courtesy P.P.O.W. Gallery…

amani olu projects, in conjunction with P.P.O.W Gallery is pleased to present Young Curators, New Ideas II, a curator focused exhibition that examines new voices in contemporary art through the perspective of seven New York based curators. These varied micro-exhibitions experiment with curatorial practice and an exploration of ideas as physical form.

Curators: Karen Archey // Cecilia Jurado // Megha Ralapati // Jose Ruiz // Nico Wheadon // Cleopatra’s (Bridget Donahue, Bridget Finn, Kate McNamara & Erin Somerville) // Women in Photography (Amy Elkins & Cara Phillips)

Image credit: Bryan Zanisnik, Mom and Dad in Outer Space 2007, C-print

This via the Art Collectors blog:

"Someone stationed in Iraq has been leaving these around." - theartcollectors.com

This begs the question whether the U.S. will ever truly be out of Iraq. Since the Obama/Hope portrait, Shepard Fairey has become something of a national hero (in general, if not to the Boston Police Department). It has been interesting to watch the shift from vandal upstart to mainstream Pop Art (or even propaganda?) that Fairey has experienced. He is a new symbol of recognizable political art coming out of America. Thus, does the Obey stencil’s presence in Iraq represent just another cog in the machine of American imperialism?

If anything, it’s positive to have a recognizable, populist, open source symbol of contemporary art coming out of the United States.

Sometimes artists, philosophers, critics, and technologists are generous enough to publish free .pdf versions of texts, images, and/or or exhibition catalogs on their websites.  The facilitation of this access to knowledge and original texts is an immeasurable boon to people interested in understanding art, politics, and technology.  We want to celebrate artists in particular who are taking part in this, by linking to their websites where the documents are available, and reminding you that usually plush, dilligently assembled print versions of these .pdfs can be purchased as well.

TOM MARIONI – http://tommarioni.com

JENS HAANING – http://jenshaaning.com

The only rule in this series is that the links cannot be new or new-ish.  I was motivated by three factors for this link series:

1. our obsession with newness
   
2. the fact that learning about art is a wonderful process (in fact the process is really the goal: collector Sam Wagstaff once compared his collecting to a game of idiot’s delight), and not everybody should be assumed to have been following art on the web for the past ten years.
   
3. Eric Hobsbawm’s beseachment: “protest against forgetting.”

THE LINKS

• 2006 interview with William Powhida about his academic background and relationship with theory
• On Curating Journal – Issue 1 – 2008 (.pdf)
• Holland Cotter reviews “Beneath the Underdog”, curated by Nate Lowman and Adam McEwen (2007)
• Okay, this last link is actually really new, but I just thought of a connection/contradiction between the above review, in which Lowman and McEwen co-curate a show, and THIS sound-off by Tom Moody, which distances McEwen from Dan Colen and his “world” (which I would take to include Lowman), even though they both have stuck chewing gum onto canvas.

Getty Images

“They don’t have to bring anything with them other than exactly what they are, and they’re perfect for that experience because it’s about them…I want people, when they look at my art, to have engaging moments. I want them to feel that everything about their lives is perfect – their history, their culture, their selves. Everything is in play. Everything is possible…” – Jeff Koons on his works in the Independent.

There has been much talk about whether Jeff Koons’ populist (not to mention popular) form of contemporary art is, in fact, art at all. I ask, why not? Why does art have to be inaccessible and abstruse to be considered quality? It seems that, more than artists, criticism has forgotten its roots. True, times when art creation was literally ecclesiastical propaganda have passed but, if the accessibility of Koons’ work is the problem with considering it art, then what is the Sistine Chapel? Michelangelo depicts arguably the best known biblical story after Adam and Eve and shows it in grand scale. In a way, Koons, with his enormous balloon animals and grandiose Popeye paintings, has done something similar, evokes for most of us, the well known imagery of our childhood. And what’s wrong with a little art therapy?

In today’s difficult times, the pinch all around us is impossible not to feel, so why not let people find their escape in art instead of the next Transformers film? The truth is that Koons may be exactly what the art world needs at this very moment: the curiosity that draws attention back to the arts. Of course, when money is tight, art is one of the first non-essentials to suffer as funding and interest drop off. But, if Koons is engaging an audience wider than the art elite, then it’s time to reconsider his value to the art world.

A few months ago there was a lively discussion on Jerry Saltz’ facebook wall about the effects drugs (particularly psychedelics if I remember) have had and do have on artistic practice.  I wanted to wonder out loud, but didn’t, how drugs/alcohol affect not art, but art criticism.  For example, I started the following discussion on Rhizome under the alias Max (only because I was intimidated by the gravitas of Rhizome and was thinking about Max Minghella), while I was drunk.  My drunkenness had me just rancorous and inarticulate enough that my post could be interpreted many different ways, which it was.

http://rhizome.org/editorial/2705

http://arttattler.com/commentarydashsnow.html

This website is excellent.  Why does it only get 1.5k – 2k visits a month?

Dash Snow and Dan Colen, Nest, Deitch Projects 76 Grand Street, July 26-August 18, 2007

via arttattler.com

In case anyone wants to see Fare Mondi through the lens of our lovely correspondent, S, on her Grand Tour of the European exhibitions this summer, here is a bonanza of images.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

12►

I’m not criticizing OMA outright for sending this takedown notice, which I screen-capped from aaaarg.org, where it was publicly posted. I’m simply wondering whether anyone would contribute any thoughts to help me understand how this fits into current trends among intellectually oriented organizations and authors as far as perhaps allowing their copyrighted content to exist on certain websites, such as greylodge.org, aaaarg.org, etc.  Is Rem being totally justified, or a bit Dick Chenney-esque, as one commenter put it?  Koolhaas is definitely a ‘gimme-the-loot’ type of architect, although in my understanding his designs often subvert capitalistic icons.