News
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02/28/2012
In Kansas, the House has approved a plan to allow taxpayers to dedicate a portion of their annual returns as a donation for arts programs. The plan is intended to offset governor Sam Brownback's decision to eliminate funding for the arts in the state.
from the Associated Press: "Supporters of the arts in Kansas say a proposal to raise additional revenue for the art programs will help but won't replace state funding. the check-off is intended to raise money to offset Gov. Sam Brownback's decision last year to delete $689,000 in funding for the Kansas Arts Commission...Four current check-offs use tax dollars to support programs related to breast cancer, military relief, Meals on Wheels and non-game wildlife. Combined, those four raised $415,511 last year."
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02/27/2012
Rick Santorum, the current GOP front-runner, voted to protect the NEA's funding every year during his stint in the House durng the early-'90s culture wars and for three consecutive votes in the Senate from 1997 to 1999.
from the Huffington Post: "Santorum said he supported the NEA because it helped keep afloat less controversial subject matter in his state, Pennsylvania. A 1997 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story quoted a statement from Santorum, by then a senator, defending the endowments: 'many highly acclaimed orchestras, fine arts programs and performing arts groups in Pittsburgh and across the state rely on NEA funding.' In his statement, Santorum went on to defend the arts in a way that even an NPR tote-bag carrying Democrat could love: 'The arts foster a strong sense of community and bring new ideas and cultures to many individuals and families all over the nation. Elimination of such programs would create a cultural vacuum that could not be easily filled.'"
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02/27/2012
Kickstarter is on track to distribute over $150 million dollars to users' projects in 2012 — more money than the entire fiscal year budget for the National Endowment of the Arts, which is $146 million.
from TPM: "'It is probable Kickstarter will distribute more money this year than the NEA,' said [one of Kickstarter's co-founders, Yancey Stricker]. 'We view that number and our relationship to it in both a good and bad way.' As Strickler explained, the milestone is 'good' in the sense that it means that Kickstarter may now reach a point where it will funnel as much money to the arts as the federal agency primarily responsible for supporting them, effectively doubling the amount of art that can get funded in the country. 'But maybe it shouldn’t be that way,' Strickler said, 'Maybe there’s a reason for the state to strongly support the arts.'"
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02/24/2012
It has been revealed that the Tate's precious photo archive was set to be clandestinely sent to the dump by the museum.
from the Guardian: The archives, which were "amassed by generations of curators" and feature rare photos of the collection, pictures of artworks that no longer exist, and even "confidential material," were saved when a low-ranking employee placed an emergency call to an art charity. An official from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art says he showed up and rescued "hundreds of boxes" from the archives. The Tate denies that the material was actually mean to be disposed of.
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02/23/2012
Christo's controversial "Over the River" project — in which the artist will cover portions of the Arkansas River with reflective fabric — has been postponed until at least 2015.
from the New York Times: "Uncertainties involving construction and permits made the delay necessary, but the continuing dialogue with Colorado residents was also a factor, the Over the River organization said Tuesday in a statement. 'The public will have time to better understand how traffic, safety and other issues will be addressed,' the statement said."
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02/23/2012
A new project in the UK that aims to take art out of galleries and onto the city streets will turn 100 billboards into platforms for visual art.
from the press release: "From April 2-29, 48SHEET will transform the billboards into public art, featuring local, national and internationally renowned names including world-renowned conceptual artist Xu Zhen of Shanghai Madeln Collective and New Delhi art collective Raqs Media. The billboards have been identified to specifically form advertising free ‘clusters’ of billboards, and will be accompanied by an online map, GPS google mapping and a printed version map so that people can navigate their way around the urban gallery via recommended walking, cycling and bus routes."
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02/22/2012
Kansas residents are displeased with artist Amber Hansen's plans to publicly display five chickens before slaughtering and serving them at a community potluck.
from the Kansas City Star: "She hopes the Warhol Foundation-funded project, 'The Story of Chickens: A Revolution' will establish a connection between residents and the food they eat. Some, however, are clucking their tongues: 'When people in other states think of Kansas, they will think that we don’t teach evolution in our schools and we do those gruesome, public slaughters of chickens and call it art,' said one local. 'This is just backward.'"
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02/22/2012
A paint company has commissioned a group of artists to combat pollution by creating murals using a special smog-eating paint.
from the Huffington Post: "Manila is one of the five most polluted cities in the world, and a paint company recently decided to try a unique approach to combatting airborne toxins. The paint, called Boysen KNOxOUT, is made up of modified titanium dioxide molecules that neutralize noxious gases when they are exposed to sunlight."
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02/21/2012
The University of California, Berkeley misplaced and then mistakenly sold a 22-foot-long carved panel by celebrated African-American sculptor Sargent Johnson to the Huntington Library for $150 plus tax.
from the New York Times: "The university’s embarrassing loss eventually enabled the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, a large museum and research center in San Marino, Calif., to acquire its first major work by an African-American artist."
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02/21/2012
A Washington state senator has proposed selling off the state's art collection in favor of raising funds to help low-income students attend college.
from My Northwest: "While many of the Washington State Art Commission's more than 4,000 pieces of art are on public display - at universities and state agencies, for example - Senator Karen Keiser, D-Kent said many are never seen. 'So I'm attempting to create a new way to look at our art collection: As an asset to be used,' Keiser said. 'Rather than just sit on a collection that isn't being seen, let's pick and choose those pieces that might be very worthwhile to auction.'"
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02/20/2012
Now that the Bay Bridge has reopened, check out a simulation that allows you to see what it would be like to drive over the new one. During an earthquake.
from the New York Times: "The new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge has several elements to help it withstand a major earthquake. The central feature of the span is a 2,047-foot-long single-tower self-anchored suspension bridge of a asymmetrical design."
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02/17/2012
Greek Culture Minister Pavlos Yeroulanos offered to resign after the museum of ancient Olympia, birthplace of the Olympic Games, was robbed, the second major art heist this year.
from Bloomberg: "Yeroulanos went to the museum in southern Greece this morning to assess the situation after submitting his resignation to Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, a ministry spokesman said in a phone interview given on condition of anonymity. There was no response from the prime minister’s office on whether the resignation was accepted."
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02/16/2012
The founder of the Rubin Museum of Art, Shelley Rubin, has created a new foundation, A Blade of Grass, that seeks to create dialogue about contemporary art beyond a gallery and museum context.
from the Wall Street Journal: "Philanthropist and art collector Shelley Rubin has created a new foundation to support artists that fuse art and social action to reach a broad audience...The foundation's inaugural grant of $30,000 will go to New York-based No Longer Empty, a group that brings free public art exhibitions to vacant spaces and pairs unknown artists with established artists."
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02/16/2012
Marina Abramovic signed a deal with architect Rem Koolhaus earlier this week to design and construct her Center for the Preservation of Performance Art in Hudson, New York.
from New York Magazine: "The Serbian art superstar will seek to raise $8 million to pay for the project, she revealed Tuesday night to a group of art collectors at a panel at Manhattan's tony Core Club, and the museum will be devoted to performance art pieces of "six hours minimum." Some of them will go on for days."
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02/15/2012
Silicon Valley may fail to build community because of its lack of investment in the arts, according to a panel of experts who spoke at Friday’s 2012 Silicon Valley Conference.
from the Peninsula Press, via SF Gate: "'Silicon Valley is the epicenter for thought about change,” Joel Slayton [founder of Zero1] said at Friday’s conference...Silicon Valley has a higher concentration of arts-centric businesses than the national average, according to the 2012 Silicon Valley Index, an annual look at the region’s economic and social health. But the Valley isn’t ahead by much, Friday’s panelists pointed out. And in general, Silicon Valley has a higher concentration of businesses than the national average, so when residents take that into account, the arts statistic looks even less impressive."
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02/15/2012
While preparing one of Jean-Michel Basquiat's painting for sale, Sotheby's discovered a hidden autograph in invisible ink on the work.
from the Associated Press via the Washington Post: "Sotheby’s experts uncovered the secret this month as they were examining “Orange Sports Figure,” which goes on sale Wednesday. The vibrant image of an abstract crowned figure is estimated to be worth between 3 million pounds and 4 million pounds ($4.7 million and $6.3 million). Basquiat, a graffiti artist who became a 1980s art star, signed relatively few of his canvasses. But Sotheby’s said ultraviolet light revealed the artist’s name and the date 1982 beneath the work’s layers of acrylic and spray paint."
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02/14/2012
President Obama's election-year budget, made public yesterday, proposes boosting the annual budget for the NEA to $154.255 million—an increase of over $8 million.
from the New York Times: "Both the president and the chairman of the endowment, Rocco Landesman, emphasized the economic benefits of spending money on the arts. 'A dollar invested directly through the NEA is matched by $8 of additional investment and generates $26 of economic activity in the community,' Mr. Landesman said in a statement. 'In short, art works.'"
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02/13/2012
A planned walkthrough Gerhard Richter's new major retrospective at Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie had to be cancelled after the event was mobbed by dozens of photographers.
from the New York Times: "One day after his 80th birthday, the German painter Gerhard Richter on Friday unveiled a major retrospective at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie. A planned walk by the artist through the exhibition space had to be canceled after he was mobbed by dozens of photographers more typically associated with the movie stars up the block at the Berlinale film festival, which opened the day before. Interest in Mr. Richter, already a superstar by art world standards, has surged in his native land around his birthday, and a series of exhibitions and lectures in Berlin and Dresden, the city of his birth, are taking place this year."
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02/13/2012
Painter Will Barnet, art patron Emily Rauh Pulitzer, and sculptor Martin Puryear will join actor Al Pacino and others as recipients of the National Medal of Arts, to be presented by President Obama this evening at the White House.
from the press release: "On Monday, February 13, 2012 at 1:45 PM ET, President Obama will award the 2011 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal in the East Room. The First Lady will also attend. This event will be open press and will also be live streamed at www.WhiteHouse.gov/Live. The National Medal of Arts, established by Congress in 1984, is awarded by the President and managed by the National Endowment for the Arts. Award recipients are selected based on their contributions to the creation, growth, and support of the arts in the United States."
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02/10/2012
A film—or, as it is billed, "cinematic seance"—on the life and death of Andy Warhol will be launched online at 10:21pm on February 22, exactly 25 years after the legendary Pop artist's death.
from ARTINFO: "The narrator in the trailer looks a bit more Rocky than Warhol (he's wearing a hooded sweatshirt), but the manic scene splices make the whole thing feel just crazy enough to be appropriately Pop."
