Andy Warhol Receives A Letter From The Campbell Soup Company - 1964

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE & READ.

GAY RIGHTS: SIGNS OF THE TIMES

See original post: http://twitpic.com/2bq5h4

The Unbearable Lightness Of Mercede Johnston

While reading Gail Collins column in today's New York Times, I learned that a subplot in the made-for-television romance, drama, tragedy, comedy that is Sarah Palin and her brood and her brood's made-for-television romance, drama, etc., Mercede Johnston, Levi's sister, has been blogging away up in Wasilla. And she tells all.  Well, she tells as much as she can tell and she gripes away in between photos of herself and Bristol and Levi and stories about four-wheeling up in Alaska.
 
So if you haven't spent an hour of your life reading through the backwoods of the Levi Johnston - Bristol Palin story told from a family member in a free-form diary, enjoy Mercede Johnston.

http://www.mercedejohnston.com/

Shakespeare & Company Paris

The bulletin board at Shakespeare & Company, Paris.  Notes and photomaton shots from visitors in the kids reading corner at the famed Paris bookshop on the Left Bank.

Collage By Cecil Touchon

Dallas artist, Cecil Touchon, takes his work on the road to Santa Fe's Nuart Gallery, in an expansive exhibition from his "Post Dogmatist" series – collage-inspired paintings and collages in all varieties of post dogmatist incarnations.

Touchon's painted works on canvas are based upon his own collage compositions and provide a kind of hyper mirror of the found bits and pieces in carefully produced designs that echo the broken record of visual data found on street walls throughout the world.  Using fragments of torn poster texts and type, the artist has re-imagined visual consciousness as still photos with beguiling, moving parts. Strict color schemes – and sometimes Bauhaus-inspired designs – offer a visual fluency of not only modernist tendencies, but contemporary ones.  The results are rich and well-wrought visual poems stripped down to their barest of bones.

(Pictured above: Post Dogmatist Painting 287, acrylic on birch panel, 40 x 30 inches).

Touchon's The Art of Collage runs through July 4, 2010.  Click to see installation shots.

Details: The Art of Collage/Cecil Touchon. The Nuart Gallery 670 Canyon Road  Santa Fe, NM 87501 Telephone: 505.988.3888

Wordpapering The World: Neolipic By John M. Bennett

Just out, Neolipic by John M. Bennett is a linguistic masterpiece.  And it's a free eBook from lulu.com.

About Neolipic: 158 poems (or barely constrained outbursts) written in the Spring of 2009 in which John M. Bennett tries to reformat the world with a swarm of linguistic distortions and formal jiggling, bursting out of the thin shirt of consciousness to reveal what's out there and also what's in there. The poems are textual, visual, aural, multi-lingual (English, Spanish - or their simulacra - and bits of French and Globbolalia). Unlike anything else written. 

Here is what others have said about John Bennett and his Neolipic:

"A bypassing into the region, a crossing over the border and a controlled/violent journey into the genius that is John M. Bennett. A living legend that in so many ways serves us that geography that we so richly need." – Chris Mansel

 

"Not merely a poet, John M. Bennett is almost a species unto himself. Every utterance becomes poetry, from the sweetest lines to the raw animal grunts that initially designated something new was happening on the planet. And new is what you get with Neolipic. It's the new word, the new way to allow words to happen, to allow the senses to reconfigure around what the mouth is doing. It's all charted here in Bennet's unbridled eruptions in which the past is erased and the future is impossible. To read this book is like bleeding for joy. A master at work. Don't be a sap. Download it!" –  Jake Berry

Click here to go to Neolipic's download site from lulu.com. 

Rob White's The Art Hole

UK artist, Rob White has just relaunched his online art shop THE ARTHOLE.

The irreverent British artist is selling original drawings, paintings and prints.  The A3-sized prints are produced on Hahnemuhle Torchon 285gsm acid free archival paper, which has a bright white parchment-like surface.

The twelve colour digital print technology guarantees high definition reproduction with UV safe pigments. Each print is limited edition and signed by the artist.

To go shopping: www.thearthole.co.uk/shop

Marc Quinn At White Cube London

Marc Quinn, Buck & Allanah, 2009.

Orbital sanded and flap wheeled lacquered bronze
65 3/4 x 41 5/16 x 17 11/16 in. (167 x 105 x 45 cm). © The artist; Courtesy White Cube.

Photo: Roger Wooldridge.

See the full article by Giovanni Aloi  from Whitehot Magazine.

Mark's Interiors of Boca Raton, Florida

SFW's loves consignment shops of all flavors. These small and intimate stores peek into the recent and distant past culling out for display (and sale) some of the more interesting pieces of our lives – for sale!

Mark's Interiors of Boca Raton, Florida is the kind of place where you find the rare and unusual item whether it's a 1940s Waterford cut glass pitcher or a pop art style pair of bar chairs, a cool cigarette stand, 1950s brass lamp or turn-of-the-century etchings.  The shop is packed with pre-owned furniture, all excellent quality, at prices that simply astonish. 

Located on 67 South Federal Highway, Boca Raton, Florida (Tel: 561.391.1052), Mark's shop is nestled in an entire block of high-end consignment shops.

Mark has been in business for nearly 20 years.  If you have estate furniture and household furnishings, he will come to your house and inventory everything, and once in the store, every item is tagged and computerized.

Web site: http://www.marksconsignment.com/

Public memorial in honor of Nancy Spero

Public memorial in honor of Nancy Spero
Sunday, April 18, 3:00pm

The Great Hall at Cooper Union
7 East 7th Street
New York, NY 10003 

Photo © Abe Frajndlich, 1987

Galerie Lelong, the Nancy Spero & Leon Golub Foundation for the Arts, and Paul, Philip and Steven Golub are pleased to announce a public memorial in honor of Nancy Spero on Sunday, April 18th at 3:00pm at The Great Hall at Cooper Union (7 East 7th Street). Speakers will include Robert Storr, Jon Bird, Donna De Salvo, Bartomeu Marí, Benjamin Buchloh, Kiki Smith, Christopher Lyon, Hans Ulrich Obrist, and a musical performance by Nora York. A reception will follow.

Nancy Spero (b.1926), one of the most influential artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, passed away on October 18, 2009 at the age of 83. For over fifty years, Spero made the female experience central to her art's formal and thematic development. Her radical career encompassed many significant visual and cultural movements from Conceptual Art to Post-Modernism to Feminism.

After studying at the Art Institute of Chicago and l'École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Spero moved to New York in 1964. In Europe, Spero produced her first significant works, the Black Paintings—somber, figurative works allusive of existential oppositions and emotional turmoil. These works were made at a time when Pop Art and Minimalism were the focuses in the art world, marking Spero's first consistent oppositions to the prevailing conventions in art making. Nancy Spero's return to the U.S. in 1964 coincided with the ongoing Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. In this charged political climate, her passionate engagement with these issues engendered the groundbreaking aesthetic style and the political and feminist themes for which she is now known. The War Series was Spero's first significant body of work on paper, a support she would favor for the majority of her working career. Described by Spero as "broadsides," The War Series depicted women and children as v ictims of war and suffering, a theme that would occupy Spero for the next forty years.

Following The War Series, Spero produced two bodies of work: the Artaud Paintings and the Codex Artaud series, based on the French poet Antonin Artaud, whom Spero described as the "most extreme writer of the 20th Century." In reading Artaud, Spero coined the term "victimage," making a parallel between Artaud's language and her feeling of the "loss of tongue" as a female artist in a male-dominated art world. One of Spero's great inventions was the fracturing of text and image in the Codex Artaud works, which some critics have described as the first works of Post-Modernism. Following the Artaud series, Spero began work on her pioneering and critically lauded scroll series: Hours of the Night, 1974 (collection Whitney Museum of American Art), Notes in Time on Women, 1979 (collection Museum of Modern Art, New York) and Torture of Women, 1976 (collection National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa).

In 2005, Spero created Cri du Coeur, her last monumental scroll work on paper, which depicts a continuous band of ancient Egyptian female mourners from the tomb of Ramose of Thebes. The striking images in Cri du Coeur reference women mourning losses in Iraq, Kashmir, and New Orleans, at the time of the making of this work. A similarly important work, Maypole/Take No Prisoners was presented in the entrance hall of the Italian Pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale. Maypole/Take No Prisoners, a thirty-five-foot-tall hanging mobile featured severed heads dangling from red ribbons, commenting on the war in Iraq.

In 2008, the Museu d'art Contemporani Barcelona organized a full-scale retrospective, Nancy Spero: Dissidances, which traveled to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, and the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville. The Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris will present a retrospective exhibition of her work in 2010.

Nancy Spero was married to the artist Leon Golub (1922–2004) for over fifty years. In 1996, together they received the Hiroshima Art Prize—awarded to contemporary artists for their achievements in promoting world peace—and exhibited at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art. Spero is survived by her three sons—Stephen Golub of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania; Philip Golub of Paris; and Paul Golub of Paris—six grandchildren; and sister, Carol Newman of Portland, Oregon.

Tax Form For Freelancers By Sam Potts

Originally published in The New York Times (Link).

John Himmelfarb : Geared Up At Luise Ross Gallery New York City, NY

John Himmelfarb's astonishing new sculptures in bronze and plywood as well as large-scale paintings are on view at the Luise Ross Gallery in New York City through April 17, 2010. 

See the work: John Himmelfarb at Luise Ross Gallery.

Himmelfarb is one of the most innovative artists working today.  His sense of line in everything he produces is absolutely his own.  You can see it in the drawings, prints and now in the sculptures.  His work is collected across the United States and in Europe.  He recently produced the iron gates for the Duncan home (and collection) in Lincoln, Nebraska.

The work pictured here is a new turn in the artist's oeuvre – taking to plywood to create one of his signature trucks.  A large scale (actual truck) was recently produced and a slide show is now on his web site, here: CONVERSION, LINCOLN, NEBRASKA.

Himmelfarb lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.  His most recent book is a compendium of his prints: The Prints of John Himmelfarb : A Catalogue Raisonné 1967 - 2004.  (Hudson Hills Press, Manchester, Vermont).

Surrealestate: Art Call For Mobius

SURREALESTATE is an artist call for works to benefit Mobius, the Boston-based artist run cultural center.

Mobius Fundraiser and art bash for Mobius Artrages 2010 is looking for all sorts of artist-made post cards (4 x 6 inches) to go towards keeping Mobius in business.

DEADLINE: MAY 1, 2010
THEME: SURREALESTATE
ARTBASH/FUNDRAISER: MAY 8, 2010.



SEND WORK TO: Jane Wang
Mobius, Inc.
725 Harrison Ave, Suite One
Boston MA 02118 USA

Performances, installations and art goings on are promised for the evening.  The theme for Artrages 2010: SURREALESTATE was conceived by Mobius' board member, Lou Susi, a performance and visual artist.

Mobius is teetering on bankruptcy and the SURREALESTATE fundraiser a last-ditch effort to raise money/awareness to buy the space Mobius has been renting.

DETAILS ABOUT THE CALL:

A 4x6 postcard with one side containing your artwork and the other side with a handwritten or printed or typed word/sentence/phrase -anything you would like to say - in ANY LANGUAGE - related to Surrealestate.

Your handwritten signature somewhere would be greatly appreciated!

What surrealestate means to you is completely open.

The cards will be exhibited and then sold or used as prizes during Mobius Artrages 2010.

All materials will be accepted - the DEADLINE IS MAY 1ST, 2010 to allow a week to organize the cards for the exhibition.  No materials will be returned, the works will be considered 100% donations to Mobius, Inc.

In lieu of a blog, this public facebook page has been set up for all the cards submitted.

If you are a facebook member, please upload a photo of your work (just the artwork side) and tag your name and feel free to add any comments/links about yourself and your work - however again please to not reveal what it says on the "hidden" side of your card. This will be revealed at Mobius Artrages 2010.

If YOU ARE NOT A FACEBOOK member, please email a jpeg file of your work to

Jane@mobius.org
Subject: 4x6 SURREALESTATE Photo

and your photo will be posted.

PLEASE SEND YOUR POSTCARD (physical work of art) TO:

ATTN: Jane Wang
Mobius, Inc.
725 Harrison Ave, Suite One
Boston MA 02118 USA

QUESTIONS:
E-mail Jane@mobius.org or via FaceBook directly if you wish with 4x6 Surrealestate in the subject line if you can.

AND FINALLY: Please post this call on your own websites and invite any artists you know who might be interested in this call.

Artybuzz.com : Artists' Web Window

Sometimes we at Storefrontwindows promote other store front windows, and this month, we're shining a light on Artybuzz.com, created by Richard Wilde. Here anyone the ability to upload images of their artwork which can then be sold as prints, canvases, t shirts, etc.

Image: Shaun Crump's BIG FOOT.


Here is what Richard told us about the site/community:

Artybuzz.com is free to join and gives every member their own dedicated online space to showcase and sell their work from. The website is based around a community ethos, and gives members the ability to join and create their own groups, advertise their exhibitions and events, interact with other creatives and gain feedback on their work through a comments system.

“Artybuzz provides a hassle free way for creatives to get their work noticed and sold," said Richard. "All people have to do is set their price, upload images of their work and choose the products they want to sell on. When artworks are purchased, we manufacture and distribute orders on behalf of our members and then send them their earnings.” Artybuzz takes no commission from sales and takes no subscription fee.

"Artybuzz.com operates internationally and prides itself on setting no restrictions on who can join its online community. Richard Wilde said, “at Artybuzz, we provide an indiscriminate place where creatives of all ages, abilities, styles and backgrounds can show and gain recognition for their work.” The website has a diverse range of art covering areas including, painting, sculpture, illustration, photography, design and more.

"The products that are made from the images members upload on Artybuzz are manufactured to the highest quality. Using top grade raw materials and the latest giclee printing processes means that Artybuzz can provide high quality goods consistently to all its customers. This ensures that its members artworks are reproduced to a standard that does the utmost justice to each piece.

Artists, photographers and designers who sell their work through Artybuzz retain all copyright over their images and are fully credited for everything they produce. They are also under no obligation to show their work exclusively on Artybuzz.com. Anyone interested in joining or adding their work just needs to go to www.artybuzz.com and create a free profile.”

Shepard Fairey Does Venice, Silvio

Shepard Fairey, who rose to fame and made his mark with his wildly successful and now controversial Obama campaign poster, has left his mark here in Venice as well. During the June international art orgy known as the Venice Biennale, Fairey was brought to a tiny bar in the San Polo quarter near the Rialto Bridge by two Biennale hostesses, according to Guiliano, the bartender at Boteri Cafe.  Photo: Matthew Rose.

"He was a little drunk, but very nice," says the barman. The Boteri, also known as Al Genovesi (San Polo 1701 Venezia) on the Calle Del Botteri, is a tiny little art hangout covered with Keith Haring inspired drawings. Fairey must have thought the café was ripe for some more American graffiti and so he returned the next day with a fat portfolio of his Obey propaganda and asked the owner if he could paper the back room with his designs. "No problem," said the owner, eager to have some live art to go with the Haring installation and create a wall-sized souvenir from a clandestine Venice Biennale.

Shepard Fairey goes up against a Keith Haring knock-off in the Boteri Cafe, Venice, Italy. (Below).  Below, stylized little girl and big fascist eyes offer Fairey fans a touch of Futurismo with their apero.

The posters fit nearly perfectly and, while not a shrine for Fairey fans, it does give a contemporary glow to the place which is crowded at apero hour with older locals and crowded til one am with students and bohos.

I asked if there were any give-aways, but nothing was left, not even the stickers affixed to doors signaling that Shepard Fairey was here. Sort of retail friendly graffiti that is probably now on its way to eBay and auction sites the world over.  However, you can pick up a new piece on your local newstand...

Fairey's trying to climb back on the sweet roll since his confession about the Obama poster mishagas. His latest foray into political scandal is an Italian love-hate story. The cover of The Rolling Stone featuring the recently clobbered-with-a-small souvenir model of the Milan Cathedral, Italian Premier, Silvio Berlusconi. [See it here].

Meanwhile, on Christmas Eve the Basilica San Marco was both mobbed by Venetian believers and flooded Noah-style from the ever-rising rushing acqua alta. So enjoy these pictures of the Venetian Lagoon waters running rampant over yet another Italian institution and art piece – floods get in your eyes.

The Sedentary Ramblers : Trio Extraordinaire

Once in a generation, a band comes along that is unlike any that has come before it, and unlike any that will follow. A band so revolutionary, so innovative, it forever alters our musical landscape, even the course of life on earth. A band that makes its predecessors seem paltry and pedestrian, and leaves its successors hopeless in the face of a bar that has been set impossibly high.

"We are not that band," is the note on the home page of The Sedentary Ramblers. "But we are 3 guys who really like getting together to pick guitars and banjos, saw on fiddles, and bang around on washboards and spoons."

One music reviewer wrote: “That may be the second best version of ‘molly sniffed a possum toe’ I ever heard.” Another intoned: “Didn’t you guys play that one already?” But don't listen to them! The Sedentary Ramblers are rolling big time.

The Sedentary Ramblers are a trio of good ole boys from Georgia and beyond who have been bothering their friends for years, playing through floods and fires and bar room brawls, perfecting a sweet and joyful, sometimes mellow and soulful collection of classic songs with their own twist. The Sedentary Ramblers’ debut album was recorded live at Wolf Creek Cabin in Fannin County, GA. And : The CD is out now. Check out the sample sounds and bounce around with your own pair of spoons. Buy a copy for only $9.99 plus 2 bucks shipping and handling.

Special Features : Kickstarter Project

QUOI D'NEUF?

 From The Paris Blog.  The iconic Beaujolais Nouveau, France's high end version of the "new Coke" is celebrated every Third Thursday in November throughout the country.  The country parties till 3 am and wakes up on Friday only to call into work sick. 

Hervé Villemade is one of the prime vintners in France's new organic/natural wine wave and his "primeur" is QUOI D'NEUF, a wine named and labeled by Paris-based American artist Matthew Rose. Often available at LA CAVE DES PAPILLES and other like-minded cavists in Paris.

Paris : Double Trouble !!

An exhibition of new collage works by Matthew Rose and photographs by Bernard Matussière Private Bits & Autres Choses, is a one-day affair held in the historic quarters of Montparnasse. Double Trouble pairs the hapless with the happening and the mad with the magical.  The public is invited to attend the show on Saturday, December 5, 2009 at the studio of Bernard Matussière, 37 Rue Froidevaux 75014 Paris (near the Montparnasse Cemetery), beginning at 2pm. Studio Matussière has also invited artists Sarah de Teliga and Max Mulhern to participate.

Bernard Matussière is well known for his work in fashion, art and journalism.  His campaign for Aubade, the lingerie brand, Les Leçons du Désir, was posted throughout Paris some years ago and the images in black and white so sexy they were said to cause a number of auto accidents as drivers inadvertently hit the brakes.  While Matussière has worked on hundreds of advertising campaigns, he is also acclaimed for his nudes.  His book, Female Nudes, brings together some 100 images of women from his travels and studio work.  The photographer has also travelled widely and his work in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Japan and Africa has been published all over the world.  "This little exhibition is a way for me to show some new works," said Matussière, "and meet some new faces here in Paris."

Matthew Rose, long-time cut and paste collagist.  His massive installations have created a stir with their surreal and complex wall-to-wall-to-ceiling-to floor displays of 1000 pieces.  The artist, a New Yorker who has lived and worked in Paris since 1992, will exhibit new works on canvas and board, including works to be included in Masters: Collage, a compendium of the state of the art of collage due out by Lark Books in May 2010.  Matthew Rose's most recent work was the global collaborative A Book About Death, which opened in New York City in September and has since moved across the planet in a half-dozen re-exhibitions. Rose will also debut his prize-winning stamp sheet, Rubens Rounding Third. The piece earned a first place award from the MUFI Stamp Museum in Mexico this past October. This A3-sized work features a baseball player stopped dead in his tracks by a looming black and white image of a Rubens nude; the artist produced 1000 stampsheets, each with a gummed back, perforations, dated, signed and numbered.

Sarah de Teliga is a Paris-based Australian artist who exhibits both in London and Sydney.  Her most recent show at the Helen Stephens Gallery in Sydney featured works on bus and car smashed beer cans and oil landscapes that mixed the serene with the odd strange detail.  That show sold out. In London, Sarah exhibits with England & Company, and is extremely busy on private commissions for corporations and private collectors. De Teliga is currently launching a new series of works on flattened metal pieces and considering shooting a short film about her aesthetic processes.

Max Mulhern is an American sculptor working in a range of materials from wood to bronze to a combination of both.  The artist has exhibited in in Europe (Paris, London), focusing on "nautical innovations."  His sculptures in bronze are often complex erotic abstractions while his large and small scale works in painted wood unpack forms and reinvent the pedestal.  In fact, Mulhern's most recent innovation is a series of pedestals made out of cut wood, all arranged to fit in a "boîte en valise," a Duchampian gesture that points to the complexities of the Frenchman's art in box. Mulhern also writes regularly for the Art Blog.
Date: December 5, 2009 Time: 2pm

Adress:  Studio Matussière, 37 Rue Froidevaux, 75014 Paris (near the Montparnasse Cemetary)

Dan Flavin

Dan Flavin (1933-1996) seminal minimalist artist of the 1960s used industrially-based florescent lights to create his non-nonsense light works.

This exhibition at David Zwirner in New York City is combined with a guided tour by Johannes Vogt, doctoral candidate in the University of Berlin's Art History department. 

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

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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