I was obliged to go to North Acton this morning. I had to walk about half a mile from the underground station. The walk took me along an alley sandwiched between a graveyard and the railway tracks. It was littered with dead leaves, plastic bottles and sodden newspapers. The steel railings, warehouse walls and lamp posts were all covered with graffiti. A mournful sign on the railway tracks said 'Whistle'. It was cold and raining. I would not, on balance, walk through there at night. But this m

lineara: “Speaking in Tongues” (Robert Rauschenberg Limited Edition) (via Ars Staff Gift Guide 2008)

(deutsch: Hardcore Angel) Was fängt man jetzt mit so einem Buch an, dass doch mit einigen Vorschusslorbeeren aus den USA zu uns nach Europa gekommen ist und dass uns das Pornogewerbe ‘mal aus einer anderen, der weiblichen Sicht präsentieren will. Da mutete es schon beinahe wie politische Unkorrektheit an, dieses Buch nicht bedingungslos zu preisen. Im Mittelpunkt des Buches steht Angel Dare, alternde Ex-Pornodiva, einst ein Star im Gewerbe. Um der gewerbetypischen überschnellen Alterung zu entko

There’s a scene in Oliver Stone’s 1991 film JFK when Kevin Costner, playing the hero attorney Jim Garrison, breaks character and addresses the viewer directly to echo the words he just said to the jury passing judgment on the men who may have conspired to assassinate President John F. Kennedy: “Don’t forget your dying king.” Growing up Irish-Catholic, I learned to idolize JFK as a figure of great courage and to remember him as a figure of great sadness. The one item of non-religious art in my pa

Whenever there is a crisis in Los Angeles' cultural institutions, there is always one man who will step up and leave the rest behind to follow in his tracks. Below is Eli Broad's Op-Ed piece in Saturday's LA Times. Saving MOCA Philanthropist Eli Broad says his foundation will give $30 million if others will come forward to help. By Eli Broad November 21, 2008 With the news this week that the Museum of Contemporary Art on Grand Avenue is in dire financial straits and might have to merge with

Digital Media Artist Laurence Gartel went back to his original equipment from three decades ago. He made "new" work on "old" machines. Incredibly these machines 35+ years old are still operational and integrate with today's technology. Absolutely nothing is obsolete. - The results are astounding!! LAURENCE GARTEL: ART BASEL PARTY EVENTCelebrating his new multimedia video/animation: "FERRARI"PRIVE: 136 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, Florida Friday: December 5th, 2008 - 11PM- 5AMRSVP: gartel@aol.com

“The artist’s job is to be a witness to his time in history.” —Robert Rauschenberg

Yesterday Mike Boehm reported that LA’s MOCA is having some serious financial problems. It’s going to be interesting to see how they are going to remedy this. When LACMA opened BCAM many people wished that a institution that had as much land as LACMA would boost their collection to the size of MOCA. So maybe we will see a merger of the two or with The Getty. via Mike Boehm for the Los Angeles Times: “Los Angeles’ prestigious but chronically underfunded Museum of Contemporary Art has fallen

November 20, 2008 at 6:54 am · Filed under MVS MUSTS, MVS PHOTO FAVORITES, READING MATTERS, Uncategorized Karl Baden of Covering Photography wrote to inform me of the exhibition about books currently on view at the Boston Public Library: “Just wanted to make sure you were aware of the exhibition ‘Imitation, Influence… and Coincidence’, at Boston Public Library’s Rare Books Exhibition Space, up through December 31st, 2008. The show will appeal to anyone interested in the history of photo

"Un paio di calzini non sono meno adatti a fare un dipinto, di legno, chiodi, trementina, olio e stoffa". Questa provocatoria frase ci fa già comprendere in parte la filisofia artistica del suo autore, Robert Rauschenberg (1925 – 2008),  fotografo e pittore statunitense, vicino alla pop art.  Rauschenberg non si limita alla sola pittura ed all'interno delle sue composizioni introduce elementi materici, oggetti, addirittura animali impagliati.   Il nome che l'artista da a questa personale comm

“I don’t know what the word ‘one’ means.” -Brigid Berlin, as told to New York Social Diary Oh my lord. I cannot stop reading this interview/gawking at the house tour over at New York Social Diary. I have never seen anything like Brigid Berlin’s apartment. The article, interview and her life are FASCINATING! Andy Warhol at the Factory, frequent recorded chats with Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, The Cock Book - perhaps her life is only overshadowed by her over the top interiors - the wor

Mon moleskine °chambre nuptiale°Collage // ::magazine :: papier :: tissus // Mon moleskine °Paradis°Collage // ::plume :: dentelle ::fleurs tissus // Le blanc par MarieB (© Marie Bousseau)KIESLOWSKI - BLANC - Bande Annonceenvoyé par birdy66L'immaculée conception de la décol'heure blancheAu début des années cinquante, la volonté de jeunes artistes d’échapper à l’expressionnisme abstrait les pousse à mettre en œuvre un style de la retenue.Le monochrome, et au point extrême, le monochrome

“I don’t know what the word ‘one’ means.” -Brigid Berlin, as told to New York Social Diary Oh my lord. I cannot stop reading this interview/gawking at the house tour over at New York Social Diary. I have never seen anything like Brigid Berlin’s apartment. The article, interview and her life are FASCINATING! Andy Warhol at the Factory, frequent recorded chats with Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, The Cock Book - perhaps her life is only overshadowed by her over the top interiors - the wor

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/04/14/arts/20080414_RAUS_SLIDESHOW_index.html?scp=7&sq=rauschenberg&st=cseI am posting this here because so many people "judge" the value of art based on the materials of which art works are made, which of course is bunkum.Not to say that art can't be made from expensive materials also.Case in point Damian Hirst's Skull, encrusted with diamonds, which is collectively owned by a group of investors, including Hirst.Kyi May Kaung

I've never understood the high price of art, especially contemporary - the incredible prices for some of these things makes me believe this is just a way for the world's rich to burn off extra cash that would otherwise sit in a safe. Granted some exclusion for things that are rare and historical I suppose, but that's just an uncouth personal take from someone who, with the means, would rather own something like a NFL franchise ;) To each their own. But these stories show the economic malaise co

another 20-25% (4% of portfolio) if we crossed back over S&P 875. I'd of cut more as the market gained steam as a capital preservation measure, but since I did not write it on the site yesterday I am not counting that. Instead we ate all those losses. I wrote I would allocate 12-15% of our portfolio to Ultra Russell 2000 (TWM) [long] as the S&P broke over 840... the price at the time was mid $17s. It ended the day at $21.30s which was a 22% gain missed with a sizeable part of the portfo

No, no healthcare here-- just a fancy Richard Prince pictureSteve, my realtor-- and former Senior Vice President of Promotion-- told me today that one of the banks he's helping unload foreclosed properties for will not entertain anything below their asking price... at least this week. They're doing their little part, he told me, to hold up California's collapsing property values. I suspect that it only will be this week. I've been helping my friend Roland look for a house. He's a school teacher

****THE COALITION FOR THE HOMELESS****STORY BY: MARCY MACDONALDPHOTOS BY: ANN WATT**** Carey Lowell And Richard Gere Alec Baldwin The Metropolitan Pavilion was so crowded with every face in town that it was almost impossible to see the walls of contemporary art displayed for the annual ARTWALK NY, the hottest event in town that brings young art lovers and artists together at a benefit for the Coalition for the Homeless. Celebrities mixed with the great unwashed as the silent auction began and

When Robert Rauschenberg smeared oil paint on the face of a stuffed goat in 1955, a piece ("Monogram") that expressed nothing less than a revolution in formal invention, animals did not loom large in the art consciousness of the era.

Takeovers & Makeovers: Artistic Appropriation, Fair Use, and Copyright in the Digital Age :: November 7 - 8, 2008 :: Berkeley Art Museum Theater, University of California, Berkeley. (This symposium) will bring together artists, lawyers, art historians, and representatives from the information technology community to discuss the changing field of appropriation art in the wake of the emergence of new digital media technologies that have radically altered access to and manipulation of information