News
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06/25/2010
Victoria Noorthoorn, an independent curator based in Buenos Aires, has been appointed the curator for the 2011 Lyon Biennial.
From e-flux: Victoria Noorthoorn was Chief Curator of the 29th Pontevedra Art Biennial (2006) in Spain; she collaborated in the presentation of Argentine artist (and Golden Lion awardee) León Ferrari at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007). In 2008, she co-curated the 41nd Salón Nacional in Cali, Colombia, "Questioning the Image; Presentation and Representation; and Participation and Poetics." She won the international competition for the Artistic Direction of the 7th Mercosul Biennial (Porto Alegre, 2009), together with artist and curator Camilo Yáñez. She currently is organiaing the retrospective of Marta Minujin for Malba – Fundación Costantini.
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06/24/2010
The UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive select architectural firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro for new building.
From the LA Times: The university had been pursuing a building by the Japanese architect Toyo Ito before it abandoned that plan as too expensive. Its current home, a remarkable if rather aggressive quasi-Brutalist 1970 design by Mario Ciampi, is plagued with seismic issues. At the downtown site, DS+R will renovate an existing 48,000-square-foot printing plant and add a new building covering 50,000 square feet along Oxford Street, just outside the boundaries of the university campus. The museum hopes to open the new complex in 2014.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/06/diller-scofidio-renfro-get-berkeley-nod.html
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06/22/2010
The Bambi Foundation: Call for applications
The Bambi Foundation supports contemporary non-object art projects, with an emphasis on experimental cinema and projected image installations. The foundation accepts proposals from a wide range of artists, disciplines and medium, and focuses on works that cannot be easily accommodated by market-based art scenes. Deadline for applications: 10 July, 2010.
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06/21/2010
Check out Joseph del Pesco's Dispatch from San Francisco on ICI's website, which includes commentary on Art Practical by Patricia Maloney.
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06/21/2010
The Getty Trust has appointed Deborah Marrow as Interim President and CEO, following the unexpected death of James E. Wood.
From Artinfo: Following the unexpected death of James E. Wood, the J. Paul Getty Trust announced that its board has named Getty Foundation director Deborah Marrow as its interim replacement for president and CEO. This is the second time that Marrow has held the positions, having served between 2006 and 2007, when the board was considering a replacement for Barry Munitz, who was forced to resign following an investigation into financial malfeasance at the trust. The organization eventually selected Wood, relieving Marrow of the post. Her previous leadership experience includes serving on the board of governors of the University of California Humanities Research Institute, the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, and the National and International Committees for the History of Art.
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-0613-james-wood-20100613,0,122916.story
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06/17/2010
Independent art fair set to return to New York and former Dia building in February 2011.
From The Art Newspaper: Independent, the edgy satellite to New York’s Armory show, will return for a second edition next February. There will be 35 commercial spaces and five non-profits, said co-organiser Darren Flook of London’s Hotel gallery. “We’re lucky that more people want to take part than we have places, but it’s about getting a good balance and creating a show that will excite New York.” Flook wants to combine established names with younger galleries, and has so far confirmed non-profit spaces White Columns and Artists Space, as well as galleries including Stuart Shave and Isabella Bortolozzi.
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Independent-set-for-New-York-return-in-2011/21067
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06/17/2010
Where are the women? High priced male artists such as Warhol and Picasso dominate the stands.
From the Art Newspaper: The list of the artists whose work you are most likely to see at this year’s Art Basel, based on the number of galleries who are bringing pieces, is headed—perhaps unsurprisingly—by the prolific Andy Warhol, with works on show at 28 stands. Artists making work in the first half of the 20th century rank highly, including Alexander Calder and Pablo Picasso, although the list is also speckled with 1960s conceptualists such as Sol LeWitt and Lawrence Weiner. But the top 40 most represented artists on show at the fair are all men.
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Where-are-the-women?/21076
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06/16/2010
New Funding Opportunity for Emerging Arts Leaders in California.
The Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI), on behalf of The James Irvine Foundation and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, is pleased to announce the launch of the Next Gen Arts Initiative, which will provide emerging arts administrators in California with access to new funding resources for professional development through CCI's Creative Capacity Fund. In order to be eligible for grant monies and other program opportunities, individuals between the ages of 18 and 35 must first register online and complete a profile questionnaire by July 31, 2010.
Take the online questionnaire
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06/16/2010
Buddha sculpture proves to be a graffiti magnet.
From SFGate: The 15-ton, three-headed copper sculpture that was unveiled in Civic Center Plaza last month for the 30th anniversary of San Francisco's sister-city relationship with Shanghai has already been defaced twice by graffiti.
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06/16/2010
As closing arguments begin today, Prop. 8 backers target 18,000 same-sex marriages.
From SFGate: As the trial over California's prohibition on same-sex marriage enters its final stage today, the ban's sponsors are urging the judge to go a step further and revoke state recognition of the marriages of 18,000 gay and lesbian couples who wed before voters passed Proposition 8.
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06/15/2010
Guggenheim and YouTube Launch Search for the World’s Most Creative Online Video
From ArtForum: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, together with YouTube, the world’s largest online video community, today announced the launch of YouTube Play. A Biennial of Creative Video. A collaboration with HP, YouTube Play was conceived to discover and showcase the most exceptional talent working in the ever-expanding realm of online video. Open to the global online community, YouTube Play is the most inclusive international search for new creative video. A jury of experts comprising celebrated figures from the worlds of art, design, film, and entertainment will select up to twenty videos.
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06/15/2010
Conflict Kitchen: where cuisine from ‘axis of evil' nations food is cooked up along with foreign policy dialogue.
From The Independent: Enter the "Conflict Kitchen," a waffle shop turned takeout restaurant in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where cuisine from ‘axis of evil' nations food is cooked up along with foreign policy dialogue since June 1.
Three artists collaborated on the ‘food for thought' project Jon Rubin, professor at Carnegie Mellon University School of Art and director of the Waffle Shop, John Peña, adjunct assistant professor of art and Dawn Weleski, assistant director of the Waffle Shop.
The Conflict Kitchen will rotate foods from nations that the US has conflict with and in June opened as "Kubideh Kitchen" an Iranian takeout shop.
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06/09/2010
Going on the offensive: Greenpeace Rebrands BP with Oil-Slickened Graphic Campaign
From Artinfo: With a new Web site calling for public submissions, Greenpeace wants graphic-design-savvy activists to reimagine the lively green-and-yellow BP logo in the wake of the catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil spill. An entire set of the entries thus far is up on Flickr. And earlier this week Greenpeace operatives scaled their way onto the balcony of BP’s London headquarters and swapped the company’s official flag with their own oil-smeared version, complete with an update of what the energy giant's acronym stands for: "British Polluters."
http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/34782/greenpeace-rebrands-bp-with-oil-slickened-graphic-campaign/
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06/07/2010
As South Africa gears up for the World Cup, government funding for arts initiatives dries up.
From the Art Newspaper: Government funding for South African arts initiatives has been slashed in the lead up to this month’s Fifa World Cup—despite the fact that planned expenditure on the event is scheduled to reach around $1.75 billion. The culture ministry reduced the National Arts Council’s budget from $3.7 miilion to $1.8 million for the 2010/11 financial year, in addition to ditching a team of cultural programming advisors for the month-long events. Arts Council chairwoman Brenda Madumise said the South African arts community must “prepare for difficult times ahead”.
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Arts-nil,-World-Cup-billions…/20919
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06/07/2010
Racial Profiling: Arizona Mayor cancels plan to lighten skin tones depicted in elementary school mural.
From Artinfo: Following an outpouring of criticism from across the United States, an Arizona elementary school principal has announced that he was reversing his decision to lighten the skin of black and Hispanic students depicted in a new school mural, according to the Examiner. The controversy in Prescott has become the latest flash point for debate over the state's anti-immigration posture, which some have decried as racist.
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06/06/2010
Exiled Iranian artist and filmmaker Daryush Shokof is missing.
From Associated Press: Daryush Shokof, a 55-year-old Berlin resident, was last seen on May 24 in Cologne, where he planned to board a train to Paris. "As of now we have no information about his whereabouts and we don't have any evidence that a crime took place," Berlin police spokesman Guido Busch said. "However, we're investigating in all directions and are in contact with various exile groups from Iran that are based in Germany." Kazem Moussavi, a friend of Shokof's and self-described regime critic, told The Associated Press that Shokof was "a harsh critic of the Iranian government and constantly received threatening phone calls."
http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=1277633&lang=eng_news
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06/03/2010
Issue 2 of Talking Cure is available to download on Art Practical!
"The Question of Taste in the Twenty-First Century" explores the various implications of Taste through artist's writing and interviews. Once the criteria for working in the art world was having distinctive if not discerning Taste. Discussion about this have all but disappeared from our the contemporary dialog, but Taste in a practical and philosophical sense is alive and well and desperate for examination.
Talking Cure Issue Two will be available for purchase soon through Magcloud.com, but can also be downloaded here: http://www.artpractical.com/talking_cure/
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06/03/2010
Matthew Harrison Tedford and Megan McMillan join the editorial team at Art Practical.
Matthew Harrison Tedford is a writer and editor living in San Francisco. He holds a BA in Philosophy from UC Santa Cruz, and is a candidate for an MA in Visual and Critical Studies at the California College of the Arts. In addition to working at Art Practical, he is an editorial assistant at SF Camerawork and recently edited the monograph Stella Zhang: 0-Viewpoint for the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco.
Megan McMillan is currently earning her B.A. in mass communications at Menlo College. Megan recently returned to California after spending a year studying in Buenos Aires. She lives in San Francisco where she continues to progress her passion for writing and her enthusiasm for the arts as an editorial intern for Art Practical.
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06/01/2010
Louise Bourgeois, the French-born American artist, died at age 98.
From Artforum:Louise Bourgeois, the French-born American artist who gained fame only late in a long career, when her psychologically charged abstract sculptures, drawings, and prints had a galvanizing effect on younger artists—particularly women—has died at the Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan, reports Holland Cotter for the New York Times. She was 98. Bourgeois’ sculptures in wood, steel, stone, and cast rubber, often organic in form and sexually explicit, emotionally aggressive yet witty, covered many stylistic bases. But from first to last they shared a set of repeated themes, centered on the human body and its need for nurture and protection in a frightening world.
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05/30/2010
Actor, avid photographer, and noted contemporary art collector Dennis Hopper died Saturday at age 74.
From the New York Times: Dennis Hopper, who was part of a generation of Hollywood rebels in portrayals of drug-addled misfits in the landmark films “Easy Rider,” “Apocalypse Now” and “Blue Velvet," died on Saturday at his home in Venice, Calif. Mr. Hopper had several artistic pursuits beyond film. Early in his career, he painted and wrote poetry. His intimate and unguarded images of celebrities were the subject of gallery shows and published in books. He also built an extensive collection of works by artists he knew, including Warhol, Ed Ruscha and Julian Schnabel.
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