RICK TULKA CELEBRATES 2011

Rick Tulka, American illustrator living and working in Paris, can be found here: http://ricktulka.com/ and here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/leselect/

PIECE UNIQUE: CYRILLE ANDRE

Cyrille André spent years cutting and carving trees into a range of figures with a chain saw.  This Christmas season at Piece Unique Gallery in Paris, the artist has moved on to kidskin. 
 
The sculpture 9.3, 2010 (Polyester resin and kidskin, 247 x 120 x 80 cm), is your typical teen with a hoodie, a suburban troublemaker (me, actually), but this one is French.  The title derives from the department, designated by the postal code. Paris, for example, is 75. See the Piece Unique Gallery web site and Cyrille André's works.
 

Fluxmass Carol No. 1 - "Thy -Thou -Thee -Thine"

Fluxmass Carol No.1 - "Thy -Thou -Thee -Thine" is a 2010 Fluxus-inspired Christmas Carol by Cecil Touchon. The piece was created for the Fluxus Jubilee Jamboree (50 Years of Fluxus). 

If you can play this piece and capture it on an audiophile, please send us the link and we'll post all the variations.

More stuff at http://ceciltouchon.blogspot.com/

Store Front Windows & More : Vintage New York Online

Thank you Museum of the City of New York for putting more than 50,000 vintage photographs of New York online.  Works by Bernice Abbot, Jacob Riis, Samuel Gottscho, Byron Company and the Wurtz Brothers (so far), cover the waterfront and more.  Dozens of wonderful sepia-toned storefronts of pawn shops, vegetable stands on Mulberry Street, tenements, early shots of the Puck Building, bums living in coal cellars, trippers sleeping it off in opium dens.  It's a wild world, the past.

The site is organized into "film strips" which you can click on to isolate a particular photographer's works, and then move through the whole of the images collected.  Visitors to the site can also search images according to subject matter – clothing stores, peddlers, districts (like theater areas or streets), and persons (bums, drug addicts, some famous people).

I can see the S. Klein's Department store where my mother would go to shop with her sister Selma in Union Square.   Or Bond's Clothing Store, on 1530 Broadway, with the giant clock in the "O," a place where my father possibly went to pick up a "two-trouser" suit.

See the Collections portal of Museum of the City of New York.
Above: Bernice Abbott (1898-1991). The window of the Blossom Restaurant, occupying the ground floor, and Jimmy's Barber Shop, occupying the basement, of the Boston Hotel, a flophouse at 103-105 Bowery.

Charlotte Hosten: Don't Give Me This Stuff

Charlotte Hosten is a Montreal designer working with all sorts of bracelets, earrings, colliers, and rings. Girl stuff.  And tons of it this insane shopping season. She's having a blow out Christmas it seems, and so I asked her to tell me what 10 things she doesn't want for Xmas.  Here's her list.

My top 10 list of what i do NOT want for Christmas :


1.  winter sport equipment
2.  scented candles
3.  perfume (i hate it)
4.  books i already read (you just feel terrible to tell the person who gives them to you)
5.  stuff for my pet
6.  food basket with marmalade
7.  gift certificate for a store i hate
8.  itchy orange wool sweater
9.  skydiving gift certificate - i would never go
10. weird spices from a weird country in a little pot

VISIT CHARLOTTE ON THE NET.
 
So definitely send her your extra itchy orange wool sweater if you get two (her address is below).  Call it mall art. While we're at it... add your own 10 Things You Don't Want For Xmas.  I'm sure the comments will be great to read....

PHOTO FOR CHARLOTTE HOSTEN: ROBERT DESROCHES

CHARLOTTE HOSTEN 155 Van Horne
Montréal (Québec)  H2T 2J2  Canada
T 514 274-8511 e: charlotte@charlottehosten.com

 

If We Don't, Remember Me

“I’m not much of a dancer.”       Pulp Fiction (1994)

Insanely wonderful, simple, addictive collection of animated GIFS: If We Don't, Remember Me.  Steve McQueen, Steve Bescemi, John Travolta, Uma Thurman and a hundred others from Pulp Fiction, Eraser Head, Fargo, Taxi Driver, Easy Rider, La Dolce Vita, The Good The Bad & The Ugly and on and on.

There are many more here, worth a look. Click: If We Don't, Remember Me.

Nate Hill Is Nuts: Punch Me Panda (NYC)

Yes, gosh darn it, you're angry.  What do you do?  Go to New York City and punch out the Panda.

The idea is performance artist Nate Hill's. See: http://natehillisnuts.com/

Keep Calm's Season's Greeting Tree

Simple, clever, fun... this ABC Christmas Tree card/print from Keep Calm Gallery is very chipper.

Tons of beautiful silkscreen, digital, letter press prints from Haley and Lucas. There are new print by Gavin Harrison and Amy Ross and Chase & Wonder's terrific Gentleman's A-Z:

"A very fine A-Z print of all things gentlemanly. From Automobile to Zamburak, there are 26 detailed illustrations of things that any gentleman should have surrounding him, with a key to explain some of those lesser known objects."

Check out these other fine things: http://www.keepcalmgallery.com/

Signe Tollefsen - King Of The Fire

Signe Tollefsen Web Site

Dennis Hopper Compound, Venice California, For Sale: Frank Gehry Design, Slide Show Grand Tour

Dennis Hopper (1936-2010), who died this past May, left a landmark house in Venice, California.  Designed by Frank Gehry, the house is a spacious ode to warehouse living (well, in the $10 million dollar warehouse way).  About 75 slides will give you the grand tour.

Thanks to Amadea Bailey (who has paintings throughout the house in the slide show) for the tip and link.

Click here for the Dennis Hopper Compound slide show.

THE 80s : Phillips de Pury Auctions Off A Decade That Changed Everything

Out of the rubble of the East Village in New York, the Mudd Club and the spray painters, came one of the most energetic art explosions on the planet.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, David Salle, Kenny Scharf, Donald Baechler, Julian Schnabel and others grew up and out through the desperation of the late 70s and carved their names big and loud in the 80s.

The decade saw the creation of an art set, hundreds of galleries and the drugs that fed them all, plus the appetite to consume it all. Andy Warhol loomed large over the art production that pumped out of downtown culture and embraced in his own twilight Basquiat and Haring as well as hundreds of other stars like Madonna through his magazine Interview. Late in the decade, AIDs had taken many, heroin others and Warhol himself, succumbed to death on the operating table at a gall bladder surgery gone wrong.  By the time the 1990s came around, Soho was ready to move West, towards Chelsea.  And those left standing limped off the big stage.

Phillips de Pury, the NY auction house has organized a themed sale that covers pretty much the whole shebang. Bidding begins December 17, 2010 at 2 PM in New York.

Browse the catalog and see the details: THE 80s at Phillips de Pury. 

Image above: Lot 5  JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT
Untitled (Rinso), 1982-2001
Screenprint in colors. Sheet: 40 x 40 in. (101.6 x 101.6 cm). Numbered 13/85 in pencil, with the estate stamp, and signed and dated by the executer Gerard Basquiat on the reverse, published by DeSanctis Carr Fine Art, Los Angeles. This work is from an edition of 85. ESTIMATE $8,000-12,000

Provenance: Private Collection

PHILLIPS WEB SITE 

DUMB BUNNY STENCIL PRINTS FOR XMAS

Hand-made, Dumb Bunny Stencil Prints. Sizes vary but mostly 21. × 29.7 cm (8.3 × 11.7 in) or larger; paper, largely fine art paper, some vintage Arches.

Each signed and dated, but not numbered.

Price: 25€ each including shipping and handling.  About 20 currently available. If you would like one, click on the PayPal button:

Christian Marclay: The Sound of Genius

This mini-documentary on Christian Marclay, creator of the 24-hour film in real time, The Clock, just shows why he's probably the smartest, most challenging artist working today.  And, he's also great fun.

NEWS FROM NEW YORK: CHELSEA TO BE SOLD

Photo: © Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times.

The downtown New York City hotel that made art history, The Chelsea, has been officially put on the block and will soon be accepting bids beginning next week, according to The New York Times.

Offers are expected to be between $90 million to $120 million.  Long term residents will be allowed to stay as long as their leases are in force; the new owners, however might not renew the leases. Times, they say, are a changing.

Owned by the same three families for nearly 70 years, residents included Bob Dylan, Charles Bukowski, Janis Joplin, Patti Smith, Leonard Cohen, Robert Mapplethorpe, Larry Rivers.

What artist hasn't checked in to this hotel?  And now, according to the Cheslea Hotel Blog, Levi's is using the hotel's fame to sell pants...in the UK!

THE PARIS CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL: MAIL ART

Just when you thought it was safe to open your mail box, this project comes bursting in... À VOS VOEUX, PRÊTS ... POSTEZ !

Organized by Christian Balmier, the MAIL ART 2010 exhibition is this year's answer to unpaid bills, junk mail and the Tapis D'Orient flyers that litter your hallways.

The artists involved have long irritated post office workers, mailmen and women, and in general created havoc where the postal system is concerned. And not only in France, but world wide. (Me, too).  So it's bound to be great fun visually, emotionally, historically, philosophically and postally.

See the web site and the artists and all details here.

Click here to see the Artist list.

A strange and wonderful mail art cadavre exquis where four artists work on a piece in a round, some 25 examples of this surrealist game will be on view at beginning December 16, 2010 at Galerie SPARTS 41, rue de Seine - 75006 PARIS.   MAP.  

If you are in Paris, or know someone who will be, be sure to attend the Cocktail-Vernissage le jeudi 16 décembre de 18 à 21h. (December 16, 2010 Opening Party).  It will be huge. You must come! Metro: Odéon.

Among the artists involved:  

Jean-Michel ALBEROLA, Jean-Paul ALBINET, Christian BALMIER, BEN VAUTIER, Yvon BOHERS, Alain BRESSON, José-Garcia CORDERO, Charlélie COUTURE, Henri CUECO, Pierre DESSONS, Hervé DI ROSA, Philippe DRUILLET, Yann DUGAIN, Marc GIAI-MINIET, Gérard GUYOMARD, Abraham HADAD, Michel HERGIBO, Michel HOSSZÙ, Pierre JOINUL, Eliane LARUS, Gérard LE CLOAREC, Yves LÉVÊQUE, LJUBA, Fédérica MATTA, Jérôme MESNAGER, Ricardo MOSNER, Mehdi QOTBI, RABA, Matthew ROSE, Sélim SAIAH, Sacha SOSNO, Roland TRUC, Béatrice TURQUAND D'AUZAY, Michel TYSZBLAT, Vladimir VELICKOVIC, Jacques VIMARD and William WILSON.

En Français: A l'occasion du passage de 2010 à 2011 nous organisons une nouvelle exposition d'oeuvres de  « Mail Art ».

La nouvelle année est traditionnellement une période d'intense activité pour la Poste. C'est le moment privilégié où chacun envoie ses voeux à de multiples destinataires. C'est aussi naturellement ce moment que nous avons choisi pour réactualiser le geste artistique du « Mail Art » en invitant à une communication d'artiste via le réseau postal.

Le principe : une grande feuille de 60 x 60cm, pliée en quatre, circule entre 4 artistes. Un premier artiste intervient sur le quart du format. Il expédie sa création par voie postale au suivant qui fait de même… jusqu’au quatrième participant. Une œuvre collective se constitue. Les créations, finalement exposées, sont réalisées à plusieurs mains selon le principe des "Add-on" : une communication d’artiste à artiste transitant via le réseau postal.

Le résultat, toujours surprenant, témoigne d’une juxtaposition de styles. Dans tous les cas le côté ludique du Mail-Art est bien perceptible : clin d’œil coloré aux artistes correspondants, utilisation de tampons et de timbres personnels “hors normes“, surprise pour le destinataire final de découvrir une “lettre“ extraordinaire…

Les œuvres « Mail Art » terminent leur voyage postal à la Galerie Sparts où elles sont exposées. Des panneaux et une vidéo explicatifs présentent le concept et son historique.  Voir Le Site.

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PARIS PHOTO: A DOZEN SHOTS

Fun with gravity: Sigurdur Gudmundsson (pictured) takes flight with philosophical notions in black and white.

A Paris Dozen, article on theartblog.org covering the latest edition of Paris Photo (2010).

READ MORE – PARIS PHOTO: A DOZEN SHOTS

ART BASEL MIAMI: CASH FOR YOUR WARHOL

From Hargo's Flickr photostream, CASH FOR YOUR WARHOL, Miami. Setting the tone for the Art Basel Miami Orgy. Well done, Hargo! See Hargo's round the country tour with his CFYW lawn, post and billboard signs. Or heck, just call that number and see what shakes.

And, hey, FREE STICKERS from Hargo.

He writes: "Free stickers! If you are interested in getting a small stash of CA$H FOR YOUR WARHOL stickers, send me a stamped and self-addressed envelope and I'll put some in the mail. (I will fit as many as your postage permits.) Email me at hargo for address."

Anonymous Drawings: The Archive Show

The ARCHIVE OF ANONYMOUS DRAWINGS will be shown for 10 days at Uferhallen, Berlin-Wedding.

See the preview here.
 
This year the exhibition is the opportunity for a BENEFIT-SALE of drawings from the archive: The proceeds of the sales will be collected in the blütenweiss-fund and will be used for the financing of the next call for participation and the following exhibition in June 2011.

800 selected drawings of international artists will be presented anonymously in an exhibition. The artist's anonymity can be lifted by means of purchasing a drawing for the symbolic unit sales-price of 150 EUR. The buyer can take his drawing right off the wall and s/he is then told the name and the point of origin of its author. The empty space the drawing leaves behind will be marked with the artist's full name. The given unit sales-price should not be seen as a real market price, but as a place-holder for any conceivable amount of money.

The viewer is expected to draw his own line between art and not-art because the works are from both established artists and laymen. Common, art specific mechanisms like the importance of an artists` ego, price formation or prepared qualities which can be referred to a specific art context, should be reversed in this exhibition in an experimental way: the artists engage themselves to put their own person into the background for the benefit of the actual product, their artistic work.

The ANONYMOUS DRAWINGS ARCHIVE came into being through all Anonymous Drawings exhibitions since 2006: Every general exhibition preparation started with an international call to participate on the Internet. No demands were made regarding the content: age, biography or heritage of the artist were not relevant for the selection. Only the maximum size of the drawings was fixed: bluetenweiss accepted works up to 29,7 - 42 cm / A3. For every exhibition roughly 800 drawings out of all submissions have been selected. In the event of a sale the artists received 100 EUR of the sale-price.

Since the first call for participation more than 5000 people from all parts of the world joined the Anonymous Drawings Project.

There are more than 1200 drawings in the ANONMYOUS DRAWINGS ARCHIVE. Each of these works have previously been shown at one of the regular exhibitions. More than 10 shows of Anonymous Drawings took place in Berlin and abroad up until today. The works saved in the archive are mostly artists' donations supporting the project. Besides of that the archive is also being be shown as a traveling exhibition nationally and internationally.

The art-project ANONYMOUS DRAWINGS was founded 2006 by the Berlin artist Anke Becker.

See works from the archive here.


ANONYMOUS DRAWINGS / ARCHIVE
EXHIBITION AND BENEFIT-SALE
DECEMBER 10- 19 2010
 
OPENING: 7 PM THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2010 

UFERHALLEN
Uferstrasse 8 - 12
13357 Berlin - Wedding
Opening hours: daily 12 - 8 pm
U8 Pankstrasse  Map

BASAQUIAT: RARE POLAROIDS

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT with girlfriend, Kelle Inman, in 1987 in his New York City studio.


SEE MORE BASQUIAT POLAROIDS: VANITY FAIR SLIDE SHOW.

AMY ROSS & KEEP CALM FOR A WONDERFULLY SURREAL CHRISTMAS 2010

Mad scientist, alchemist, supernatural historian, Amy Ross is all of these and more. Her newest prints for Keep Calm Gallery, bring together her gentle people with mushroom tops and bottoms in a kind of dance ring that quietly celebrates differences in resplendent surreal essays.

Fairy Ring Four marries mushroom stems, hands and birds of all flavors; Fairy Ring Three, some two dozen gentle people capped with a variety of mushroom caps.  Both prints, in editions of 100, are signed and numbered and produced on high quality fine art paper.

The prints sell for £55.00, unframed. Click the images to enlarge.

Before going to art school in Boston Amy Ross earned a Master's degree in theology from Harvard Divinity School.

"Not straying too far from her roots, one of her favourite places to visit for inspiration is the Harvard Museum of Natural History," according to Keep Calm, "where she spends far too much time drawing and studying the taxidermized animals that live there."

See Amy Ross's work at Keep Calm Gallery. 

The London-based online gallery says that orders for international destinations – Japan, USA, Canada and Eastern Europe: Order by 2pm, 9th December.  For Western Europe: Order by 2pm, 10th December.  More here.