“Nine artists are suing Jerry Wolkoff, the owner of the 5Pointz site in Long Island City, Queens, for destroying their murals when his company G&M Realty had the building whitewashed in November 2013.”
Category: visual
Preservationists Worry About Plans To Open A Theme Park Around Ancient Chinese Caves
“Officials in Gansu Province, which includes Dunhuang, and a company in Beijing have drawn up plans for a theme park connecting the caves with a separate area of sand dunes that already exists as a tourist playground (think dune buggies and camel rides). The connecting strip of desert would be filled with faux temples, folk villages and souvenir stands.”
‘The Most Famous, Most Enigmatic, And Most Frightening Painting Known To Man’: Tatyana Tolstaya On Malevich’s ‘The Black Square’
“With an easy flick of the wrist, he once and for all drew an uncrossable line that demarcated the chasm between old art and new art … In his own words, he reduced everything to the ‘zero of form.’ Zero, for some reason, turned out to be a square, and this simple discovery is one of the most frightening events in art in all of its history of existence.”
Art Basel’s Powerful Jury Controls The Market
“The jurors, who separately operate German, Swiss, Italian and American galleries, begin their work about 11 months before the fair. In a series of gatherings, they and their advisers discuss their selections, vote, consider appeals and ponder larger questions: Should they include contemporary Chinese artists? Yes. Art by artists coming of age in the digital era? Definitely.”
Iceland’s Biennale Artist Wants Her Work To Speak For Itself
“I’d rather see this piece as a thought. It’s an encounter in space. A cave is not usually a place of the moment, yet this cave is. A cave calls to mind minerality and minerals mean time – a stone is time. But this is made of ephemeral material, high-quality cotton paper pulp.”
Iconic Victorian Gas Structures Are Going Down All Over The UK
“Gasometers were crucially important to the growth of London as a modern city and to Britain as an industrial and post-industrial nation. The use of gas in street lighting, for instance, is a central element in the creation of the modern city and these amazing floating structures are where the gas was eventually stored. They are important as scientific as well as architectural icons and we should preserve the best of them.”
How Drawn & Quarterly Transformed Comics From An All-Male Bastion To Something Slightly Different
“While D&Q has championed female artists, those creators have also helped the company succeed. Its three best-selling cartoonists are Tove Jansson (the ‘Moomin’ series), Lynda Barry (‘What It Is’) and Kate Beaton (‘Hark! A Vagrant’).”
What’s New In Sculpture? Live Bees
“The bees that inhabit Untilled‘s hive are free to roam as they please, and visitors will find them buzzing about within a pretty wide radius of the work. (If you’re allergic, we wouldn’t recommend you get too close.)”
Let’s Talk Velvet Painting (There’s More To It Than Elvis And Sad Clowns)
“This past week, Velveteria added a new portrait of Caitlyn Jenner following her highly publicized gender transition. Baldwin likes to stay on top of the news and pop culture, frequently commissioning works from established velvet painters he has come to know in Tijuana and Juarez, Mexico.”
Time To Take Another Look At Nazi Artists?
“Few regimes in history devoted as much thought to the arts as the Third Reich. With a failed painter at the helm and several other ministers who felt they knew what was what, the Third Reich encouraged conformist painters, offering them huge prizes and incentives, and discouraged any who took liberties with their canon. During the regime’s heyday, many works were acquired by the state or by its leading lights, who had impressive budgets to spend on works at the annual art show in Munich and who scattered money like confetti.”