Artlog / Focus

Photo #71020 by heatherjean

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 02:15:25 -0400

Richard Serra Film Opens at Film Forum thru Sept 2 by artlog

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:25:03 -0400

Listening to Richard Serra talk about sculpture is like listening to Russell Crowe talk about acting: after a while you feel you’re either in the presence of genius or the victim of an elaborate con. Fortunately for both, their work speaks for itself. “Richard Serra: Thinking on Your Feet” follows the construction and 2005 installation of “The Matter of Time,” the sculptor’s gigantic, eight-piece commission for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain. (No rush: it’s guaranteed to be there for at least another 22 years.) As static and unadorned as the sculptures themselves, the movie gazes with rapt attention as Mr. Serra expounds on his love of steel mills (“Like bakeries that have gone into alchemy”) and as he maps the complex layout of each piece with tape measure and paper templates. Perhaps he distrusts 3-D computer software? (NY TIMES: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/movies/20serr.html)

A Bear Market for Art Giving? by artlog

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:14:34 -0400

With markets in turmoil and banks taking huge losses, the art world is wondering if crucial sponsorships will vanish. As repo men and vulture investors circle, a question has been rippling: Will banks jettison their investments in the art world—their sponsorship of major events, institutions large and small? At stake are tens of millions of dollars in funding.

Photo #86740 by donporcella

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:08:03 -0400

The installation got a great review already!!! Check it out:
"Stealing the show at this summer group miscellany is Don Porcella's eminently entertaining mixed media and pipe cleaner installation of two people standing waste-deep in a pool of water. Excellent in quality, composition, workmanship, and commitment to doing it right. This dude's got a future-- not quite sure how it's gonna manifest, but he's got one."
http://www.artbusiness.com/1open/firstth0808.html

An Olympic Protest Pre-Empted, Artist Detained by artlog

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 08:51:06 -0400

The group Students for a Free Tibet has been among the most active in organizing small, symbolic protest actions across Beijing during the Olympics, from hanging “Free Tibet” banners from lampposts near the Bird’s Nest stadium to staging “die-ins” on Tiananmen Square. Despite the widespread perception of all-encompassing state surveillance system in China, authorities didn’t seem to be trying to preempt these actions ahead of time. At least, that was until James Powderly came along. The American graffiti and laser artist was planning to debut a new “laser stencil” in Beijing that would have beamed words and images up to three stories high onto large flat surfaces such as billboards and building facades.

Body Art Blunders at the Olympics by Nish

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:09:41 -0400

Today the Guardian is showcasing Olympians marked in indelible ink. Michael Phelps has two tattoos peeking out of his trunks - one of the Olympic rings, the other an M for his home state, Maryland

Photo #86362 by artlog

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:53:17 -0400

Swoon's Floating City With Junkyard Roots by artlog

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:45:43 -0400

The project, “Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea,” Swoon’s latest large-scale work, is part floating artwork, part performance, part mobile utopia and seemingly part summer camp for grown-up artsy kids. For the work Swoon, 30, collaborated with musicians from the Minneapolis band Dark Dark Dark; the writer Lisa D’Amour, who contributed a play to be performed at stops along the way; the musician Sxip Shirey; and a host of others.

Edward Colver's art remains punk by artlog

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:19:11 -0400

If not for Edward Colver's poking in and out of hot, dank punk clubs across the Southland, a whole bigchunk of L.A.'s early hardcore scene of the '70s and early '80s would have hurtled -- visually -- out of memory.

Photo #84553 by artlog

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:47:48 -0400

Priming for Burning Man, Flames in Hand by jeffbez

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:39:47 -0400

The annual Burning Man art festival-rave-love-in takes place the week before Labor Day. About 48,000 people are expected to haul everything they need to survive — tents, water, fake-fur costumes — for this experiment in commerce-free, creatively wild community.

Photo #84031 by sandrachiu

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:23:28 -0400

Stolen art uncovered, is it yours? appeals FBI by Nish

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:06:06 -0400

Wanted: the owners of up to 137 art works discovered in an apartment in Manhattan, suspected stolen. The FBI is appealing for owners to come forward to claim the paintings and sculptures that were discovered in the Upper East Side in one of the more unusual mysteries to fall to federal investigators. The artworks belonged to an occasional art writer and genealogist William M.V. Kingsland.

Art begins to flourish in Kashmir by Nish

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:55:05 -0400

After nearly two decades of devastating conflict, of violence made more horrific by the achingly lovely natural surroundings, times are better now in Kashmir, the Himalayan region fought over by India and Pakistan. The two countries are engaged in a peace process, and the arts here are slowly coming back to life. Over the last two or three years, Kashmiri painters, sculptors, filmmakers, poets and playwrights have again started plowing ground that had lain fallow for so long. Their cautious reemergence comes at a time when civil society as a whole is beginning to reclaim the space formerly monopolized by the Indian army and Pakistani-backed militants, whose confrontations have left more than 60,000 people dead since 1989.

Economic Realities Press on Artists’ Outdoor Eden by Nish

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 10:02:27 -0400

When the artist Laddie John Dill fenced in a part of the railroad easement behind his studio in the dilapidated beach community of Venice nearly three decades ago, it was less to stake a claim to an otherwise unwanted parcel of real estate than to keep at bay, he said, a growing coterie of drug dealers, prostitutes and vagrants who were encroaching on his work space. He was soon joined by the painter Ed Ruscha, and together they have toiled for 25 years in the open-air studio, which is still ringed with the detritus of homeless people who camp in the dirt alley outside the fence. The City of Los Angeles wants to tear down the fence, pave the space and, yes, put up a parking lot.