art blog since 2009
This week’s Found Objects are a taxidermy and economics special: This NYT piece claims the art market is a totally separate economy to the one the rest of us work in, thanks to Ultra High Net Worth Individuals. But UHNWIs maybe about to lose out, for a while at least, as the art bubble bursts. …
June 5, 2012
It’s been a rum week in the art world. So here’s some rum, distilled: A painted penis belonging to a portrait of the South African President is making plenty of headlines. In the latest twist Jacob Zuma’s lawyer weeps in court. Back in London meanwhile it is YBA artist Damien Hirst who some claim has …
May 29, 2012
Optimism is ridiculous, as daft as loading a missile with a payload of flags, as daft as creating flags for countries which don’t yet exist. But the positivity in Tom Dale’s piece is compelling. His 1950s rocket design looks almost cheery now, more than half a century since it became obsolescent. If this Tin Tin-esque …
May 27, 2012
For anyone who likes their girls with a sublimated death drive, please find above chain smoker Nicole, one of ten new characters by artist and illustrator Zara Wood. That‘s artist and illustrator. And it could be argued that distinctions between the two roles come down to a position with regards to the written word. Woods …
May 27, 2012
Is Brighton too cosy for a performance piece with the f-word in the title. Certainly by the end of Jo Neary’s performance on Saturday 12th it appeared that way. Most of the audience may have relieved that this local comedienne chose to say, mainly, nice things about us as she adlibbed her way through a …
May 22, 2012
In case you missed the unmissable, here are this week’s links: The Guardian argues, selflessly, that the Parthenon marbles belong in Greece, and sadly appears to be right. Dana Schutz, who makes a virtue of painting’s limitations, is celebrated on Hyperallergic, and her work photographs well. Tracey Emin gets another feminist endorsement as novelist Jeanette …
May 21, 2012
You might think it’s a first world problem or a high class issue, but just how does a human being get through a seven hour traffic jam? Such was the predicament of Micheál O’Connell, aka Mocksim, snarled up on the M25 in what it soon emerged would be a history-making tailback. But while his phone …
May 14, 2012
Blimey, there is a lot to read this week: The New Aesthetic was much discussed. JJ Charlesworth puts it into a wider context of post-humanist thinking and behavioural economics. Writing for the L Magazine, Paddy Johnson meanwhile dismisses the movement, calling the New Aesthetic a “tumblr paired with a lecture circuitâ€. Hyperallergic, meanwhile, opt to …
May 14, 2012
“Okay, we’re 30m underwater on a ley line and we’re heading for some squid,†or words to that effect. Such is my greeting from artist Kaffe Matthews. My response is helpless excitement. I lie on my back on the shark platform and look up at the murky green light. You can well imagine the hammerheads …
May 8, 2012
Between headline auction lots and art fair admission fees, it’s been an expensive week in the artworld: So, The Scream provokes an outcry. You can see the final suave, diabolical moments of its public appearance in this Telegraph video But do high prices merely advertise the auction system itself? Jerry Saltz thinks so and hates …
May 7, 2012