Daphne Todd’s award winning painting of the corpse of her mother.
Archive for news
Portrait of a Deceased Mother
Posted in Art, figurative, news, oil painting, Painting, portrait, Tom Bennett with tags Art, corpse, Daphne Todd, death, news, Painting, portrait, Tom Bennett on June 23, 2010 by Tom BennettAbstraction in the Americas
Posted in abstract, Art, Collage, Drawing, events, exhibits, museum, news, Painting, printmaking, sculpture, Tom Bennett with tags abstract, Art, exhibit, museum, newark, news, Painting, Photography, Tom Bennett on February 19, 2010 by Tom BennettThe Newark Museum has an exhibition tracing abstract art in North and South America.
Joaquin Torres-Garcia’s “Locomotive With Constructive House” (1934)
It’s up unti May 23. Looks good, let’s go!
Everyone Rejoice! Art Prices Are Exorbitant Again!
Posted in Art with tags Art, art sales, economy, news on November 16, 2009 by jdhastingsThe New York Times reports that recent high end art auctions at such houses as Sothebys and Christies have seen rebounds in the price of artworks on sale there. Volume is still down, but overall the houses were happy to see people once again willing to spend money on art.
So all you artists who have been living on cat food the last year, you can go out and splurge on fine pate (though I’ve never been able to tell the difference between that and catfood before) knowing that money will again be flowing into you…
Or will it?
The auctions listed above are open only to the super rich. The bidding wars that drove up the prices recently were driven by a small handful of actual art buyers, who only focus on the most well known objects. Much of their newfound ability to spend may have more to do with the rebound in stock prices. Since the S&P 500 bottomed out at, believe it or not, 666 in March it has climbed back up to 1109 today. Anybody heavily invested, or who had money to invest heavily back in March is doing quite well compared to anybody who lost their job or security during this time.
So while I’m sure we’re all thrilled to hear that the super rich have recovered enough to continue becoming super richer, I’m guessing this turn in fortune will do nothing for artists who rely on the patronage of art lovers from the middle class or lower.
But if we wait long enough, maybe it’ll all trickle down on us. Like rain that flows from the rooftop to the gutter, then to the storm sewer where all the excess water requires waste treatment plants to dump tons of raw sewage into the ocean. Yep, it’s just like that.
-JD
On Soda, Vodka and Tapioca: The Art of Modern Art Conservation
Posted in Art with tags Art, conservancy, news on October 22, 2009 by jdhastings
Art Info has an interesting story about modern (or postmodern) art conservation today.
The story itself is pretty short and shallow, but does raise the question: Which is more audacious- Kicking or drinking a public installation piece, or hanging a bunch of soda from trees and expecting people not to mess with it?
If the topic interests you to pursue it further, I recommend this article from a year ago from the UK’s Independent.
Read more »
Headline: Struggling Museum Now Allowing Patrons To Touch Paintings
Posted in Art, Miscellaneous, news, Stephanie Gerolimatos with tags Art, humor, museum, news, shit, the onion, touch on October 11, 2009 by ssstephgvia The Onion of course 
My favorite quote from the article:
“Sometimes you have to go that extra mile to grab people’s attention,” said Campbell, the Met director. “Sometimes it takes more than curating exhibits that bring meaning and context to our complex cultural heritage, more than preserving works of art that capture the spirit of transcendence unique to humankind.”
Continued Campbell: “Next year we’re going to let people grab any masterpiece they like and just take a shit on it.”
But Is It Art? Feed Me, Seymour.
Posted in "But Is It Art?", Miscellaneous, news, science, Tom Bennett, Uncategorized with tags "But Is It Art?", news, rat, science, Tom Bennett on August 20, 2009 by Tom Bennett
I need this in my neighborhood in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. It’s a newly discovered
Rat-eating plant.
What it does with the bones, I don’t know. Now if an obnoxious Donna Summer-playing neighbor-eating plant can be discovered, I’ll be set.
Goebbels may ask, is it art? Golden Fascist Gnome
Posted in "But Is It Art?", Art, awareness, events, exhibits, figurative, news, Tom Bennett with tags "But Is It Art?", Art, museum exhibit, nazi, news, Nuremberg, Tom Bennett on July 17, 2009 by Tom Bennett
Irony again???
German authorities are asking if a nazi-saluting gnome on exhibit in Nuremberg is in violation of the law. I can see this in my backyard garden in Brooklyn as a flippant bronx cheer to my loud, authoritarian, merengue-playing neighbors.
The artist has been overtly disingenuous about the potential socio-political provocativeness.
Art’s own Bernie Maddoff
Posted in Art, news, Tom Bennett with tags Art, gallery, news, Salander Oreilly, Tom Bennett on July 15, 2009 by Tom Bennett
New charges have been brought against the former art dealer
Lawrence Salander whose gallery, Salander Oreilly, on the upper east side, I would visit back in the day. I saw some great work there, from Delacroix to Elaine de Kooning.
Larry Salander is accused of bilking investors out of close to 100 million dollars.
Tom Bennett
Creatively Blocked?
Posted in Art, Links, news, Toni Tiller with tags BBC, news, Sleep, Toni Tiller on June 15, 2009 by Toni TillerAre you stuck on a project and you just can’t figure it out? Take a nap. I don’t have anything I am stuck on, but I might take a nap anyway, you know, just in case.
Art World Mascots
Posted in Art, current events, events, film, Tom Bennett with tags Art, collecting, film, Herb and Dorothy, news, Tom Bennett on June 10, 2009 by Tom BennettThis film just came out: Herb and Dorothy Its playing in New York.
Herb and Dorothy Vogel were a working class couple living in a rent controlled one bedroom apartment and they spent all their money on contemporary art. The stipulation was it had to be under $100 and it had to fit in the car. Over the past 45 years they amassed a huge half-billion dollar collection they stuffed in their apartment. They eventually donated -not sold- the entire collection to the Smithsonian.
JD Reports on JD Hiring a JD
Posted in Art, book arts, literature, news with tags Art, Catchet in the Rye, J.D. Salinger, literature, news on June 3, 2009 by jdhastingsWhat?
Sorry, that was unclear. Maybe I should have called this, “Now Holden There Just A Second!” No, that’s worse.
Anyways, J.D. Salinger has emerged from his Fortress of Solitude to sue the author and publisher of an unauthorized sequel to Salinger’s iconic “Catcher In The Rye.” (Hence, hiring an attorney, who has a Juris Doctorate, or JD. Get it? Anyone? Is this thing on?)
The sequel, titled “60 Years Later, Coming Through the Rye” has been on sale in other countries for a while now, but is slated to be released in the US in September.
In addition, the sequel is a terrible idea. How can one person, not even the author, impose their own vision on a work of such impact? Authors themselves have been heavily criticized for such things (see: Godfather III), who does “John David California” think he is?
In fact, this is such a terrible idea, it’s almost a great idea. I hope Caulfield is a cyborg who has conquered South America and is threatening to rid the world of all Phonies via his army of artifically grown clones of his dead brother, Allie. Ultimately his plans are foiled by his little sister Phoebe, who has escaped the cryogenic tomb he had placed her in to teach Holden that he can’t stop her from growing up and going through the natural loss of innocence that adulthood requires. Unable to handle this, Holden releases a mammoth swarm of locusts that eat everything on the planet, leaving it a barren, but unchanging, wasteland. As he perishes, Caulfield mutters, “Now we are all Eskimos.”
But I’m guessing that’s not the new plot. However, my newfound appreciation for this horrible idea has me considering doing sequels of famous paintings. “Guernica: The Revenge,” anybody?
-JD (Hastings)
Yes, I have had an ungodly amount of caffeine today. Why do you ask?
Synesthetic Book Review
Posted in Art, news with tags Art, book review, news, synesthesia on May 29, 2009 by jdhastingsThe Newscientist has a book review for Wednesday is Indigo Blue: Discovering the brain of synaesthesia by Richard E. Cytowic and David M. Eagleman, Published by MIT Press. As you might have intuited from the title, it is a book about Synesthesia, its causes, history and some of the authors’ theories about it. The Newscientist sums it up, “This is a clear, clever book that will appeal to synaesthetes in search of explanations, and to all with a passion for neurology’s wild territory.”
Here is my own review of the work: Light grey, with a bit of alizarin crimson.
-JD
Hirst Gets Sued
Posted in Art, news, Toni Tiller with tags Art, copyright, damian hirst, news, Toni Tiller on May 20, 2009 by Toni TillerOur favorite art star Damian Hirst just recently settled a law suit for…wait for it…
Considering this from one of our earliest posts it is a bit amusing, no?
And You Thought I Was Paranoid
Posted in Art, news with tags apocalypse, Art, news, robot hall of fame, robots on May 11, 2009 by jdhastings
Yeah yeah, everybody gets a kick over old JD’s robot paranoia, but did anyone happen to know that there’s a Robot Hall-of-Fame? Okay, in and of itself that isn’t cause for concern, but did you know that the robots had already inducted the freakin’ TERMINATOR??
Scientifically Proven Methods To Increase Creativity
Posted in Art, news with tags Art, creativity, news, science on May 8, 2009 by jdhastingsThank you, Newscientist, for collecting these 8 tips together. Unfortunately for myself I’ve already embraced all but 2 of these. I am already a gouchy, absent-minded, blue loving, playful substance abuser with a bunch of similar loser friends. I guess I just need a gig playing piano in Hungary and I’ll be the perfect creative individual.
Know what I’d rather be? Stinking rich. Tell me how to do that, Newscientist, if you’re going to tell me anything. And don’t give me any of that “work hard” crap either. I want undeserved opulence and I want it NOW!
-JD
PS- why does a girl’s face underwater = “creativity?”
Quick Art News Roundup
Posted in Art, Links, news with tags Art, art links, art news, Links, news on April 13, 2009 by jdhastingsAs a general FYI, if any of our readers finds an article, video or other internet accessible resource they think is relevant to art or otherwise worth sharing here, please forward it to us at darteboard@gmail.com.
Yet More Contemporary Chinese Art
Posted in Art, Links, news, video with tags Art, Chinese Art, news on April 7, 2009 by jdhastings
Image by Wang Tiande of Mark Wolfe Art
Local Public Broadcasting Station KQED does a monthly tour of art galleries in the SF/Bay Area. This month they focused on a few galleries featuring Contemporary Chinese and Chinese American Artists. You can view the video by visiting that link, and you can even subscribe to their podcast.
Of particular interest here, the second gallery they visit is the Mark Wolfe gallery, which is one of the places I’ve visited the last two months during my own monthly Twitter Art Crawl. I highly recommend this as the artists give some great explanations for their exquisite work.
A Youtube For Art?
Posted in Art, news, video with tags Art, art videos, artbabble, news on April 7, 2009 by jdhastingsAs valuable as Youtube has been in bringing us some artistic revelations that otherwise may have escaped us, they have no real vested interest in parsing the available videos for us to make them easier to navigate for those of us with specific art obssessions.
www.Artbabble.com opens today to service just that need.
Most of what I know about the site comes from the NY Times review of the site, but it sounds like a great resource. Especially if, for instance, you help run a blog about art or something.
More on Chinese Contemporary Art
Posted in Art, Miscellaneous, news with tags Art, ArtAsiaPacific, China, Chinese Art, news on April 7, 2009 by jdhastingsApparently, ArtAsiaPacific Magazine has taken to referring to it as “Chicona.” Impress you friends with your insider knowledge at your next cocktail party. Or annoy them with your pedantic condescension. I appreciate both.
The Art History Newsletter has an excerpt today of a review from ArtAsiaPacific of 3 books on this subject. Sound to me like there’s some dissention in the ranks. Some people believe everything is fine, while others have a more jaundiced view.
Flip a coin to determine which side I believe.
-JD
