What’s Cookin at the Art21 Blog: A Weekly Index

"Singin' in the Rain" (film still from 1952 film of the same name), SOURCE:www.imgartists.com

• “I am so happy right now.” That is the last line from Nina Schwansee’s video on the art of Amy Fischer. Whether she reciting Fischers infamous monologues pertaining to art as life,  playing her own version of a sort name game by posing as the mulit-aspected K-A-T-E(s), producing a commercial and edited outtakes in advertisement of the values of the nuclear family, love, weddings of a unique creation, horses and (of course pizza),  Schwanssee’s work plays with the seemingly timeless clichés of a woman’s place in society and relationship to the power of her own representation but with nostalgic flair for the ’90’s. Check out this artist’s profile posted by Kevin McGary.
• “Problematise,” “brings attention to,” “radical” — this is the sound of art talking to itself. Ben Street in his letter Letter from London: Ethic Minority questions why it is that we are not really supposed to talk about the ‘ethical and moral dimensions’ of contemporary art. Discussions pertaining to controversy surrounding contemporary art or art works  often do not speak about ethics directly but take any  (supposed) abrasive qualities of the work to be in fact intrinsic framework of the artwork at hand. Is this just a different form of the “get out of jail free card?” Ben starts off this post with a helpful quote from the forever quotable Oscar Wilde: “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all.”
• Is that a young child with a cigarette? Sally Mann’s provocative photography of her children get me every time. The Family, The Land is the first museum exhibition in Switzerland devoted to the work of Season 1 artist Sally Mann. For more of what’s happening with Art21 artists around the globe, check out the Weekly Round-up.
• Vroom, vroom, here we go folks! Joe Fusaro, in his weekly column TEACHING WITH CONTEMPORARY ART  is Test Driving the New Season 5 Educator’s Guide: John Baldessari and Juxtoposition. Students will be asked to work with partners to research and collect images (fine art reproductions, advertisements, posters, etc.) that send specific messages through juxtaposition. This sounds like fun!
• WE WANT FILM! Director of Production at Art21,  Nick Ravich has been quite busy these past weeks  helping to create new exclusive videos, shooting the preparation and rehearsals for William Kentridge’s Nose production at the Metropolitan Opera, and in general getting ready for Art21’s Season Six.  Ravich gives us the scoop on what’s been happening in the world of documentary screenings. Pass the popcorn please!
• Have you ever been an assistant before? For whom, and what were you doing? Check out this VIDEO EXCLUSIVE JULIE MEHRETU | STUDIO ASSISTANTS (Episode #097) Filmed in her Berlin studio, a group of Julie Mehretu’s assistants — Sarah Rentz, Damien Young, Erika Fortner and Harmony Murphy — discuss how they each bring different areas of expertise to the process of making paintings, from fine art backgrounds in printmaking and illustration to furniture polishing techniques and administrative skills.
• MEOWTWEET. Jonathan Munar interviews Ryan Catbird of Catbird Records in this post PACKAGING A MUSIC EXPERIENCE. Ryan Catbird has commanded a silent influence on the independent music scene since he began his blog, The Catbirdseat, in 2002. Ryan could possibly be credited for bringing bands such as Destroyer, Beirut, Frightened Rabbit, Pete and the Pirates closer to the public spotlight. Anyone who follows his blog would probably agree: Ryan Catbird has an honest, sincere, and genuine passion for music, with no pretense attached whatsoever. Which is why Ryan would probably never credit himself for “breaking” a band…and also why you would expect him to do more than just write about music…
• Juicing the Equilibrium is a series of talks that solicits thinkers from outside the art world to apply their own readings and methodologies to the infinitely complicated matter of the art market. Essentially, how can an artist actively be both cognizant and critical of market forces? Kevin McGary Reports from New York City.

What’s Cookin at the Art21 Blog: A Weekly Index

"Yummy Smurf Cake." Source: bluebuddies.com

I don’t know about you but I can’t get enough. I promise not too play with my food too much (maybe) but I can guarantee I will be asking for seconds. It’s one of the busiest weeks in the Art World and a lot of it is happening in New York City. Although I have been on the verge of art overload, with my eyes literally buzzing the other night from over-stimulation, I won’t be shouting mayday because I have the optimism that I will experience something intriguing the very next moment just by default. My favorite so far is the muli-layered curatorial contrast between the more traditional yet uber-commercial Armory Show and the INDEPENDENT.

Meanwhile, I bet you all are still hungry as well – so here you go!

• It’s Pure Beauty! Otherwise known as an exhibition of that very name, featuring John Baldessari, which opens in Spain; the Whitney Biennial in NYC; Shrewd & Sassy Survey of American Arists opened in Nebraska; Collier Schorr’s German Faces at the Modern Art Gallery in London…Nicole Caruth Rounds Them Up here. At 19 additional bits and bites, this week’s most recent roundup is a whopper!
• EDUCATION | Teaching with Contemporary Art. How do you hold an art exhibition in your hand? Read Part One of this  interview with Tod Lippy, founder and editor of ESOPUS magazine, by Joe Fusaro, for some insight into how Lippy has materialized his curatorial vision in a plethora of pages released on two very anticipated dates per year. In Part Two, Lippy talks about the periodical as useful a resource for educators.
• What are you thinking, I mean eating? Don’t know? Try charting it out. You might get some  some unexpected answers. In Gastro-Vision: Stomache, Nicole Caruth gives us the scoop on artist Christina Mazzalupo’s very colorful food diaries. It’s true that what you eat can’t only be measured as a numeric caloric intake.
• How does the Internet see you? Here’s a new way to ask this androgynous digital connector, in the form of an initial question posed by Aaron Zinman of MIT.  Meanwhile, be sure to read on here as there are many other connections made.
• Have you every chosen not to be, well, the most polite that you could be? What was the outcome? Here’s a glimpse into Paul McCarthy’s studio, a workshop that often dares to be irreverent. In this video, Paul McCarthy | Lifecasting, the artist is surrounded by various figurative sculptures, including an oversized bust of President George W. Bush. McCarthy discusses the process of casting from life and the resulting perfections and imperfections. Be sure to also watch Jessica Stockholder | Form. Stockholder discusses the strength of form and the difficulty in articulating the meaning behind abstract shapes from her home in New Haven, Connecticut.
• Inside the Artist’s Studio | Christa Holka. Vanity, queerness, friends, and family. Sometimes the seemingly superficial is actually quite intimate. Holka talks about her photography, past travels, lifestyles, and hopes for the future.
• Welcome Kevin McGarry, our new guest blogger! Kevin is a writer and curator based in Brooklyn, NY. His journalism has recently appeared on Rhizome, T Magazine Blog, and the online editions of Art in America, Artforum and Interview. Read about his first impressions of Skin Fruit, the exhibition curated by Jeff Koons at the New Museum.
• Flash Points: Must Art Be Ethical? What would happen if you took a stray animal off the street and put it in a gallery as a work of art? According to  David Yanez, perhaps no other exhibition has caused as much controversy over the ethical use of live animals in art as Exposición No.1., a show by Guillermo Vargas, a Costa Rican artist also known as “Habacuc.” IT took place on August 16, 2007 at Galería Códice in Managua, Nicaragua. YOU ARE WHAT YOU READ.
• The Oscars, aka prom night for Hollywood, are just around the corner! Who does the Academy love more: the noble savage, the noble soldier, or the noble soldier-turned-savage? Are you on the edge of your seat or what? If you answered “or what” to that question, you might prefer to spend this Sunday at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, whose current exhibitions offer an excellent antidote to “movie magic.”
• Building relationships can be hard for some and quite natural for others. What about that space in-between? How does photographer Alec Soth work at his relationships with his subjects? Read The Process Behind the Portrait, an interview with Soth by Rachel Craft.

What’s Cookin at the Art21 Blog: A Weekly Index

"Thriller Kitty Impresses", Source: icanhascheezburger.com

• What are your manners? Where and how did you learn them? According to Ben Street’s most recent letter to us contemporary art and the Mannerist Movement could be holding hands at the table. What do you see? Peter Schjeldahl, in his review at the new exhibition of Bronzino’s drawings at the Met says, “Mannerism, the most commonly despised period in Western art history…[is] the one that best befits creative culture today. We are mostly Mannerists now…” Jerry Saltz calls Mannerism calls Bronzino, “sixteenth-century Italy’s Joey Ramone”. There’s a lot to consider here: READ this post.
• Is art your friend? Why not, it should be. John Menil says: “Art: Take it off its marble pedestal and show it as a daily companion, refreshing, human and rich: witness of its time and prophet of times to come.”For more check out this post on The Menil Collection.
• Art is Murder. Scary. But Insightful.
• Teaching with Contemporary Art is taking a break this week in order to complete special two-part interview with Esopus editor, Tod Lippy, which will be published here on the Art21 blog starting next Wednesday. Stay tuned for this unique look into a very, very distinct art magazine that has wonderful potential for art educators.
• This President’s Day roundup begins with a hotly debated exhibition and ends with a divine duo in this week’s Round-Up.
• How do you conserve a work of art that is fleeting in time? Richard McCoy speaks to Jeff Martin in this post Collaborations in Conservation: A Conversation and A Colloquium
• Do you know how to argue responsibly? How does the recent thoughts shared between Jerry Saltz and  John Yau measure up? In this week’s, FLASHPOINTS: Must art be ethical? |The Puppy Wars, Catherine Wagley writes, there are unethical ways of arguing. It’s a critic’s responsibility to try to glance past his own worldview—not to escape it (that would be impossible and uninteresting)—and invite conversation about more than what he thinks. Writing that settles for voluptuous, only half-substantiated opinion-making, however, does break the rules.
• This past Tuesday  an event at UCLA’s Hammer Museum dealt with death in a way that was less discriminating than blogger Catherine Wagley would have liked. The Museum joined forces with PEN USA to present a reading titled, “I Am Neda.” The event promised to bring together dissident poets and to celebrate freedom fighters in Iran. I went because, like so many others, I found the video of Neda Agha-Soltan, the unknown makers of which just received a George Polk Award for Videography, emotionally searing. I also went because the Neda phenomenon seems so heavily visual that I wanted to see how poetry could claim her image….READ more here.
• What better way to soundtrack an art and pop culture event than to invite an in-tune-with-pop-culture artist to curate a selection of their favorite music? Check out Culture Wars: Trivial Tunes with Mary Heilmann and Mark your calendars: The next Culture Wars night is on Wednesday, March 24, at the 92YTribeca.
• Grand Canyon Journal 4: Critique as a Destruction of Joy…”CityCenter is the biggest thing to happen to art in Las Vegas since Steve Wynn put his finger through a Picasso. The mixed-use, residential, gambling, fine dining, clubbing, high-end retail, luxury hotel behemoth opened in December with the explosive fanfare usually reserved for the demolition of buildings in Vegas.”
• VIDEO EXCLUSIVE | William Kentridge’s “Return”; Shot in his Johannesburg studio in South Africa, William Kentridge reveals the process and unusual presentation of the video work Return — a component of the larger project (REPEAT) from the beginning / Da Capo (2008) — which had its debut on the fire screen of Teatro La Fenice opera house in Venice, Italy.
• Raiding, Mining and Resurrecting: Maurizo Cattelan at the Menil Collection
• Why art school? Why now? Why does it matter? | Art21 is seeking Graduate Student Writers for Open Enrollment

What’s Cookin at the Art21 Blog: A Weekly Index

Film still from Věra Chytilová's "Daisies" (1966), SOURCE: The Pinnocchio Theory (blog)

Hungry?

• FLASHPOINTS: How does art respond to and redefine the natural world? Dan Phillips makes houses and asks the question, what is “folk”? According to Leanne Gilberstein in  her post,  Dan Phillips: Not Merely Vernacular, Pt. 2 Phillips effectively demythologizes ideas of “the folk” that have problematically been associated specific notions of  cultural origins… accordingly  American history has used these notions to construct and solidify perceptions of certain groups (often black people and poor whites) by relegating them to an ingrained, natural condition of unchanging “folkhood.” How does Phillips make “use of the discards of the cultural mainstream and the privileging of a taste for making do rather than making perfect…?” Is Phillip’s project merely nostalgic or is his economically minded project helping to pave the way for an optimistic future in  ‘forward thinking’ production?
• Greek tragedy, cross dressing, cooking shows, needlework, rowdy teens, storytelling, nighttime walks, and a few mystery plays in this week’s roundup. (I myself am heading to MIT this week to check out Virtuoso Illusion: Cross Dressing and the New Media Avant-Garde…!)
• Art classrooms can be noisy places. But hey, if you want a student’s attention and full-force effort why not give them A Little Heads Up about your intentions for the day’s lesson plan. Perhaps they’ll respect you for it as this knowledge has the ability to give students a particular sense of purpose. According to Joe Fusaro in this weeks addition of Teaching With Contemporary Art it’s worth a shot.
• Are you a pack rat? Lots of artists are. Check out this weeks VIDEO EXCLUSIVE:  John Baldessari | Recycling Images
• Karen Schmeer, the Maysles Brothers & Art Doc Screenings in NYC: Nick Ravich, Art21’s Director of Production pays respect to a very important important member of the independent documentary community, Karen Schmeer; Production Coordinator Ian Forster, recently got the chance to shoot at the big beautiful exhibit of Gabriel Orozco’s work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York; and Ravich highly recommends some select screenings of documentary films to see in NYC. But never fear non-New Yorkers and those who are saving extra cash by not attending as many out of home screenings this year…. Ravich promises a future column detailing some online-based art documentary viewing options! (YES!)

What’s Cookin at the Art21 Blog: A Weekly Index

"The Misfits of Modern Agribusiness", SVF Foundation Newport, RI; NY Times Slideshow, January 5, 2010

This week What’s Cookin is sent to you directly from Newport, RI  an eclectic little city on the Atlantic coast. Home to some of the best clam chowder and crab cakes I’ve ever eaten, everything seems to be within walking distance including a farm of rare animal breeds, mansions preserved from the Gilded Age, the infamous mystery tower, and the country’s first lending library, the Redwood...I’m always hungry to learn more, meanwhile here’s what’s been happening at Art21:

• It’s a mix-tape tape that flirts with Caribbean Kitsch, romance and hushed Rothko reverence, glitter(!), paint and fesis. Curate your mind around Ben Street’s letter on Chris Ofili’s retrospective at the Tate Modern in London. It sounds like an exhibition not to be missed.
• Welcom Leanne Gilbertson, the latest in the Art21 Guestblogosphere! A teacher at the Sam Houston State University  she is also preparing a manuscript that explores the relationships between the emergence, in the 1960s, of both feminist and queer consciousnesses, and the intermedia artistic experimentation occurring at both Warhol’s Factory and Judson Memorial Church.
• FLASHPOINTS: How does art respond to and define the natural world? For the past twelve years, Dan Phillips and members of the Commotion, including his wife Marsha, have been committed to building affordable and visually-distinctive housing out of largely post-consumption building leftovers, waste from the fabrication of industrialized materials (including “landscape timbers,” a plywood by-product), and other free or discarded materials.
• Nicole Rounds Them UP!  You’ll read about two anniversary exhibitions, 6,000 shapes upstate, masterworks in the Midwest, some road trip souvenirs, a whole lotta prints, and a sale you won’t want to miss.
• Teaching with Contemporary Art: Art 21 has ventured into the land of teacher institutes. Joe Fusaro reflects on the importance of  ‘teaching with ideas’ and introduces Year 2 of the Art21 Educators summer institute will run from July 7-14, 2010 and is now accepting applications from pairs of teachers. Click here for more information and to download an application!
• Grand Canyon Journal 3:  the Painter of Video to Life. Has there ever been such an elegant dramatization of the power of illusion as David Copperfield’s “The Painter”? Art and magic share the stage (which strangely recalls both David Letterman’s set and Monica’s apartment from Friends) in a trick that only gently conflates the initial discomfort of Harold and Maude with Copperfield’s problems with the law…
• If You Can Remember the ’60’s You Weren’t There. “When I moved from Berkeley to Los Angeles five years ago, I thought I was done living in a town that was devoted to perpetually remembering the ’60s. But I soon discovered that Los Angeles also carries a mega-torch for that transformative decade.” Lily Simonson thinks continues to inspire the Los Angeles as a California culural center in relationship to the Ferus Gallery and the Samuel Freeman Gallery.
• Art21 Launches the next Flash Points topic, The Ethics of Art. Ethics are defined as “a system of moral principles” which constantly factor into the choices we make. However, these decisions can become confused, making this system of principles more gray than black and white, especially when competing priorities are at work. Over the next two months, we’ll explore the relationship of ethics in art from a variety of perspectives and question the role that they should — or shouldn’t — play.
• The Dust Settles After the First Culture Wars. On January 28, Art21 and 92YTribeca piloted a program called Culture Wars: A Night of Trivia with Art21. The night began with a music play list created by artist Mary Heilmann (Season 5).
• VIDEO EXCLUSIVE — Julie Mehretu | Workday. Filmed in her Berlin studio, Julie Mehretu discusses the ups and downs of her daily studio practice. Mehretu is shown working on the painting Middle Grey (2007-2009), one work in a suite of seven paintings commissioned by the Deutsche Guggenheim as part of the exhibition Julie Mehretu: Grey Area, which travels to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York later this year (May 14 – October 6, 2010).

What’s Cookin at the Art21 Blog: A Weekly Index

"Raoul and Spot", Source: www.johnsoncountyhumane.org

Brrrrrr… it’s cold over here in NYC.  I hope you all are staying warm wherever you are. Meanwhile, here’s What’s Cookin:

• Nicole Rounds Them Up! This week you’ll read about Tasmanian wolves, patented patterns, cartoon anthropomorphism, ancient mythology, portico projections, and a big gift…
• We’re back with Karthik Pandian on his voyage in the Wild West.  In his second installment of this Grand Canyon Journal: Let’s Get Medievalist on this Crevassse gallop through the Arthurian points in which many parts of the canyon are named. Does the tip of Excalibur Tower, which is said to look like King Arthur’s legendary sword, contain the moment when its namesake was thrust into a soon-to-be-slain dragon? Does Guinevere Castle house a temporal room in which the Queen scandalously gave herself to Lancelot?
• Transcendent: Vija Clemins and Kimsooja| Teaching With Contemporary Art Columnist, Joe Fusaro was “recently I was engaged in a little debate about whether contemporary art can truly be transcendent — taking us beyond the range of normal perception to some place else, some place free from the constraints of the material world…
• A poised student who introduced himself as  “born in 1990” commented that, while the photographs appealed to him because of their obvious skillfulness, he wanted to know what someone his age was supposed to take from work created years before his birth… Last November Catherine Wagley attended a panel discussion at LACMA on photographs of man-altered landscape. The images in question—coolly composed prints by Stephen Shore, Lewis Baltz, and Robert Adams, among others—all hailed from the 1970s. Read Catherine’s reflection on this panel discussion in her post Hollis Frampton Revival.
• Gastro Vision | Food in Contemporary Art and Visual Culture: The Fruit of Experience. Nicole gives us the scoop on the on  Fallen Fruit Collective formed six years ago through a project by artists David Burns, Matias Viegener, and Austin Young for the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest.
• Remembering artist and friend Flo McGarrell
• VIDEO EXCLUSIVE | William Kentridge, Breathe. Shot in his Johannesburg studio in South Africa, William Kentridge reveals the process behind the video work Breathe — a component of the larger project (REPEAT) from the beginning / Da Capo (2008) that debuted at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and at the nearby Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in San Barnaba, Italy.
• FLASHPOINTS: Art + the Environment Wrap Up. For the past few months, our blog discussion platform, Flash Points, has hosted a conversation on Art and the Environment. Together with our readers, we looked at how art reacts to the environment, and if it can be used as a way to contextualize and understand environmental concerns.

Flash Points: Art + the Environment Wrap-Up

Pierre Huyghe, "Streamside Day," production still, 2003, Film and video transfers, 26 minutes, color, sound. Photo by Aaron S. Davidson. © Pierre Huyghe, courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris/New York.

The natural world is a marvel, a playground, an intrinsic adventure, a multi-layered curiosity, an embodiment of fear and  absolute wonderment. It is an artists’ gym where one can exercise by wrapping his or her brain around concerns that affect us now and the efforts that sustain the pulsing planet that we inhabit. For the past few months, our blog discussion platform, Flash Points, has hosted a conversation on Art and the Environment. Together with our readers, we looked at how art reacts to the environment, and if it can be used as a way to contextualize and understand environmental concerns.

Flash Points Editor Rachel Craft kicked off the discussion:

From sustainability and alternative energy solutions, to green-collared jobs and maintaining a low carbon footprint, environmental concerns and how our world is addressing them is an ever-present issue. As artist Mark Dion stated [in the Art:21 Ecology episode], “We have a test ahead of us in terms of our relationship to the natural world. If we pass the test we get to keep the planet, but I don’t really see us doing a very good job of that right now.”

• Corinna Kirsch offered her insights on the importance of public art and sustainability in respect to the Twin Cities, Minnesota (Minneapolis / St. Paul), a forefront of what Grant Kesler of October Magazine might call an example of contemporary co-authorship. What could be more contemporary than a network of institutions and individuals collaboratively utilizing a public space in the name of art?
• What about becoming an activist? Stacy Ward Kelly speaks about the importance of using art as a tool to advocate for the preservation, restoration, and improvement of the natural environment.
• Julia Walker points out that many of the changes that need to occur in order for real sustainable architecture to thrive must take place in policy-making at the municipal, state, and federal levels.
• Nova Benway talks about art in relationship to sincerity and looks at sculptor David Olsen, whose work focuses on Newtown Creek in Brooklyn.
• Anna Kryczka quotes John Dewey and the understanding of art as an experience that is embodied in the Chinati Foundation: “every successive part flows freely without unfilled blanks into what ensues.” A moment of coherence—where art, architecture, landscape, and activity all enliven one another—is the art of the Chinati Foundation.
• Catherine Wagley looks at what happens when nature takes over. Much of the talk about climate change and green living focuses on common missions and shared responsibility to nature. So how much of this conversation is really about preserving ourselves?
• Catherine also attended “What’s at Stake? New Topographics and the Man-Altered Landscape,” a LACMA symposium focused on restaging the 1975 exhibition with regard to curatorial practice, urbanism, environmentalism, and architecture.
• Inhale. Exhale. Whew. Nicole Caruth explores the power of positive thinking in relationship to climate change.
• Kevin Buist sees the link between the work of Robert Smithson and Eames Demetrios in how they both marry natural sites with epic mythologies.

Among the many related posts of the last few months, there were numerous interviews that focused on art and the environment in different ways, including:

• Flash Points Editor Rachel Craft interviewed David R. Collens, Director and Curator of Storm King Art Center, about the institution’s focus on the relationship between art and nature. How does the interaction between art and nature inform the core of Storm King’s programming?
• Andrea Zittel is building a floating island in Indiana. Richard McCoy interviews her about this project.
• The wonder years are here to stay. Find some slug eggs, make the light bulb light up, get the microscope to focus, harvest a tomato, nurture a seed…it’s wonderful! Joe Fusaro interviews Abbe Futterman, former graduate of the Pratt Institute and now a science teacher at the Earth School, about the importance of drawing and scientific illustration as a unique way of exploring the world.
• Nicole Sansone conducts a “blogalogue” with EcoArtTech, a collaborative platform for digital environmental art (also here), as well as talks with ETeam.
• Matthias Merkel Hess interviews Catherine Page Harris, a professor of the new Art and Ecology program at the University of New Mexico.

Honing in on another facet of the conversation, artists speak about their artistic processes, projects and recent exhibitions:

• Roni Horn discusses the paradoxical identity and dependency of water, paired with scenes of Icelandic landscapes in this video exclusive.
• Alexis Avlamis:  “I use the highly fluid state of encaustic to document and elaborate constant movement and changes reminiscent of weather, rock and cloud patterns, veins, markings, organs, rivers, cast shadows, biomorphic figures, and creatures…”
• Eirik Johnson returned to the Northwest to make work that addressed the complicated relationship between the region’s landscape, industries that rely upon natural resources, and the communities they support.
• Ariana Page Russell uses her skin condition as a tool and her body as a canvas in self-exploration.
• Noah Fischer writes about his site-specific installation, Electric Forest: Made in Troy.
• Katie Holten features her current project, Tree Museum, a public artwork in the Bronx, New York.

Is there anything that you would like to add to this discussion? Who are the artists in your community and what institution(s) do you see utilizing art as a tool to understand our environment?

What’s Cookin at the Art21 Blog: A Weekly Index

"Emily and Rishi crawl in the grass", Source: http://photos.ellen.warnerbros.com/galleries/cute_pictures

Have you ever …

…wanted to live on an island? Andrea Zittel did …so she’s making one! If you are in Indianapolis, visit the IMA and meet the “park ranger” living on Zittel’s island. Hopefully he will invite you aboard and show you around! Meanwhile, check out this interview with Andrea Zittel  by Richard McCoy.

…flown over the Grand Canyon? Re-visit David Copperfield’s and float across with artist and new (!) guest blogger Karthik Pandian in this first installament (ie Journal #1) of a series of posts involving a straight-up escavation of his journey from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon. YouTube is Karthik’s co-pilot.

…found some slug eggs, made the  light bulb light up,  got a  microscope to focus, harvested a tomato, nurtured a seed? Joe Fusaro Interviews Abbe Futterman, former graduate of Pratt Institute now science teacher at the Earth School about the importance of  drawing and scientific illustration as a unique way of  exploring  the world. According to Abbe “Discovery that is the result of an imaginative act– one’s own “wonderful idea”– is a powerful thing. I believe that when children experience their own agency in this way, they learn that they can change the world…”

…been an archivist at a museum? Read about the importance of conservation and exploration of different roles in archiving from someone knowledgeable in the position of caring for art at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.  Richard McCoy interviews former Associate Curator from the IMA, Rebecca Uchill.

…thought about how sports, the human body,  GAP t-shirts, and MLK day can all come together? Nicole Rounds Them Up!

…painted yourself blue and gone to the movies? In this week’s Letter from London Ben Street thinks about the psychological effects that the film Avatar has had on some people as well as the film’s vibrant fan base. How does this cinematic explosion fall into place in the context of art history?

…aughta, coulda, shoulda made that list? It’s better late then never. Check out this post looking back on the decade with no name with these Art21 Bloggers 2009 Round Up up “art- things remembered”.

…enjoyed a trivia night with Art21? Come one come all to Culture Wars (!) a NEW trivia event inspired by contemporary art and the culture of our time presented by Art21 and 92YTribeca

…wondered about the mechanics behind the functioning of a robot? In this VIDEO EXCLUSIVE Animatronic Designer Jon Dawe reveals the process behind the robotic creature effects in artist Paul McCarthy’s sculpture Bush and Pig.

There’s been a lot Cookin’ at Art21 this past week!

What’s Cookin at the Art21 Blog: A Weekly Index

"Maypole Dogs", Source: Everlasting Love (a blog), 2009

Ready… set …GO!!!

• Letter from London: Memento Mori:Ben Street writes to us about Emily Princes drawing installation project that counts the dead… or does it? This artist’s approach to statistics utilizes rembrance as a fight against abstraction…
• Nicole Rounds Them UP! This week Art21 artists depict nether regions, play with light and space, bundle and fuse old toys, mirror the dandy, reimagine rooftops, photograph electricity, and display cookie cutters by the thousands
• BLOG THIS! Blogging the Contemporary Arts, a panel discussion at X-Initiative. Blogs about contemporary arts and the art world play an increasingly important role by providing multiple viewpoints, information and commentaries about the art market, the gallery scene, artists and their work on a daily basis.
• Adolf Hitler  (character) IMDB Spreadsheet
• Teaching with Contemporary Art: Anything Can Happen. Being a Ranger Fan is a lot like Contemporary Art.
• Announcing Art Educators 2010-2011. The Education staff at Art21 is launching the second year of Art21 Educators and we are now accepting applications. For those of you just hearing about this program, Art21 Educators is an intensive, year-long professional development initiative designed to cultivate and support K-12 art educators interested in bringing contemporary art, artists, and themes into their classrooms.
• VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Allan McCollum Cookie Cutters

What’s Cookin at the Art21 Blog: A Weekly Index

"Dandelion" photography by Irving Penn, c. 1973; Source: PaceMacGill.com

Dandelion leaves contain abundant amounts of vitamins and minerals, including Vitamins A, C and K. and are good sources of calcium in a dandelion sautee or wine…and as Irving Penn photographed this elegant parchute bulbed dandelion pictured above these flowers are quite beautiful …and even magical!

Here’s what else is cookin:

• Video Exclusive| Cao Fei Avatars
• Bibi Calderaro’s Gifts | Guest Blogger Nova Benway touches on  the relationship between the social process of giving and select performances by Caldero.
• Earnest-ness or Exuberant Seriousness? Nova writes about work of sculptor David Olsen and reflects on her past writings of the theme of sincerity.
• New Guest Blogger: Joel Holmberg. Check out his clever post, Understanding the Economy Photoshop Tutorial
• Nicole Rounds Them Up! This week Art21 artists illustrate NASA’s history, depict child’s play, map the Black Atlantic, render galaxies in glass, leave their mark on the last decade, and reflect on our future.
• Hair Nails, Talk & Touch, 4 Encounters with Women in Mumbai: Over the past few weeks, Jennifer Doyle has been reporting from her travels in India.
• Artist and teacher Joe Fusaro plays a tune of excitement for the many plans he has for the column Teaching with Contemporary Art in 2010.
• Inside the Artists Studio: Alexis Avlamis, current resident at the Vermont Studio Center
• New Column! Inside Art Documentary Production | Julie Mehretu and the Problem of Shooting Big. Nick Ravich, Art21’s Director of Production, breaks his bloggy silence and takes us on a trip into the  zone of documentary production. How may one approach documenting an arwork accuately when an artist has created something that defies the camera’s ability to record it?