"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?

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”…

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

"Hearting Art21" Source: The Pit (a blog), 10-29-09

• A letter from Susan Sollins, Executive Director of Art21. Please support Art21’s many educational endeavors and donate to the 2009 Annual Fund
• Soccer. It’s a passionate and public sport that is made for and by the fans. For Yolana Sousa Kammermeier, it is also subject for her art.
• Around the world, one click at a time | William Gedney’s photographs have the power.
• …An upside down glass house, a floral puppy, fused bicycles and an empty white shoe box, a TV-inspired installation, two exhibitions focusing on American society, a few year-end lists, and an artist just two years shy of a century –Nicole Rounds Them Up!
• Ethics of Conservation and the Organization of Attention…“The most radical art today is not an art that rejects history and rejects the kind of layers of history; but actually the most radical art today is about preservation. And so actually the most shocking thing you can do today is protect something.” For more, check out Richard McCoy’s interview with the artist Jorge Otero-Pailos.
• Art21”Exclusive” Video, Year 2. What a year it’s been! We’re taking a look back at the 42 Exclusive videos that have premiered.
• Teaching with Contemporary Art | Time to Talk. The power of conversation has the ability to facilitate a student’s course on their artmaking journey.
• FLASH! POINT & CLICK! 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.
• Lucie Rie | A ceramicist with a story to tell. Additional info here.
• Triangle Met | Angular visions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection database.

Cheese Fondue, Source: JustHungry.com

• VIDEO EXCLUSIVE — Doris Salcedo | Third World Identity
• New Guest Blogger: Kelly Rakowski, a graphic designer and Head of the Book Department at Todd Oldham Studio.
• Check out this post of images of the Costumes of the Katsinas as part of her Nothing is New project.
• Future Russia
• Nicole Caruth ROUNDS THEM UP! In this week’s Art21 artist news you’ll read about a forty-million dollar art collection in Las Vegas, a major exhibition of work by Korean and Korean American artists, an installation made of yogurt caps, a massive concrete sculpture in Canada, and more.
• Justice Potter Stewart and Contemporary Art… What does art look like?
  Ben Street writes to us from London
• TEACHING WITH CONTEMPORART ART | Confronting History
  Joe Fusaro refers to Doris Salcedo : “As an artist, I have a responsibility. I have to look at historical events and work with whatever material is given to me.”
• On Location: Filming Art21 Educators in Southern California
• FLASHPOINTS: How does art respond to the natural world? | Deference to the Vernacular , Artists and Athletes:Riyas Komu’s Mark Him … and a Tree Museum!
• Dutch Bound Books | Wolfsonian Library
• Blogalogue, Part 4: Lee Montgomery … and now.
• Looking at Los Angeles: Squeak Carnwath’s Unique Lexicon Channels the Universal

Still from the film the Godfather; Source: Guardian.co.uk

Pssst…! Here’s what’s been going on these past days  at Art21…

VIDEO EXCLUSIVE(s):

• Kimsooja | “A Beggar Woman” & “A Homeless Woman”
• Yinka Shonibare MBE | Being an Artist
• Feed that brain with some more  thinking food (!) Cecilia Novero on Franza Kafka, the anti-diet, notions of  progress and much much more… Check out her new book.
• Round Up: Art21 artists play with fire, sign new books, design stained glass, collage basketballs, create new films, and pop up in Miami Beach exhibitions.
• Electrical Forrest : A Monument to the Community of Troy New York the Silicon Valley of the 19th century
• Flashpoints: How does art respond to and redefine the natural world?
• Blogalogueing with EcoArt Tech

***

• Tweet! Tweet !  An interview with Kristin Lucas
• For more info about Kristin and her work check out the other  posts in Nicole Sansome’s journey into the virtual world and the collaborative artists she meets there – Echo Art Tech and the E Team:
• Part 1 About Echo Art Tech
• Part 2: About E Team
• Part 3; More with Krisin Lucas
• ETEAM| Unite in  this Virtual World
• ETeam Reflections…An existential nihilistic crisis…

***

• Looking at Los Angeles: Catherine Wagley is thankful for senseless art with guts
• Power. Teaching with Contemporary Art. Share Here.
• Supplies Help Make the Classroom Functional: If the Shoe Fits Pay for It
• New Column!!! Art2.1 Creating on the Social Web
• Virtual Artists’ Immersive Discoveries in a Virtual 3D Frontier
• Letter from London: Remember, Remember… Ben Street reflects on some art that sticks and other art that doesn’t have as much grab.  Art needs oxygen! How is art (not) confined to present tense experience of being in a gallery?
• Exploring the Makeshift Landscape. Photographer Eirik Johnson writes about his ongoing exploration of humankind’s environmental impact.
• Julia Walker fears Sustainable Architecture is in danger. Check out her post Style vs. Substance
• Inside the Artist’s Studio: Lisa Bradley
• Making It Happen with “Email Balls”

"Flock of Seagulls." Source: Getty Images

• It’s a cage that went in search of a bird…Sreshta Rit Premnath explores the ocean as a territory that lies outside the realm of governmentality.
• Nicole rounds them up! From exhibitions and public talks, to limited-edition prints and digital calendars, this week you can find Art21 artists involved in various activities in New York, Washington D.C., Dublin, and Johannesburg.
• FLASHPOINTS: Kevin Buist talks about the Mythic Environments created by Robert Smithson and Eames Demetrios… What is Ecoartivism? Stacy Ward Kelly has been inspired by many artists who have a calling to protect and care for the physical world we inhabit…How does art respond to the natural world?
• VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Paul McCarthy | Piccadilly Circus
• A year ago Joe Fusaro explored the theme of power with his students. He does the same again this year but in a different way. In this week’s Teaching with Contemporary Art column, Joe emphasizes the importance of taking feedback from students seriously.
• What is the story of how Art21 began? Your answer is here, directly from Susan Sollins, Founder and Executive Director.
• Maria Steinina talks about historic photographic in the art market … and her unquenchable thirst for the artists’ book.
• International Design Conservation:  A Discussion with Tim Bechthold

Gabriel Orozco, "Dark Wave", 2006. Calcium carbonate and resin with graphite, 119 11/16 x 154 5/16 x 541 5/16 in. Courtesy Jay Jopling / White Cube (via artnet.com).

From exhibitions and public talks, to limited-edition prints and digital calendars, this week you can find Art21 artists involved in various activities in New York, Washington D.C., Dublin, and Johannesburg:

• The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York has announced a mid-career retrospective exhibition of work by Season 2 artist Gabriel Orozco. In 1993, MoMA organized Projects 41: Gabriel Orozco, the artist’s first solo museum show. Many of the well-known objects he has created since that time (such as Black Kites, 1997) will be shown alongside lesser-known drawings, paintings, photographs, large sculptures and installations. Gabriel Orozco runs December 13, 2009–March 1, 2010. Jump to Wesley Miller’s 2008 blog post, Gabriel Orozco: Mobile Matrix, to learn more about the sculpture pictured above.

• High on my wish list this holiday season is the electronic plug-in issue of Visionaire Magazine, a tri-annual limited-edition publication. Visionaire worked with 52 curators and art collectors to select one artwork for every day of the year; Orozco, Bruce Nauman (Season 1) and Louise Bourgeois (Season 2)  are among the 365 artists chosen. The Visionaire 2010 is available in stores now.

• Picturing New York – an exhibition of 145 works from MoMA’s photographic collection – will open at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on November 25. Through the work of nearly 40 photographers, including Cindy Sherman (Season 5), Berenice Abbott, and Diane Arbus, the show celebrates the tradition of photographing the city.

• In other Sherman news, Artinfo.com reports that the artist will receive the Jewish Museum’s Man Ray Award for “her distinguished accomplishments in advancing the world’s understanding of the limitless possibilities of identity, and the profound impact of her work on the contemporary art world.” The award will be presented on November 17.

• On November 18, the Whitney Museum of American Art will host a public conversation between Roni Horn (Season 3) and chief curator Donna De Salvo. They will discuss Horn’s work over the last 30-years and her mid-career survey now on view at the Whitney. The program begins at 7pm. (Check out the Bomb Magazine website, where you can read an interview with Horn from 1989.)

• Yinka Shonibare MBE, the traveling exhibition of work by the Season 5 artist, opened at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian last week. The museum has dedicated a blog, as well as a twitter account exclusively to their Shonibare show. The exhibition runs through March 7, 2010.

• If you missed the mention on Art21′s twitter page, I Am Not Me, the Horse Is Not Mine – a performance by Season 5 artist William Kentridge commissioned for Performa 09 – was reviewed by Roberta Smith of the New York Times. Smith called the piece “an exquisitely polished work of art in itself, thanks largely to Mr. Kentridge’s marvelous stage presence.” Read the complete review here.

• Later this month, the award-winning South African puppet company Handspring – who has collaborated with Kentridge in the past – will celebrate the release of their first full-length book exploring their work in adult puppet theatre. On the occasion, Kentridge (who served as an editor on the project) has designed two limited-edition prints based on his work with Handspring; they are available through David Krut Projects in Johannesburg.

Source: pegasusnews.com

• How many artists are in the world right now? Ben Street writes to us about ‘letting the outside in’ and the Museum of Everything located on Primrose Hill in London.
• Big welcome to the new Guest Blogger Maria Stenina!
• ART, art everywhere! Circling around California, through Germany, in Atlanta, and NYC … Where are YOU? Nicole rounds up a tasty menu of things to check out
• FLASHPOINTS: How does art respond to redefine the natural world? Ariana Page Russell uses her skin as a departure point…&…What does it mean for an exhibition to be both coolly barren and radical? Check out Catherine Wagley’s post on the New Topography Exhibition at LACMA.
• VROOM! VROOM! Joe Fusaro test drives the Season 5 Educator’s Guide
• On crafting the grotesque and sensual: Four questions for Alicia Ross
• Looking at Los Angeles: The Public School
• VIDEO Exclusive: Raised Eyebrows | Furrowed Foreheads — From the mouth of John Baldessari himself: some thoughts on his recent exhibition at the Marian Goodman Gallery

"Sea lions in the Palamino Islands." Source: Guardian.co.uk

Water, water, everywhere! Ever-changing and ever-constant, see a glimpse into Roni Horn’s vast exploration of this traveling landscape in this weeks Art:21 Video Exclusive.

• Her art was suffused with [a] very human hope, which she saw as being grounded in the intractability of human struggle. Her work was never crudely utopian—as she told me, “utopia, like heaven, is kind of boring…” EVER SPERO
• What do you want to know about Art21? Ask us.
• To Biennial or Not to Biennial? Notes by Kelly Huang
• $5 for Season Five! You help to make what we do possible. You can donate here.
• Another Kick in the Pants – Teaching with Contemporary Art, Joe Fusaro, and TED.com
• FLASH POINTs : Rachel Craft, NEW Flash Points Editor introduces the topic, Art and the Environment
• Center of the Artworld? Artist Glenn Ligon shares his thoughts.
• Art21 artists track the world. Round ‘em up Nicole!

Art21 Guide to PERFORMA ’09

• DAZZING – -See it! In addition, William Kentridge will perform I am Not Me, the Horse is Not Mine
• PROMPT: A Conceptual Social Club, under the influence by the Futurist Variety Theatre. Participants include Mark Dion among many others.
• DARKLY FUNNY: The Day is Done Judson Church Dance by Mike Kelley
  Tuesday November 17 – Thursday, November 19 at 8pm and 10pm
• UNPREDICATABLE: physicality, dance and ACTION. It’s part of 3-Day Weekend, a performance piece directed by Oliver Herring. Friday, November 20, 6:30-8:30pm, Saturday, November 21, 3-5pm, and Sunday November 22, 3-6pm

Still hungry? Stay tuned.

Source: Vallatra-Adventures.com