play

Julie Mehretu: “Mural”

DOWNLOAD VIA ITUNES | SUBSCRIBE VIA RSS SUPPORT ART21: The countdown continues…there are 64 days left to join the 100 x 100 Exclusive campaign. In 36 days we’ve received 35 …

ArtPrize 2009, Grand Rapids, MI. Photo courtesy of Brian Kelly.

ArtPrize: Reflecting On and Refining an Open Art Competition

ArtPrize: Reflecting On and Refining an Open Art Competition

Last August, I wrote a post on this blog called ArtPrize: An Experiment in Decentralized Curation and Competition. At that time, the team I work with was a month away …

Liz Larner, 2010. Courtesy Regen Projects.

Looking at Los Angeles

Wholeheartedly Real

Looking at Los Angeles

Wholeheartedly Real

Judith Butler, the always agile theorist responsible for Gender Trouble, often says diplomatically dense things like, “a lesbian is what I have been being since college.” She would not say, …

On teaching art to scientists

On teaching art to scientists

This July, I’ll be teaching a course I developed on the intersections of contemporary art and science, for Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). My students are advanced high schoolers, attending two-week …

Flash Points

Flash Points: Art & Experience

Flash Points

Flash Points: Art & Experience

We each look at the world from our own individual perspectives, within contexts that are constantly shifting.  Our unique outlook as viewers, the specific viewpoint of the artist, the curatorial …

Flash Points

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Better Than Ketchup and Vaseline

Flash Points

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Better Than Ketchup and Vaseline

Twice recently I have been contacted by teachers who have run into some trouble sharing Art21 videos with their classes. In both cases these teachers were called by parents (and …

Welcome to Provence!

Open Enrollment

On Exchange from Canada to France: Reflecting on Change and Difference

Open Enrollment

On Exchange from Canada to France: Reflecting on Change and Difference

At one point, I thought that I had an understanding of what my personal practice consisted of, but it wasn’t until the end of my MFA residency that I really …

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Archiving Soul | Ken Shipley of Numero Group

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Archiving Soul | Ken Shipley of Numero Group

While sitting in his office listening to some soon to be released albums, Ken Shipley quickly noted, “we have found a way as a record label to be like a …

Where Was I?

Where Was I?

One of my ongoing curatorial interests has been the relationship between perception and subject formation — how does what we perceive say about who we are, and vice versa? How …

The Fecund Culture Wars, or, How to Tie a Bowtie

The Fecund Culture Wars, or, How to Tie a Bowtie

Perhaps we took the Culture Wars theme of spring and nature a bit too far, but we hoped that it provided fertile ground for some healthy competition, and it did. …

New guest blogger: Liz K. Sheehan

New guest blogger: Liz K. Sheehan

Thanks to Evan J. Garza for sharing his take on art and the market with us. Up next is Liz K. Sheehan, an independent curator and educator currently living in …