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.

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?

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

Photo: Jean Shrimpton, evening dress by Cardin, Paris studio, January 1970. © Richard Avedon, Source:GraeMitchell.com

As we jump into the early New Year 2010, here’s What’s Cookin… enjoy!

• FLASHPOINTS: How does art respond to and define the natural world? The University of New Mexico launched their Art and Ecology as an outgrowth of its ten-year old program, Land Arts of the American West. Read Mattias Merkel Hess’s interview with UNM Art and Ecology professor Catherine Page Harris about how the program started, its relationship with other programs at UNM, and the future of ecological art.
• Inhale. Exhale. Whew. What is the power of positive thinking in relationship to climate change? Nicole Caruth thinks about Marisa Olsen’s upcoming February exhibition, opening in February at NYC’s PS122 called Whew Age. Nicole also provides information about the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
• Nicole Rounds Them Up! To learn about some new and upcoming exhibitions featuring Art21 artists who envision utopia; manipulate patterns and dress; summon Baroque culture; and reflect on the intimate act of bathing click here.
• Art21 Guest Blog Year 2. Many thanks to all twenty-six of them for their informative and often entertaining insights! Here’s to the Art21 Guest Blog Class of 2009
• LOOKING AT LOS ANGELES: Against The Deluge. Calfornia resident Catherine Wagley looks back at 2009. “…The decade should belong to artists who saw the supposed deluge as a reason to stop trying to make history and start rephrasing, breaking apart, and rearranging their cultural heritage, freeing repressed fragments of meaning in hopes of informing an unknown future…”
• EDUCATION: Teaching with Contemporary Art — Bringing It Back Home. December, January, May, June…. These are popular months for graduates to visit their former high schools because they are either between semesters at college or finished for the school year altogether….
• GASTRO VISION: The Year in Meat. Here’s a look back at some meaty moments in 2009
• Entertainers Who Moonlight as Artists: The Top 10 of 2009
• Performative Interventions: The Progression of 4D Art in a Virtual 3D World. Second Life, performance artists see immersion as a means of taking their art directly to a global audience, thus completely eliminating the need for physical exhibition spaces, although augmented reality exhibitions are becoming the norm…” Artist, Franco Mattes says “In our synthetic performances the performers and the audience only interact thorough avatars, they never meet. Everything is mediated. But this doesn’t mean the relationship is not “real”, as much as, for example, a “phone conversation” is a “real conversation”…

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

Diane Arbus, "Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus in their living room, Albion, N.Y. 1964." Source: Christies.com

What was the conversation like over your holiday table? Satisfied or are you still hungry? Here are some more healthy vitamins for you —   it’s time to think some more:

• Letter from London | Scrooged. Have British artists finally settled down? “Publicity-grabbing stunts are refreshingly absent; ‘This year’s nominees (for the Turner Prize),’ says Ben Hoyle of the Times, ‘all paint, draw, or make objects that are recognisably works of art.”" How important is it that the short-list for this prized prize to draw controversy? Should we sigh in relief that the YBA’s have more years under there belt or are we still missing something?
• New Guest Blogger: Nova Benway
• What’s gotta give?  Nova shares a 1983 Stuart Sherman interview by Kestutis Nakas from Your Program of Programs. This interview showcases Sherman’s naïve charm as a performer, with the added layer of Nakas’ good-natured lunacy.
• FLASHPOINTS: How does art respond to the natural world? Check out the work of William Christenberry. What can happens when an old building is claimed by its natural surroundings? His photos give a glimpse.
• Flash Points contributor and University of Riverside professor Jennifer Doyle is currently spending 2 weeks in India, traveling withthe Indian artist Riyas Komu. Check out the third in a series of dispatches from the road – Political Football
• Nicole Rounds Them Up! This week in Art21 artist news we have two tapestry makers, a silk archway, the master of Cremaster, an artist who likes to do laundry, a magical sound installation, environmental issues, creative explosions, and more…
• Teaching with Contemporary Art: Season’s Treatings from Joe Fusaro