ART+DESIGN

8-year-old painting prodigy is new art world star

2010-08-16T13:16:00.000-07:00

HOLT, England -- He's Britain's most talked-about young artist. His paintings fetch hefty sums and there's a long waiting list for his eagerly anticipated new works.
It has all happened so quickly - he's still getting used to the spotlight - and Kieron Williamson fidgets a little when he's asked to share his thoughts on art.

Original Article.

'The Other Guys': Five Secrets Revealed

2010-08-09T12:12:00.000-07:00

On Friday, we revealed five secrets about Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg's buddy cop flick "The Other Guys," from the explanation for Paris Hilton's missing cameo to how they managed to get such a curse-filled movie to be rated PG-13.

We got the inside scoop from co-writer/director Adam McKay, who called up MTV News shortly before the film opened and went on to reel in $35.6 million over the weekend. McKay also let slip a bunch of other secrets that were simply too spoilery to publish on Friday (August 9). Now, as "Other Guys" enjoys its place at the top of the box office, we're pushing forward with five more secrets revealed (of course, beware of spoilers below!).

Why Jackson and Johnson Plunged Off a Roof to Their Deaths

This out-of-nowhere game-changer comes about 15 minutes into the movie: the tough-guy cops played by Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson actually die after they miscalculate a roof jump and land with a crunch on the sidewalk. McKay told us that they entertained a number of funny and unexpected deaths before settling on the failed roof jump.

"The first thought we had was that they get a call for a chase, and they pull out to join it, and just get broadsided by a truck that had nothing to do with the chase," he said. "Then we just played with the idea of a really ignominious death — autoerotic asphyxiation — but we knew there was no way we could get that into a PG-13 movie. Even though it makes me and you laugh, 80 percent of the audience would be flat-out horrified. The one we really liked — and we came close to doing it — was that they were in a shootout and they just got shot. If you have too many shootouts, you're going to get shot. I think even the forensic guy was like, 'They were in 90 shootouts. You're gonna get shot eventually.'

"But the jump was just so much fun," he continued. "Originally in the script, you didn't see them hit the ground. But I thought, 'You gotta shoot that.' It could be either grisly or fantastic. Once the Foo Fighters' song got in, we knew we had it. For a second, you think you're watching the worst filmmaking ever. Are they really playing this song during a fake Hollywood jump? And then they die!"

How They Pulled Off the Motion-Capture Bar Scene

The film's most visually stunning scene is one that even James Cameron might applaud. It's a freeze-frame, continuous-shot bar scene in which Ferrell and Wahlberg are caught mid-action in a series of drunken incidents. The scene honestly defies easy explanation, which is why we waited until now to reveal how McKay captured it.

"My DP, Oliver Wood, and I had seen this Phillips short film with cops fighting clowns," he explained. "We loved it, but I think that cost $4 million to shoot. At first we were going to do digital camera stills, and I just thought that was boring and we kind of did that already on 'Talladega Nights.' Then Oliver said, 'I think we can do the Phillips thing,' and in four days we came up with the plan.

"We got this motion-capture camera that you program so the camera moves exactly the same every time," he added. "It was similar to what they did in 'The Matrix' with the flying bullets. They weren't wearing motion-capture suits. I wish I had thought of that. I would have made Will wear one for no reason. We just wrote joke scenarios of a night gone horribly wrong. We went to this bar on the Upper West Side [of Manhattan] and shot it in half a day. We cast stuntmen and women who could hold poses. Our special effects company, Evil Eye, added all these funny elements."

Why Keaton Quotes TLC

Michael Keaton plays the NYPD precinct captain who's always barking orders at Ferrell and Wahlberg. He also has a strange and hilarious habit of quoting TLC lyrics without seemingly having any idea who that group is. It's a gem of a recurring bit, and it came about entirely by accident.

"We were trying to write phrases for the captain that were tough-guy euphemisms," McKay said. "We had a draft where he said all this crazy stuff and out of that I started to say, 'Don't go chasing waterfalls,' and everyone started laughing. Then we called it back two more times, and then Keaton was doing them so well, we added more."

"We came up with a whole backstory that he drove his son to college and his son played a TLC greatest-hits CD the whole time but the captain was never aware what he was listening to," he added. "We knew at least 35 percent of the audience would have no idea who TLC is, but we were like, 'Screw it! It's too funny!' "

Why McKay Had Such a Weird Cameo

Last week, we revealed why Paris Hilton's cameo was left on the cutting room floor. Now we turn our attention to McKay's cameo as a demented homeless man who is the ringleader of a roving gay orgy gang. Yes, it is all as bizarre as it sounds.

"We originally had it just as a reference about all the horrible stuff that happens to [Will's] car [after it gets stolen]," he said. "We did a table re-write and Andrew Steele, the head writer for Funny or Die, came up with this joke that the thieves left a thank you note. That made us laugh, and then we named the thieves Dirty Mike and the Boys. Then we're like, 'We've got to see them.' I always like to do something small in our movies, so I was like, 'All right, it's me!'

"So we shot this riverside scene and just did thirty minutes of the filthiest improv you've ever heard in your life, and had to cut everything except what you see in the movie," he continued. "But the extended DVD has all the nastiness."

A Sequel Just Might Happen

After the collapse of "Anchorman 2" this spring, fans might be wondering if we'll ever see a sequel from one of the four big-screen collaborations between McKay and Ferrell. McKay revealed that we just might see "The Other Guys 2" down the road.

"We had fun shooting this and we talked about it," he said. "There's almost a novelty to doing a sequel at this point. The two we were talking about were 'Step Brothers' and 'Other Guys.' We don't want to get ahead of ourselves. But I would be happy to go back into this world. I never got tired of seeing Will and Mark going back and forth."

original article.

The Art of Tax War

2010-08-02T11:12:00.000-07:00

The highly charged partisan debate over the future of the Bush tax cuts (scheduled to expire at the end of December) is a kind of war. Whether you term it a class war depends on what you mean by class, but it is certainly a war between the very rich (the top 2 percent of income earners) and a host of other individuals allied with them, against everybody else who gives a darn.

Battlefield success will be largely determined by the outcomes in the coming Congressional elections. A key issue in these races will be public perceptions of President Obama’s proposal to let expire the federal income-tax cuts put in place by the Bush administration for the very rich, while maintaining those tax cuts – and others implemented by his administration – for everybody else.

Voters’ perceptions are not primarily driven by facts. A February CBS poll showed that only 12 percent of voters recognize that the Obama administration has cut taxes. About 24 percent of voters (and about 64 percent of Tea Party supporters) said they believed it had raised taxes.

Many explanations come to mind. The tax issue is often a lightning rod for other frustrations. Most people find discussions of tax policy complicated and boring, and highly charged partisan debates excite some, but upset others, discouraging them from learning more.

The dynamics of collective conflict also come into play. Precisely because they are such a small group, the very rich stand to lose much more per person than others will gain per person from increased tax revenues. They also have more resources to invest in the fight, enabling them to make bigger contributions to Congressional campaigns.

One important strategic goal of this camp is to persuade voters that tax increases at the top will hurt the economy as a whole. Here’s where supply-side economics comes in, with its claims that tax cuts increase revenues and promote economic growth.

Historical trends, including a comparison of trends during the Clinton and Bush administrations, do not support these claims. But in a world in which most people believe their livelihoods depend on rich investors, many people are fearful. As Brit Hume of Fox News put it on July 25, “When’s the last time one of these poor people offered you a job?”

As a corollary, it is strategically important to argue that increased taxes at the top will hurt small-business owners, who are generally more liked and better respected than individuals in the economic stratosphere. But as William Gale of the Brookings Institution explains, very few small-business owners are in the top 2 percent, and most individuals in that category don’t heavily rely on business income.

In a counterattack, a group called Business and Investors Against Tax Haven Abuse has released a report arguing that corporate tax havens provide an unfair advantage to large chain retailers and financial companies over locally owned retailers and community banks.

This report doesn’t speak directly to the issue of federal income taxes, but nonetheless lands some relevant blows. Apparently Goldman Sachs, taking brilliant advantage of offshore tax havens in 2008, paid federal taxes at an effective tax rate of 1 percent, proffering a sum less than one-third what it paid its chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein.

It seems unlikely that taxing Mr. Blankfein himself at a higher rate would cause any harm.

Another strategic goal of opponents of the tax increase is to split and weaken the coalition favoring it. In this context, it is advantageous to label those receiving public assistance (including unemployment insurance) as slackers and cheats. About 47 percent of Americans owed no federal income tax in 2009, which you might think people opposed to federal income taxes would consider good news. Instead, the conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh characterized this as a form of fraud, “worse than anything Bernie Madoff ever thought about doing.”

On the battlefield, in the fog of war, it is often difficult to know exactly what is happening, and why. But those resisting change have the most to gain from fog – or even from blowing smoke – because uncertainty often works in favor of the status quo.

In my view, Citizens for Tax Justice, which describes itself as an advocacy group that strives “to give ordinary people a greater voice” against the “armies of special interest lobbyists for corporations and the wealthy,” offers the most specific and well-documented analysis of the two competing approaches to the Bush tax cuts, those of President Obama and the Congressional Republicans. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have gotten much attention from the news media.

I’m not sure whose fault that is, and if Sun Tzu were alive today, I’m not sure whom he would be working for. But it’s pretty clear that the Republicans would offer him a higher salary.

Original Article.

2010-07-19T13:08:00.000-07:00

Moody's Investors Service raised its ratings outlook on Motorola Inc. (MOT) to positive--likely ending the near-term likelihood that the company will be cut to junk territory--as the telecommunications-equipment maker has agreed to sell most of its network-equipment business to telecom-equipment vendor Nokia Siemens Networks for $1.2 billion.

Nokia Siemens is a joint venture of Finland's Nokia Corp. (NOK, NOK1V.HE) and Germany's Siemens AG (SI, SIE.XE).

Earlier Monday, Standard & Poor's Rating Services and Fitch Ratings said their grades wouldn't be affected by the pending sale.

Moody's said the sale is expected to boost Motorola's credit profile by giving it significant cash balances. The company plans to separate itself into two independent publicly traded companies through a spinoff of its mobile-devices and home businesses.

After the separation, expected in the first quarter, Moody's sees the debt remaining with Motorola Solutions, which generated first-quarter earnings of $141 million and revenue of $1.7 billion as the largest unit in the company.

Moody's has Motorola at Baa3, the lowest rung of investment grade. The previous ratings outlook was negative.

Motorola shares recently traded at $7.93, up 5.7%, on the divestiture plan. The stock is up 2% this year

original article.

Art gallery sued over alleged Lennon fakes

2010-07-12T12:35:00.000-07:00

very Interesting article.. a man buys art that he believes to be counterfeit and its so crazy , he discovered this buy pointing out that there ink used in the prints were not invented during the time period the photos were believed to be drawn in.

A Wisconsin man is suing a Maui art gallery that sold him nearly $200,000 worth of sketches by Beatle John Lennon—sketches the buyer now believes are counterfeits.

David Petersen of Waukesha, Wis., has spent a total of about $300,000 on Lennon sketches from galleries in New York, Florida and Hawaii. About two years ago, he purchased 16 sketches from Celebrites Galleries in Kihei.

"These were presented to me as being drawn by the hand of John Lennon," Petersen said in a phone interview yesterday.

The drawings were said to have been drawn in February 1972 and came with a statement authenticating the art pieces. Lennon was murdered in 1980 at age 40.

In 2008, when Petersen, 54, tried to auction two of the sketches, the auction owner suspected Petersen's pieces were not authentic.

Over the next several months, Petersen put the sketches through ink and paper tests as well as a test by electrostatic apparatus, which measures minuscule impressions.

"We found inks that did not exist in Lennon's lifetime," he said.

The lawsuit, filed July 2 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, names as defendants Celebrites Galleries; gallery co-owners Gerard Marti and wife Colleen Noah-Marti; a second business owned by the couple, the insurance company Insurance Factors in Honolulu; and a former employee.

Gerard Marti said by phone yesterday that his experts believe the works are genuine.

Marti said he acquired the pieces from a broker, whom he will be questioning, and said he will conduct his own investigation.

In his 19 years in business, Marti has never had anyone claim their purchases were fake, he said.

There are a lot of forgeries, Marti said, and it is difficult to confirm a piece's authenticity unless one is present when the artist signs the item, leaving collectors to rely on a scientific examiner.

"You have to back yourself up with the opinion of a professional," he said.

According to the lawsuit, Petersen also bought a microphone from Celebrites that Lennon purportedly used to record the album "Imagine" in 1971.

But the serial number showed the microphone was not made until six years later, the lawsuit said.

Marti, who bought the mike from the recording studio, said Lennon did use it and that the only discrepancy is the date. He said Lennon used the microphone in the late 1970s and that it was later used by Beatles drummer Ringo Starr

original article.

Art from Princess Diana’s Family to be Auctioned

2010-07-06T12:14:00.000-07:00

Art, antiques, and other belongings owned by the family of Diana, Princess of Wales, are to be auctioned in London beginning Tuesday.

Three auction items will be featured at Christie’s Auction House’s Old Masters sale, all of which once belonged at the Althorp House, which was the Spencer family’s country home in Northhamptonshire, and in Spencer House, “their historic London home.”

The country house, Althorp, was the home in which Princess Diana grew up and, following her death in 1997, the site of her burial. Diana’s brother Earl Charles Spencer is the current owner of the home.

The items on sale have been in the Spencer family for centuries. One item is a painting by Peter Paul Rubens, “Commander Being Armed for Battle,” which the Spencer family has had possession of since 1802.

This portrait was painted in 1613 and 1614. It shows a bearded man, supposed to be the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, being fitted with his armor. The painting’s expected going price is between 8 million and 12 million pounds ($12 million to $18 million).

A second painting, “King David” by Giovannie Francesco Barbieri, will be auctioned. This painting is expected to sell for as much as 8 million pounds ($12 million).

A second sale beginning on Wednesday, the “Althorp Attic Sale,” will include a 19th century carriage owned by the family, as well as harnesses, saddles, furniture, snuff, cigarette boxes, and military uniforms. The third sale, which begins on Thursday, will include even more works of art and porcelain from Spencer House.

original article.

Mercedes Benz Fashion Week

2009-05-14T12:03:00.000-07:00

I remember my friend was actually part of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion week. You might have heard it from Lauren Conrad on her show "The Hills". It's a great way to get an inside scoop of what's to come next for this year or the next. It's really awesome! A lot of great designers and such. My friend got lucky doing this! He basically had to dress the models and strip them down. I really wanted to do that, but I knew I didn't have that kind of time. Ahh! I hope I get to do it for this year's fashion show.

Picture source

Tokyo Fashion

2009-05-11T10:17:00.000-07:00

I have a lot to say about this. Eversince the beginning of my Fashion frenzie, I fell in love with the style of Harajuku and other street fashioned cities. I believe that Tokyo Fashion is probably a good ten years ahead of us American's in fashion. I love the innovated and unique style that they have brought to America. You see those Japanese kids in America who don't dress like us. They dress however they feel like, and are proud of it. I believe that's the way it should be, instead of following other people's trends follow your own, or make your own trend off of it. There style is soooo crazy and haute couture status. It's like they don't give a flying hoot about it. American's make fun of the Japanesenow, but in the future they'll be wearing their things. Trust! (= I find their style interesting and most of all inspiring! If you guys haven't seen Tokyo's style, thenI suggest that you google it after you're done reading this. This picture on the left is probably her day out just for fun. They get ready for everything, and it's awesome. This isn't even half as crazy as the other dare-devil fashion street goers wear!

Original Article

Michael Kor

2009-05-07T15:18:00.000-07:00

I didn't really know much about Michael Kor until my mom bought a bag for me with the repeatedly printed "MK" all over the bag. Seriously, it's a really good bag I tell you. After my mom gave me the bag, I decided to look up the designer and find out what other stuff they have going on with their merchandise. First off, Michael Kor has some AWESOME watches. I couldn't believe the different variety of watches they had! I have this favorite bracelet I got from an Island festival, and they had it as a watch! I loved it. Mr. Kors began his career in fashion at the age of 19 designing and merchandising a collection for the renowned boutique LotharÕs in New York City. The success of these clothes caught the attention of the fashion press prompting Kors to strike out on his own. In 1981 the Michael Kors label was formed; his first womenÕs collection was launched at Bergdorf Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue, amongst other stores. Since his collection was established, it has never strayed from KorsÕ initial vision of chic, luxurious American sportswear. In June of 1999 Michael Kors received the most prestigious award in the fashion industry Ð the CFDA Award for Womenswear Designer of the Year.

Original Article

Marc Jacobs

2009-05-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

This guy is awesome! He's basically the in thing in today's fashion. I love his bags and all his other stuff. I'd like to say his stuff is a bit too pricey, but hey that's how everything is nowadays if you really think about it. All my fashion fien friends are the one that is really sporting his wear!! "Marc Jacobs has the midas touch and an innate ability to design clothes that people want to wear. Whether he designs a satchel or a shoe it's always something everyone wants. From grunge to prom, from private jet to Tokyo nightclub, he has an outfit that suits.
His workload includes Marc Jacobs, Marc by Marc and Louis Vuitton - a titanic selection of back to back collections but he still has time to build a world class contemporary art collection and dress in pigeon costumes at his annual fancy dress party.
He has caught the fitness bug like so many male fashion designers. His muses include Sofia Coppola, Charlotte Rampling, Winona Ryder, Dakota Fanning, Victoria Beckham - all have been photographed by Juergen Teller for Marc Jacobs ad campaigns (Mrs Beckham was hidden inside a Marc Jacobs shop bag after Juergen persuaded her that she was "just a product"). " -Vogue

Original Article

Louis Vuitton

2009-05-04T09:43:00.000-07:00

I used to think that all designer bags with their logo printed all over them were ultimately overrated. Seriously, I think it's just the fact that everyone had them even when they weren't real bags you know? haha It's really funny. But I like to think that all fashion designers should receive the upmost respect from other people. Their bags are made fine and have great quality. Louis Vuitton Malletier (pronounced /ˈluːi ˈvuːtɔ̃/ in English), commonly referred to as Louis Vuitton, or sometimes shortened to LV, is a French luxury fashion and leather goods company. Founded in 1854, one of the main divisions of LVMH headquartered in Paris, France. Known especially for bags and trunks, the company collaborates with prominent figures for marketing and design (most notably supermodel Gisele Bündchen and fashion designer Marc Jacobs). Internationally renowned and highly regarded for name recognition in the fashion world, as a result LV has become one of the most counterfeited contemporary luxury brands.
LV is also one of the oldest fashion houses in the world, having started in 1854. It sells its products strictly through its own retail stores, small boutiques in high-end department stores, and online (as an effort against counterfeit). It primarily competes with Versace, Brioni, Gucci, Chanel, Armani, Prada and similar luxury fashion brands. After the death of his father, Georges Vuitton began a campaign to build the company into a worldwide corporation, exhibiting the company's products at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.

Original Article

Gianni Versace

2009-04-29T10:13:00.000-07:00

Gianni Gianni Gianni, the best legacy designers came from the past, and I simply love everything about coco, gianni, yves, and andy. Versace is one of the most well known fashion designers in the world. Versace was shot dead on July 16, 1997, aged 50, on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion as he returned from a morning walk on Ocean Drive. It was his custom to take a stroll to a coffee shop that received international periodicals, to read the Italian-language newspapers. His murderer was Andrew Cunanan, who used the same gun to commit suicide on a boat shortly afterwards.[2] Versace's body was cremated and his ashes returned to the family's estate near Cernobbio, Italy.
In September 1997, it was announced that the new CEOs of the Versace company would be Gianni's brother Santo Versace and Jorge Saud. Gianni's sister, Donatella Versace, became the new head of design.
In his will, Gianni Versace left 50 percent of his fashion empire to his niece Allegra Versace, daughter of Donatella. Her younger brother, Daniel, inherited Gianni's vast rare artwork collection. Allegra inherited this stake, worth around half a billion dollars, when she turned 18 in 2004. She has the final say in the Versace clothing line.
At the time of his death 6% of Gianni's financial investments were left to Brandon Funt, grandson of real estate developer Stanley Banach.

Original Article

Miuccia Prada

2009-04-29T10:05:00.000-07:00

So I decided to do some articles on famous designers. Everyone wears these nice designer clothes, yet I bet they don't know the history behind it. So here's Miuccia Prada. 1985 marked her first important benchmark when she scored her largest professional success to date. She released what would ultimately become the signature Prada handbag. A classic, black nylon bag, it was simultaneously delicate but sturdy. An instant hit, it was quickly seen hanging on the arms of supermodels and the international fashion elite such as Marie Helvin and Jerry Hall.
While the line was becoming a must have, the prices were prohibiting all but the rich and famous from owning them. Replicas began flooding the market, which only served to make the authentic products of the Prada line all the more desirable.1989 brought the first ready-to-wear collection to the runway. Composed of dark tones, classic cuts, and simple designs, the line stood in stark contrast to the bright, overtly sensual lines of its competitors. Critics were enthralled, and Prada was instantaneously raised to the upper echelons of high fashion.
The success continued unabated, and 1992 saw the release of Miu Miu, a slightly cheaper bridge line. With lowered prices and looks that were less austere, the earthy, more stylistically daring patterns continue to be a hit with the fashion-minded youth.
All the hard work culminated in 1993 when Prada was honored with a Council of Fashion Designers of America International Award. The following year, she had earned enough fashion recognition to debut in New York and London. Her two lines are currently staples at Milan’s fashion week.In addition to fashion, Prada is currently revered for her heavy financial support of various artistic endeavors.

Original Article

Coco Chanel

2009-04-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

This is my upmost favoritest designers a girl could possibly have. Coco Chanel is the woman/fashion designer who created "the little black dress". I don't know if you have seen her movie on lifetime, but it was awesome! She's a real inspiration when it came to my fashion. I loved her attitude towards others and I loved every kind of material she designed (in most cases). Designer Coco Chanel gave the world the little black dress, Chanel No. 5 perfume, and the revolutionary notion that style could be both classic and casual. Coco -- a nickname meaning "little pet" -- was raised in an orphanage, where she learned to sew. In 1910 she began selling hats from her own shop, and by the 1920s her fashion business had expanded to include a couture house, her own textile factory and a line of perfumes that included the famous No. 5. Chanel took women's fashions away from stiff corsets and introduced casual, practical clothing that borrowed fabrics and attitudes from men's fashion. She was the first to introduce black as a fashion color; her versatile, semi-formal "little black dress" became a Chanel trademark and an enduring fashion standard. During and after World War II Chanel's popularity waned, and her love affair with a Nazi officer sent her into a form of self-imposed exile in Switzerland for nearly 15 years. She made a comeback in 1954 and her designs became some of the most popular in the western world, especially in the United States. After her death the Coco Chanel Company was directed by designer Karl Lagerfeld.

Original Article

Anna Sui

2009-04-23T12:55:00.000-07:00

So, I took a fashion class sometime around last year. We had to do a final project on respective fashion designers. I chose Anna Sui. I really love her style and her uniqueness of colors. First off, everytime I see the colors purple and black, I always think of Anna Sui! haha It's just her colors! I found her bio on her actual website. "Anna Sui is known for her commitment to the things that move her. Her devotion to rock and roll makes her clothes perfect for a rock and roll superstar, and her runway soundtrack is one of the most anticipated each season. Her love for shopping has made her an authority on the best shopping in every city, and her passion for interior design created a visually stunning NYC apartment. Following her own inspiration, Anna Sui continues to inspire. She is living her dream." And I see her as the "Asian Betsey Johnson"! haha (=

Original Article

So I might as well...

2009-04-20T10:24:00.000-07:00

Just do a little blog about Andy Warhol's life since I'm already on the right track! haha At the start of the 1970s, Warhol began publishing Interview magazine and renewed his focus on painting. Works created in this decade include Maos, Skulls, Hammer and Sickles, Torsos and Shadows and many commissioned portraits. Warhol also published The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and Back Again). Firmly established as a major 20th-century artist and international celebrity, Warhol exhibited his work extensively in museums and galleries around the world.
The artist began the 1980s with the publication of POPism: The Warhol '60s and with exhibitions of Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century and the Retrospectives and Reversal series. He also created two cable television shows, "Andy Warhol's TV" in 1982 and "Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes" for MTV in 1986. His paintings from the 1980s include The Last Suppers, Rorschachs and, in a return to his first great theme of Pop, a series called Ads. Warhol also engaged in a series of collaborations with younger artists, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente and Keith Haring.
Following routine gall bladder surgery, Andy Warhol died February 22, 1987. After his burial in Pittsburgh, his friends and associates organized a memorial mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York that was attended by more than 2,000 people.

Original Article

Andy Warhol

2009-04-20T10:17:00.000-07:00

I seriously love Andy Warhol's attitude. I love the way he works with his art and other crap. haha He's very creative when it comes to his art. I really want to get a painting of his and post that crap up on the wall! haha I remembered I wanted to do an assignment on him in my fashion class, but he was never considered a fashion designer (in my professor's eyes) but to me he was! He made dresses with newspapers and burlap which I thought was really unique. haha This man is awesome and I love his quotes!

Original Article

Michelle Obama's Fashion

2009-04-06T10:25:00.000-07:00

I believe that she is most definitely one of the best dressed first lady's in history! (= I think that she has great sophisticated style yet still remains to still be IN style! She's right next to jfk's wife! haha It's a really great figure to look up to when you get older and don't know what to wear. I say that in the most respectful way too. Throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, Michelle Obama demonstrated not just that she understood the power of clothes to transmit a message, but a readiness to adjust that message as the need arose. " “Mrs. Obama is, first of all, very elegant and has wonderful taste,” said Stephanie Solomon, the fashion director of Bloomingdale’s. “But she also recognizes the value of beautiful dresses and not big prices. She dresses like taste doesn’t necessarily have to do with brand or status, but with what looks well on your body and makes you look glamorous, bottom line.” And that, she added, is “very refreshing and appropriate for this period.”

Original Article

Urban Reemains Review

2009-04-02T12:59:00.000-07:00

I found this article to be very amusing. I like the whole concept that the artist decides to give to the person viewing it. If you look at the pictures, you could feel the urban in it. I really enjoyed finding this article and art! haha David Hewitt is a genius when it comes to urban art. Here is what they had to say: The First Street Gallery in New York presents "Urban Reemains - David Hewitt" from March 31 through April 24, 2009. Bruce Helander comments, "David Hewitt paints mysterious pictures that investigate and document unearthed evidence of ancient civilizations. In his recent series meticulously depicting long abandoned urban centers, the artist positions his perspective from an imaginary aerial viewpoint that allows the architectonic richness of his sites to reveal their secrets." The First Street Gallery promotes their artists with a Gallery Portfolio at absolutearts.com.

Original Article

International Art Competition

2009-04-02T12:52:00.000-07:00

I think that this is pretty awesome to have an art competition. This is a great way for all people of all ages to comes together and unite and be inspired. I found this great article on absolutearts.com it's pretty neat. I keep trying to find a good informative website about art. There's not much let me tell you that! Here is a little info on the International Art Competition. The X-Power Gallery in Beverly Hills presents "International Art Competition - 2009 Art Wind Rises" from April 1 through April 24, 2009. Going through intense deliberation, out of 637 pieces of art works submitted from 42 countries, 105 excellent works were selected into exhibition. This selection is a process for jurors to fully experience the competing and conflicting of ideas on art works. Included in the exhibition are several artists that promote their works with Portfolios at absolutearts.com : Bertram Matysik, Avril Ward and Ione Citrin, .
The aesthetics displayed in these submitted works are so diverse - the works are remote, tranquil, rich-colored, passionate, deconstructing, or wild, like beautiful flowers in a garden that are unique in their own specific ways.

Original Article

"At Sharjah Biennale 9" by Valerie Grove

2009-03-26T13:13:00.000-07:00

I thought that this was pretty cool when I found this article on Contemporary Art Blogs. I thought all the flags were a nice touch. The United Arab Emirates’ enthusiastic embrace of all things cultural in recent years has resulted in a lot of attention being paid to Dubai and Abu Dhabi - both now host commercial art fairs and both have cultural mega-projects on the way. Less attention has been paid to the smaller Emirate of Sharjah which is doing neither of these things but remains quietly confident about its status as the real cultural capital of the UAE. There is justification in this claim. Sharjah is the founder and home of the Emirates Fine Arts Society, was the UNESCO capital of Arab culture in 1998 and is currently home to more museums than Abu Dhabi and Dubai combined. However, perhaps the greatest evidence of Sharjah’s pioneering role in cultural development is the fact that since 1993 it has hosted its own biennale, the 9th edition of which opened on March 19th and will run until May 19th.

Original Article

Synthia Saintjames

2009-03-23T10:47:00.000-07:00

Doesn't this remind you of something you would see in a kindergarden class? I find this to be very colorful and youthful. I think it shows a great amount of diversity, because it shows black, white, somewhat mexican, haha it's just great. This was made by Synthia Saintjames. This picture shows unity is some way. I absolutely love the colors, because they are so vibrate yet subtle! "Painting, for me, is like a much needed breath of fresh air. Something very necessary for my health and happiness. But also something that I love sharing. My paintings, to me, are like my children, each and every one, and I love knowing that they are going into homes, offices and public places where they can bring feelings of joy and warmth to others. I paint in warm, bright and embracing colors that, I have been told, have great healing powers, or just plain make people of all ages feel good. Now that's an added blessing that I couldn't"

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The Rock Poster

2009-03-19T12:53:00.000-07:00

I'm glad to see the rock poster being reinvented! Although not much may know about the rock poster, there were a lot of contraversary with their art work. You can say this was around the late 60's or early 70's. I enjoyed reading this piece that I found in the LAtimes webpage. (= They have some great art articles!

-Bay Area artists filled their posters with raging flames, extravagant skeletons and bare, engorged breasts. This overstuffed style became the visual symbol not only for many late-'60s English and American bands but also a recognizable signature of the entire psychedelic era.When graphic artist Jason Munn sat down in his studio just across the bay from the old Fillmore West to design a poster for Portland indie rockers the Decemberists, he did not conceive flames or naked women. He thought of the bold geometric design of a midcentury Czech matchbox, adding the fine lines of a bicycle wheel and pine tree that suggested the group's Oregon roots.When musing on the dreamy, expansive music of Built to Spill, Munn came up with a bucket of paint that brings clouds and blue sky to whatever it touches, evoking both Magritte's visual puns and the band's heavenly sound. For the willowy Canadian singer Feist, his poster offers just one brown feather, fallen gently.

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Evgeny Kissin at Walt Disney Concert Hall

2009-03-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

For me, I've always wanted to go to the Walt Disney Concert Hall. They have some great talent showing up there! But of course I looked LAtimes for their blog, and found Evgeny Kissin at Walt Disney Concert Hall. I am a great fan of the piano, so I greatly appreciate Walt Disney for doing that! It must have been an offer to perform there! Here is what they had to say:

Returning to Walt Disney Concert Hall Monday night, Evgeny Kissin did not look a day older than when he played the first solo recital in the hall during its opening festivities in 2003. For that matter, the 37-year-old Russian pianist appears hardly changed since he became an international sensation in his teens.
He still walks onstage as if in a trance, only springing to fluid life the instant his fingers come in contact with the keyboard. He hasn’t lost his deer-in-the-headlights look when his adoring fans burst into round after round of rhythmic clapping, as they always do. Indeed, Kissin would have been knee deep in flowers if the ushers had let all the patrons with bouquets bring them into the hall.
But Kissin has indeed matured artistically. He exhibited a new expansiveness in his playing Monday. He always had a luxurious tone, but he has added a richer palette of colors. He shows more capacity for delving deep into scores but also takes more chances, and some of them are newly peculiar. He was presumably born with superhuman hands, but now they seem to be operated by the next generation of ultra-fast processor and versatile software.

Original Article

2009-03-16T17:29:00.000-07:00

well i just want to comment on that picture below me.

its pretty much amazing .. like really when i firsts aw it i was ... in awww because i really liked it and i thought it was so well previced and drawn out that it made me wanna reseach him and. i found so many more great portraits of him its amazing.. i really like the girl with the balloons and then then the one with the maid there just all amazing but the one with the little boys at the becah is still great probably will always bea favorite..

okay well back to my topic.. haha well i was watching jon and kate plus eight today and i kept thinking how adorable those little kida are.. all of them its crazy.. and one of them stood out to me the most becuse he just wears classes and he looks like a little man haha i love him.

his name is Aaden( if you watch the show you already know this) and hes soo cute.. i justw anna squeeze him.. so i looked up some picture of him because im weird like that haha and have too much time on my hands. anyways i found the cutest picture of him and hannah i think it is and there just so adorbale!!

plus jon and kate have recently been in the media because of an unhappy marriage but if you watch the show you would have already seen this comming because he seems pretty annoyed with kate anyways.. i mean i would be too if she acted like thqat all the time.. especially if i had * kids.. so im still amazed they have lasted this long. but i dont want them to get a divroce becuase that would just be too hard for the kids and i dont like it when they cry hahahaha. but seriously tooo cute. i just wanna squeeze them!!

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Banksy is Back Once Again!

2009-03-12T12:59:00.000-07:00

I know I know, I already wrote a blog about Banksy. But you have got to admit that his work is out of this world. I have never seen anyone use as much creativity and satire and him. I think his work comes along with a lot of humor. I love how his mind thinks. Ever since I was a little girl, I would always think about making pieces like him, but it was nearly impossible! haha His ideas were something that no one else has ever thought of. I'm very pleased to say that Banksy is one of the most creative artists today. I loved how he was never conceited about his work. He simply remained serious for a very long while. Banksy started as a freehand graffiti artist 1992-1994[9] as one of Bristol's DryBreadZ Crew (DBZ), writers Kato and Tes.[10] He was inspired by local artists and his work was part of the larger Bristol underground scene. From the start he used stencils as elements of his freehand pieces, too.[11] By 2000 he had turned to the art of stencilling after realising how much less time it took to complete a "piece." He claims he changed to stencilling whilst he was hiding from the police under a train carriage, when he noticed the stencilled serial number[12] and employing this technique soon became more widely noticed for his art around Bristol and London.[12]

Banksy's stencils feature striking and humorous images occasionally combined with slogans. The message is usually anti-war, anti-capitalist or anti-establishment. Subjects include rats, monkeys, policemen, soldiers, children, and the elderly.

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Cognitive scientists seek to quantify body movement

2009-03-09T10:47:00.000-07:00

Personally, I think that dance is the ultimate form of self-expression. Since I'm a dancr myself, I tend to not think about the worries that go on in my life. But in reality all our worries are still there. I found this article on LA Times about these form of dancers at the University of San Diego, and how Cognitive Scientists were following their every move. First when I read this, I wanted to know why? Seemed strange, what research were they going to get out of it?

The object of their study was notoriously elusive: dance and the process of choreographic creation.What happens, they wondered, when choreographer Wayne McGregor creates movement on (through? with?) the protean, hyper-articulated bodies of his Random Dance Company? How do the dancers visualize his cues? How do they respond to one another in the group dynamic? How do they remember? And how does he? By the end of every day during those three weeks, each person in the theater had interviewed or been interviewed by others participating in a meticulously crafted experiment exploring the nature -- and role -- of cognition in creating dance.

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Art Institute of Design

2009-02-26T17:07:00.000-08:00

I personally like this school more than FIDM. I wrote a little opinion blog on FIDM (Fashion Institute of Merchandising) and Frankly, the more I researched on the reviews about it was very very expensive! I found another school if you guys are interested in hearing. The Art Institute of Design! It's all over America so that's always a good thing. My friend is actually going there right now for graphic designing! He wants to make his own clothing company (= that's pretty cool. Anyway, I found some reviews about this school in various areas. Here's one that I found quite interesting. :

At first it was difficult to get up and go to school because I was used to not working in my home environment. I liked how there was no dress code for the school because you didn’t have to physically be there. I would improve the amount of lecture material. I often see teachers skimping out on the amount of lecture and making students just read from the textbook. So, in the end, I have come to discover that having a face-to-face interaction really is the best deal, at least for me. It does not allow people to hide behind the cloak of digits and wires. It is more conducive to a more honest approach and online schools have that as a challenge to overcome. Big thanks, however, to the three online instructors that were truly teachers in every sense. They gave me hope that not every class instructor is a total flop. Maybe I just need to find the right online school in the future.

Original Article

2009-02-23T13:21:00.000-08:00

This isnt going to be a current event but for some reason when i saw that picture below it reminded me of how much i really like The Scream from Munch. NOw i wont go into much detail but this paiting is really fascinating.. well to me at least and everything i see it i cant help but feel ... sadness for somereason.. i look at it and i see his face screaming with his hands on the side of his face and i cant help but wonder why?? besides sadness i look at the paitning and i cant stop admiring how beautiful it is.. the colors and how they blend with and the two ppl in the background? i know its a painting but why dont they have faces.. and this guy is either in shock because of the red beautiful sunset behind him or hes scared because he fears something haha

i know im interpetation of this is wayy off and im no expect but still this painting is gorgeous i love it. not a traditional piece of art that you would see hanging in oens house.. but still its goregous amazing i love it.

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Bad Economy Affects Artists in Singapore

2009-02-21T17:17:00.000-08:00

Yes, times are tough. Employment, housing, gas, energy, there's not many positive notes on any of these subjects mattters. Even as far as China, cannot escape this horrendous economic times. According to an article in sg.news.com, a theatre group in Singapore, has been forced to let go of an American Lead actress for one of its musical.

Debbie Gibson, American 80's pop star, was to star "Superheroes Diaries" a Singapore musical in August 2008. However, when the 1.8 million dollar show was cancelled, produced realized they could no longer afford Debbie Gibson. Many arts groups are now creating smaller productions to cut back on spending.

But not all is bad for the artists in China, while some art groups are being negatively impacted by the recession, it is also creating new opportunities the Asian Art Market. According to another article in sg.news.com it states, "Observers said there is a growing pool of collectors in Singapore who will still continue to support the art market here." The article also states that Asian collectors are also expected to have a bigger impact on the international scene now, with the West bearing the brunt of the financial crisis."

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Urban Art

Urban Hat Universal Size

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San Francisco Fights Urban Decay with Arts

2009-02-21T16:53:00.000-08:00

It's one of the reasons why I love San Francisco so much. The people are so open minded to change, to fixing problems, and to embrace diversity and individuality. In an article on the sfgate.com, Taylor Street which is described as "seediest stretches in San Francisco, filled with homeless people slumped against vacant storefronts, the stench of urine, graffiti, drugs and crime," is being transformed into an art district.

The transformation began today with the beginning constructions of the Gray Area Foundation of the Arts. It is replacing a 4,000 sq ft building that was once a porn theater. Gray Area is hoping to open with art gallerys, art studios, and a new media lab. Buildings near by will turn into new botiques selling art supplies and a cafe will replace a liquor store. The director of Gray Area, Josette Melchor, is so dedicated to the art district, that she moved into a near by apartment. Melchor states, "I wouldn't be moving here if I didn't see the vision." She also mentions that the plan will create affordable areas where artists can work, but will make sure not to displace the low income residents already in the area.

According to the article, "Gray Area will host exhibits, music events and a resident-artists program that will provide studios and exhibit space to four artists on a rotating basis." As someone who love the arts, loves San Francisco, and appreciates any effort to save history and create beauty and creativity, I am very excited to see where this plan will go and hopefully visit this art district in the future.

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FIDM Review

2009-02-19T17:06:00.000-08:00

I've always wanted to go to FIDM, to major in Fashion Merchandising. I thought that it was a very good career choice. When I looked at FIDM, it was way over priced! I thought that I couldn't afford it. After looking into a little bit more from actual students who did or still do attend there. What's better than looking at Yelp?! haha Here's one student's review that I found very interesting!

Those talking about starry-eyed teenagers are correct when they describe those who attend FIDM... I was one of them. With no substantial work experience and my high school diploma I entered the seemingly glamorous world of fashion school. Before I begin picking the school apart in different areas I want everyone to know I LOVED my time at FIDM and some of the unique and wonderful people I met. Now I would like to share with every potential student what I found was true (usually compared to a private university, public university, and community college I attended later)...1. FIDM requires lots and lots of time for projects and substantial amounts of money to really make an impression to get top grades on your own merit. I definitely saw others that graduated with average grades that got through by trying to get in the hard-working person's group and knowing that this person would not allow the group to fail, receive a good grade. Merchandise Marketing is one group project after another...so choose your partners wisely.2. If you are not from the area which many of my peers were not, living expenses are VERY HIGH and there is NO special housing. So if you have the opportunity to commute and choose to drive, you are far better off leaving a few minutes early and parking a little further into SOMA instead of the garage next door which used to be about $25 a day.3. Please don't let anyone persuade you that an AA is all you'll need to really succeed in the business side of fashion. I went to a few career fairs and asked the alumni...they all agreed that pursuing a BA will do wonders for your career. Also, if at all possible, work in fashion while you attend because I didn't take that advice from teachers and now know I would be much further ahead if I did.4. If you get a good grade, especially multiple from the same teacher, get a recommendation letter! Most of my teachers were very generous about writing wonderful things about me and I used them as references for jobs.5. My teachers definitely varied in quality, but I just listened to what they liked and duplicated it in my assignments. Oh, and when I started, I really believed in reading all required chapters. You'll quickly realize, though, that reviews handed out before tests in many classes just need to get filled out and memorized, only limited reading was really necessary.4. Something I found more than a little obnoxious was that FIDM and the community college in CA I attended were VERY politically oriented. I believe in teachers giving facts and allowing the students to decide, but likely in your time at FIDM you will know where most of your teachers stand on every issue. I made a mistake (I guess) and disagreed a few times, neither the sudents or the teacher appreciated opposing opinions or debate. I should have kept my big mouth shut!5. If you know you'll want to transfer after graduating from FIDM, you may want to check with the next school to find out EXACTLY what will transfer as early as you can. When I say this, I mean class by class, not just asking if they take credits from FIDM. There are some schools that will offer this service even before you pay any application costs. In my experience, private universities are pretty flexible with taking your work...definitely save your syllabi though. SF state is take a large chunk of my credits also, more than any other CSU. Out of state public universities, at least the ones I checked out, are extremely difficult to get anything into.

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Art in the 21st Century

2009-02-14T17:24:00.000-08:00

When I was young my favorite subject wasn't recess, it wasn't math, it wasn't science or history, it was art. I loved art. I love the freedom to express myself. I love the fact that my product coudn't be right or wrong because it was my own interpretation. As I got older, somehow I strayed from my first love and became focused on more "practical" subjects like science and math. Now I am older and wiser, and I've came back to my first love and art is now back in my life.

But like a child getting on a bike again after an accident, I find myself uncertain and uneasy. I'm no longer sure what art is. I'm uncertain of what I'm capable of. What are the rules and expectations that must be known in order to be called an artist? In the website, artarticles.net, they actually discusss issues of art in the 21st century. The article states that art design in this modern age is art that "transcends the elusive metaphors and technical wonders of our time." The author of the article go on to state that, "It is sad that most designers...think that the coming of the coming of powerful computers and software tools could actually compensate for a lack of artistic ability or inadequate knowledge of design principles and processes."

This statement makes me wonder if the author is being too critical. If someone creates something, whether it is with a plain lead pencil or a high tech computer application, if it is still an image created in the mind of the creator, then image created by the high tech application should not be consider less artist than the image create by the pencil. Maybe my own view on art is still so broad and naive. But for me art is a product created from an indiviudal's mind. It doesn't matter if it's created by means of paint brush or strokes on the computer, as long as it's an original thought, then the art piece is special.

Orginal article

moments on pause forever.

2009-02-10T13:23:00.000-08:00

A picture says a thousand words, how many times have we heard that one before? Our house are filled with tons of pictures from throughout our life times, weddings, birthdays, funerals, the camera captures it all. one Thing about a photograph is that you can capture those moments forever.

Taking a picture takes how long?..hmm maybe like 10 seconds, if that. Standing, smiling, and posing is the most traditional way we take our pictures.But personally i think that the pictures that are taken when we arent paying attention are probably the most priceless ones. Not only cause they show the day in action instead of just standing still in one place, but because the camera can capture the most beautiful moments that show more emotion then any smile would ever show.

although im not one to go out and take pictures,unless its with friends. I do like to admire all the great photographs taken but numerous amounts of undiscovered photographers.
so whether your at a party, wedding, or just out to lunch. remember that someone out there sees more to what your doing then you consider yourself to be doing. Depending on your prospective and interpretation of every day items.. everything can be considered art.

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Landscape Art

2009-02-06T16:37:00.000-08:00

I love landscape art. It feels like you are actually there in the moment. It also seems like a real picture was taken! This piece of landscape art is at a lake. It looks like it is placid where no one goes except to have peace. The walkway brings a lot to this art because it looks like you are there ready to walk and go into the water. The colors are great in all pieces of art. They say different things about the pictures. Art is a beautiful talent to have.

A fiery sky blazing above the tranquil, misty waters of Mel Allen’s “Ullswater, Glenridding, Cumbria,” beautifully expresses nature’s ability to blend stark opposites. Allen, a native of England, fell in love with working outdoors while employed as an assistant to landscape and location photographers. Allen’s works have been renowned by art lovers for the last twenty years as a result of the exquisite detail in his landscapes.

This high-quality art print is expertly produced to capture the vivid color and exceptional detail of the original.

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Social histories woven into Indonesian textiles at LACMA

2009-02-05T15:58:00.000-08:00

When I saw this picture, I thought that it was so detailed. I'm really into tribal prints and such so this was something that I was intrigued in. It's very nice right? Well I found an article on LAtimes.com: With more than 17,000 islands and about 300 ethnic groups, Indonesia is among the most culturally diverse countries in the world. So the exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art featuring 90-plus textile works from the collection of Mary Hunt Kahlenberg -- a onetime LACMA curator and co-owner of TAI Gallery/Textile Arts in Santa Fe, N.M. -- is appropriately eclectic. It extends over five centuries (from the 15th to the 20th) and includes ceremonial cloths and traditional clothing evincing a host of outside influences.

To the layperson, however, the 19th and 20th century works are perhaps the most compelling. Not only are they easier to decipher pictorially, but they also clearly reflect an intermingling of international cultures.

Take a woman's wrap skirt, or kain panjang, circa 1905. Decorated in red and black batik, a dyeing technique native to Indonesia, it features a sinuous pattern of cranes and lotuses that could easily pass for Chinese or, as the wall text suggests, for European Art Nouveau (which was in turn influenced by Japanese aesthetics). The caption also speculates that the cloth was made in a Dutch-owned Javanese workshop, reminding us that Indonesia was a colony of the Netherlands for 3 1/2 centuries before World War II.

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Famous Shoe Thrown at Former President Bush Inspires Artists

2009-01-31T17:25:00.000-08:00

The great thing about art is that it can be inspired by anything and anyone at anytime. The silly recent events in which a shoe was thrown at former President Bush by an angry Iraqui has inspired artist, Laith al-Amari. Laith al-Amari is the sculptor of a huge sofa sized sculpture of the shoe, coated in copper, placed on a carved white stand to resemble flowing cloth was unveiled to the public on Thursday in the hometown of Saddam Hussein.

According to al-Amari, the shoe sculpture is a symbol of pride among the Iraqis. In Arab culture, throwing one's shoe at another is a sign of great contempt and very offensive. Although Geoge W. Bush skillfully dodged both shoes, the image of the incident remains very alive and strong among Arab people. "It is not a political work." Claims the sculptor.

The infamous shoe has not only inspired Laith al-Amari, it has also inspired internet video games and more artists from around the world. According to an article in metro.co.uk, Eric Navickas, a city counselor in Ashland, Oregon, opened a Mada Shell Gallery by slathering red paint on the bottom of shoes, sandals and boots and allowing people to take their turn and throw their footwear at an 8 feet portrait of Bush. Each shot cost a dollar and went towards future gallery exhibits.

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Royal Academy of Arts Honors Andrea Palladio

2009-01-31T16:54:00.000-08:00

Most people have heard of the famous artists such a Picasso, Michelangelo, and Monet. Today, the Royal Academy of Arts is honoring a lesser heard of artist, Andrea Palladio. According to the artdaily.com, the Royal Academy of Arts are holding the first exhibit since 30 years, devoted to Andrea Palladio, to celebrate the quincentenary of his birth.

Andrea Palladio lived from 1508-1580. He is known as one of the greatest architects. His famous works includes public buildings and churches, but it was his home town's construction of palaces and country villas that has left a lasting impression and influenced generations of European and American architects to come. His fame, however, is not only due to his buildings, it is also attributed to his four book or architecture. These books illustrated the basic grammar and vocabulary of architecture, his built and un-built projects, and his reconstruction of classical buildings.

According to the artdaily.org, the "architects' architect as Padillo has been called, has created a language which "answered the practical and social needs of his time and those of later centuries." This exhibition will follow his life's work. It will explore new aspects of Palladio's work. The exhibit will show how Palladio's system of work has influence other works from other countries beyond Veneto region. The exhibition is being curated by Guido Beltramini, Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio, Vicenza, and Howard Burns, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa with Charles Hind and Irena Murray from the Royal Institute of British Architects and MaryAnne Stevens, Royal Academy of Arts, London.

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Economic downturn doesn't play well for the Arts

2009-01-29T14:54:00.000-08:00

We all know that the economy is hurting just about everyone. I think that we are at our worst in a very long time. People who love theatre are also at risk as well.
The good news, so to speak, for many nonprofit L.A. theaters is that they've long been accustomed to lean budgets. Making do with less is a permanent habit in a city whose greatest theatrical asset may be its wealth of small, scrappy companies wedged into converted storefronts in places like North Hollywood and strung along once-forsaken blocks of Santa Monica Boulevard.

But for some local theaters, years of thrifty budgeting may no longer provide a sufficient defense against looming calamity. Many are watching with mounting concern as other theaters around the country go broke and shut down. They're worried that even if they survive 2009 relatively unscathed, the foundation, corporate and private donor dollar flow that supports them is drying up.

Although the $825-billion stimulus package proposed by House Democrats includes money for the National Endowment for the Arts, it's unknown whether that item will make the package's final version or whether any of that money might reach L.A. theaters. In any case, local theater managers aren't holding their breath for a federal bailout.

"Nobody that I know of is thinking, 'I'll look to the government to help me get out of this,' " said Elizabeth Doran, managing director of the Actors' Gang in Culver City.

At Westwood's Geffen, Cates said, the situation is "drastic," both for the 522-seat main stage and the Audrey Skirball Kenis space, which can seat up to 114. The theater's contributed income, which accounts for 45% of its budget, is down $250,000 from last year. Subscribers have declined from more than 12,000 last year to 10,600, and single-ticket sales have fallen 25% from last year, despite such tantalizing offerings this season as the world premiere of Pulitzer Prize winner Donald Margulies' "Time Stands Still," with Dan Sullivan directing a cast that includes Alicia Silverstone, and a musical fashioned from the cult film "Nightmare Alley."

Cates said he's putting out "a call to action" to help the Geffen raise $1 million by the end of this season. "I don't know how many more cuts I can make before this plane doesn't fly."

Part of the Geffen's problem is that it lacks an endowment; a campaign to create one had to be put off because of this year's stock market tumble. But even debt-free, well-endowed theaters such as South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa have been stricken with shrinking-portfolio syndrome.

"We've lowered our sales expectations and we've reduced the budget by $400,000, and we're not done," said Paula Tomei, SCR's managing director. "We have to do all this without compromising quality, and that is very challenging."

So far, SCR hasn't needed to shake up its show lineup for financial reasons. However, Tomei added, "I don't expect there'll be a large-cast show on next year's season."

In recent interviews, some local artistic and managing directors spoke with determination about the need to raise their game artistically, explore creative new marketing and fundraising strategies and find ways to inspire and serve their audiences even better.

"At a time like this, you have to talk about reducing ticket prices and providing more services to the community," said Academy Award-winning actor Tim Robbins, artistic director of the Actors’ Gang. "Things are falling apart, and you can sit and whine and complain about it, or you can get out there and volunteer."

To help its audiences cope with lighter wallets, the Actors' Gang is considering adding another pay-what-you-can night per week. All performances of its last show, "I Am Not a Racist, but . . .," were pay-what-you-can, which Doran called "a direct response to the troubled economy."

"I don't want to say it's radicalizing, but it is turning up the desire to do bigger, greater, stronger art with the members of the Gang," Doran said. "If you're creating art that boldly reflects your society, it will give strong identity to your theater."

At many theaters, caution, not panic, is the prevailing attitude. Laura Zucker, executive director of the L.A. County Arts Commission, said an end-of-season analysis showed that attendance at the county-run John Anson Ford Amphitheatre didn't decline appreciably last year. In spite of that, she said, last season a number of producers "were getting extremely nervous, so they began discounting and dropping prices," leaving them unable to meet customer demand for last-minute full-price tickets.

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Goode's Wonderboy Enchants

2009-01-26T13:08:00.000-08:00

I know that all of you have seen Pinocchio, and that I think this article is somewhat similar to it. The Wonderboy -- a puppet 3 feet tall, give or take an inch -- gazed longingly out an oversized window onstage at Irvine’s Barclay Theatre and narrated his observations to the audience Friday night.

The out-of-doors looked so beautiful, he recounted dreamily, he wanted to put a “frame” around it. He ached to venture there, he admitted, but he saw dire consequences to it. So he remained a physical and emotional shut-in, framed by his own paralyzing fear.

It is this touchstone search for love and belonging that San Francisco choreographer Joe Goode chronicles in “Wonderboy,” a 2008 dance-theater piece, created in collaboration with avant-garde puppeteer Basil Twist. The Barclay presented Joe Goode Performance Group in an intermission-less, 70-minute program, which also included an excerpt from Goode’s 1996 full-evening work, “Maverick Strain.”

Goode’s award-winning contemporary dances typically unfurl in digressive, collage-like scenes. “Wonderboy” proceeded along a more direct path. Goode’s six dancers took turns manipulating Twist’s innocent-looking, white-faced puppet and narrating the figure’s thoughts in a squeaky or electronically manipulated voice.

In Goode’s story, Wonderboy’s fears proved justified; his journey was not without peril. Through Goode’s effective stew of movement and dialogue, the dancers portrayed parents arguing violently and cheerleaders taunting Wonderboy. One cross-dressing cheerleader tried to fend off a date rape.

But Wonderboy eventually did find companionship. He abandoned his post at the window and actually danced with a newfound friend (Andrew Ward) -- an enchanting duet requiring many hands and complex plotting. The piece concluded with his soaring up the aisles, held aloft with rods.

Composers Carla Kihlstedt and Matthias Bossi crafted a (recorded) score of resonant minor tonal colors. There were moments of sensuality, comedy and

Original Article

Art Exhibits Provokes Vietnamese Americans

2009-01-24T17:36:00.000-08:00

An art exhibit in Santa Ana which features communist symbols was ordered to close down due to the protest of many Vietnamese Americans from as far away as San Jose. The exihibit was commissioned by the Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Assn. The exihibit was intended to promote freedom of speech and expression among the Vietnamese community, where discussions of communisum are usually avoided and frowned upon.

Despite the associations attempt to promote freedom of speech, the exihibit triggered emotions of anger because they "mocked their painful experiences as political refugees." In an article in the LA Times, the writers describe a scene of the protest, '"In the crowd Saturday, a man who unfurled and waved a large flag of Communist Vietnam was immediately surrounded by demonstrators shouting, "Communist!" and, "Go back to Vietnam!"'

Jim Nichols, co-owner of the building in which the exhibit was held, stated, '"We support the arts," Nichols said. "But my gosh. Create a firestorm? That's not a good atmosphere for a corporate building."' Despite the overwhelming protest, not everyone there was a protestor of the exhibit. Tom Do, 55, a counselor at Irvine Valley College, went to see the exhibit only to find it was shut down. "The demonstrators, he said Saturday, had "robbed my rights to enjoy something I don't happen to have a problem with." Duong and Arts & Letters Assn. officials have been on Vietnamese radio talk shows and Vietnamese language newspapers to clearify the misconception that they were supporting communism and explain that their goal was to include a wide variety of voices and images.

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Utah Funds the Arts

2009-01-24T17:09:00.000-08:00

This week I received a facebook invitation from a friend to join a cause. The cause was Funding the Arts. I vaguely remeber a few years back, some schools were faced with the dilemea of using their funds for their art program or for another program? Recessions and a tough economy are once again causing schools to be faced with the funding dilemeas. If you don't appreciate art, have never had a spiritual moment while looking at a beautiful photograph or painting, never used dance or painting to express youself, you probably may not understand the importance of art in schools.

In article from BYU News Net, Amanda Bright, an art specialist, states that art "allows students to think in a different way." Despite down times and depressing news of economic troubles and funding, a 2008 legislature in Utah has approved funding for its Beverly Taylor Sorenson Arts Program. This program will add trained art specialist and needed art materials. This new art curriculum, according to Bright, "will help the students be well-rounded."

Hopefully the curriculum holds up to its promises and the kids received the best education possible. Director of Arts Education Initiatives, Janet Wolf states, "the program would allow students to obtain an essential education...Through this program, Utah elementary schools are poised to be on the cutting edge of model art education programming"

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HELLZ BELLZ

2009-01-22T15:12:00.000-08:00

I don't think that you guys realize how much streetwear has taken over the fashion world. I love the urban sensation of threads. It's always new and exciting stuff. (= I did an article about Dime Piece (another female streetwear) and I'm now doing one on Hellz Bellz. Hellz Bellz has a little bit more variety than Dime Piece. But I favor both (=

From one of the hardest working ladies in the game right now, Lanie Alabanza has been grinding like crazy to finally be able to enjoy the fruits of her success with her line Hellz Bellz. Having worked as an intern at Alphanumeric she then worked her way up the street wear ladder to Ladies Graphic Designer of Triple 5 Soul, finally landing a gig at Rocawear as Art Director. While all this was happening, Lanie would come home from a full days work and start designing her own range, later to be known as Hellz Bellz. Not one to know what sleep actually is, Lanie finally started seeing her label come to fruition and after ditching working for "the man", became her own boss and CEO of her own label Hellz Bellz. With the Aussie drop just around the corner, Lanie took time out of her mad hectic schedule to chat with Sneaker Freaker's own Muff Daddy Mafia, droppin' knowledge on her label, her philosophy on weapons and why the girls are keepin' it tight in the female street wear scene.

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The History of Interior Designing

2009-01-20T15:44:00.000-08:00

I used to be really into interior designing. I still do now. I think that you can express yourself by the way you live (meaning your house). In the modern world, human life experience is largely played out in interior spaces. We may love the out-of-doors for the sense of open air and sky, for the escape it offers from life inside enclosure, but the very joy of being outside reflects the reality that so much of life is spent inside.

Buildings and their interiors are planned to serve the purposes and styles of the times of their origins, but they exert their influence on the activities and lives that they house as long as they continue in use.

The study of interior design, its development and change through history is a useful way both to explore the past and to make sense of the spaces in which modern life is lived.

Professional interior designers are expected to study design history, to know the practices of the past in terms of "styles," and to know the names and the nature of the contributions of those individuals who generated the most interesting and influential approaches to design.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh

In Glasgow, Scotland, work related to Art Nouveau was produced for a short time by a few designers led by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928). Mackintosh's work grew out of Arts and Crafts bases, but moved toward the freedom of Art Nouveau and became greatly admired by continental designers, including those based in Vienna.

For private clients and for his own Glasgow flat, Mackintosh developed furniture designs that most often used simple, geometric forms, but then introduced exaggerated proportions, extreme high chair backs, and white or black paint finishes with decorative details in violet, silver, or gold.

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The Ten First Steps that Barack Obama could take to renew the arts review

2009-01-20T14:59:00.000-08:00

After Bush, Obama has a lot of cleaning up to do. There is now an economic crisis and should people start worrying about the Arts? I found this article on the Art Newspaper online: Even in the midst of the current economic crisis, there is a palpable feeling of optimism in the American art community. It’s not that the credit crunch hasn’t caused significant of a century. As we approach the transition of power, I believe that we will finally have an administration that will take the steps necessary to re-establish serious support for the arts in the United States.
During the hard-fought months of Barack Obama’s campaign, he and Joe Biden announced a set of platform goals that may lead to an overall cultural strategy. But in the meantime, the steps they could take to help renew arts in the US are:

1. Support the tax code amendment currently in the works that would give artists tax incentives for donating their work to public museums, and fully restore the tax incentive for gifts of appreciated property to museums and other non-profit educational organisations.

2. Re-establish a programme employing artists in a wide range of cultural institutions.

3. Revive and rebuild the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, de-politicising their processes, and providing them with budgets necessary to support the American cultural community. Nothing less than annual appropriation of $750m (as opposed to $290m today) is needed.

4. Create an independent study of the operating expenses of our museums and libraries, and then fund the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) sufficiently, so that the core costs of our museums and libraries can be properly met. (The same should be done in support of reinvigorating the infrastructure of our institutions of music, dance and theatre.)

5. Invest in art and music education for all school pupils, and ensure that these efforts are coordinated with the increased spending in direct artist support, as well as renewed institutional infrastructure and programme support.

This of course is only five of the ten steps. check out more on the
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Art Market is Unpredictable

2009-01-19T14:07:00.000-08:00

For the year of 2009, they made a new reality check about how the state of the art market is unpredictable. The general economy and also the art economy is clearly headed for some choppy waters…” This is what mega-dealer Larry Gagosian told his staff in a tough-talking, if ungrammatical, memo published last November in Flash Art, as the global financial meltdown continued to panic investors, the US recession was officially confirmed and unemployment figures for the country soared by 533,000 in that month alone. Elsewhere in this issue, we look at the effect the credit crunch is having on the art world as the new year begins. In the art market, there have been a few early victims of the crisis, including the 18 employees sacked by PaceWildenstein in New York, and the 17 “fabricators” of pill cabinets, butterfly paintings and pickled animals axed by Damien Hirst. “I want to make sure that we are the best swimmers on the block. The luxury of carrying under-performing employees is now a thing of the past,” warned Mr Gagosian, in a similar vein, in the same memo to his staff.

In Miami, the trendy French dealer Emmanuel Perrotin has shuttered his gallery, and now will only reopen it for Art Basel Miami Beach next December. Sotheby’s is also trimming its workforce, and has announced it has abandoned guarantees for the foreseeable future. The firm, and its arch-rival Christie’s, were badly hit by the collapse in art prices during New York’s sales of impressionist, modern and contemporary art in November, which garnered only half the expected totals. Those sales were prepared before the autumn, when art prices were still riding high. Some works sold in November for half their low estimates, and up to 75% of the works in some sales were bought in.

Today a different reality prevails. The lacklustre 2008 autumn fairs, Frieze and Art Basel Miami Beach, saw dealers prepared to be flexible on prices, accepting discounts of up to 30%. But, as journalist, sociologist and lecturer (and The Art Newspaper contributor) András Szántó points out: “Just as designer brands are now being offered at huge discounts in the high street—were those shoes or handbags really worth the previous prices?—so those [pre-financial meltdown] prices should never have been so huge. Some dealers priced art so aggressively, and the prices went up with such velocity, that it is inevitable that they should fall back sharply.”

These prices rose with the greatest speed for contemporary art. But the picture of the art market, as 2009 opens, is far from simple. It is always worth remembering that the market is not a single block, but a whole series of sub-sections.

More traditional categories, where prices did not rise so dramatically, have weathered the downturn better. The London sales of old master paintings in December, for example, saw enthusiastic bidding for the best works on offer, with Christie’s selling a rediscovered Tiepolo for £2.8m and Sotheby’s making £3.6m for Frans van Mieris the Elder’s A Young Woman In a Red Jacket Feeding a Parrot, 1663, (est. £500,000-£700,000). And there was extraordinarily strong take-up and an 87.6% sell-through rate (by lot) for Victorian narrative painting, an unfashionable category if ever there was one, from the Scott Collection, held at Sotheby’s London in November.

The sale of stock of traditional antique furniture in London by Christie’s from the Jeremy and Hotspur dealers was by no means a rout, and made near its (admittedly “realistic”) pre-sale estimate. Elsewhere, a Seurat drawing made $6.3m in Paris, five times higher than expectations. Everywhere, while sell-through rates are down, there is still money being spent on art and buyers available for the best works.

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Obama pledges for the arts

2009-01-13T15:36:00.000-08:00

I thought it was pretty cool when I saw this painting. NEW YORK. Artists and arts organisations are hoping for greater support than they received from President Bush when President-elect Barack Obama takes up office later this month. Mr Obama was the only candidate during the election to distribute a detailed programme of initiatives. These include plans for an “Artist Corps” of young artists to promote art in schools and low-income communities, increased funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), health care for artists, and allowing artists to deduct the market value of any works they donate to museums or public institutions. In November, during his first interview after winning the election on NBC’s weekly news programme “Meet the Press”, host Tom Brokaw asked Mr Obama what kind of cultural and artistic changes he would make as president. “Our art and our culture…that’s the essence of what makes America special, and we want to project that as much as possible in the White House,” said Mr Obama. He has announced a three-person advisory team dedicated to reviewing the two main agencies responsible for providing government grants to arts and culture projects, the NEA and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Since the chairmanships for both these organisations become vacant in January, the team will advise Mr Obama on whom to appoint to the posts. The members of the advisory group are: former NEA chairman Bill Ivey; Anne Luzzatto, a former Clinton official and a member of Obama’s arts policy committee; and African-American historian Clement Price of Rutgers University in Newark.

But some groups think Mr Obama can do more. A coalition of arts organisations, including the American Association of Museums, Americans for the Arts, the Association of Art Museum Directors, and the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, among others, submitted a report to Obama’s office recommending further measures to improve government support of the arts. Among the suggestions—such as increasing the NEA’s annual budget to $319.2m, expanding international cultural exchange, and reinstating an arts curriculum in schools—is the important idea of appointing a senior-level official in the White House that would be responsible for overseeing the administration’s entire arts and cultural policy.

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Museum-commissioned works

2009-01-06T13:41:00.000-08:00

I thought that this was a pretty interesting article that I found. I read with great interest the article published in November 2008 in The Art Newspaper (p62) about the dealer Emmanuel Perrotin’s new business venture, Artists’ Dreams. According to Mr Perrotin, the primary goal of Artists’ Dreams will be to create a private investment pool to finance the production of large-scale works by his and other dealers’ artists for commercial and museum exhibitions. An elaborate sliding scale has been established to calculate the percentage of profit a gallery will make in relationship to the investors based on the length of time it takes to sell the work—the shorter the sales time, the better the gallery does; the longer the sales time, the better the investor does.
Perrotin’s Artists’ Dreams, although a purely commercial project, directly addresses one of the most complicated and thorny issues in the museum world today. Who owns a work of art that is produced, developed and partially or fully paid for by an institution? At the end of the exhibition, should the work be given to the artist with no strings attached to sell later in a commercial gallery? Should galleries be able to “invest” in these works and at the end of the exhibition back out of their investment and profit without paying back the institutions? Or should museums expect their production costs to be recouped by taking a contractual position that they have an ownership stake in the work?

I am a member of an ad hoc group, the Contemporary Art Museum Directors’ Association (CAMD). At our recent meeting in Baltimore, this issue of who owns museum-commissioned work came up many times. There was no clear consensus about what criteria should be put into place to deal with the “ownership” problem. Several institutions in the group primarily support the production of new works of art. At the end of the artist’s residency or exhibition at these institutions, the ownership reverts to the artist and he is allowed to do whatever he likes with his work. However, for the vast majority of non-collecting institutions in CAMD whose missions are not focused on supporting new artistic production, these commissions result in the creation of works of art with commercial value that they may or may not have an ownership stake in.

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Who Has the Right to Censor Art?

2009-01-06T13:04:00.000-08:00

This title completely caught my eye. The title made me answer an obvious NO. You can never limit someone's creativity! That's just wrong. but yeah I found this article on the Art Newspaper. In the light of what happened to my project at Cooper Union [last month, the museum removed a giant banner with a reproduction of a Picasso drawing of Joseph Stalin, after protests from the Ukrainian church opposite], it is a bit ironic that the show was announced under the headline, “Art and politics as usual”. Another event in this series was a talk by the Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn, who said, among other things, that it is of great importance that artists remain independent of curators, institutions, dealers and critics, and I think everyone present that night agreed almost automatically. But what does it mean to be independent? And what are the conditions for artistic independence, or freedom? These are themes I have worked with in both of the projects that were supposed to be shown at Cooper Union, to which the façade-banners were to be an introduction, and to draw attention and discussion.
We are all dependent on others in order to enjoy any kind of freedom; to act independently is not an individual choice only. I would not have been able to hang the banners on the façade of Cooper Union without an invitation, or without collaboration as well as funding. Yet, neither the fact that I was invited to do this, nor the principle of freedom of expression was enough to protect the banners from being removed without warning or discussion. It seems like the only thing that could have kept them there would have been a very powerful person putting his or her prestige behind them—and this didn’t happen.

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Fake Buckle?

2009-01-05T16:16:00.000-08:00

Who do these people think they are trying to fool? haha This is an interesting story that I found on a website called The Art Newspaper. This story is pretty interesting. Sotheby’s has withdrawn an important “13th century” belt buckle from its 2 December old master sculpture and works of art sale after questions were raised by The Art Newspaper. The intricately-designed silver and enamel buckle had recently been owned by Paul Ruddock, now chairman of the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum. The buckle surfaced in the collection of Dacre Kenrick Edwards, whose estate was sold at Christie’s in 1961. It then passed to distinguished New York collector Germain Seligman, who lent it for an exhibition at The Cloisters (Metropolitan Museum, New York) in 1968. The buckle was offered at Sotheby’s in 1995 (estimate £15,000-£20,000), but went unsold. It passed through two specialist dealers in New York and in 2004 was sold to an English collector via the London dealer Sam Fogg.

In May 2005 the buckle was presented in an exhibition of “Medieval and Later Treasures from a Private Collection” at the V&A, where it was dated by curator Paul Williamson to 1280. At the time The Art Newspaper identified the anonymous collector of the hundred items in the show as Paul Ruddock, then a V&A trustee. The authenticity of the buckle was questioned by Dr Blair and it was quietly removed from the display before the closure of the exhibition.

It was then tested by Oxford University’s Research Laboratory for archaeology & art, which showed that the enamel and silver filigree dated from the 19th century. The silver alloy of the body was consistent with medieval silver, although this could have been melted down old silver.

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Tough times will provide opportunities

2008-12-29T14:59:00.000-08:00

Who knew with all the economic crisis issues that these tough times will provide more opportunities! That's really good to know especially for new upcoming artists. After half a decade of unprecedented growth, the art market has been brought back to earth. Recent results from London contemporary auctions confirmed the fear that the art market is in for a correction. A total of £51m was raised in the evening sales, against a low estimate of £105m (51% below the low estimate). A total of 15 lots were sold for a discount of 30% to 60% of the low estimate, signalling that a major price adjustment is underway for a number of artists. So was this a surprise? In November 2007, the ArtTactic Art Market Confidence Indicator fell 40%, signalling a significant change in sentiment from the previous reading in May 2007, largely caused by a gloomy outlook on the economy.

The correction started in autumn 2007, but record volumes and prices at the top end of the contemporary art market disguised the fact that the trouble had already started further down the value chain. The first real sign that the art market was feeling the heat of the financial crisis came on 8 November 2007. The impressionist and modern sale in New York took in just under $270m, falling short of its low pre-sale estimate of $355m. The sale sent Sotheby’s share price down 28%, a slide that has continued until today—reducing Sotheby’s market capitalisation to $580m, down from $4.2bn a year ago.

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Contemporary art gets new home south of the border

2008-12-18T15:16:00.001-08:00

I have always loved contemporary homes. I always thought that they were so classy and sheek. Mexico City’s vast new contemporary art museum, Muac, opened to the public on 27 November with an inaugural installation that is as provocative as it is political. The Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, to give it its full title, is a significant addition to the Mexican art world, providing 3,300 sq. m of gallery space, which its chief curator, Guillermo Santamarina, plans to fill with large-scale international exhibitions, installations and Mexico’s largest public collection of contemporary art.

For its opening, the most cavernous of the museum’s nine galleries is filled by Miguel Ventura’s sprawling installation Cantos Civico, 2008, a labyrinth with walls carpeted in swastikas and dollar signs. Visitors encounter a maze of live rats amid a chaotic display of suffed animals and photographs of Nazi soldiers, pornography and overflowing toilets juxtaposed with pictures of art world luminaries, including Tate director Nicholas Serota, US artist Ellsworth Kelly, as well as members of Mexico’s social and artistic elite. Part of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the 270m-peso ($20m) museum is on its campus in the southern suburbs of the Mexican capital. The university already boasts a cultural centre, several museums and the national library. The new contemporary art museum has been designed by leading Mexican architect Teodoro González de León, who 30 Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, also in Mexico City.

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Be Inspired by Living Art

2008-12-13T15:29:00.000-08:00

I love art. I love its flexibility, its individuality, its openess. There are many forms of art, writing, drawing, painting, designing. Anything that captures an expression and creativity is considered art. Artists are constantly looking for inspiration and artists should always be ready and open to be inspired.

Interior design, is a form of art. The designer is creating something, in this case a room, to not only be asthetically pleasing but also functional. Have you ever watched those shows on the Style or Home Network? It's pretty amazing what some interior designers can do. Ty Pennington, for example, is widely know for his home makeover show. His house and room designs are often breath taking. Sometimes using something as simple as branches as his theme and making a room beautiful. His inspiration is undeniable.

In an article on the articlebase.com, some interior designers are beginning to be inspired by living art, such as corals and aquatic life. The author states, "During the past few years, interior designers have discovered the color and vibrancy that living art can add to any room." There is no end to what can be used as an inspiration. I guess that is what's so great about art. You can be inspired at any moment and by anything to create something absolutely beautiful.

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Streets of San Francisco

2008-12-06T14:54:00.000-08:00

I love being in San Francisco. A city with so much diversity, history, and culture. Anyone who enjoys San Francisco will probably enjoys its openess. Gay pride parades to peach movements, it is ofcourse a liberal city. What I like most about San Francisco is it's beauty in the form of culture.

San Francisco holds the history of so many nationalities. From Chinese to Latin, the diversities of cultures are revealed on the walls and streets of San Francisco. Urban art is easily found in San Francisco. The pictures that capture the essence of San Francisco. For example for some cafes, colorful and detail murals are painted on the walls as decorations.

At the YMCA of San Francisco, a mural is painted of Chinese American contribution to the space program. The art in San Francisco also includes the union of cultures. Such as the mural painted of the Chinese joining the Boy Scouts of America. I've added a link below where you can see all these beautiful murals.
It doesn't matter what kind of art you like, when you see the urban arts in the streets of San Francisco, you can't help but appreciate it's story.

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Icon returned to Greece 30 years after theft

2008-12-03T14:11:00.000-08:00

Although I didn't know a whole lot about this particular painting, I really was interested when I read this article I found. This exact place happened in London. I mean people would do anything and everything to get some cash in their pocket thinking that they would never get caught. Well it is a million dollar icon, so I'm pretty sure the people in charge of the icon will do anything in their power to catch the person who did it.

A 14th-century icon worth an estimated £1m has been returned to Greece 30 years after it was stolen from a monastery located in the northern city of Serres. Scotland Yard handed over the Byzantine icon depicting “the Deposition of Christ from the Holy Cross” to embassy officials in London on 6 November after a British court ruled that the work should be returned to Greece. Sometime after the 1978 theft, the work, which had been cut in half to fit inside a suitcase, came into the possession of a Greek-born, London-based shipping entrepreneur and art collector. The work was identified as stolen in 2002 when Ioannis Petsopoulos, acting as an agent for the collector, offered to sell the piece to the Benaki Museum in Athens. The museum reported the incident to the ministry of culture, which in turn sought to recover the icon using legal and diplomatic channels. The work is currently on temporary display at the Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens and will undergo essential conservation before it can be returned to the monastery. At a ceremony in Athens on 18 November, Greek culture minister Michalis Liapis referred to the illicit trade in antiquities as “a marathon”, adding: “Successes like today’s fill us with optimism. But mainly they multiply our experience in this sector and make us more effective and readier for battle.”

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Land Art

2008-12-02T14:24:00.001-08:00

I don't think society realizes how much we need our natural resources. and yet we just knock it down with buildings or some other crap. The more green on this earth the better. Some people have yet to realize the importance of overcoming global warming. Green issues are now high up the political agenda, from worries about global warming to research into sustainable fuels. One related topic that is galvanising conservationists is the fate of a number of iconic works of Land Art which are under threat from energy and real estate development.

The use of nature as a medium to create monumental works of art emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a protest against the materialism of the art world. Artists such as Robert Smithson, Michael Heizer and Walter De Maria sought to create works that could not be contained by a museum or placed in a collector’s home.

Arguably the most iconic intervention in the US landscape is Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, 1970, a spiral constructed from basalt rock and earth which juts into the Great Salt Lake in Utah from its northeastern shore.

This summer, conservationists won a reprieve from the Canadian oil company Pearl Montana Exploration, which wants to conduct exploratory drilling into the lake bed. In co-operation with Smithson’s widow Nancy Holt, also a land artist, and the public policy group Friends of the Great Salt Lake, the Dia Art Foundation, which owns and has maintained Spiral Jetty since 1999, started a petition against the drilling. The state of Utah received thousands of complaints. “What we particularly object to is the potential visual impact that drilling might have on the work, as well as the equally important environmental impact it could have on the lake itself and its delicate ecosystem,” says Laura Raicovich, deputy director of Dia. “An oil spill could be disastrous for the lake, and therefore, the jetty.”

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Nature and Evolution

2008-11-25T16:15:00.000-08:00

I'm glad to see that there's some kind of art that exists for Nature and Evolution. Nature and Evolution has been one of the most contraversal issues known to mankind. Montreal born, New York-based David Altmejd’s opulent, and highly disquieting sculpture has been attracting attention since the 2004 Whitney Biennial with his display of two bejewelled werewolf heads, installed in Perspex boxes in Central Park. But it was Altmejd’s labyrinthine installation in the Canadian Pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale with its kaleidoscopic fantasy of taxidermied beasts and a colossal fragmented figure of a crouching giant, all reflected and refracted in a maze of mirrors, that confirmed his international status.

This month the UK is embracing Altmejd’s bizarre vision with two shows of his most recent work, one at Tate Liverpool as part of the Liverpool Biennial and the other in London at Stuart Shave/Modern Art.

The Art Newspaper: Your two huge giants (The Holes) fill the ground floor of Tate Liverpool. You’ve also shown a particular fondness for making werewolves. What draws you to these fairytale subjects?

David Altmejd: I always try to choose the most potentially symbolically interesting reference, but it’s very intuitive. I didn’t have any specific reasons to choose the werewolf, it just felt much more interesting than the human body or any other creature. It had more symbolic potential, it could open doors and start conversations.

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How did Italy get so ugly?

2008-11-24T16:32:00.001-08:00

“The Veneto is one great construction site that has produced monstrosity after monstrosity over the past 50 years, damaging both people and the environment,” says Francesco Vallerani, a geography professor at Venice University “On the one hand, you have a region of outstanding natural beauty and extraordinary architecture; on the other, an ugly urban sprawl that has obliterated the countryside.”

The Veneto has mountains, alpine lakes, romantic hills and rivers, the lagoon and the sea. It has more medieval city walls than any other region in Europe. Most importantly, it has thousands of 15th- to 18th-century villas that are the very symbol of the Veneto. The patricians of Venice bought land, invested in huge estates and commissioned famous architects to build magnificent residences.

The Istituto Regionale Ville Venete (IRVV)—the regional institute for the conservation of Veneto villas—has statutory powers to help 4,270 properties, around half of which are listed, with 30 designed by Andrea Palladio. Unfortunately, however, these powers have always been limited to the buildings, and it has no official remit for the unprotected land surrounding them.

Original Article from The Art Newspaper

Protest over advertising in St Mark's Square, Venice

2008-11-24T16:12:00.000-08:00

Until recently, one of the many extraordinary aspects of Venice was that it was a city with almost no advertising. Now, however, the agencies dealing in mega-advertising locations have realised they can exploit a recent change in the law to sell space there and make a large profit, yet they still get called sponsors by the authorities. Currently the villain of a 007 movie looms out of a huge Swatch ad on the Piazzetta of San Marco while two Lancia cars drive over the façade of the Doge’s Palace and even the Bridge of Sighs carries a banner.

The law allows the scaffolding on public buildings under restoration to carry advertising so long as the superintendent considers that it does not “detract from the appearance, decorum or public enjoyment of the building”. While the existing ads in Venice have aroused local and international protest, Venice superintendent Renata Codello insists that she has been very discriminating: “I have turned down masses of proposals, including one with the entire Italian football team dressed only in their shorts,” she told the Association of Private Committees for Venice last month.

Original Article from The Art Newspaper

Visions of the Holocaust

2008-11-18T15:50:00.000-08:00

Who would have thought that a painting from a survivor from the Holocaust wouuld make it on it's way to the New York Times. I think it's very intriguing because the Holocaust was a big part of our history as Human Beings. The paintings were the work of her husband, Arbit Blatas, a Lithuanian-born artist who escaped Nazi-occupied Europe and arrived in New York in 1941. The exhibition is the first New York retrospective of his work since his death in 1999. The paintings have been on display for several weeks; a reception for the official opening of the exhibition is scheduled for Wednesday, the 100th anniversary of Blatas’s birth.

The exhibition brings together brightly colored landscapes, portraits and stage designs with works for which, toward the end of his life, he was perhaps better known: bronze bas-reliefs that he cast in the late 1970s and 1980s as memorials to the Holocaust.

“One would never suspect, knowing him — elegant, exuberant, fun-loving, outgoing — that he had this past,” Miss Resnik said.

Blatas’s past was, in fact, seared by the Nazi atrocities: His mother died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and his father survived the camp at Dachau. The exhibition includes several angry paintings of Jews being sent to concentration camps that he painted in New York, one in 1944, the others in the 1970s.

But the centerpiece is the bas-reliefs. The ones on display were placed outside the Anti-Defamation League’s headquarters in the 1980s, when it was on First Avenue at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza. When the league moved to its current office on Second Avenue, it offered the reliefs to Hebrew Union.

“When they liberated Dachau, they asked his father where he was born,” she said. “His father said, ‘I was born in France.’ The American officer was very sweet. He said, ‘Do you have any identification?’ His father said, ‘Do you really think, when they came to the door, I had time to go to the bank and get identification?’ ”

His father was sent to a hospital in Paris as a displaced person. “He said, ‘If you find Picasso, I’ll find my son.’ They thought he was crazy, but he kept this up so long, one lady finally said, ‘Maybe he’s telling the truth.’ They got through to Picasso, who came and said, ‘Your son is in America.’ And they called Arbit.”

Original Article

Andy Warhol's Early Life

2008-11-14T12:07:00.000-08:00

There are many celebrities that say different artists and pieces of art inspires their music or acting performance. Andy Warhol has been an inspiration to celebrities, artists, and average joe's alike. Andy Warhol was born August 6, 1928 with the name Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Andy was the third child of his parents, Andrij (Andrew) Warhola and Ulja (Julia). His parents were working-class immigrants of Rusyn ethnicity from Miková, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in northeastern Slovakia). Warhol's father immigrated to the USA in 1914, while his mother joined him in 1921, after the death of Andy Warhol's grandparents. Warhol's father worked in a coal mine. The family lived at 55 Beelen Street and later at 3252 Dawson Street in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh.

His first one-man gallery exhibition as a fine artist was on July 9, 1962, in the Ferus Gallery of Los Angeles, California. The exhibition marked the West Coast debut of pop art. Andy Warhol's first New York solo Pop exhibit was hosted at Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery November 6-24th, 1962. The exhibit included the works Marilyn Diptych, 100 Soup Cans, 100 Coke Bottles and 100 Dollar Bills. At the Stable Gallery exhibit the artist met for the first time John Giorno who would star in Warhol's first film, Sleep, in 1963.

It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of iconic American products such as Campbell's Soup Cans from the Campbell Soup Company and Coca-Cola bottles, as well as paintings of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Troy Donahue, and Elizabeth Taylor. He founded "The Factory," his studio during these years and gathered around himself a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities. He switched to silkscreen prints which he produced serially, seeking not only to make art of mass-produced items but to mass produce the art itself. By minimizing the role of his own hand in the production of his work and declaring that he wanted to be "a machine," Warhol sparked a revolution in art. His work quickly became popular as well as controversial.

Warhol died in New York City at 6:32 a.m. on February 22, 1987. According to news reports, he had been making good recovery from a routine gallbladder surgery at New York Hospital before dying in his sleep from a sudden post-operative cardiac arrhythmia. Prior to his diagnosis and operation, Warhol delayed having his recurring gallbladder problems checked, as he was afraid to enter hospitals and see doctors.

Warhol's work as a Pop Artist has always had conceptual aspects. His series of do it yourself paintings and Rorschach inkblots are intended as pop comments on art and what art could be. His cow wallpaper (literally, wallpaper with a cow motif) and his oxidation paintings (canvases prepared with copper paint that was then oxidized with urine) are also noteworthy in this context. Equally noteworthy is the way these works—and their means of production—mirrored the atmosphere at Andy's New York "Factory."

Biography from Wikipedia

Museum as Romantic Comedy

2008-11-06T15:07:00.000-08:00

First off, I'd like to point out the title. Who would ever think that a museum is like a romantic comedy. haha but really, humor takes part in this a lot. I found this article on the New York Times, and I thought that it was quite intriguing. It's a matter of seeing something differently than what you are used to perceiving.
If you’re going to make elusive art that often looks like life, it certainly helps to do it inside a powerful work of art. You also could question the decision by Nancy Spector, the museum’s chief curator and the show’s organizer, to reconvene a group of usual suspects, who are also something of a clique, to represent a widespread, complex phenomenon sometimes put under the scary chapter heading “relational aesthetics.”
The goal of “relational aesthetics” is less to overthrow the museum than to turn it upside down, wreaking temporary havoc with its conventions and the visitor’s expectations of awe-inspiring objects by revered masters. The larger point is to resensitize people to their everyday surroundings and, moreover, to one another in a time when so much — technology, stress, shopping — conspires against human connection.

The artists in this show and others like them extend a tradition of museum subversions that began with Conceptual Art in the 1970s and gained savvy and momentum with the institutional-critique phenomenon of the late 1980s. Emerging in the mid-1990s, the relational artists favored a more carefree approach that featured ephemeral situations, functional objects (often involving seating), architectural follies, amusing signage, elegant or arcane graphic design, performances, freebies (including food) and loosely planned group events.

Original Article

Broadways Rough Road Ahead Review

2008-11-04T16:01:00.000-08:00

Broadway is now preparing for the new season coming up and they hope to make another crowd pleasing performance with all of their shows and plays. Wicked and Hairspray seem to be a favorite and another one is Jersey Boys. I've never really heard of Jersey Boys until I read this interesting article. Musicals and Plays are hanging on for the Holidays and it will probably be another busy time for them. But this Halloween was it hard for them to fill up all their seats? A handful of others have been struggling to fill seats. This past week — with Halloween falling on a Friday night and the New York City marathon on Sunday — had an unusually large dip in attendance. Jason Robert Brown’s musical about adolescent angst, “13,” and “A Tale of Two Cities,” which was ravaged by critics, filled fewer than half of their seats for the week that ended on Sunday.

“August: Osage County,” this year’s Tony winner for best play; the musical spoof “Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps”; the British farce “Boeing-Boeing”; and the long-running musical “Avenue Q” did not rise much above the 50 percent mark, with the last two shows losing more than 17 percent of their audiences from the previous week.

Disney’s “Mary Poppins” and “The Little Mermaid,” meanwhile, hovered around 60 percent of their capacity, although such family musicals are expected to pick up during the holiday season, and Disney’s deep pockets mean that it has more of a cushion to keep shows afloat. (Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein” has declined to make its numbers available for more than a year now.)

Original Article

Mona Lisa's Secret

2008-11-03T17:03:00.000-08:00

Mona Lisa has always been part of our history. But we all wonder what's behind the smile. Did Da Vinci paint himself as a woman? For all of you guys who think that art is boring, it's actually not. There's a lot of secrets entailed with art, especially the Mona Lisa painting. I found this article that has a lot of unexpected secrets from this painting. Oh how would Da Vinci be proud to see that his work is still appreciated till this day.

The first major scientific analysis of the “Mona Lisa” in 50 years has uncovered some unexpected secrets, including signs that Leonardo da Vinci changed his mind about his composition, French and Canadian researchers said Tuesday.

National Research Council of Canada
A 3-D laser camera has found surprises in the “Mona Lisa.”

Related
National Research Council Canada Study on Mona Lisa's Hidden Secrets (From http://iit-iti.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca)

From "Mona Lisa: Inside the Painting," by Jean-Pierre Mohen, Michel Menu and Bruno Mottin
An Infared photograph suggests that Leonardo originally painted the Mona Lisa with a gauzy overdress for nursing (visible, at right), and a tiny bonnet (vague outline visible about the sitter's head).

From "Mona Lisa: Inside the Painting," by Jean-Pierre Mohen, Michel Menu and Bruno Mottin
A detail of Mona Lisa's hands show that Leonardo had initially painted one of them clenched, as if the woman were about to rise from a chair, which is no longer visible in finished the work.
Photographs taken with invisible infrared light and a special infrared camera suggest that at least one of the details was hiding in plain sight, the scientists and conservators said.

The sitter in the Louvre Museum’s 16th-century masterpiece, believed to be Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine silk merchant, was originally painted wearing a large transparent overdress made from gauze, they said. Under normal light, part of the garment is visible on the right-hand side of the painting, but appears simply to be part of the background.

“You can see it when you know what you’re looking for,” said Bruno Mottin, a curator in the research department of the Center of Research and Restoration of the Museums of France, known as C2RMF. He spoke at a news conference with researchers from the National Research Council of Canada.

Mr. Mottin said such transparent robes were worn by expecting or nursing mothers in 16th-century Italy. The robe’s reappearance in the “Mona Lisa” would dovetail with scholarly research indicating that the painting might have been commissioned to commemorate the birth of Lisa Gherardini’s third child.

The imaging also shows, although less clearly, that some of the sitter’s hair was rolled into a small bun and tucked under a tiny bonnet with an attached veil. (The images are too cloudy to be reproduced on newsprint.)

“That is not surprising,” Mr. Mottin said. “The bonnet was usually worn by women in the 16th century.”

More generally, the researchers said they realized that centuries of grime had obscured some elements of the painting.

“You’re seeing a lot more fine detail, showing that this remarkable painting is actually more remarkable than we believed,” said John M. Taylor, an imaging scientist and conservator with the National Research Council of Canada.

Mr. Mottin said that two pieces of clothing had faded from view, largely because of the application of now-discolored layers of lacquer over the centuries.

Original Article

Yankee Spirit in Disparate Masters

2008-10-28T13:42:00.000-07:00

Comparisons may be invidious, but they can also be illuminating. Consider the small, tightly focused exhibition of works by Mark Rothko and the 19th-century American folk artist Ammi Phillips at the American Folk Art Museum.

On the face of it this is a stretch. Phillips, a prolific itinerant portraitist active in New England between 1811 and 1865, was a self-taught neo-Classical realist, a kind of folk-art Ingres. His figures are simplified and flattened, but their faces are so sensitively drawn that they seem like real individuals and not just the generalized types that the subjects of folk portraiture often seem.

Rothko, who emigrated from Russia to the United States as a boy in 1913, was an intellectual omnivore. He attended Yale and studied briefly in New York with the Modernist painter Max Weber. In the 1940s and ’50s, along with artists like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Clyfford Still, Rothko pushed abstract painting to unprecedented formal extremes. His signature canvases, in which large, fuzzy-edged rectangles of color are arranged in mysterious hovering stacks, would seem to be far from Phillips’s earthbound portraiture.

As organized by the museum’s senior curator, Stacy C. Hollander, the exhibition nonetheless reveals parallel ways of dealing with surface, color and light. Both painters favored broad flat areas of color, and Ms. Hollander has underlined that connection by selecting paintings by both artists that feature red, pink and green. An untitled 1970 composition of bright-red soft-edged rectangles by Rothko echoes the red dresses worn by children in several paintings by Phillips.

For more information, visit the Original Article

Picasso Work Is Withdrawn From Sotheby’s Sale

2008-10-28T13:02:00.000-07:00

A Picasso Cubist painting that was to have been a star of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern art sale on Nov. 3 has been abruptly withdrawn from the auction.

“Arlequin” (1909), which the auction house estimated at more than $30 million, was one of the most expensive works in a high-profile sale that will kick off the important fall art season. The painting is included in the catalog that was sent to potential buyers this month.

“It’s been withdrawn for private reasons,” David Norman, a co-chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist and modern art department worldwide, said late Monday. He was speaking on behalf of the seller, who could not be reached. It had been rumored for weeks that the work would be taken off the market because of fears that art prices were heading the way of the world financial markets.

The painting, which depicts a harlequin resting his chin on one hand, had belonged to the Surrealist painter Enrico Donati, who bought it for about $12,000 in the late 1940s.

When Sotheby’s announced in September that it was selling the painting, auction house officials said it was being sold without a guarantee — an undisclosed sum promised to the seller regardless of the sale’s outcome. On Monday, auction experts familiar with the negotiations said that both Sotheby’s and its archrival, Christie’s, had offered the estate a guarantee, as well as other types of financing. In the end, however, the painting was to be offered at auction without a guarantee, but with a clause in the sale contract giving the seller the right to withdraw the painting.

For more information, visit the Original Article

A Two Way Street

2008-10-27T16:40:00.000-07:00

When it comes to art, I don't see how anyone could even have rules. A set of rules never in life have been made in a form of art. In fact, I think that Art was discovered probably by accident. It's how we as people perceive art. Street art could probably be known as vandalism. I think it's art. It isn't following the rules so that's why I see it as art. It's a different form of art that most artists prefer for it to be on a wall that they don't have to pay in order for it to be on there.

In 1989 a lanky 19-year-old working at a Rhode Island skate shop created a mug shot–style sticker of a seven-foot-tall, 500-pound French wrestler named Andre the Giant. As far as stickers go, it was pretty crude. A hand-stenciled image of his face was accompanied by the inscrutable phrase “Andre the Giant Has a Posse.” The artist ran off 100 copies of the image and got to work pasting it all over Providence. Once he had the city covered, he moved on to Boston, New York, and the rest of the eastern seaboard. “Andre” materialized everywhere—stop signs, pay phones, airport bathrooms. A startled patron at an Athens, Georgia, diner found the wrestler’s sleepy visage staring back at him from the inside lid of a coffee creamer.

“I’ve generally found that there has been a bias against artists who didn’t play by the established rules, who weren’t the product of influential curators and writers,” says Jeffrey Deitch, the Manhattan dealer who represents Swoon, Espo, Os Gemeos, and McGee, as well as the estate of ’80s graffitist Keith Haring. But, he notes, this attitude has begun to change. “Now there’s a number of younger curators who followed these artists when they were working on the streets and who are now in positions to do something,” says Deitch. “They don’t make a differentiation that Swoon chose to develop her work on the street or that she’s somehow not as worthy of serious attention as an artist who went to the Whitney Independent Study Program.”

Original Article

A Banquet of World Art

2008-10-24T16:22:00.000-07:00

Exhibitions come and go; they are what museums do. Collections are slowly built and stay; they are what museums are. “The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art plays both sides of this dynamic. It catches a monumental institution at a moment of major change.

As the title implies, the show is a tribute to Mr. de Montebello, who is leaving the Met after being its director for more than 30 years. For the occasion, curators in 17 of the museum’s departments have chosen objects in their fields of expertise from the permanent collection. These have been assembled and intermeshed under the coordinating eye of Helen C. Evans, curator of Byzantine art.

Collaborative though it is, the cavalcade of world cultures that rolls through the museum’s second-floor special-exhibition galleries is very much Mr. de Montebello’s creation. Everything in them was acquired under his aegis. Curators may have proposed specific items, and donors offered others, but it was Mr. de Montebello who ultimately signed off on the acquisitions, giving each his famously resonant, bass-baritone “O.K.”

And there were many O.K.’s: some 84,000 in total. The 300 objects in the show represent a tiny fraction, and a madly eclectic one. Chinese scrolls, Greek vessels, Oceanic effigies and an 18th-century American pickle holder share the spotlight, with no object privileged as better — grander, rarer, prettier — than any other. This is a wonder-cabinet situation, an exercise in proprietorial pride, an unabashed, if surprisingly low-key, display of fabulousness.

For more information, visit the Original Article

Bast!

2008-10-23T17:20:00.000-07:00

So I was researching online on other street artists other than Banksy. Don't get me wrong Banksy is one of my favorites. Then I came across an article on 40 street artists besides Banksy! So that turned out well haha Bast doesn't use a lot of stencils from what I see compared to Banksy. Although, I think that they are a lot alike with personalities of portraying their artwork. They most definitely have a huge satire when it comes to making their pieces. That's why I like them because like all artists, they put a lot of thought into their work. Bast has this really funky cut out of the magazine ordeal that he has going on versus Banksy who uses stencils.

One of our favorite street artists is the Brooklyn-based Bast, whose wheat-paste works can be found around the New York City, especially in SoHo, the East Village and the Lower East Side of downtown Manhattan. There's a new series of images
posted on the Global Graphica web site showing some recent Bast work in SoHo .

Original Article

Making It Faster and, of Course, Better

2008-10-21T11:22:00.000-07:00

No matter what area of materials processing is involved, metal-injection molding (MIM), plastic gears, gas-assist molding, rubber or multi-component molding, users look for a technology solution that meets a specification but more and more want something that provides an edge in their business.

The automotive industry is one example. According to General Motors' estimates, rubber, plastics and composites comprise 15 to 18 percent of the total vehicle's weight (Automotive News, April 28, 2008). Even though petroleum is the primary raw material, the use of plastic is projected to increase through its ability to reduce vehicle weight and improve fuel economy.

The edge may come from tools that help engineers implement a new design or select the right materials quickly. Enhancements to Moldflow Corp.'s Communicator 2.0 include the ability to report simulation results from Moldflow Plastics Advisers (MPA) 8.1 to other members of the team, even if they are not Moldflow customers. For Rubber Industries, a CD simplifies rubber design criteria and compares features of the most popular base polymers including durometer range, temperature range, properties, typical applications and cost.

A common theme in the following section is integration, getting more by combining two or more parts into a single component. This is certainly true for MIM. The ability to obtain intricate metal products makes the technology well-suited to replace metal parts made using traditional metal processing such as die casting or machining. For plastic gears, more sophistication seems to be the hot ticket, too.

Perhaps the greatest trend is combining technologies so it is difficult to classify a particular product. This section has rubber combined with a high-temperature plastic, a multi-component molding product that uses liquid silicone rubber and traditional thermoplastics in one molded part, and a plastic gear that uses 2-shot molding. When suppliers get creative, they provide more to users.

Original Article

Never Forget a Legend

2008-10-20T16:01:00.001-07:00

Andy Warhol has been one of the most inspirational artists throughout history and is still recognized even in today's time. His art has been on bags and through clothes and basically he is the one who threw out the rules and used bags as dresses! He could do anything and make it look good and make it sell. He was known for his Pop Art (he was actually the father of Pop Art) and was actually an Underground filmmaker! Who would have thought. Though best known for his earliest works - including his silk-screen image of a Campbell's soup can and a wood sculpture painted like a box of Brillo pads - Mr. Warhol's career included successful forays into photography, movie making, writing and magazine publishing.

He founded Interview magazine in 1969, and in recent years both he and his work were increasingly in the public eye - on national magazine covers, in society columns and in television advertisements for computers, cars, cameras and liquors.

In all these endeavors, Mr. Warhol's keenest talents were for attracting publicity, for uttering the unforgettable quote and for finding the single visual image that would most shock and endure. That his art could attract and maintain the public interest made him among the most influential and widely emulated artists of his time. --Adapted from "Andy Warhol, Pop Artist, Dies," by Douglas C. McGill, February 23, 1987.

Original Article

Featured Product: Urban Tee from Bayho

The Chinese Art Explosion

2008-10-17T16:53:00.000-07:00

The market for Chinese contemporary art has developed at a feverish pace, becoming the single fastest-growing segment of the international art market. Since 2004, prices for works by Chinese contemporary artists have increased by 2,000 percent or more, with paintings that once sold for under $50,000 now bringing sums above $1 million. Nowhere has this boom been felt more appreciably than in China, where it has spawned massive gallery districts, 1,600 auction houses, and the first generation of Chinese contemporary-art collectors.

This craze for Chinese contemporary art has also given rise to a wave of criticism. There are charges that Chinese collectors are using mainland auction houses to boost prices and engage in widespread speculation, just as if they were trading in stocks or real estate. Western collectors are also being accused of speculation, by artists who say they buy works cheap and then sell them for ten times the original prices—and sometimes more.

Those who entered this market in the past three years found Chinese contemporary art to be a surefire bet as prices doubled with each sale. Sotheby’s first New York sale of Asian contemporary art, dominated by Chinese artists, brought a total of $13 million in March 2006; the same sale this past March garnered $23 million, and Sotheby’s Hong Kong sale of Chinese contemporary art in April totaled nearly $34 million. Christie’s Hong Kong has had sales of Asian contemporary art since 2004. Its 2005 sales total of $11 million was dwarfed by the $40.7 million total from a single evening sale in May of this year.

With the sheer abundance of galleries, auction houses, and art fairs in China, the larger art world is recognizing the power of the Asian market. Standing in an auction house in New York or London watching paintings by Chinese artists sell for millions, one can grouse about this boom and hint that it will turn out to be a bubble. But strolling in a bustling gallery district in Beijing, with students and tourists crowding the cafés and boutiques and filling the huge art showrooms, few would predict a downturn in the near future.

For more information visit the Original Article

Banksy!

2008-10-16T15:57:00.000-07:00

If you guys don't know who Banksy is, Banksy is probably the most infamous street artist! In my opinion, Banksy is very inspirational! I remember when I first saw a Banksy art design, I just got inspired. His art is usually through paint and stencil. Banksy gives an urban appeal to his artwork and I'm glad he's doing it! In my perspective I think that he uses a lot of comedy and satire. Banksy is an artist that I like most, just because he is very mysterious! He maintained his unknown art for several of years! I think that's just awesome because it shows that he isn't doing it for fame, he's doing it because it's his passion.
Who is Banksy? We may not know his real name, but his art is unmistakably the work of a passionate individual. So what do we know about Banksy? His paintings, stencils, and other art pieces frequently address serious social issues. He takes on capitalism, war, poverty, and governments with grace. His work often displays a keen sense of humor, making it equally possible that you will laugh or cast your eyes down thoughtfully upon seeing a Banksy piece.
And although the pseudonym and the signature style of the artist are well known, there’s not much else that we know for sure about Banksy. A few tidbits of information are widely accepted: he is from Bristol, UK, and got involved in graffiti art sometime in the early 90s. He began to gain widespread notoriety around 2003. He was born in or around 1974 and sports a silver tooth. He is, according to the few people who have met him as Banksy, an unassuming and typical-looking man.

Original Article

DIME PIECE MURAL ON MELROSE

2008-10-14T15:31:00.000-07:00

If you don't know Dime Piece clothing, then you don't know fashion! Who says art isn't fashion? The clothng brand is over a year old, and they are becoming big! They bring a big inspiration to all females out there that having an hour glass shaped body isn't the ONLY PERFECT TEN! If you read why they make their clothes, you'll be inspired to wear them too. I believe that's their target strategy and i think that it's a good one. Laura (one of the creators from Dime Piece) is a true inspiration to ART and Fashion. They are the Avante-Garde of urban street wear.
When I mean Dime Piece inspires, they really inspire:
“Hate to break it to you guys, but a “DimePiece” isn’t necessarily the 36′ 24′ 36′ hot mess you see in todays music videos with Steve Madden heels and Spandex shorts. The embodiment of this term is a little more complex than that. Meet Rosalee, she’s an artist, young woman and inspiration to ladies who want to get involved in graff and other forms of art. Last week she went on a 15 hour painting spree and transformed a blank brick wall into a work of art with our logo, and our “Make Up Not War” design. You can watch it in the making here or peep the finished masterpiece at The Breakfast Club art space in Hollywood, CA off Melrose Ave. P.S. No offense Steve Madden, you make some good knockoffs.”

Original Article

BigBelly

2008-10-14T10:44:00.001-07:00

Ever walked down a street and seen trash cans filled to the top or even overflowing? Trash bins overflowing with rubbish, littering the landscape from city streets to local beaches with mountains of plastic bottles, newspapers, well pretty much everything that you can imagine. Well this disaster was the beginning of a wonderful change in the eyes of engineers.

After learning that garbage trucks are one of the most costly vehicles to operate, in which they consume over 1 billion gallons of diesel fuel each year in the United States alone and limp along getting an average of 2.8 miles to the gallon. The team formed a company in 2003 to take on the growing waste management problem and design a new kind of trash receptacle.

BigBelly Solar had a few very specific design goals: The trash compactor had to be around the size of a normal receptacle so it could easily fit street-side; the unit had to process larger quantities of trash to reduce the frequency of garbage pickup, and it had to be standalone so it could derive power from an alternative energy source. Wind was quickly ruled out because the energy source wasn't constant and it was too dangerous to have wind turbines lined up across city streets.

Today, there are over 1,700 BigBelly solar trash compactors spread across the U.S. and the world, including a couple of high-profile units at Boston's Fenway Park and the Portland Oregon Zoo. At 300 lb and about the same height and width of an average receptacle, BigBelly compresses the equivalent of five trash cans into a single receptacle, which helps companies and municipalities avoid four out of five garbage collection trips, on average.

The newest iteration of BigBelly launched last year and the company is planning new designs, including a dumpster-sized system and adding new technology that communicates information wirelessly back and forth between the unit and its owner. In this way, customers can get a sense of when a BigBelly unit is full and arrange trash pickup accordingly.

Original Article

The Church Gives Contemporary Art Its Blessing

2008-10-14T10:23:00.000-07:00

As the Vatican builds bridges and walls between the Church and the living contemporary artists, one man notices the importance's of an alliance and tries to mend the differences.

The new president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, the Monsignor Gianfranco Ravasi, plans to revive that sort of relationship between the Vatican and contemporary artists. “For a century now there has been a divorce between art and faith,” states Ravasi. “The basic idea is to return to a dialogue on biblical and religious themes between the Church and the great artists of our time—artists such as Bill Viola, Anish Kapoor, and Jannis Kounellis.”

Just like centuries before many artist expressed themselves with the a sense of faith in their art work. For example, Leonardo De Vinci created the last supper and a magnificent way for that the generation now can picture it. But now, society and the Church is missing out in many beautiful and faithful paintings.

Another major way in which contemporary art is making its presence felt in the Roman Catholic Church is through architecture. Catholic churches have recently been built by such renowned architects as Renzo Piano of Italy, Richard Meier of the United States, and Tadao Ando of Japan, and celebrated by parishioners as well as architecture critics. The Church structure is a form of art and the architects have great pride in capturing the purity of their buildings.

Pope John Paul II affirmed the enduring importance of art’s role in the Church in 1999 when he opened a special exhibition in the Vatican’s modern-art collection space. Lauding contributions by famous artists. The Pope believes their paintings, writings, and music “opened the spirit to the mysterious fascination of the Transcendental, because in every authentic artistic expression there is present a mysterious and surprising spark of the Divine.”

Original Article

Sotheby’s Mid-Season Impressionist & Modern Art Sale Scores $6.4 Million

2008-10-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

When I first saw the painting above, I could not stop looking at it. I was just sitting there, trying to figure out what exactly it was. I came up with numerous objects. For instance, I saw a fish, a bird, an apple, and a bull. Now im not really sure that is what the painting was intended for, but it really blew my mind and I love it. Someone must have really loved it too since it went for so much money!! We saw bidding from all parts of the world, including the United States, Western and Eastern Europe, with results exceeding the high estimate for the sale. Grand total $6,435,939 (£3,673,272) on October 7th.

Extremely strong bidding was seen for the cover lot, Sinfonie 23 (lot 76), by Rudolf Bauer, which achieved $254,400. Bauer is a figure who has often been marginalized in the history books; however he was painting at a crucial time in the development of abstract art in the 1910s and 1920s and had a strong relationship with his Friend and mentor Wassily Kandinsky. This early work, from 1916-1919, was exhibited in Der Sturm andDas Geistreich, two important galleries in Berlin. Sinfonie 23 was unquestionably the finest work by Bauer to come to the auction market in many years, which is reflected in the world auction record achieved for the artist that more than doubled the previous record. Almost 15% of the value of the sale was achieved by 20 lots sold on behalf of the Patti Birch Trust, dominated by works by Zoran Music. These included portraits landscapes and works from the important series Nous Ne Sommes pas les Derniers, of which lot 177 brought $314,500.

Original Article

08's most underrated underdog

2008-10-11T13:55:00.000-07:00

If there was an award for the "best underdog category", I would give it to former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. This guy has been underestimated in every way possible. Nobody listened to him when he was warning us about inflation and the Fed and all the flag signs he raised in our economic and monetary system. And look where we are now. He also spoke of pulling our troops out of every corner of the world, and his "conservative" counterparts blasted him. And look where we are now. This guy has truly been underestimated. But hey, I'll leave the brunt of the political commenataries to the pundits.

What I am amused about is the iconic status reached by Ron Paul's campaign. I recently read an article over at the New York Times how graphic designers have been creating and recreating banners and logos for Ron Paul and his "Revolution". And believe me, a lot of these logos are pretty dope. If you did not know Ron Paul is a 72 year old congressman from Texas, you'd think people are nominating him for an MTV award. No politican form the conservative spectrum has in recent memory stirred up support from younger generations, much less artists. Rep. Paul may not have clinched the GOP nomination, but sure did accomplish a lot this year.

ORIGINAL PHOTO and ARTICLE: http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/ron-pauls-graphics-revolution/?ref=opinion

Art continues to boom in Southeast Asia

2008-10-11T13:30:00.000-07:00

With the recent gloom and doom prophecies of pundits and and politicians, you would think that your in some sort of a twilight zone, where humanity is bound to be trapped into an eternal econonomic quagmire. Certainly, we could use some bretah of fresh air. And that is exactly what I have been trying to do in my recent blog entries. There is at least one sector of the market that is relatively in OK shape, and that is of course the art industry, particularly in Asia. Of course, it has not been completely free from economic woes as more expensive artwork from CHina and India have declined in the recent Sotheby auction, but art from Southeast Asia offers more hope. While pummeling house values and tight credits are an everyday reality, so is the increase in the values of many artwork in Southeast Asia. Channel NewsAsia reports that art from that region has received a 30% boost in real value. Not bad. Not bad at all. And the better news about that is that people still buy these works proving that the global economy is not yet on the path to an apocalypse. After all, art is a luxury commodity. And if people still have the energy and resources to purchase these goods, then it just shows that we are not completely doomed. I'm sure the world can ride this crisis out.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: http://ph.news.yahoo.com/cna/20081011/tap-096-average-price-sea-contemporary-a-231650b.html

Obey does it's part for the election

2008-10-09T16:18:00.000-07:00

As you all know Obey has came from the ground up. You see their logo everywhere they go. for those of you who don't know about Obey.. Obey is a street art, clothing line, and it shows us a different way of seeing politics. I'm sure that all of you have seen the shirt above. it comes in many forms. Yupp! Obey made those tees and now they are spreading wild like fire. One thing that I admired most about Obey is there strong passion to keep people inform about the debate. On their website they have updates about why Obama should be the next president by showing what propositions he goes for. In my opinion, I think this is a great way of connecting to another target group. They used a form of art to connect to politics. Art can bring such a hard impact on people. And maybe it helps to see it in a different angle rather than just the media telling you the updates. I also think that it's a great way to promote Obama for presidency because I don't think that Mc Cain would look good on a t-shirt. Maybe Palin, but she's a psycho woman on the loose.

For example:
"vote green on nov 4th
California League of Conservation Voters have just posted their endorsements for the Nov election. Take a look and decide for yourself. If you dont know whats at stake, this is a good place to start. Choose Responsibly!"

Original Article

Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert to show Early Works from 1939-1954

2008-10-06T13:37:00.000-07:00

London has so many exciting things going on in the months of October through December. One including the showing of Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert of his early works from 1939-1954. A major loan exhibition of early works by Lucian Freud will be held at Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert, 38 Bury Street, St James’s, London SW1 from 9th October through 12th December 2008. The earliest paintings, from 1939, were completed when the artist was only 16. Many of the paintings in the exhibition are from private collections and not normally available to be seen by the public. With the support of the artist, the exhibition will be curated by the artist’s assistant and model for the past fifteen years, the painter David Dawson, with help from Catherine Lampert, who most recently selected the Freud retrospective which opened in Dublin in June 2007.

This will be the first exhibition devoted entirely to the artist’s early work since 1997 with all works on loan from private or public collections worldwide, and several being shown publicly for the first time. Highlights include oil portraits such as Woman with Tulip (1945), Portrait of a Man (John Craxton) 1946, Girl in a Blanket (1953), A Woman Painter (1954) and the self portrait Man at Night (1947) as well as the still lifes Cacti and Stuffed Bird (1943), Dead Heron (1945), Lemon Sprig (1946) and Still Life with Aloe (1949).The aim of the exhibition will be to follow the evolution of Freud’s vision in the early years from the period of, in the artist’s words, “maximum observation”, when he proceeded solely “by staring at my subject matter and examining it closely”, to the period from 1954 when he wanted to deliberately “free myself from this way of working”.

Original Article

As Brits say: bloody hell!

2008-10-04T17:04:00.000-07:00

For 350 grand, British Museum National Portrait Gallery could get its hands on a sculpture known only as "Self", a work made by artist Marc Quinn. The "frozen sculpture" is a replica of the artists head, but that only tells half the story. Whereas sculptors would carve stone or marble or clay to, Quinn used his own blood (ten pints of it to be exact), to create his masterpiece. Quinn puts out such work every five years and said that it takes one year to produce the amount of blood he needs to cretae another version of "Self". Being offered by the artists gallery White Cube to National Portrait Gallery is the one Quinn created in 2006, his latest obra maestra. His first creation was made in 1991, and was bought by a man named Charles Saatchi. The second, released in 1996 was bought by a couple from Texas and the third one went to a Korean museum owner named Kim Chang-il.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE and PHOTO: http://www.theartnewspaper.com/article.asp?id=16226

Art shall thrive

2008-10-04T16:39:00.000-07:00

If Andy Hei's optimism proves to be true, then I guess there is a silver lining to our current global market crisis. Hei is an antique-funiture dealer by trade and is the "organizer of the Hong Kong International Arts and Antiques Fair" , which will be held for four days starting October 4. Many galleries are said to have signed up for the event and it will be carrying various artworks, a lot of which priced at millions of dollars. Hei said that he has seen worse days for the art community, citing the SARS outbreak in 2003 and another market crisis that happened in 1998. Some of the galleries which will be featured in the HongKong event would be Christie's International and Sotheby's, "New York-based Carlton Rochell Ltd. and Sundaram Tagore Gallery, Shinseido- Hatanaka Art Gallery and Hong Kong's Hanart TZ Gallery." Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara's HK$18 million will also be shocased in the said event.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE and PHOTO: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=a0vCFWmklUnY&refer=muse

Austrian Painter Maria Lassnig's first US Solo

2008-09-29T14:05:00.000-07:00

Maria Lassnig has exhibited a fiercely idiosyncratic independence and has persevered in her autonomy consistently eschewing fashionable trends, while remaining oblivious to her standing in the art world, asserts Platow. Instead of responding to popular contemporary movements, Lassnig has developed her own stylistic and thematic approaches, giving her work a timeless quality and a cohesive aesthetic. Lassnigs gripping body-awareness paintings visually project the bodily sensations the artist is feeling. Lassnig wrote about her work in Artforum: "Figuration comes about almost automatically, because in my art, I start first and foremost with myself. I do not aim for the big emotions when I'm working, but concentrate on small feelings: sensations in the skin or in the nerves, all of which one feels." The results are striking, biologically deformed but familiar images that show heightened color and limbs and facial features out of place or shape, reflective of the body's inner sensitivities. Her most distinctive paintings are the body-awareness paintings, self-portraits that represent her internalized senses by depicting her figure in distorted, alternate-reality poses. She calls a separate group of works her "drastic paintings, describing their pure realism, a little embellished and uglified. A series of paintings of couples exemplifies her attraction to beautiful subjects and challenging textures, as the artist paints her models in loving embraces and playful poses, or enveloped in luminous plastic sheeting, focusing on the qualities of light and shadow that bind the figures.

Original Article

Virtual Street Reality

2008-09-24T16:59:00.000-07:00

Before, art was just put on a paper or canvas, but now it's on the streets. And no, it's not graffiti! it's a Surreal art that you couldn't even imagine that it was possible. Julian Beever is an artist that totally made a difference into our perspectives on art. He made us see that art could be drawn any where and you could still be amazed on where it's at and how you USE IT. In the picture he drew a girl in the pool and it looks so real that he's gonna actually dive in it! He's done so much more than just drawing the girl in the pool, he made illusions that he's digging the ground for gold, a coke bottle that looks life size, and much much more. He's very talented and has a definite creative imagination!

The artist: Julian Beever is an English artist who is famous for his art on the pavements of England, France, Germany, USA, Australia and Belgium. Its peculiarity? Beever gives his drawings an anamorphosis view, his images are drawn in such a way which gives them three dimensionality when viewing from the correct angle.

Original Artical & more of his art work

Modern Photographs

2008-09-22T16:39:00.000-07:00

Do you see this beautiful picture above? Just look at it for a little while. I actually had caught myself staring into this picture for a quite a while and just exploring and discovering the different aspects of this photo. By just exploring the different aspects of this picture, it made me calm and a lot more relaxed. I know it may sound crazy but its true. The exhibition, that holds this portrait, traces the evolution of photography in the 20th and 21st centuries, from early Pictorialist works that mimic the moodiness of late 19th-century painting, through the Modern formal experimentations of the Constructivist and Bauhaus schools, to the documentary ethos of mid-century America and the large-scale, staged tableaux of our own time. As indicated by its title, the exhibition also examines three prominent themes highlighted by the selection: depictions of the metropolis, modern machinery, and the human figure. On view at the Parrish Art Museum though 30 November, 2008. A number of works highlight the relationship between photography and other art forms, including portraits of such prominent artists as Henri Matisse, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg.

Among the photographers represented in the exhibition are Berenice Abbott, Diane Arbus, Eugène Atget, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Lee Friedlander, Bill Jacobson, André Kertész, William Klein, Sally Mann, Robert Mapplethorpe, Duane Michals, Irving Penn, Robert Rauschenberg, Man Ray, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Andres Serrano, Cindy Sherman, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Sam Taylor-Wood, Andy Warhol, and Gary Winogrand.

Original Article

Lehman's art collection future uncertain

2008-09-20T15:58:00.000-07:00

The collapse of finance behemoth Lehman Brothers has sent the Wall Street teetering on the edge of its seat. Lehman has been a staple in American markets since 1850 so it is no surprise why its failure was a big deal for investors. But stocks may not be the only Lehman assets who fates are uncertain. I would bet that not a lot of folks know about the company's huge artwork collection, which numbers to 3500 across all of its global offices. Among some of the works in Lehman offices, according to BBC news, were made by artists like Takashi Murakami, Andreas Gursky, and Jasper Johns. Their works are now possibly on its way to the market, along with others such as those in Neuberger Berman, a company Lehman Bros. bought in 2003. These collections would most like be placed under auctions. Folks like art adviser Judith Selkowitz said that the company should not be brash with their sales activities and advised that everything should be "orderly." In general, the BBC article noted that the practice of buying art by hug private companies has been waning in previous years. The article did not specify a specific cause, but it could be a fair assumption that financial crunches are factors in the decline of art patronization.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=a4BqiycH4C_s&refer=muse

NEA will lose chief

2008-09-20T13:48:00.000-07:00

USA Today reported the forthcoming resignation of National Endowment of the Arts chairman Dan Gioia early next year. Gioia had held his post since being appointed by George Bush in 2003. He replaced an earlier Bush appointee, composer Michael Hammond, who died of an illness early in his tenure. Gioia still would not have finished his four year term when he steps down, but he said that he would like to "to return to [his] private life as an artist. (Italie 2008)" The NEA chairman from Santa Rosa, California is a Stanford Univerity alumni and poet, publishing literature such as The Gods of Winter and Interrogations at Noon.

Gioia, according to former NEA chairman Frank Hodsoll, did a good job in promoting art to people who are not necessarily considered to be connoisseurs. This comment was related to projects under Gioia's tenure, most prominently the Big Read, Poetry Out Loud and "Operation Homecoming. The said program "a compilation of stories written by soldiers in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. (Italie 2008)"

NEA, in general, is not usually a newsmaker, but it is usually lambasted by conservatives as a wasteful agency that must be abolished. Despite this, Gioia said that he typically a Republican voter, although he considers himself to be an independent.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-09-12-endowment-arts-gioia_N.htm?csp=34

PHOTO SOURCE: www.wikipedia.com

Is Graffiti ART?

2008-09-16T16:19:00.001-07:00

There are places where you are actually allowed to "tag." Only one I could think of is at Venice Beach. In my opinion I really don't think that Graffiti is bad. It's only bad if you send out a wrong message right? I've seen some artwork painted hugely on the LA freeway. And all the artwork that is posted on the walls of the freeway are sending out a good message. People can express their feelings through dance, music, writing, why not art? All graffiti doesn't necessarily mean bad, but it's just on the matter of where you tag. I love looking and analyzing good art, and I never consider it bad unless it had a bad message behind it.

For you as a reader, what are your views on taggers?

News Center 4 (KRON-TV San Francisco) reported on the evening news for November 20, 1995 that Sunnyvale Police have arrested fifteen juveniles for some $32,000 of graffiti damage. A one month investigation by diligent officers resulted in the arrest of the vandals. The vandals will be billed for the damage they caused according to the report. If the kids can't pay their parents will. (Comment: As it should be.)
Don't you think that's a little extreme?

Original Article

Beautiful garbage

2008-09-13T13:59:00.000-07:00

Naples, Italy has gained a bad rap for stinking lately. I mean, um, literally. So terrible is its garbage problem that it has garnered the attention of the world media. It is news like that that makes me feel less worse about the clutter in my room.

Painter Liu Xiaodong has apparently seen something so striking in Naples' dilemma that prodded him to pack his paint brush and canvas and head off to Italy. Xiaodong, as with many artists, are filled with idealism and and inquisitiveness. According to Time Magazine, Xiaodong's works has dealt "with the consequences of modernity, depicting the forgotten faces of peasants in the Tibetan desert, or families displaced by the rising waters of the massive Three Gorges damn project. He's also done portraits of prostitutes in Thailand, and high school students in Boston." Naples is just the newest addition to his social consciousness. According to him, he is puzzled that a country in such a developed continent could have a seemingly mundane problem as garbage disposal. And so, for six days, he and his staff of eight toiled amidst prospects of mild diseases and even intrusion my local mafia groups in order to capture the image of Naples, Italy' stinking reality.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1840280,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

Waterhouse & Dodd presents the acclaimed Michael Canning

2008-09-08T16:13:00.000-07:00

If your really into art, chances are you've heard of or about Michael Canning and his beautiful paintings. You've probably heard about him winning the prestigious Oriel Gallery Award at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin back in May of 2007. Well he's at it again with his second solo exhibition. In October we welcome Michael Canning back to the Waterhouse & Dodd gallery for his keenly anticipated second solo exhibition. His first, in April of last year, was rapturously received and indeed all 26 paintings had sold out within four days of the opening. Since then, Michael has exhibited in Ireland and in America, to great critical and commercial acclaim. Thematically linked to previous exhibitions in that the compositions will feature the flora and fauna of Michael’s native Co. Limerick, this show will also include some dramatic works on paper, an aspect of Michael’s oeuvre that we did not cover in our first exhibition. Often large in scale, and utilising various mixed media, these works could be considered more challenging and experimental. We first exhibited these ‘drawings’ at the Art20 Fair, New York, in November of last year where they caused quite a stir, selling out on the opening night. Prices for paintings and works on paper range from £1,800 up to £7,500, and the exhibition will consist of 29 new and previously un-exhibited pieces. A fully illustrated colour catalogue will be produced to accompany the exhibition. On exhibition 29 October through 21 November, 2008.

Original Article

Zingmagazine: capturing art's laissez-faire nature

2008-09-06T14:25:00.000-07:00

Hey, so when does the next issue of your favorite come out? A week from now? A month? Certainly, you can answer that for yourself, but not if you are an avid follower of ZingMagazine. The magazine has no fixed pattern of releasing their issues, although that is done on purpose. And at least for me, I think that that is a great way to portray nature of the art they produce; spontaneous and loose. ZingMagazine covers a wide variety of art, including (but not limited to), fashion, poetry, music, paintings, etc. Everyone with some creative juice flowing through their system is encouraged to submit their works to the magazine. Zing Magazine is the brainchild of Devon Dikeou, and was born in 1995. The first issue came to about 100 pages. It was initially just a magazine, but soon branched out into other ventures such as publishing books and producing CDs. It is also affiliated with a nonprofit art group in Denver called the Dikeou Collection, owned by the Zing Magazine's founder and his brother. According to Wikipedia, Zing Magazine has produced work from artists such as Kenneth Goldsmith, Rainer Ganahl, Spencer Finch, Zac Antoni, Mrcel Dzama and more.

PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/

Amy Winehouse look-a-like

2008-09-01T15:00:00.000-07:00

Amy WinehouseI saw this photo on www.deviantart.com and it reminded me of the music artist, Amy Winehouse. This model has the teased/poof hair with a similar eyeliner as Amy. Amy sets off a rebellious look that only some can pull off. This model above did a job well done at it. From the structure of her face to what she's wearing, she sets a vibe to not mess with her. The photo itself was very urban and the lighting made this model stand out. The first thing I thought was "Rehab." And when I see Amy Winehouse in this model, I don't mean it in a bad way. Although Amy has some issues with herself, she still inspires such style to a model and his/her photographer. The photographer named this picture, "My name...Just a Stranger." You could obviously tell that the photographer made her a little paler than an average person, but you are supposed to see her a stranger. The photographer used simple colors and added simple props in the background. It just shows you don't need a lot to made a person STAND OUT. There is such beauty to this picture that gives a calm feeling and it's easy on the eyes.

Want to see more of this artists work?
Artist's page

Things To Look At

2008-08-21T15:04:00.000-07:00

Image from thingstolookat.blogspot.com

I like surfing the web looking at websites that discuss about art and design related things. It occupies my free time and I wish I were able to surf around more often. Yet, sometimes we don't get to do that...instead, we find sites that do it for us or, at least, use a feed application.
Nevertheless, I recently found a site called thingstolookat.blogspot.com and let me tell you, there surely is a hec of a lot of things to see... that is relevant to design. Mainly discussing magazines and editorial designs, Thingstolookat.blogspot.com is a good place to read about older publications and design work. Having 9 contributors to ramble about design is a sure plus to the site. Anyway, when I get the chance which I usually don't, I like to look at Thingstolookat. So, you should probably too!

thingstolookat.blogspot.com

But do please continue reading this blog.

Post It Note Reading

2008-08-20T12:22:00.000-07:00

Post-it notes. Ah, yes, you know what I'm talking about. Those little square colored pieces of paper that are used... well as notes--a reminder tool used to help us remember what we're suppose to do or just a piece of paper to write things on. They're extremely useful but at times when we've got post it notes hanging everywhere even on our foreheads... we wonder what else on earth can we do with this office supply.

Well, Arthur Jones knew what else he could do with Post-It notes. Being stuck in a cubicle for a day job, Jones occupied his time by creating "artwork" out of his office supplies. From a rubber band ball to a mouse made out of masking tape, Jones eventually found himself drawing pictures on post-it notes with a sharpie.

Five years later, Jones has transformed his favorite time-kill activity into a full-fledged obsession. He has created the Post-It Note Reading series, where writers read their original stories, while corresponding illustrations drawn entirely on Post-It Notes are projected behind them.

Interesting hey? Well, you can check out more of this wonderful post-it story at www.postitnotestories.com.

David Bray: Drawing Emotions

2008-08-16T16:05:00.000-07:00

My incapacity to draw intricate pictures has always been a frustration to me. I do not have a lack of images, but I guess just a lack of genes to actually put those ideas on paper. The good news is there are actually artists like David Bray, who seem to relay images similar to what I have in mind. His creations, I believe, are amazing because he is able to project simplicity and sophistication at the same time. One look at some of his work and you would see how he meshes the plainness of uncolored and sketched drawings with rather complex designs. On top of that, he is also able to channel emotions and "sensuality" without falling into the trap of being too mushy and overly rococo.

Bray was born in 1970 in Dartford Kent and had always had a fascination for the surreal, drawing "images of space travel, where he would depict himself and his friends visiting other planets and universes." Bray still shows his "out of his world" side in his works to this day. His talent has brought him a wonderful career as a freelance illustrator who clients include "Harvey Nichols, H&M, Canon, Vodafone, BBC Television, Nokia, Puma, Virgin, Sony, Kickers and Charles Worthington and magazines have included Carlos, Elle, Flaunt, The Sunday Times and Time Out."

ARTICLE AND PHOTO

Singapore Art Museum Presents Masriadi: Black is My Last Weapon

2008-08-15T15:01:00.000-07:00

Singapore Art Museum (SAM) is proud to present Masriadi: Black is My Last Weapon, the celebrated contemporary Indonesian artist I Nyoman Masriadi’s first regional and international solo exhibition. This show forms part of SAM's exhibition programme in showcasing works of key modern and contemporary Southeast Asian artists, continuing on from solo exhibitions such as Affandi and Widayat in 2007. This new exhibition highlights Masriadi’s unique visual language of painting – striking visual vocabulary and visual imageries strongly influenced by anime, cyber-gaming and comics. The exhibition features over 30 selected works from private collections in Indonesia, Singapore and Hong Kong, including early works from 1998 to latest works. The exhibition opening will be officiated by Guest of Honour, Mr Kwee Liong Keng, Honorary Chairman of Singapore Art Museum, on 22 August 2008, Friday, 7pm, at 8Q sam. Media preview led by the curators will be held on the same day at 11am at 8Q sam. Born in Bali in 1973, I Nyoman Masriadi is one of the most influential and acclaimed artists to have emerged from Southeast Asia in the last decade. Having studied at the Indonesian Institute of Art from 1993 to 1998, Masriadi’s distinction as an artist lies in his choice of medium – painting. In the 1990s, Indonesian artists began to work in ephemeral medium such as installation and performance art, as part of their resistance against the commodification of art. With paintings being sold at high prices in the art market, the practice of painting was viewed as an exemplar of the commodification of art. Masriadi is an artist who holds the firm belief that painting is a form of visual language which speaks beyond the high prices. This forms part of his own resistance to expand his art practice and focuses on the practice of painting.

Original Article

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) announces Major Gift to Acquire Renowned Photo Collection

2008-08-13T17:22:00.000-07:00

I think its about time that the LACMA get a little credit for what they do for Los Angeles and art. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) announces that it has received a groundbreaking gift from Wallis Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation in support of photography. A substantial portion of the gift will support the acquisition of The Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection, a group of more than 3,500 prints that forms one of the finest histories of photography and collections of masterworks from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Highlights, including seminal photographs by Ansel Adams, Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Steichen, W.H. Fox Talbot, and Edward Weston, will be presented in LACMA’s exhibition, A Story of Photography: The Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection, opening October 5 in the Ahmanson Building. Through the largesse of Wallis Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation, this collection becomes the most significant and valuable gift of photography in the museum’s history. Wallis Annenberg’s tremendous support of LACMA includes not only the acquisition of The Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection, but also a contribution to a new study room, opening in early 2011, that will allow for access to the entire photography collection at LACMA. Head of the newly named Wallis Annenberg Photography Department, Charlotte Cotton, said, “This staggering acquisition will enable LACMA to present multiple narratives of nineteenth and twentieth-century photography to its actual and virtual visitors, and to enhance the appreciation of photography, as Marjorie and Leonard always hoped the collection would. Wallis Annenberg, who shares the same vision, has been incredibly thoughtful about what it takes to create a world-class, accessible photography department at LACMA.”

Original Article

2008-08-13T12:33:00.000-07:00

Recently, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) recieved 3,500 photographs thanks to the financial support of Wallis Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation, LACMA's trustee. The art works were from Marjorie and Leonard Vernon, collectors who surveys the history of photography "in the works of 700 artists, including leaidng 19th and 20th century figures".

Now, LACMA has 12,000 images in their hands and they will be showing their new additions in "A Story of Photography: The Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection" this October. The Annenberg fund had paid a hefty sum for these photographs and the rest was donated by the Vernon couple's daughter, Carol Vernon and her husband Robert Turbin.

Information gathered from the original article.

Community: Camp North

2008-08-13T12:14:00.000-07:00

After wandering around the web, I came across an Artist Community that I have never heard of before. It is called Camp North, it's been up for only less than a Year. Camp North was founded and created by Nathaniel Milburn, who is in his second year as Broadcast Design and Motion Graphics maor at Savannah College of Art & Design, and also Corey Griffin, who helped Milburn develop Camp North and is only 15-years-old and is a junior at Palisades High School. The website is a free online community for all types of artists and allows members to upload their works and use the site as an online portfolio.

Milburns original idea of Camp North was to be an art & culture magazine; however, he decided to make the site to become also an online community for artists. He has not abandoned his original idea of creating magazines, so watch for it.

Browsing around the website, I found that the general design isn't that bad. The neon colors create a cohesive look and the type treatment for the logo is also easy on the eye. I'm not too hot with the navigational bar/tabs... but that's a small glitch. Anyway, check them out here

www.campnorth.tv!