DADA MAMA

The DADA MAMA Collage on canvas. Exhibited at The Orange Dot Gallery, London, 2010.

Click image to enlarge.

See more here.

Holiday Show AT The Front Room Gallery

The Holiday Show show features local artists from the southern Maine area represented by Jon White's Front Room Gallery.

This exceptional Holiday Show features work by the Fluxus-oriented and inspired Reed Altemus, and a host of others who have created artworks for the holiday spirit. The exhibition runs from November 13 - December 31, 2009.  

The Front Room Gallery
378 Cottage Road
South Portland, Maine USA
Gallery Hours: 
Thursday- Sunday 12 - 5 PM

The Front Room Gallery, established in 1997, is the showplace for Odd Inq pottery and tile. Located in South Portland, the gallery is also home to Jon White’s ceramic studio, as well as Crown Plane, the business of Jon’s brother James.

In addition to the ceramics of Odd Inq, The Front Room Gallery displays the artwork of local artists.

Artist shows run on a bi-monthly basis from February to December. "If you are in the region of southern Maine, come on by for a visit!" says Jon White. Tell Jon that Store Front Windows sent you.

The Front Room Gallery is located at 378 Cottage Road in South Portland, right on the way to the historic Portland Headlight at Fort Williams.  If you get lost, call or e mail from your iPhone.

Tel : (207) 767-3835 E mail : info@frontroomgallery.com

My Old Master Download

Drag this high end art work off the page (after clicking it).  Title: My Old Master After Jorma Puranen. (He photographs Old Masters.  This is my photograph of his photograph of an Old Master).

Rubens Rounding Third : The Art Of Baseball

Matthew Rose takes a swing at the art of baseball in his prize-winning art stamp sheet, Rubens Rounding Third. Printed on gummed paper and perforated, the stamp sheet is the artist's ode to baseball, art, Rubens, stamps in a sexy twist on turning the corner, in this case third base.

This collector's piece is headed for Cooperstown, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Upstate New York, as well as a permanent place at the Philatelic Museum of Oaxaca (MUFI), which awarded the artist first prize in their world wide competition for 'Baseball Philately + The Art Inspired by Philately'.

"My guess is that Americans of all sizes will be interested in this work, not only those who love baseball and art," said Matthew, "but also those who grew up playing the game and found themselves distracted by some attractive fan in the crowd."

• Printed on gummed stamp sheets
• Signed and numbered by the artist
• Limited edition of 1000
  
• 296mm by 407mm (11½ by 16 inches)

Available from KEEP CALM GALLERY.  CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE FROM KEEP CALM GALLERY (LONDON).

Direct From the Artist: Price: 35 euros. Pay Pal accepted.

Jeanne-Claude, Christo Collaborator, Dies

Jeanne-Claude, 74, American artist and resident of New York City, died suddenly November 18, 2009 as a result of of complications due to a ruptured brain aneurysm.

Christo is deeply saddened by the passing of his wife, partner and collaborator and is committed to honor the promise they made to each other many years ago: The art of Christo and Jeanne-Claude will continue.

Christo is dedicated to completing their current works in progress: Over The River, Project for the Arkansas River, State of Colorado, and The Mastaba, Project for the United Arab Emirates, as Jeanne-Claude would wish.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude met in Paris, France in November, 1958, sharing the same date of birth and have worked together for 51 years creating temporary works of art.

It is Jeanne-Claude's wish that her body be donated to scientific research.

A memorial will be announced at a later date. Christo requests that flowers not be sent. Memorial gifts may be made to the charity of your choice.

Images: Above left, Jeanne-Claude; above, right, Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris, 1975.  Courtesy : Christo & Jeanne-Claude

From: http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/

A BOOK ABOUT DEATH - THE MOVIE

Angela Ferrara, an artist based in São Paulo, Brazil, created this film 
for the exhibition A Book About Death. Angela, contributor to 
A Book About Death – see her art here – worked tirelessly to not 
only learn new software applications but to curate the original 
show into themes and sync it all to the beautiful music of 
Garry Schyman – his piece, Praan.
Visit The Music Of Garry Schyman

Praan
Bhulbona ar shohojete
Shei praan e mon uthbe mete
Mrittu majhe dhaka ache
je ontohin praan
Bojre tomar baje bashi
She ki shohoj gaan
Shei shurete jagbo ami
(Repeat 3X)
Shei jhor jeno shoi anonde
Chittobinar taare
Shotto-shundu dosh digonto
Nachao je jhonkare!
Bojre tomar baje bashi
She ki shohoj gaan
Shei shurete jagbo am


Praan (English Translation)

The same stream of life
that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world
and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life
that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life
that is rocked in the ocean-cradle
of birth and of death,
in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious
by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages
dancing in my blood this moment.

Use of Garry Schyman's music for Praan – originally written for Where The Hell Is Matt? – has been generously granted by the composer.
 
Lyrics adapted from the poem "Stream Of Life" from Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore.

Music Credits: Music By Garry Schyman.  Drums and Engineering Dan Blessinger. Vocals Palbasha Siddique. Guitars and bass Kevin Dukes. Concertmaster Belinda Broughton. Orchestral contractor Ross DeRoche (DeRoche Music Inc.).  Vocal Contractor Melissa Nixon.

Anonymous Gallery : Rising Pop Star

Police Barrier Star by artist Kostas Seremetis (above) is one of several works by the artist, along with many works by  Ronnie Cutrone, Rammellzee and Romon Kimin Yang aka Rostar at the unusual art space, Anonymous Gallery, on the Bowery in New York City.

Their show, Subcultural Capital (Oct 14 - Nov 15, 2009) is described as the cultural knowledge and commodities acquired by members of a subculture, raising their status and helping differentiate them from members of other groups.

"Characterized by themes drawn from popular mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects, the exhibition, Subculture Capital integrates subculture and mass culture, pop art and post modernism," says the press release on this show. "Using techniques that include appropriation, collage, painting, sculpture, film, and performance, these four artists individually refine and stylize their cultural influences, manipulating them into embodiments of personal compilations."

While I'm very familiar with Ronnie Cutrone, an old Andy Warhol assistant who famously shot the "Scull photos" for Warhol's silkscreens among other pieces, the artist is more famous for his dastardly take on Woody Woodpecker and the American flag.  Carlo McCormick organizes a panel discussion on this show (tonight! Tuesday Nov 10, from  7 - 9 PM, 169 Bowery - Collective Hardware) and all the things it touches, pop and cop included.

The Philly Blahg Wars

Philadelphia has a new brand of cream cheese.

The newly launched artblagh is taking on the venerable artblog.org in what seems like a brawling battle of the Philadelphia art blogs.

Thing is the artblagh is fiction. Blagh of course is "blague," joke en français.  Très continental. And hey! Check out those ads! Are they paid? I clicked on the link for the media kit and felt like I was playing Asteroids with the plug pulled out. No link!

The authors of the artblagh are "harry and henrietta falloff" a loving take-off on the artblog's roberta fallon and libby rosoff.

In a recent post, the author "likesomebodycares" announces: "We will have a lot more little inside stories to share with you from time to time. They come out of our upcoming book, Filly Art World Memoir that we are working on. It will name names and we will not be spare anybody. We can't wait to start cashing in on it!!!"


Read and enjoy...them both!

Sentinelles : Une Oeuvre de Victoria Klotz

Victoria Klotz: Curieuse des rencontres que font les hommes avec la part sauvage du monde, Victoria Klotz mène, depuis 1997, un travail plastique qui interroge notre rapport à l'homme et à l'animalité. Artiste plasticienne, elle développe plusieurs pratiques : installations in situ, films vidéo, bandes audio, photographies et écrits.Sur la place du Junqué à Jurançon, elle propose de « mettre en scène des présences animales dans la ville. Plus exactement de véhiculer l'idée de niches écologiques dans le tissu urbain : la ville est aussi un écosystème, certaines espèces animales ont déjà investi ce territoire même si la plupart d'entre nous ne les voient pas : renards, rapaces, insectes jouent à cache-cache dans les interstices de la ville.  Nous continuons à penser les villes comme un espace exclusivement humanisé, alors que les observations des naturalistes et écologues ont analysé le phénomène des zones-refuges et quantifié cette présence animale invisible pour le quidam. 

« Pour matérialiser cette présence, je propose une série de dix structures autonomes : des mâts de bateau avec leurs balconnets d'observation où sont perchées des sculptures animalières hyperréalistes. Cette forme m'intéresse parce qu'elle est porteuse de rêves : la vigie d'un bateau voit les dangers et aussi l'espoir de la terre ferme.  Situer les animaux sur ces « nids de pie » les met en position d'observateurs, de sentinelles de notre monde. Cela les met aussi dans une position ambiguë, au milieu de nous et hors d'atteinte. Les animaux ont cette qualité de présence particulière : proches et inaccessibles à la fois. » – Victoria Klotz

--------------------

Le PCI a diffusé en janvier 2009 des appels à projets dans le domaine des arts visuels  pour la production d'interventions artistiques dans l'espace public. « En 2009, le PCI invite des artistes à occuper l'espace public afin de proposer un regard singulier sur l'espace de la ville, l'interroger et la bousculer dans sa stabilité apparente, en révéler l'invisible, découvrir des chemins de traverse, et peut-être quelques utopies. »
 

De très nombreux artistes ont manifesté leur intérêt pour cette résidence de création puisque 123 dossiers sont parvenus au PCI. En avril dernier, le jury s'est réuni et quatre artistes ont été retenus pour le sérieux et la pertinence de leur dossier et la qualité de leur démarche artistique.  Il s'agit de : Jocelyn Cottencin, Séverine Hubbard, Julien Celdran, Victoria Klotz.

Rubens Rounding Third: Artist Stamps Win First Prize

American artist Matthew Rose won the first place prize in the Philatelic Museum of Oaxaca (MUFI) world wide competition for: BASEBALL PHILATELY + THE ART INSPIRED BY PHILATELY. The stamp sheet, Rubens Rounding Third, brings art to baseball and baseball to art. A special print of the work, in a limited edition by the artist, is signed and dated and numbered (1000) available for purchase. The stamp sheet is A3 size, with perforations and a gummed back.

Price: 35 euros for the first 150 orders; 50 euros for each after. For all information on the signed art work, please contact: MATTHEW.ROSE.PARIS [at] GMAIL [dot] COM. Pay Pal accepted.

Below is the official press release from MUFI.

OAXACA, MEXICO–The Philatelic Museum of Oaxaca (MUFI) and the Baseball Academy Alfredo Harp Helú, launched earlier this year the Art Call BASEBALL PHILATELY, earning an International response of 100 entries.

Under the concept “The art inspired by Philately” the Philatelic Museum of Oaxaca launched earlier this year the Art Call BASEBALL PHILATELY + THE ART INSPIRED BY PHILATELY with the Baseball Academy Alfredo Harp Helú, which opens next month.

The turnout was large and diverse. Participants from countries like México, United States, France, Ukraine, Canada, Russia, Brazil, Colombia and Denmark did MUFI reach a total of 168 pieces which were reviewed by members of the Selection Jury.

The jury, made up of artists Jan Hendrix, Demián Flores and art critic Patricia Mendoza, who on Saturday, October 10 gathered at MUFI to examine the pieces and complete the selection stage at 12:00 hrs. October 10, 2009. The winning artists were:

First Place:
Artist: Matthew Rose (Paris, France)
Title: Rubens Rounding Third

Second Place:
Artist: Janice Lowry (Santa Ana, CA. USA)
Title: Baseball Philately

Third Place:
Artist: Luis Carlos Hurtado (Mexico, DF, Mexico)
Title: The King of Sports

Three Honorable Mentions:

Artist: Marco Abarca (Oaxaca, Mexico)
Title: The baseball postman Marco Abarca

Artist: Ricardo Hernández (Oaxaca, Mexico)
Title: Guerreros de Oaxaca

Artist: Marsel Onisko (Uzhgorod, Ukraine)
Title: One Player’s Dream

The next stage will be the exhibition of all participating works and delivery of stimuli and Honorable Mentions. This will be held on November 12, 2009 at the Baseball Academy Alfredo Harp Helú in San Bartolo Coyotepec, Oaxaca.

For more information contact the Philatelic Museum of Oaxaca
+52 (951) 5142366, 5142375 and 5168028 or email: info@mufi.org.mx.
Website: http://www.mufi.org.mx

MUSEUM OF PHILATELY OF OAXACA (MUFI)
Reforma 504, Centro Histórico, Oaxaca, Oax.

Queens Museum of Art : Poster For A Book About Death

Artist and curator Louise Weinberg asked me if I could produce a poster for The Queens Museum of Art.  Above is the result, with wonderful typography help from David Rager, a designer who produced one of the original posters for the exhibition at The Emily Harvey Foundation.  You are free to download and print this out; the high resolution PDF will scale quite large.

This image is from my series, A Perfect Friend.

If you are in Queens this weekend, please attend the opening.  More than 100 new works have been mailed in to the Queens Museum over the last week.  "And there are more coming everyday," said Louise.  Photographs of the installation will be posted soon.

In the meantime...

DOWNLOAD THE QUEENS MUSEUM OF ART POSTER FOR A BOOK ABOUT DEATH.

Re: Messages - Allan Revich & Melissa McCarthy In Mysterious Correspondence

It's a strange and beautiful correspondence story, this one. Here a tangle of interested parties write cloud-like missives to each other.  Roy writes Bonnie about fruit, a suit and a spare key,  Caroline writes Miranda : "...and Jake is just now getting home, desperate for the remote (it's in my bag). Won't he be surprised?"  and Jules writes Sarah about the mysterious nature of it all : "...It all means something, even if you don't know what."
 
RE: Messages is a book of brief correspondences between artists Allan Revich and Melissa McCarthy, who may, or may not, be sending mysterious messages to each other. The correspondence is real, but the messages might be a different kind of real.

Fun, strange, and poetic this correspondence novel-poem skirts Internet chat rooms by taking it to a quiet white page and beeping not in 404 Page Not Found blips but in mystery haikus.  And it's free. (as a PDF).

Download RE: Mesages here, right now:  http://www.lulu.com/items/volume_62/1960000/1960815/2/print/RE_Messages_replies.pdf

Allan's full-fledged poetic output/storefront is on Lulu if you want a printed copy: Go here, right now: http://stores.lulu.com/revich

Robert Crumb Does God's Work

Robert Crumb, hero to generations of pot heads and comic book obsessives (both readers and creators), author of "Keep On Truckin' " and "Fritz the Cat," has just unveiled his biggest project ever: The Bible.  More specifically, Genesis. Here God makes man (Adam) and woman (Eve) and of course then all HELL breaks loose.

There's God Himself on the cover and starring in all 50 chapters of the first book of the Bible.  Meet the Tree of Life, The Forbidden Fruit, The Snake, Cain and Able and all your Bible friends. Creation and destruction, floods and famine.  It's all there packed to the brim with drama and early Man anxiety. Illustrated in his signature cross-hatch genius, Crumb the once-underground artist is now taking on the Bible Belt and Beyond.  This book is certain to be the stocking stuffer of the Christmas Season and probably around February you'll see the first edition up on eBay for about five times the cover price.

It's in hardcover from W.W. North & Co. And only $25. More than 100,000 copies are already in print. And yes, of course, you'll be able to get a copy from Amazon. What's next? The Koran? Or The Farmer's Almanac?  Bravo Robert Crumb!  Read the story from NPR.

Matthew Rose : West Prize 2009

Matthew Rose artworks entered into West Prize 2009.  Above: Les Affaires Avant Tout (2009). 1.4 m x 1.2 m. Collage on board. This work, among others, will appear in MASTERS OF COLLAGE, published by Lark Publishing, due out May 2010.  Click here to see more Matthew Rose collage works, installations and projects.

A Book About Death : A Short Film By Artist Jac Charlesworth

This film was made for A Book About Death by UK artist Jac Charlesworth. It was screened opening night, September 10, 2009 at The Emily Harvey Foundation in New York.  If you repost this on your blog, please credit Jac Charlesworth, A Book About Death and The Emily Harvey Foundation.

I Met The Walrus

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced him to do an interview. 38 years later, Levitan, director Josh Raskin and illustrator James Braithwaite have collaborated to create an animated short film using the original interview recording as the soundtrack. A spellbinding vessel for Lennon's boundless wit and timeless message, I Met the Walrus was nominated for the 2008 Academy Award for Animated Short.

CALIFORNIA ARTIST JONATHON KEATS REBUILDS WORLD ECONOMY WITH ANTIMATTER

CALIFORNIA ARTIST JONATHON KEATS REBUILDS WORLD ECONOMY WITH ANTIMATTER – "CASH IS THE FOUNDATION OF ANY ECONOMY..."

October 15, 2009 - In the wake of global economic collapse, a conceptual artist has introduced a hedge against future catastrophe by creating a mirror economy designed to skyrocket as world markets plummet. The first holistic response to the great recession, this far-reaching financial innovation was formulated by Jonathon Keats, whose previous artistic enterprises include applying string theory to real estate development.
[PHOTO OF JONATHON KEATS BY: JENNIFER DESSINGER]

"Economic equilibrium is upset by our unbalanced pursuit of material wealth," explains Mr. Keats. "My plan is to offset materialism with modern science, by exploiting the economic potential of antimatter, which is the physical opposite of anything made with atoms, from luxury condos to private jets."

Backed by private Swiss funding, his scheme will be implemented beginning on November 12, 2009, when the First Bank of Antimatter opens in San Francisco's Monadnock Building, the location of Modernism Gallery.

The bank will serve as a hub for antimatter transactions worldwide, eventually financing the building of antimatter infrastructure and providing the public with a full range of investment opportunities. "But our first order of business will be printing money," says Mr. Keats. "Cash is the foundation of any economy, and an anti-economy is no exception." 

Issued in three convenient denominations, ranging from 10,000 positrons to 1,000,000 positrons, and initially trading at an exchange rate of $10 to $1,000, the anti-money will be backed by antimatter stored in the bank's vault. Because matter and antimatter annihilate each other on contact, antimatter positrons will be continuously produced on location by decay of the radioactive isotope potassium-40.

"We want our customers to be confident that the antimatter is available on demand, but we're advising clients to conduct transactions strictly in paper currency," says Mr. Keats, who has used his artistry to design the money in multiple colors including red, blue and green. "The paper is cotton rag, archival enough to survive economic armageddon" he promises. "It's an essential asset in any balanced portfolio. Antimatter is a natural haven for wealth when everything becomes worthless."

                          *          *          *
"The First Bank of Antimatter" opens at Modernism Gallery on Thursday, November12, 2009, with a public reception from 5:30 to 8:00 PM. The gallery is located at 685 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94105. The phone number is 415/541-0461. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 10:00 to 5:30. For more information, see www.modernisminc.com.

*****

Jonathon Keats is a conceptual artist, fabulist, and critic residing in San Francisco. Recently he choreographed the first ballet for honeybees at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. He has also exhibited extraterrestrial abstract artwork at the Judah L. Magnes Museum, unveiled a prototype ouija voting booth for the 2008 election at the Berkeley Art Museum, attempted to genetically engineer God in a petri dish in collaboration with scientists at the University of California, opened the world's first porn theater for house plants in the town of Chico, and petitioned Berkeley to pass a fundamental law of logic, a work commissioned by the city's annual Arts Festival. His projects have been documented by PBS, NPR, and the BBC World Service, garnering favorable attention in periodicals ranging from The San Francisco Chronicle and The Washington Post, to Nature and New Scientist, to Flash Art and ArtUS. Additionally, Keats serves as the art critic for San Francisco Magazine and as a columnist for both Artweek and Wired Magazine. He's the author of two novels and an award-winning collection of stories recently published by Random House, as well as museum catalogue essays, monographs, and artist's books, and he is currently writing a book on linguistics for Oxford University Press. Since graduating summa cum laude from Amherst College in 1994, he has been a visiting artist at California and Montana State Universities, and a guest lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as the recipient of Yaddo and MacDowell fellowships. He is represented by Modernism Gallery in San Francisco. He can be contacted at jonathon_keats@yahoo.com

Yoshi Wada : Pipe Dreams at the Emily Harvey Foundation

ZIP ZIP CLE USB

Nicholas Mir Chaikin, of Spill.net, recommends this Lego-style USB key (clé USB).  See: www.myzipzip.fr.

Aunt Barbara's Lard

A Book About Death Posters : Free

Download, free, the 8 Posters for A BOOK ABOUT DEATH. Poster designs by Julia Hoffmann, Cecil Touchon, Robert Mars, Caterina Verde, David Rager, Osiris Hertz & Matthew Rose.

Exhibition opens September 10, 2009 at the Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery, 537 Broadway, NYC, NY 10012.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE POSTERS.

Culture Hall : Apply Now

Culture Hall, a community for artists to share their work with other artists, curators and collectors, is curated with a specific interest in early to mid-career artists. CH provides select artists free 50 mb portfolios with easy to use tools for presenting their art in the best way possible on the Internet. Membership is available by invitation or free application. Check them out... and browse the artists on-site.

Above, Joshua Luther's pdqb, 2005, inkjet on wood, 16" x 32".   Luther, who lives and works in Salt Lake City, Utah, works the conceptual and digital modes with aplomb: "Orientation is such a relative notion, in actual space orientation is completely arbitrary. Yet we as humans determine our world view in terms of up and down, good and bad."  The syntax of geometry vis à vis where I am, where you are, where we are. Minding your ps and qs, your ds and bs.

Apply to Culture Hall by clicking here.  Tell them Store Front Windows sent you and you'll get a big hello.

Michael Jackson : RIP

MICHAEL JACKSON by Andy Warhol
Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas
776.2 x 66 cm. Circa 1984
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, NEW YORK

The 4th Plinth : One And Other

Live stream of people standing on the 4th Plinth in London from One And Other.  See the live stream here:  http://www.oneandother.co.uk/

A BOOK ABOUT DEATH - CALL FOR ART WORKS

A BOOK ABOUT DEATH : ARTISTS CONTRIBUTE 500 POST CARDS EACH TO CREATE AN UNBOUND BOOK ABOUT DEATH. AN HOMAGE TO RAY JOHNSON, A CELEBRATION OF EMILY HARVEY, AN GLOBAL EXPLORATION OF DEATH.

NO LIMIT TO THE NUMBER OF ARTISTS CONTRIBUTING. CDs, DVDs & OBJECTS ACCEPTED - SEND 500.

DO AN HOMAGE TO MICHAEL JACKSON, YOUR PARENTS, SOMEONE YOU KNEW WHO HAS PASSED AWAY. MAKE A DRAWING, A COLLAGE, A PAINTING, TAKE A PHOTO.  PRODUCE 500 POST CARDS, WRITE SOMEWHERE ON THE CARD: A BOOK ABOUT DEATH.  ADD YOUR WEB SITE AND SEND TO THE GALLERY.

EXHIBITION AT THE EMILY HARVEY FOUNDATION GALLERY IN NEW YORK CITY. OPENING: THURSDAY 10 SEPTEMBER 2009. EXHIBITION: 10 - 22 SEPTEMBER 2009.

TWITTER? PUT OUT A TWEET ABOUT THE ARTIST CALL!

CLICK HERE FOR ALL INFO AND TO SEE WORKS ALREADY SUBMITTED.

FREE IRAN

Contribute to : A BOOK ABOUT DEATH

Iran : Green Revolution, Bloody Massacre

Assorted Twitter Feed from Iranian Students on Sunday Night in Tehran... as reported by Andrew Sullivan (Daily Dish/The Atlantic).


My Father has a truck load of ballot boxes that were to be burned in the back of his truck.

i eats some pills and wanna sleep and i scared that if they can find me ...i going...thx for your supports....

typing as fastest as I can in bth English&Farsi,Still we need outside help,I really don't want to be captured by Ansar
Once again I thank everyone in the world. No matter if Ahmadi stays or not, I'm proud to have clasped such supportive hands.

URGENT JUST IN, there r TANKS in front of the interior ministry of tehran in valiasr st. & fatemi CAREFUL

I can't find my friends on streets.
Rasht, glass splinters on the streets, riot police not hesitating to beat men, women and even kids
From Enghelab Sq friend just call me, Police & unknown forces beating everybody for no apparent reason!

Correction, no bus burned, but three cars.

dawn is breaking. can hear prayers from mosques.

NAME THAT HOUSE at MUMOK

iPanic

iPanic

By HOLLY BRUBACH, FOGELSON-LUBLINER

Sr Juan's Hot & Spicey Pickles

Sr Juan's Hot & Spicey Pickles: A Hot Snack In The Face.

CONFESSIONS - THE $1 MILLION INSTALLATION

Matthew Rose exhibition at Soma Gallery, Cape May, NJ. May 9 - June 14, 2009. 

Price for entire installation: $1 million. Yes, $1 million for 800 pieces (or so).  You need a room big enough for this. 

Contact: SOMA GALLERY for more information.

More installation photos, click here.

Mail Art & Confessions

CLICK HERE FOR Article from Roberta Fallon & Libby Rosoff on some recent Mail Art and Confessions in Cape May.

Poor Richard's Inn : Cape May, NJ

POOR RICHARD'S, built in 1882 as the private residence of a Cape May, NJ hotel owner, has been run as an inn since 1977. It's one of that small number of owner-operated inns that offer exceptional overnight accommodations in National Landmark buildings. Each has its own special mix of style and service.

Harriet Sosson is the inn keeper and an artist as well.  She exhibits at Soma Gallery in Cape May, NJ.

"At Poor Richard's we try to strike a balance between today's informality and yesterday's charm, without being pretentious or overbearing," says Harriet. "We're friendly and helpful, but respect your privacy; and while the rooms are furnished with period pieces, our primary goal is to have guests feel comfortable and 'at home'—we're not aiming at strict Victorian authenticity...and our prices aren't too outrageous."  Visit the web site: Poor Richard's Inn.

And do say hello to Harriet from Storefrontwindows.

Confessions : Matthew Rose at Soma Gallery, Cape May

Confessions, Obsessions & Indiscretions at the Soma Gallery, Cape May, New Jersey.  From May 9 - June 14, 2009.

From The New York Times May 12 2009

As Storefronts Become Vacant, Ads Arrive

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD

Almost every category of advertising is declining precipitously in this economy, but there is one that is thriving.

Taking advantage of all the abandoned retail spaces in urban areas, marketers are leasing them at cut-rate prices and filling them with their ads.

At first, advertisers saw storefront advertising as a poor man’s billboard — that is, a bad thing. Now, they see it as a poor man’s billboard — that is, brilliantly frugal.

Ads for Intel that went up on Monday capitalized on the bankruptcies of stores like the Disney Store, Domain Home and Comp- USA, filling their former shops with digital billboards. 

Elsewhere, barren-looking store windows have been plastered over by ads for Nestea, Snickers, Delta Air Lines and Conservation International.

“All you have to do is walk out the door for lunch and notice the number of vacant storefronts — and they tend to be in prime areas, in major thoroughfares, and they’re unused space — so why not get in there and put a message in there?” said Peter Sherman, the managing director of BBDO West, San Francisco, part of the Omnicom Group.

BBDO West is running ads for Conservation International in storefronts in New York, San Francisco and Berkeley. Advertisers can rent the storefronts for a fraction of what landlords charge retailers. 

Mr. Sherman is paying an average of $500 for three-month stints in prime locations. (An outdoor billboard in comparable spots would cost $50,000, he said.) 

In some cases, he said, the landlords even donated space, both because they liked Conservation International’s environmental message, and because it is more appealing to have something in their windows other than dust and grime.

“It looks better for something to be going on in the storefront,” Mr. Sherman said. “If that something is a positive message regarding the environment, that’s a win for both sides.”

The retail vacancy rate rose to 11.2 percent in the first quarter, the highest it has been since the early 1990s, according to CBRE Econometric Advisors, a unit of the CB Richard Ellis Group. And some real estate owners say an ad helps, literally, cover up the problem.

“The way I look at it, when somebody moves out of a space it looks terrible,” said William Walther, the president of Granite Companies Asset Management, which owns several buildings in Manhattan. “Retail use is animated, because you see all the things that are in the space and people are in the space, and coming and going. When people move out, it’s just a big, vacant room and not very attractive,” he said.

Though advertisers pay only 10 to 15 percent of what a retailer would, Mr. Walther says he will take that. “We still have taxes, we have insurance, we have electricity that we have to pay on the property,” he said. “The market started to change, so now we look at it as, ‘When’s the next campaign, fellas?’ ” 

Storefront advertisers say that since the downturn, real estate owners have become eager to lease their space, making ads in prominent spots more common.

Ray Lee, the managing director of real estate at Inwindow Outdoor, a company that creates storefront advertisements, used to have to court real estate owners, but now they are calling him, he said.

“In the last year and a half, it’s been much easier to acquire locations,” Mr. Lee said. “They’re realizing the money’s important, of course, and they’re realizing they don’t want to be sitting on vacant spaces anymore — they want to be more ambitious in terms of covering their windows.”

Inwindow Outdoor executives said the company had had record revenue in the last two quarters. And Inwindow’s ads are running in highly trafficked places. A former high-end furniture store in Greenwich Village in Manhattan is now an ad for Snickers. A Delta ad covers the windows of a former restaurant in Midtown Manhattan. 

A group of Intel ads that began running Monday has gotten particularly good placement because of other companies’ misfortune: ads are running at several sites where the former tenant declared bankruptcy. 

These include the Disney Store in San Francisco (its operator, Hoop Holdings, filed for bankruptcy last year), a CompUSA in Chicago (the company filed for bankruptcy in 2007 and is operating under a new owner), and a former Domain Home store in the Flatiron district of Manhattan (Domain filed for bankruptcy in 2008).

“We were able to time the market well to find a couple even better locations than what we originally anticipated,” said Jamie Eaton, group strategy director at OMD, the media-buying unit of the Omnicom Group, which advised Intel on its strategy. “As the companies make a transition, the great thing for the landscape is you’re able to cover up something that may have been a visual sore point.”

Inwindow has also changed the storefront ads so they are more than just posters hanging inside a store. It now designs custom vinyl coverings that adhere to a store’s brick and glass, and are cut to fit over doors, ledges and other architectural elements.

The Snickers ad is composed of several panels that fit over the building’s panes of glass, while an ad for Nestea is plastered over both the windows and the doors of a former shop in Midtown Manhattan, making it look more like a street-level billboard than abandoned retail space.

The potential is even bigger when marketers incorporate technology, said Steve Birnhak, the chief executive of Inwindow Outdoor. “If you look at vacant real estate as a shell, it’s the perfect environment to safehouse any technology you want that lives within the confines of that building,” he said. 

The Intel ads house screens displaying slightly time-delayed text messages from passers-by about their hopes for the future. And for “Coraline,” a fantasy movie, Inwindow created holograms in dark retail spaces. “Children would appear out of thin air in an environment that looked to be 20 feet deep, and float up to the window,” he said. 

For Mr. Sherman, the storefronts he used for Conservation International did double duty. They were cheap, centrally located and perfectly matched his message, which compared destruction of the environment to the destruction of the economy. The windows carried messages like “Our shopping districts are starting to look as barren as our rain forests” and “Ignore climate change and a lot more than our shops will be going under.”

Fluxibition & Natural Born Fluxus

 Natural Born Fluxus is that tendency among artists to engage in Fluxus-like behaviors even if they never heard of Fluxus. Or possibly we could say that Fluxus ideas come out of a naturally occurring tendency in all artists that we now think of as Fluxus. It could be that the free wheeling nature of Fluxus allows artists to enjoy their creative, or at least peculiar, tendencies in an unfettered way that other forms of organized artistic activities do not. The sorts of things that delight a Fluxus artist tend to be of an ephemeral nature, contain a humorous element and refer to that mysterious some-thing that makes one laugh at a joke; call it irony or the unexpected twist, Fluxus artists enjoy a good surprise and a cleaver turn of phrase. They are willing to remain innocent enough to be easily amused and fall for a good trick. It is this adherence to a child-like sense of wonder that this book hopes to illustrate.  



News from the Fluxmuseum:  

Call for Works

FLUXHIBITION #3
JULY, 2009
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fluxhibition #3 - Boxes, Cases, Kits and Containers

Greetings! Fluxhibition #2 was a great success thanks to all of the great contributions see the catalog at: http://fluxmuseum.org/ I had planned on Fluxhibition #3 being in 2010 HOWEVER a venue become available for this summer at The University of Texas at Arlington. I, in fact will actually be graduating with a BFA from UTA in about a week (after 35 years!). There is a current Collage Museum call out for an exhibition entitled Thinking Inside of the Box - A Survey of Box Assemblage Art see: (http://collagemuseum.com/thinking-box-call-for-works.html) Deadline May 15th ( PARTICIPATE IN THIS ONE TOO!). I thought that, since I was able to secure the university venue, it would be great to invite my fluxfriends to contribute a fluxbox for Fluxhibition #3 and later I will combine the two bodies of box works for an additional exhibit later in 2009 or in 2010. So your Fluxbox contribution will get at least double exposure. SPREAD THE WORD This is rather short notice so I would appreciate it a great deal if you would post the following call on your blogs and/or mail out to your email lists. If you happen to know addresses for some of the old timers, please inform them of this call - maybe we could get some first generation participation. My best to all, Cecil Touchon

http://fluxmuseum.org http://collagemuseum.com http://fluxuslaboratories.org CALL FOR PARTICIPATION INTERNATIONAL FLUXHIBITION #3 - Fluxus Boxes, Cases, Kits and Containers by Contemporary Fluxus Artists Call for Works - Deadline: June 30th, 2009 (sooner if possible) No Jury, all works accepted. Fluxhibition #3 will consist of Fluxus Boxes, Kits, Cases and Containers and/or Fluxus Objects (to be placed in containers or boxes by the museum staff for the exhibit). An exhibition will be held in July at The University of Texas at Arlington, Texas. Works contributed will become part of the permanent collection of the FluxMuseum (fluxmuseum.org) and will be used for additional future exhibitions. A catalog will be produced for the show and available for purchase after the exhibit. Additionally, images of all works will become a permanent exhibit on the FluxMuseum web site. What to do: 1) Create a Fluxus box, case, kit or container - use classic themes or come up with something new. 2) Send Fluxboxes, Fluxcases, Fluxcontainers and/or Fluxobjects by June 30th, 2009 3) Come to the show if you can 4) if so inclined, write or contribute a related essay for the catalog 5) When available, buy a catalog of the show. FluxMuseum 6955 Pinon Street Fort Worth, Texas 76116  USA 817-944-4000

     

Art Show Case at Spill : Paris

Spill, the award-winning Paris-based web design firm, is throwing an art party on May 6 at their palatial digs on Rue Faubourg Poissoniere 75010 Paris. Led by tech and design geniuses Nicholas Mir Chaikin and Liz Stirling, longtime friends and clients of Lalande Digital Art Press, Spill has won more Clic d'Or awards than just about anyone.

The exhibition includes Paris-based artists Sarah de Teliga, Roubiou + Toft Anderson AKA Moto 777, Jean-Pierre Valette, Matthew Rose. Click the image at left to enlarge to see all details.

Keep Calm & Don't Sneeze

http://www.workforfood.nu/dontsneeze/

Recession Proofs

Times are tough, but they are also fascinating. Moira McLaughlin decided to challenge herself and the world to make artwork and collages that reflect our economic crisis. The result: "Recession Proofs."  She is welcoming your recession proofs. (Moira's work is illustrated, here).

The rules:

1. You can only use images that you got for free: junk mail, grocery store circulars, j. crew catalogs, free weekly newspapers, etc.

1. Title must reflect current events or your response to the Great Recession.

3. You can use found objects from around your house, for example a plastic bag, but NOT an object that you bought, i.e. a magazine you paid for last year.

4. You may purchase the panel for the foundation of the collage.

The idea is to make art out of things that are free and show that creativity truly is "Recession Proof."
 
Email her at moira@dreamdogsart.com

John Cage

Article: John Cage's Shoes, Robert Storr Lecture in Paris. Here Cage is standing in front of a painting by Gerhard Richter.

The Amazing xkcd Comic Strip - Meat Cereals

This one is called MEAT CEREALS.  More xkcd here.

Lauri Lynnxe Murphy's Menagerie

Lauri Lynnxe Murphy, artist, Denver, Colorado examines another world.  Left: Xololongus Tentacuatle, 2008.

Intelligent Design

Another Hot One From Caterina Verde

Fingerpainting On Mars

Fingerpainting on Mars is a time capsule by Little Shiva, artist, designer and fashion forward thinker. The theme of this new publication is contemporary art: go check out the space dust at FINGERPAINTING ON MARS.

The magazine is available in France at the Centre Pompidou and galerie du jour - agnès b.

See the website for other locations or order this jewel online.

A BOOK ABOUT DEATH OPEN CALL

A BOOK ABOUT DEATH OPEN CALL TO ALL ARTISTS, WRITERS, PHOTOGRAPHERS.

Exhibition in NYC at the Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery.  Opening 10 September.  Contribute, Participate, Distribute.

Brian Lesteberg At Culturehall

Garage, Sheridan County, ND, 2007. Copyright Brian Lesteberg

Brian Lesteberg is a young and talented photographer based in Minneapolis. His work was published in 25 Under 25: Up-and-Coming American Photographers, Volume 2 released this spring by powerHouse and CDS Books at the Center for Documentary Studies. While I was still living in Minneapolis, Brian shot an unforgettable series, Raised to Hunt, about his experiences growing up in culture of hunting in North Dakota. He has since further explored northern environments in his more recent projects: Places of Worship, Portraits of Home, and The Broncos of Miles City.

His work is featured at Culturehall, an online artist portfolio.