art blog since 2009
When Asheq Akhtar answered a small ad calling for non-professionals to take part in a film, he could not have predicted the results. After three week’s training in method acting he was out on the streets before a full feature film crew. And no one who saw the movie Self Made will forget his barely …
February 29, 2012
My weekly round up of links is back. Sorry if you missed it last week. Ai Weiwei risks everything to give an interview to the FT. Prepare for some vicarious paranoia. Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal visits Tracey Emin. A nice portrait, but you cannot help comparing artist-governmental relations with Ai (via Art Observed). David …
February 27, 2012
In all the guidebooks available to Berlin, you are unlikely to find one which recommends making audio recordings of your journeys on the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn. But that is the method used by Fedora Romita to orientate herself in a new city. And this results in one CD for each of the five lines …
February 22, 2012
If you can taste these words or see them in colour, you already know about the condition known as synaesthesia which affects 1 in 20 people worldwide. If you can’t, chances are you might like the sound of that, especially if you are an artist. “There are a lot of wannabe synaesthetes, including myself, out …
February 19, 2012
A skull in a three dimension grid speaks of death and eternal life. This one belongs to a fox, at an end in physical terms, but which enjoys an afterlife of sorts in a gallery. The virtual scaffold which surrounds and appears to support the skull is the product of delicate handiwork. It is cropped …
February 17, 2012
Not an especially romantic edition of Found Objects this week, but hey ho: It was sad to hear that Barcelona painter Antoni TÃ pies has passed away. Check out this obituary and slideshow in the Guardian. Here’s a Tate Shots video dispatch from the Yayoi Kusama PV at Tate. Always good to hear a former rock …
February 14, 2012
If we accept the hypothesis that Africa was the cradle of the human race, it follows that black music predates the invention of the archive. Yet one of the most compelling aspects of the show at Peckham space is the newness of the exhibits: a Fugees t-shirt, a Cookie Crew album, an Amy Winehouse doll. …
February 11, 2012
As if to save those analysts the bother, Yayoi Kusama has already labelled Aggregation as part of her Sex Obsession series. She describes the white growths as so many phalluses. So you might see her boat as a metaphor for the conscious mind, floating above unconscious depths. Except here, the mind has been overrun by …
February 8, 2012
Ten links from around the virtual week in art: Artnet has the latest on the Prince vs Cariou case regarding copyright and image appropriation. You get to read the people specs for an A-list opening at Gagosian. A paranoid genius has managed to uncover at least two partial words spelled out by Hirst’s spot paintings. …
January 30, 2012
Great links this week. Please tuck in: I’m still not entirely sure what SOPA is, but I vehemently oppose it. Even if it has thrown up this ace Jonathan Jones rant on Wikipedia As Prime Minister David Cameron calls for more commercial British films, comedian Stuart Lee offers a commercial response (via @NickMotown) Third and …
January 23, 2012