Tag: Fontana Mix

Ripped out the of NYT magazines interview: ” I can be a huge procrastinator, but you know procrastination is useful because it gives you such a short amount of time to get things done at the end that you have to focus.” I loved this.

Greece has declined the Loan of the Elgin Marbles – this is a pretty crappy thing for the British to try – Greece would have had to publicly announce that England’s ownership is valid and legal – then they would loan them to the new Acropolis Study Center.

246 Editions is part of a show at Pocket Utopia in July 16th, and plans are almost finalized for a weekend show in Philadelphia in October. http://www.246editions.com

The more time I spend thinking about “The Pictures Generation” at the Met the more I’m wondering that it feels really revisionist in it’s historical interpretation. It’s not like these artists were immediately loved or anything.

Neue Gallerie is showing the Die Bruke artists – it seems like the time is right to start thinking about these painters again. In fact I am almost expecting a return to some sort of “figurative expressionism” to have a bit of a groundswell in the galleries again.

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Ned Rifkin has been named Director of the Blanton Museum at the University of Texas. I’ve always been a fan of Rifkin since his time with the New Museum in the Eighties followed by the Corcoran, High Museum (Atlanta) back to DC with the Hirshhorn (and other Smithsonian Positions as well as his time a the Menil Collection and Foundation in Houston. He seems to be a curator who can put together a series of shows that not only further enhance the institution showing the work, the work shown is engaging as well as interesting. For instance I’ve never seem him phone in a show – saw something guaranteed to bring people into the building (a Warhol, Norman Rockwell, Edward Hopper, Impressionist, Celebrity based type shows).

Rifkin seems to keep DC in his orbit – let’s hope he’s back soon.

William Wllis Has a nice capsule review this weekend from Roberta Smith. William Willis is to me one of the best painters in the DC area and really never seems to get mentioned when people start “naming names”. WW currently has a show at Howard Scott Gallery (529 W20th Street). It’s great to see someone from here do well. I think William Willis in DC is represented by Hemphill Gallery (1515 14th street).

Minor Threat in Artforum. Byron Kalet lists Complete Discography in his top ten (at number three). It’s still cool to see music from my childhood being vital. There is a great photo as well – credited to Susie Josephson Horgan – it claims to be from d.c. space, but it just looks wrong – like the stage is in the wrong place. This is clearly an important mystery…

Three quick things about me…
Downtown 81 arrived in my mailbox via netflix – this makes me way too happy. It’s the whole cast of TV Party is here. I love seeing Eszter Balint in anything, music by James White and the Blacks plays as the background soundtrack of a strip club, Glenn O’Brien plays a clueless rock critic. It’s a lot of fun.

My article on Ted Larson will finally get finished – it’ll post on Wednesday.

I think Nutella tastes best on a baguette. You might say fruit, but you would be wrong…

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UBS Closes Art Advising Unit in Basel – from Artforum.com
Carolyn Bandel reports for Bloomberg that UBS AG, the world’s largest wealth manager, will close a division that advises Swiss clients on investing in art. The unit offered research on art-market prices, provenance verification, and advice on buying artworks to clients and visitors at the annual Art Basel art fair. UBS’s decision to shut the division won’t affect its sponsorship of the event, which will only expire in 2011, according to the bank. “We have recently signed a sponsorship agreement for several years,” said Maike Cruse, a spokeswoman for Art Basel. “There won’t be any impact from this on us.”

Worth Seeing

Jaq Chartier, Downtime

April 2 to May 9, 2009

Platform Gallery
114 Third Avenue South, Seattle
Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 11AM to 5:30PM
www.platformgallery.com

Tim McFarlane, Right Now – New paintings and works on paper.

March 31-April 25, 2009
Opening Reception: April 3, 2009 6-8:30pm

Bridgette Mayer Gallery
709 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
www.bridgettemayergallery.com

On the Picture Trade
I’m currently reading The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art by Don Thompson, and it really struck me that some of the things you hear gallery experts talk about – seems to be so far off the mark that it’s almost sublime. Meanwhile Thompson takes you into a world that as we all has no real financial transparency while at the same time make illustrating a pathway to success that artists need to understand. Still reading, but a really interesting read so far.

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Mad Magazine goes quarterly: “The feedback we’ve gotten from readers is that only every third issue of Mad is funny, so we decided to just publish those.” Still Mad was required reading when I was 7 – 12 years old, I guess kids have the internet now.

Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans: Opened last week here in town and is worth going to see, I’ve had the book for about 25 years now and it is still a definitive landmark of photography. I’ve always loved the Kerouac quote that starts off the introduction of the book “A sad poem sucked out of America”

Michael Bierut discusses 26 Years, 85 Notebooks: This is a really interesting post from Design Observer. It briefly talks about how he has changed how he uses the notebooks and what they mean today. Well worth the read.

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Martin Puryear at the National Gallery of Art

Tema Stauffer at Randall Scott – July 12th-July 25th

Mixology I: Paintings and Works on Paper at Curators Office – July 12 – July 19 (a benefit for Doctors Without Borders)

Feel like reading to beat the heat? I found this pdf (part one | part two) of the now out of print Krautrocksampler by Julian Cope. Krautrocksampler is a book by super genius/insane man Julian Cope. Released in 1995, Krautrocksampler describes his love of the undeground music scene in Germany, known as Krautrock (or Kosmische Music) from the early 70’s. I’ve spoken about the recent Japrocksampler here before – this is the first in the series. It is so out of print.

While your downloading you might take a look online for the notoriously out of circulation Painters Painting by Emile de Antonio. I watched this the other night and it was quite a treat. I think it is scheduled for re-release soon. The copy I watched was converted from video to dvd and was, shall we say, not the best image quality.

I’m out of town for the next couple of weeks with unknown internet connectivity – so expect spotty or no posts for the next couple of weeks. Truth of the matter is, I’m in Greece – so expect all kinds of oddball antiquities stuff upon my return. I will guarantee a visit to the new Acropolis Study center.

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