Snowflakes Are Freakin’ Crystally Cool
By growing snow crystals in the lab under controlled conditions, scientists have discovered that their shapes are determined largely by temperature and humidity. This picture summarises the crystal shapes formed under different conditions.
See more snowflakes photographed by Kenneth Libbrecht.
[ click to view full snowflake slideshow at New Scientist ]
“Fine art is still the best racket around.”
An Artist’s Identify Theft
Painter Denied Indian Ties, Yet Work Revealed Connection
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 9, 2008; Page C01
It would be easier to believe that Fritz Scholder was conflicted about his identity — was he a Native American artist, or an artist who happened to be one-quarter Native American? — if he hadn’t been quoted as saying, “Fine art is still the best racket around.”
That line appears in a short film accompanying a show of Scholder’s work at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian. It’s to the museum’s credit that the curators are so upfront about the controversy that dogged Scholder’s career, his lifelong insistence that he wasn’t really an Indian, even as he grew rich and famous painting garish and confrontational images of Indians. It’s hard not to walk through this exhibition and smell more than a whiff of fraud going on.
It was a complicated fraud, though, maybe so complicated that the fraud itself approaches the level of art.
Scholder, who died three years ago, was born in 1937, in Minnesota, to a father who was half-Indian and worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
You Nasty Velvet Man!
No Saints in Sight as These Santas Get Their Jollies
He raised his glass to another Santa, who was sucking back some Colt 45.
Santa got drunk yesterday. He cursed. He smoked. He took off his clothes in public. It was Santacon, an annual gathering of nasty Santas, in which some 500 naughty Clauses marched through the city, shouting, drinking, raising gentle mayhem. Santacon began 10 years ago in This year, Santacon was – or will be – celebrated from |
anta broke out the sour mash at 10 a.m. Christmas was coming. Why not have a drink?
“Pace yourself,” the second Santa said. “I started with beer this year, not Jim Beam like last year.”From The Mind Of A Musical Genius
“You’ve got to get mad. I mean plumb mad dog mean.”
The 100 Most Valuable Works of Art
from Kempt via Art Market Monitor
IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING
For those of us without fabulous wealth, it’s hard to appreciate the psychic brutality at work in the art collection game. High profile collectors aren’t usually aesthetes or intellectuals; they’re corporate raiders and law partners. They play for keeps, which is why the auction system ends up being so lucrative. The goal is to put together a collection that will command respect, and whoever ends up with the best stuff wins.
Luckily, the aesthetes at Assouline are stepping in to lend a hand. They’ve just put out The Impossible Collection, a guide to the 100 most valuable works of art in the world. It says what they are, why they matter, and where you can find each and every one. The book itself will set you back 500 dollars, but the value of the art is incalculable. Still, it’s nice to have a goal.
The Impossible Collection, chronologically:
1. Picasso, Pablo Yo Picasso 1901 Private Collection.
2. Claude Monet, Le parlement, reflets sur la Tamise, 1905. Musée Marmottan, Paris.
3. Derain, André, Charing Cross Bridge, 1906, National Gallery of Art, Washington.
4. Picasso, Pablo Les Demoiselles d’Avignon 1907 MoMA, NY.
5. Klimt, Gustav The Kiss 1906-07 The Belvedere Museum, Vienna.
6. Matisse, Henri Back/Dos I 1913-30. Pompidou, Paris.
7. Braque, Georges Le Pont De La Roche-Guyon 1909. Private Collection.
8. Matisse, Henri Dance 1909-1910. The Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.
9. Delaunay, Robert, Disque, 1912-13. Private Collection.
10. Kandinsky, Wassily Komposition VI 1913 The Hermitage, Leningrad.
11. Leger, Fernand Contraste de Formes 1913. Private Collection.
12. Matisse, Back/Dos II. 1913. Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
13. Picasso, Pablo Guitar 1914. MoMA, NY.
14. De Chirico, Giorgio Mystery and Melancholy of a Street 1914.
15. Malevich, Kasimir Black Cross 1915. Pompidou, Paris.
16. Chagall, Marc Birthday 1915. MoMA, NY.
17. Matisse, Back/Dos III. 1916-1917. Centre Georges Pompidou.
18. Schiele, Egon Self-portrait with Checkered Shirt 1912. Private Collection.
19. Duchamp, Marcel Fountain 1917. Tate, London.
20. Picabia, Francis Parade Amoureuse 1917. Private Collection.
21. Ernst, Max Paysage en Ferraille 1921. Private Collection
22. Mondrian, Piet Tableau II 1921. Private Collection
23. Soutine, Chaim Side of Beef and Calf’s Head 1923. Orangerie Museum.
24. Miro, Joan Carnival of Harlequin 1924-25. Albright Knox Museum, Buffalo NY.
25. Brancusi, Constantin Bird in Space 1925. National Gallery, Washington D.C.
26. Giacometti, Alberto Spoon Woman 1926. MoMA, NY.
27. Magritte, Rene The Treachery of Images 1929. LACMA, Los Angeles.
28. Matisse, Back/Dos IV, 1930. Centre Georges Pompidou.
29. Dali, Salvador The Persistence of Memory 1931. MoMA, NY.
30. Klee, Paul Ad Parnassum 1932. Kunstmuseum, Switzerland, Bern.
31. Gonzalez, Julio Petite Danseuse I 1934-35. Pompidou, Paris.
32. Calder, Alexander Standing Mobile 1935. Private Collection
33. Picasso, Pablo Weeping Woman 1937. Tate, London.
34. Bonnard, Pierre NU 1932. Private Collection.
35. Kahlo, Frida The Two Fridas 1939. Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City.
36. Leger, Fernand La Belle Equipe 1944-45. Private Collection
37. Dubuffet, Jean Fautrier Araignée Au Front 1947. Private Collection
38. Pollock, Jackson One: Number 31, 1950 1950. MoMA, NY.
39. De Kooning, Willem Woman, I 1950-52. MoMA, NY.
40. Rothko, Mark No 2, 1951. Private Collection
41. Matisse, Henri Memory of Oceania 1952-53. MoMA, NY.
42. Bacon, Francis Pope Innocent X 1953. Des Moines Art Center.
43. Burri, Alberto Sacco 1953. Private Collection.
44. Johns, Jasper Target with Plaster Casts 1955. Private Collection.
45. Kline, Franz Monitor 1956. MOCA, Los Angeles.
46. Twombly, Cy The Blue Room 1957. Private Collection.
47. Manzoni, Piero Achrome 1958-59. Private Collection
48. Rauschenberg, Robert Canyon 1959. Sonnabend collection.
49. Stella, Frank The Marriage of Reason and Squalor, II, MOMA, NY. 1959.
50. Newman, Barnett White Fire II 1960. Kunstmuseum, Switzerland, Basel.
51. Giacometti, Alberto Walking Man, 1960. Beyeler Foundation, Switzerland.
52. Klein, Yves Anthropologie (ANT 78) 1960. Private Collection
53. Martin, Agnes The Dark River 1961. Private Collection
54. Oldenburg, Claes Pastry Case, I 1961-62. MoMA, NY.
55. Warhol, Andy, Campbell’s Soup Cans, 1962. MOMA, NY.
56. Lichtenstein, Roy Eddie Diptych 1962. Private Collection
57. Raysse, Martial Seventeen (titre journalistique) 1962. Private collection.
58. Flavin, Dan 25th (to Constantin Bracusi) 1963. Dia Art Foundation, NY
59. Warhol, Andy Eight Elvis 1963. Private Collection
60. Fontana, Lucio Concetto Spaziale La Fine di Dio 1963. Private Collection.
61. Smith, David Cubi VII 1963. The Art Institute of Chicago.
62. Andy Warhol, Red Explosion (Atomic Bomb), 1963
63. Rauschenberg, Robert Retroactive I 1964. Wadsworth Atheneum.
64. Kawara, On Title, 1965
65. Ryman, Robert Windsor 6 1965. Private Collection
66. Ruscha, Ed Los Angeles County Museum on Fire, 1965-68. Hirschhorn Museum, Washington D.C.
67. Richter, Gerhard Woman Descending Staircase 1965. The Art Institute of Chicago.
68. Joseph Beuys, Infiltration homogen für Konzertflügel (Homogeneous Infiltration for Piano), 1966, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
69. Polke, Sigmar Bunnies 1966. Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C.
70. Judd, Donald Untitled 1966, Private collection
71. Hesse, Eva Untitled or Not Yet (nine nets) 1966. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
72. Nauman, Bruce My Name As Though it Were Written On the Surface of the Moon 1960. Private Collection
73. Baldessari, John What is Painting? 1966-68. MoMA, NY.
74. Nauman, Bruce Henry Moore Bound to Fail 1967-70. Private Collection
75. Mario Merz “Objet cache toi”, 1968. Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (Dr Broeker).
76. Serra, Richard Prop 1968. Whitney Museum, NY.
77. Andre, Carl 37th Piece of Work 1969-81. Private Collection
78. Richter, Gerhard 1024 Farben 1973. Private Collection.
79. Gilbert and George Dusty Corners No.13 1975. Private Collection
80. Sherman, Cindy Untitled Film Still #7 1978. Editioned work
81. Basquiat, Jean-Michel Notary 1983. Private Collection
82. Koons, Jeff Rabbit 1986. Editioned work
83. Kelley, Mike More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid and the Wages of Sin 1987. The Whitney Museum, NY.
84. Kippenberger, Martin Self-Portrait 1988. Saatchi Collection
85. Wool, Christopher Apocalypse Now (p.50) 1988. Private Collection
86. Noland, Cady Oozewald 1989. Private Collection
87. Prince, Richard Untitled (Cowboy) 1989. Metropolitan Museum, NY.
88. Gonzalez-Torres, Felix Untitled (USA Today) 1990. MoMA, NY.
89. Gober, Robert Untitled 1991. Private Collection
90. Hirst, Damien The Physical Impossibility of Death In the Mind of Someone Living 1991. Private collection
91. Tuymans, Luc Der Diagnostische Blick IV 1992. Private Collection
92. Koons, Jeff Puppy 1992. Germany.
93. Ray, Charles Family Romance, 1993. MoMA, NY.
94. Gursky, Andreas Paris Montparnasse 1993.
95. Cattelan, Maurizio Bidibidobidiboo 1996. Private Collection
96. Viola, Bill The Crossing (still from video projection) 1996. Editioned work.
97. Murakami, Takashi My Lonesome Cowboy 1998/ Hiropon 1997. Editioned works
98. Hammons, David Untitled 2000. Private Collection
99.Fischer, Urs Jet-set Lady 2000. Private Collection
100. Stingel, Rudolph Untitled 2000. Private Collection
JF Gawker Thread
Reading James Frey’s Gawker Comments So You Don’t Have To
As GalleyCat reported this morning, memoirist-turned-novelist James Frey interned for Gawker editor Sheila McClear today. GalleyCat sifted through Frey’s long comment thread, answering a variety of mostly nonsensical reader questions.
Frey explained why he did the internship: “It’s to pad my resume in case publishing completely and totally collapses.” Then he offered advice for Gawker publisher Nick Denton: “If I was Denton, I’d cash out and retire and forget about all of it.” And finally, he advised the perfect gift for a 4-year-old boy: “A truck, a hot wheel collection, anything to do with superheroes.”
Frey’s favorite book this year was Robert Bolano‘s novel, 2666. He concluded with a list of writers he admired, including: “Bret Easton Ellis, William Vollmann, Neal Stephenson, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Charlie Houston.”
Most Excellent Musical Gift For Book Lovers
Jennifer Khoshbin
new works
On display at Rose and Radish,
San Francisco, CA.
Music Books
Place ear to book, turn crank and listen.
Donkey John
The Wrong Art Wins
Jeers, Cheers Greet Kandinsky Winner, Painter Beliayev-Guintovt
By John Varoli
Dec. 11 (Bloomberg) — Alexey Beliayev-Guintovt took Russia’s top contemporary-art award, the Kandinsky Prize, with a series of nationalist paintings “Motherland-Daughter,” winning 40,000 euros ($52,500) — and jeers from sections of the audience.
Beliayev-Guintovt’s detractors in the audience yelled and booed when his name was announced, calling him an ultra- nationalist, while his supporters cheered. Last year’s winner Anatoly Osmolovsky led the protest, screaming, “Disgrace!” for several minutes. Beliayev-Guintovt was shouted down when he tried to make his acceptance speech. Guests at last night’s ceremony included billionaires, such as Shalva Chigirinsky, an owner of Sibir Energy Plc, and Petr Aven, president of Alfa Bank.
“The problem is not just that the artist is ultra-right, but that he tries to make an artistic career on his political views,” said Marat Guelman, whose gallery M&J Guelman Gallery represents Osmolovsky. “This decision could hurt the prestige and influence of the Kandinsky Prize.”
The prize, in its second year and named after Russian abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky, aims to raise the profile of new art in Russia. It is sponsored by Art Chronika Foundation, Deutsche Bank AG and the Moscow-based holding company, IFD Kapital.
I Love A Woman Who Shreds Slide On A Les Paul
This song is simply delicious, and the performance great.
And even tho that performance is great, the audio sucks. So have a listen to the clean version for true appreciation.
In The Den
Meet Today’s Intern: James Frey! [Interns]
POSTED ON 10 DECEMBER 2008
Reported today by Gawker:
A while ago, in an attempt to get Ryan Adams as my intern instead of him interning at Blackbook (nice catch, Mohney!), I received a one-line e-mail from somebody calling himself James Frey. “I’ll come intern for a day,” it read. He thought it would be interesting to intern for people who “hated” him (a strong word!) and was especially eager to do menial tasks. So Vogue gets celebrity intern Sean Avery, Blackbook gets Adams, and we get James Frey. He has written books such as A Million Little Pieces, Bright Shiny Morning, and once he went on Oprah and she yelled at him! He’ll be helping me pack my things into boxes for my imminent departure, factchecking among other things. He’s out on a coffee run right now, but after the jump, let’s play “Ask the Intern,” in which you can ask James about what it’s like to intern for Gawker.
Fan Death
| The Rebirth Of Disco |
Much like designers, musicians are continually swinging through history, cherry-picking the best bits from long-forgotten eras and reinterpreting them with a modern slant. Recently, we’ve trudged through nostalgic New Order clones and the post-post-punk boom with bands like Interpol and Editors, but now it would seem that the much maligned genre of disco is coming back. So break out the bellbottoms because disco is about to be cool again. 
Fan Death are the princesses of new-disco strut. Their stunning debut single, Veronica’s Veil, sounds like it was recorded in the early hours of the morning after the Canadian duo stumbled out of an all-nighter at Studio 54, their breath gone from dancing and their heads ablaze with dreams of disco stardom. From the ever-so-perfect string sweeps, the throbbing bassline, the shimmering production courtesy of Erol Alkan (Mystery Jets, Late Of The Pier), and the hollow-eyed vocal, it is truly thrilling stuff that manages to breathe life back into disco. |
Extreme Catapult
Extreme Athens
from The Great M-C
Steadman
Gonzo’s back!
A new movie celebrates the maverick life and messy death of Hunter S Thompson. Welsh artist Ralph Steadman was the rogue writer’s partner in crime. ‘I hit the bullseye!’ he tells Damon Wise
Irascible genius … still from Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr Hunter S Thompson
For Ralph Steadman, the end of an era came with a phone call three years ago. “Take your phone off the hook,” said his friend Joe Petro, “Hunter’s just shot himself.” Steadman was, if it’s possible, shocked but not surprised. Hunter S Thompson, 67, his longtime collaborator, was an irascible genius of letters whose life had been every bit as violent as his demise. His literary stardom began when he rode with scary bikers in the mid-60s, endured when a journalistic assignment in Las Vegas turned into drug-addled chaos and went supernova when he covered the US election in 1972.”When he shot himself,” says Steadman, “he was on the phone to his wife, Anita, who was down at the gym. He was talking to her and suddenly she heard the click-click as he pulled the hammer back. And then she heard the bang. Juan, his son, was in the next room, and he thought he heard a book drop. Now, if you’ve ever known what that sounds like … Well, it’s worth doing it to see what it sounds like …”
Steadman strides across the floor of his study, picks out a big, square hardback and drops it. BANG! “It sounds like that,” he notes. “Now, what a perfect analogy. ‘Like a book dropping …’ And it bloody well is, isn’t it?”
Herb & Dorothy
from The Moment blog @ The New York Times
ABMB | Meet the Vogels
Megumi Sasaki’s documentary film “ Herb & Dorothy” debuts tonight at The Colony Theater in Miami as part of ABMB’s “Art Loves Film” series. The movie is a sweet tale about Herbert and Dorothy Vogel, a postal worker and a librarian, respectively, who amassed one of the most important contemporary art collections to date on a modest budget. (An excerpt from the film is above.) Here, The Moment caught up with Dorothy Vogel about the fluctuating art economy, dealer camaraderie, and advice for collecting in today’s market.
In the film, you say you collected minimal and conceptual art because Pop art was too expensive. Does this mean your collection evolved out of what you could afford?
It’s true, everything else was not affordable. But, we happened to have a natural attraction to minimal and conceptual so it made it easy to collect. I would have liked to have some Pop but it got expensive very quickly and Abstract Expressionism was out the question.
Rumor has it the gallerist Leo Castelli sold you a lot of your work.
We bought our Donald Judd from him. He was a wonderful man and very supportive. We did not buy a lot through him though because he always gave us artists’s phone numbers and told us to call them directly.
Did any artist refuse to sell you work? Did you feud with dealers because of your aggressive collecting style?
Generally people wanted to come into our collection, so it was the other way around unfortunately. We never had problems with dealers. I know John Weber said that in the film but in many cases, we started buying before they had representation. John always knew which of his artists we were directly buying from and we never told other people to go to the artist directly. We always told them to go to the dealer.
“As long as I’ve still got rubber and a stiff handbrake…”
“I hurt so much / I bleed.”
Self-injury on the rise among young people
Self-inflicted injuries appear to be on the rise, with some young people actually embedding objects in their skin. Stress may be a factor.
By Shari Roan
December 8, 2008
The revelation was shocking enough. That a growing number of teenagers and young adults deliberately embed needles, paper clips or staples in their skin may have seemed unthinkable before an Ohio radiologist presented disturbing proof at a medical meeting Wednesday.
Even more disturbing than his X-rays and accompanying report, however, could be the size and pervasiveness of the trend from which it derives — self-injury.
Cutting, burning and biting one’s body is a habit increasingly taken up by young people who find themselves simply unable to cope with stress. Embedding appears to represent a more extreme form of the disorder.
“We always saw a little bit of this, but it was in people already identified as having a psychiatric disorder,” says Janis Whitlock, a prominent researcher on self-injury at Cornell University. “What doesn’t seem to make much sense is why we’re seeing it so much in seemingly healthy kids.”
Experts who study the behavior say that 15% to 22% of all adolescents and young adults have intentionally injured themselves at least once in their lifetimes. One study of 94 girls, ages 10 to 14, found that 56% had hurt themselves at least once. It was published in February in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, part of a special issue devoted to self-injury.
The behavior may be building among adults as well. One study found that 1% of adults self-injure.
Illinois therapist Karen Conterio, who operates a self-injury treatment program, says 11% of her clients are age 40 and older. And surveys by Whitlock have identified self-injurers in their late 20s and 30s.
Expressing pain
The leading theory behind the behavior is that cutting, burning or hitting oneself externalizes brutal and persistent emotional pain. A poem published in a newsletter called the Cutting Edge sums up the disorder, says Ruta Mazelis, a consultant with the Sidran Institute in Baltimore, an organization that focuses on traumatic stress.
“I hurt so much
I bleed.”
— Robin et al.
Cafe du Mort
France fears death of village life as cafés call last orders
Threatened by new habits and a shrinking rural population, a national institution is fighting for survival
Cafe Terrace on Rue Vieille du Temple. Photograph: Corbis
As he drives through the hills and fields of the Ardennes, José Hody points out the landmarks of a devastated landscape. There’s Café de la Paix, on the brink of bankruptcy; there’s Le Malibou, which has already shut down. In the town of Sedan, Hody, who hires out games to 100 local establishments, indicates La Taverne, now converted into a florist, and Quai 32, which is on the point of closure.
We move on to Vendresse, a village of 550 inhabitants surrounded by muddy fields and the overflowing Meuse river. We visit the last remaining café – once there were five – with the last remaining darts board, a menu du jour at £10, pastis and worn Johnny Hallyday tapes. The table football game, one of scores that Hody once supplied to local businesses, has already gone.
‘We are going to have to sell up and, as there are no buyers, that’s it for the café,’ said Ingrid Meurquin, the patronne of Le Donjon for the past eight years. ‘It’s sad for us and sad for the village.’
All over France it is the same story. Changing social habits, rural depopulation, the recently introduced ban on smoking, strict laws prohibiting fruit machines, inflation, static salaries and the economic crisis are forcing thousands of cafés and bars to the wall.
Soft Tools In A Hard World
It’s official: Men really are the weaker sex
Evolution is being distorted by pollution, which damages genitals and the ability to father offspring, says new study. Geoffrey Lean reports
The male gender is in danger, with incalculable consequences for both humans and wildlife, startling scientific research from around the world reveals.
The research – to be detailed tomorrow in the most comprehensive report yet published – shows that a host of common chemicals is feminising males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people.
Backed by some of the world’s leading scientists, who say that it “waves a red flag” for humanity and shows that evolution itself is being disrupted, the report comes out at a particularly sensitive time for ministers. On Wednesday, Britain will lead opposition to proposed new European controls on pesticides, many of which have been found to have “gender-bending” effects.
It also follows hard on the heels of new American research which shows that baby boys born to women exposed to widespread chemicals in pregnancy are born with smaller penises and feminised genitals.
“This research shows that the basic male tool kit is under threat,” says Gwynne Lyons, a former government adviser on the health effects of chemicals, who wrote the report.
[ click to read full account of this calamity at The Independent ]
Who Needs A Master?
Braised Red Cabbage With Toasted Hazelnuts
Arts and Roots
| I Love My Shop with Roots Restaurant and Gallery | |
| Nomfundo Xulu | Published:Dec 04, 2008 |
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| Where is the restaurant?
It’s in central Western Jabavu, Soweto, across the road from the famous Morris Isaacson High School. What kind of place is it?
How long have you been in the art and food industry? I studied art and have been involved in the industry for the past five years, and I’ve been working with food for two years now. Tell us the story behind the name of the restaurant. The name is a symbol of what we are about as township people. We are going back to the importance, the roots, of township life, which is about arts, music and good food. When did Roots open? We planted our roots on December 12 last year. What were you doing before that? I have a day job in advertising, but I go to Roots every day after work and at weekends. What plans do you have for Roots? I’d like it to be a franchise, but I do not want to go to the suburbs — I would like Roots to be strictly a township thing. So next up are Guguletu and Alexandra.
The food … where does one begin? It smells of early mornings, it reminds one of family, friends and the orchestra of street life , where kids play easy, like day will never be night. We offer township cuisine with interesting model C-type sticky wings, ivy league steak and Sunday-lunch chicken stew. Whose art do you display? The artwork is amazing and our current exhibition is by Mongezi Gum, an artist who really reflects the township vibe. There are more artists coming up soon. What kind of customers do you attract? Roots has visits from a number of tourists, artists and people who miss that homely ambience. Describe your restaurant in one word. Home. What type of music do you play? The music ranges from township jazz to lounge. And your decor? Classic township decor, which includes those velvet couches our parents used to cover with transparent seat covers, and the classic photograph of a mother and child caressing, which every township house used to have in the lounge. |
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I wanted to create a place where people can reflect on where they come from and where artists, poets and musicians can showcase their work. So Roots Restaurant and Gallery, aka Roots, is just that — a restaurant and a gallery.
Thou Shalt No Longer Hang Bling
Is glitzy art on the way out?
The changing market may diversify the works being produced
Judith H. Dobrzynski | 4.12.08 | Daily fair edition
Prices aren’t the only thing different about the art on offer at ABMB this year: tough economic conditions have also influenced what many dealers have brought and what many collectors are buying. Eventually, the times may also affect what art is made.
In a word—or a few—big, glitzy, high-cost art is out, replaced by smaller, less showy works that don’t require artists or dealers to take out a mortgage to produce, or collectors to build showcase museums to display their treasures.
“The art here is more conservative, more accessible and more residential-compatible,” says Ann Richards Nitze, who both collects and guides other collectors. Advisor Todd Levin agrees: “That whole big ‘I’m going to build a museum, here’s the huge coffee-table book’ thing has gone ‘poof!’ So all those huge installations have disappeared from the fair. Now people are returning to cocooning, so they want domestic-size art that they can live with.” Diamond-dusted works seem to be gone, too, also a casualty of the times. The tone is simply different this year.
Some long-time collectors welcome the trend as good not only for their budgets but also for artists, especially those who’ve struggled to get noticed in the money-driven market of the past several years. Now people may look for these kinds of artists—the young or overlooked. “I’ve heard collectors saying: ‘I’m going back to my roots of collecting younger artists’,” says Andrea Rosen (C15).
In fact, this is the kind of market that collectors such as Agnes Gund, president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art, says she likes. “The froth is gone. There’ll be less blingy art,” she says. “The market is better for selling less-well-known but important artists like Lynda Benglis. She’s finally coming into her own.
Bangladesh Requests Emergency Bailout of Forklifts, Pallets and Labor Union Reps
This is a video that shows how glaringly the United States is behind even nations like Bangladesh in the fight against global warming.
The Heart’s Filthy Video
Regarding David Bowie’s Music-Videos at MoMA
One man’s total reinvention, live
By Saul Austerlitz
An archaeological dig through David Bowie’s astonishingly varied career as a musician and cultural provocateur eventually reveals three sharply distinguished phases: the 1970s Glam Androgyny Era, the 1980s Mainstream-Chasing Era, and the Return to Respectability begun in the ’90s and continued intermittently today. But within these periods lies an infinite substrata of poses and personae. Bowie has been so many different things to so many different people—worn so many masks, slipped into and out of such an astounding variety of guises—that the opportunity to see it all at once, in chronological order, feels oddly like peeking into the man’s diary.
Assisting cultural archaeologists of all stripes, Bowie donated his entire music-video collection to the Museum of Modern Art earlier this year….
“I have nothing to do today. You know what? I’m dying to look at a painting.”
Rosa!
December 3rd, 2008
Art Basel Miami is in Miami because of collectors like Rosa de la Cruz. Along with a dozen other obsessive collectors, de la Cruz made Miami more than outpost of the art world. They turned it into a Mecca for the far-flung faithful of Contemporary art.
ArtInfo has an interview with her where she talks about her planned space that will be about art first and foremost:
“there are too many parties. Lately art has become a purely social scene. I’ve met people at parties who are buying art, and they don’t know what they are buying.
I think there are too many shows. We’ve been running a marathon for the past few years. With everything that’s happening in the world right now, we need to slow down and spend more time looking at works. So there will be the collection, and that’s it. And a little library. I want people to say, “I have nothing to do today. You know what? I’m dying to look at a painting.”
‘Cause you’re just a dog!
Grace Before Meat
These days an adjective recognised in the OED, Mills & Boon has become a genre unto itself over its 100-year history. To mark its centenary, The Art of Romance tells the publisher’s story with a century’s worth of covers. Here is a selection, offering fascinating insights into the changing meaning of ‘romance’.
At the end of the gallery, there’s a chance for you to win your own copy of the complete book, with a competition to come up with the most accurate, or funny, or simply darling alternative title for the cover with its name blanked out. Here’s looking at you.
[ click to view slideshow and enter contest to win Grace Before Meat & more! ]
“To The Brothers Wit’ The 808”
Slaves to the rhythm
Kanye West is the latest to pay tribute to a classic drum machine
Last Updated: Friday, November 28, 2008 | 10:57 AM ET
By Jason Anderson, CBC News
The Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer, a programmable drum machine introduced in 1980. The machine has been used by musicians from Marvin Gaye to the Beastie Boys to Beyonce to Kanye West. (Roland/Drum Machine Museum)It helped Marvin Gaye get some sexual healing. Beyonce and the Beastie Boys have sung (and rapped) its praises. The most revered makers of hip hop, techno and industrial rock couldn’t live without it. And now the most popular MC of our day pays tribute to it in the name of his new album.
Some may see the title of Kanye West’s 808s and Heartbreak (out this week) and assume those digits are just another of those cryptic numbers that musicians like to throw around (see also: Prince’s 3121, Nena’s 99 Luftballoons, Rush’s 2112). But the reference couldn’t be more specific — West has taken this opportunity to declare his loyalty to the Roland TR-808.
Soul singer Marvin Gaye used the Roland TR-808 for his 1982 hit Sexual Healing.(Pictorial Parade/Getty Images)Introduced in the early ’80s as one of the first programmable drum machines, the 808 was surpassed long ago by more high-tech musical tools. And yet musicians of all stripes and styles have deemed it indispensable for its stark percussion sound. With its metronomic precision, it may have none of the swing of a human drummer, but the 808 can still provide a futuristic kind of funkiness, especially when it’s in the right hands. This special timeline reveals how this once-lowly machine attained its iconic status.
1932: Developed by Leon Theremin at the behest of composer Henry Cowell, the Rhythmicon makes its public debut. The most sophisticated of the early electronic drum machines, it can play 16 different rhythms with no need for hands or sticks. Despite its enormous promise, it is soon sidelined by Cowell; Theremin’s innovations are ignored for decades.
1959: Wurlitzer introduces the first commercially available drum machine, the Sideman. The company builds it into many of their organs. Manufacturers like the Italian company Bontempi gradually follow suit with their own versions, thereby ensuring that future generations of kids fooling around with dusty organs in their grandparents’ homes will have formative encounters with the bossa nova beat.
1967: Use of the drum machine begins to proliferate after the Hammond Organ Company incorporates a fully transistored rhythm machine by the Ace Tone company (later renamed Roland) into its products. Sly Stone is an early adopter of the technology in the rock world, using a drum machine on the loping hit Family Affair and throughout his 1971 album There’s a Riot Goin’ On. Jimi Hendrix can also be heard using a drum machine on a demo version of the posthumously released Angel. Luckily, the Beatles’ breakup spares Ringo Starr the indignity of being replaced by a mechanical model.
1980: The Roland Corporation introduces the Roland TR-808, a programmable drum machine. According to Greg Rule’s book Future Shock, five percussion sounds characterize the 808: “the hum kick, the ticky snare, the tishy hi-hats (open and closed) and the spacey cowbell.” A Roland representative later credits the machine’s design to a Mr. Nakamura (responsible for the analog voice circuits) and a Mr. Matsuoka (who developed the software).
A 1980s advertisement for the 808. (Roland/Drum Machine Museum)
The 808 receives many poor reviews in the gearhead press of the day, generally being deemed inferior to the Linn LM-1, the first drum machine to use digital samples (i.e., prerecorded rather than machine-generated sounds). Nevertheless, it gains some popularity due to its relatively low cost of $1,195 US. Yellow Magic Orchestra, the pioneering Japanese synth-pop band, is the first band to put the 808 to use.