Bad at Sports

Tuesday’s Video Pick | The Powers of Ten

Megonli — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:05:57 +0000

powers of ten :: charles and ray eames from bacteriasleep on Vimeo.

On this week’s Pick we check out Charles and Ray Eames adaptation of the book Cosmic View by Kees Boeke. “The Powers of Ten” is a short documentary that explores “relative scale of the Universe in factors of ten”. Check out the Chicago lakefront a the beginning.

The Yes Men on LUMPEN TLVSN

Megonli — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:40:14 +0000

LUMPEN TLVSN got a great interview with the Yes Men when they were in town for the release of The Yes Men Fix the World.

via Lumpen:

“Mike Bonanno and Laurel Whitney discuss the roots and future of the prolific corpo-political hoax-sters The Yes Men. On hand are Lumpen cholos Edmar, James and Christo to hammer home the tough questions. Production by Christo and Nick Bahr. Enlightening…and fun. Check out more of The Yes Men at theyesmen.org”

LUMPEN TLVSN (interview) – The Yes Men at Co-Prosperity Sphere from lumpen on Vimeo.

Damien James on the Chicago Humanities Festival

Guest — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:26:29 +0000

Matt Groening and Lynda Barry circa 1984 by Michael Sepcot.

Guest post by Damien James

In the brief Chicago Humanities Festival preview posted a couple of weeks ago, I listed what I hoped would be some highlights, and I wanted to take a moment now that the festival is about halfway through its run to tell you about two events I recently attended so you get a picture—maybe fleeting—of how this years programming is meeting my admittedly high expectations.

In the near future I’ll share more about specific events as well as thoughts on the festival theme—laughter—with the intention of communicating how important the Humanities Festival has been for me, maybe how important it is to the city itself, and possibly beyond. It’s also my hope that it will become important to you, if it isn’t already. After all, each of us is a part of the greater festival of humanities as it plays out in our own lives every day, in the choices we make which not only effect ourselves, but everyone in our local and even global community.

And if this happens to be your city, the excellence of CHF earns you some bragging rights. Privatized parking meters, bogus mayoral claims of how green Chicago is, Land of the Lost-sized pot holes and shitty CTA service, our former governor’s “reality” TV career, and our failure (thank Jesus) to win the Olympic bid are not the only things we have going for us…

Chicagoan Harold Ramis was the first presenter I saw, and we should all be lucky enough to have so much to laugh about at 65 years old. I told him after his presentation at the Thorne Auditorium that he seemed to be an incredibly happy guy. He took a beat before responding and said, “I’m an actor.” Reading this on the screen, one can easily interpret those three words as “Of course I’m happy! And famous! And rich! And on my way to Spiaggia! Have you ever had their Gamberi e polenta al forno con erbe cipollinariccio di mare e cavaile? It’s fucking delicious!”

What you missed by not actually seeing and hearing him, however, was how easily his eyes and voice conveyed the same bittersweetness as when, answering a question from the audience as to what he would most like to accomplish at this point in his life, he said, “This is gonna sound sappy, but I’d just like to have a successful marriage.”

90 minutes with the writer/director/actor disappeared loudly and instantly as laughter spread itself across the spectrum of emotion while Ramis shared clips and anecdotes from his favorites, bouncing off the brilliant surfaces of the Marx Brothers in all their surrealist glory (this was the first time I had ever seen them on the big screen, which enhanced their funny ten-fold; As a kid, Ramis wanted to be both Groucho and Harpo), Cary Grant in Capra’s Arsenic and Old Lace, Monty Python and their heady existentialism, Woody Allen and his flawless ability to embody the deep-seeded angst we all experience at least a thousand times (I’m underestimating) in our lives, Dr. Strangelove, Preston Sturges, the Coen brothers, and many more. It was as entertaining to watch Ramis laughing at the clips he shared as the clips were themselves.

He went from self-effacing to self-aggrandizing as if on cue and drew out delight at each step, boasting ownership of “four percent of AFI’s top 100 funniest films,” and admitting that he went to Hollywood to get laid. He told unexpected stories (“My wife said that for her fiftieth birthday she wanted to meet the Dalai Lama, so I called some friends in Glencoe…” They did in fact meet him, though Ramis was fairly certain that the Dalai Lama had never seen Caddyshack.), and spoke about the days leading up to The Second City, when Mike Nichols and Elaine May were at The Compass doing what had never been done before, his introduction to Billy Murray (“the funniest peanut vendor you could ever meet”), his musical history at the Old Town School of Folk as kid, and how he went into college like John Kennedy and came out like John Lennon. Even if you don’t care for some (or any) of Ramis’ films—though is there really anyone who doesn’t like Ghostbusters at least a little bit?—it was impossible not to be charmed by his enthusiasm and candor. Ramis closed with a scene from Monty Python in which a sing-along and group whistling was taken up to cheer Christ while crucified.

Just 48 hours later, with equal candor and a thick sloppy ladling of playful insanity, Matt Groening and Lynda Barry took the stage at the UIC Forum on 725 West Roosevelt, where both were hilarious, inspiring, and incredibly goddamn smart. Before they were introduced, it was said that the attendance for their presentation was the highest in CHF history. Sitting next to me was Chris Ware, who simultaneously looked around the Wal-Mart-esque room with it’s AC-lined high ceilings, institutional paint, and florescent lighting, and joked (I think) in his oddly compelling self-loathing-laced voice, “This place is just horrible. I feel like they’re going to take us all on stage and execute us.”

Regardless, the place was packed, and it was one of the more diverse crowds I’ve seen in four years of attending CHF events, which seem to draw more from middle-aged Northshore affluence than the richness of the inner-city student and working class. Why that is I am still not certain.

To claps and shouts, Matt and Lynda began. The two have such a deep history and palpable affection for each other that their conversation was completely engaging, like sitting at the adult table with older siblings you adore as they tell stories of their most outlandish drinking games, yet they carried with them the weight of decades of familiarity. They emphatically traded tales about their family histories, how they were both directly influenced by the mottos of their fathers (for Lynda: “There’s no problem too big to run away from;” for Matt: “If you’re going to do something, overdo it.”), how they met at Evergreen State College, their humble beginnings as a writer/chauffeur and a nude artists model, respectively, and the myriad ups and downs of living off creativity and the mostly constant struggle of trying to make it as cartoonists in the adult world, which is, as Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Jules Feiffer said, “not a job for grown-ups.”

Lynda’s facial expressions and hand gestures were exclamation points on her punch lines. “Good art and good images,” she said wide-eyed and nodding as if to slow children she none the less loved dearly, “keep you from killing yourself and others!” Matt’s comic dialogs from his sons (“Listening to my kids was a great way to make weekly deadlines. At least until they got old enough that they no longer wanted to cooperate.”) as read by he and Lynda were met with those deep belly laughs that make your cheeks and crows feet hurt. During a clip of The Simpsons, someone even screamed.

Matt and Lynda made each other laugh, too, despite the fact, or because of, how much they admittedly annoy each other. Matt boyishly blushed at times, which Lynda seemed to savor. “He even asked me to marry him once,” she said, Matt looking down at the table, reddening. “He didn’t mean it.” The two had such chemistry on stage that it was easy to imagine them together, maybe just as easy to imagine what a disaster it could have been.

Groening and Barry spoke only briefly on the importance of each others work, but even that was unnecessary. They were ushered off stage by a standing ovation. People knew they were in the presence of greatness. I only say that because some of them said as much out loud. I might not have held the same opinion before hearing the two artists speak, but after, I felt the same way. Matt Groening and Lynda Barry weren’t trying to, but they convinced me.

That you can do what you love and maybe carve out a little place for yourself, despite how difficult it may be at times, is something every artist should hear and remember, not that carving out a place for yourself should ever be the motivation. Love for what you’re doing is the only motivation which is self sustaining. The decades of experience Groening and Barry shared with CHF patrons is proof.

CHF runs through November 15th. Get ticket info at: http://www.chicagohumanities.org/

Damien James is a self-taught artist and writer living (barely) and working (constantly) in Chicago. He has contributed to Chicago Reader, New City, Saatchi Gallery Online, Art Voices, and the general goodwill of mankind, among other things. His art has been seen in Chicago’s Around the Coyote Gallery, Brooklyn’s 3rd Ward Gallery with Art House Co-op’s Sketchbook Project, various apartments in Berlin, London, and a tiny village in Romania.

20 iPod Touches Merged Into One Display

Christopher — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:00:53 +0000

This is a proof-of-concept video by the Japanese design house PROTOTYPE that was built to showcase their new modular interactive large scale touch screen installation process. This concept can be scaled to sizes way beyond the 20 iPod demo and easily maintained, repaired & replaced.

Reportedly it can be built to drag & drop touch react to nearby ipods but until there is video of that it seems unlikely. Still in a Art world where Iphones are king this seems fitting for a install in Basel Miami coming up for sure.

Curatorial Profession Among Worst Paid, Most Stressful.

Claudine Ise — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:18:30 +0000

Gergo Szinyova, Hungry Curator, 2008, acrylic on paper, 29 cm x 21cm

Someone just sent me a link to this story with the comment “Yeah, they got that right.” CNNMoney’s website reports that curators are among the worst paid and most nerve-wracked professionals. My own personal experience in the field supports such findings, but I must admit to taking a certain sick schadenfreude-type pleasure in seeing it all laid out there with percentages and everything. Other stressful, shittily paid jobs include social worker, minister, parole officer and news reporter. The report says a curator’s median pay is $46,500 and 89% of curators say their job is stressful.

On a related note, the website reports that some of the 50 best jobs in America include Systems Engineer, CPA, and Speech Language Pathologist. Make of this what you will.

Via Lindsay Pollock.

The Beatles Never Broke Up, Listen To Secret Recordings [hoax but still great]

Christopher — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:00:11 +0000

I could present this in the form it should be experenced in which is one of:

On Sept. 9, 2009 I experienced something that I still am having trouble believing happened to me. I came into the possession of a cassette tape containing a Beatles album that was never released. I dont expect you to believe what happened to me, I sure wouldn’t, but thats why I grabbed the tape as proof that my experience was real.

But I know someone will complain so in the end just listen to the best mix album since the Grey Album by Danger Mouse. Check it out, share it while you can cause like the Grey Album this will be on the ghost net in short order al a Grey Tuesday.

The Beatles Never Broke Up

Download audio file (1.%20The%20Beatles%20-%20Everyday%20Chemistry%20-%20Four%20Guys.mp3)

The Dubai Fountain Unveiled After Over A Year of Work & $218 Million USD

Christopher — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:14:09 +0000

The Dubai Fountain which was announced in June of 2008 by developer Burj Dubai has officially been opened. At an estimated cost of $218 Million USD or 800 Million AED the fountain is the largest and most complex of it’s kind. Surpassing the Fountains of Bellagio at Las Vegas by at least 25%.

The fountains which are over 300 yards in length can shoot to the maximum height of 150 meters, which is equivalent to the 50-story building or 1/5th of the way up the nearby Burj Dubai super-skyscraper that is set to be completed by January of 2010.

Episode 219: Jeremy Deller and Esam Pasha

Admin — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:26:14 +0000

Download audio file (Bad_at_Sports_Episode_219__Jeremy_Deller_and_Esam_Pasha.mp3)

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Jeremy Deller. That’s right, this week we have one of the world’s most interesting contemporary artists talking about “What It Is,” a show and tour he has worked on, that appeared at The Hammer, the New Museum and now, Chicago’s MCA, featuring a car that was bombed-out during the Iraq war. He is joined by artist Esam Pasha to talk about “What It Is”

Deller’s work often challenges our assumptions about what “is” and “is not” art and uses the banner term “art” to gain access to, extend, push, and develop local cultures. Deller is also the first Turner Prize-winner to appear in the 230 hours of the Bad at Sports show.

Schedule of Participants at the MCA
Jeremy Deller
Esam Pasha
MCA Release about the show

Dan Graham | Beyond

Guest — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:11:28 +0000

Guest post by Jen Gillespie

Walker Arts Center October 31, 2009- January 24, 2010

The Show was also at the Whitney and the MOCA

Opening Lecture Saturday October 31^st with the curators from all three galleries as well as the band Japanther.

Last weekend I made a pilgrimage to see Dan Graham’s first retrospective in the United States, in its third and final destination, the Walker Arts Center. The Walker is in Minneapolis, and if you’re from Chicago and you haven’t been, you really should make the trip. Dan Graham’s exhibition Beyond earlier this year was shown at the Whitney in New York (June 25 – October 11, 2009) and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (February 15 – May 25, 2009) and was co-curated by Chrissie Iles (Whitney) and Bennett Simpson (MOCA). Beyond traces Graham’s influential body of work highlighting his mirror and video installations as well as his conceptual work. Graham’s work, though over time has changed in its physical product, or the method of his conceptual delivery is tweaked, the work consistently deals with subject-hood, identity, duration/distance and the interconnectivity of environment/subject/object relationships. Graham’s discussion that took place at the Walker last weekend with the co-curators of the exhibition as well as the band Japanther was a fantastic one. In this instance it was a rare example of three discordant aspects of the art world making the sweet, sweet music of politely agreeable disagreement. Each with their own agenda, the curators, Dan Graham, and Japanther, these separate entities all contributed their perspective on Graham’s work, though certainly Dan Graham got the final word. It is after all, his, that’s only fair. Check out the link to view this discussion, Dan Graham is absolutely a legend and shouldn’t be missed. I highly recommend the journey before the show comes down in January.

Links to video

Opening-Day Talk: Dan Graham in conversation with Bennett Simpson and Chrissie Iles

Youtube:

Download the podcast off itunes U

https://deimos.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/BrowsePrivately/walkerart.org.1650674722.01650674727.2726909101?i=1719281335

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Food Orgies Are NY Art World’s Latest Trend

Claudine Ise — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:26:14 +0000

From Haunch of Venison New York Cake Party

What’s the latest trend in trendy art openings events? Food orgies, preferably food generated by felled trees and lots and lots of dead animals dripping (oh sorry, I meant “drizzled”) with honey. And cakes delivered by bare-breasted women (all gorgeous models, mind you). First, there’s the biblically-inspired feast designed by event planner Jennifer Rubell for the Performa 09 benefit dinner (Rubell is the daughter of reknowned collectors Donald and Mera Rubell). Roberta Smith summarized the event for the New York Times here. Then, there’s the Kreemart/American Patrons of Tate/Haunch of Venison New York Cake Party that took place on November 3rd (read about it here), which paired four artists (Marina Abramovic, Leandro Erlich, Mickalene Thomas and Rob Wynn) with top NYC pastry chefs to make art cakes. Some of those cakes were frosted silver and gold, leaving glittering smears across the mouths of those who consumed it. Bits of cake were served by and in some cases fed directly to guests by topless models.

I’m sure there were plenty of heady ideas motivating both of these performance orgies, most likely having to do with shining a light on greed, cultural over-consumption, and waste, along with attempts to parody the culturally current notion that we should eat only what we ourselves kill. Regardless, I remain in awe of how the art world’s glitterati invariably find new ways to satirize their golden cake while merrily stuffing it into their faces too.

Hot Topic Alert: Creative Time’s “Revolutions in Public Practice”

Claudine Ise — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:53:52 +0000

In a piece titled Public Opinion written late last week for Artforum.com, Claire Bishop reports on Creative Time’s Summit on “Revolutions in Public Practice” held at the New York Public Library a few weeks ago. The summit presented an overview of current practices that encompass “everything from participatory performance to allotment squatting to socially conscious photography,” as Bishop described it. At the summit, artists such Vic Muniz, Harrell Fletcher, Tania Bruguera, Rene Gabri (hey Rene!), Dara Greenwald, Thomas Hirschhorn, Maria Lind, Francisca Insulza, Liam Gillick and numerous others (including this week’s podcast guests Temporary Services) made short presentations of current works and related projects.

Bishop offered a somewhat skeptical and occasionally snarky take on the proceedings. In particular she questioned the Summit’s use of the word ‘revolution,’ given that many of the practices she observed were in her opinion not exactly new. She argued,

There was a striking similarity between many of the presentations and 1970s gestures of institutional escape, as well as to early-’90s “new genre” public art (the term coined by artist Suzanne Lacy, who also spoke at the summit). The big difference between then and now was the staggeringly dry and soulless language deployed by many of today’s artists who took to the podium. At countless points in the day, my eyes glazed over to the sound of earnest monologues announcing, “My practice is about creating platforms for a critical interface with overlooked spaces, networking with local communities to provide self-organized resources and coproducing social relations . . .” Aaagh!

Bishop summarily dismissed the projects presented by Vic Muniz and Harrell Fletcher “for their reality t.v. sentimentality” while chiding the Summit for its “predominant tone of collective agreement” and overall lack of “friction.” She concluded:

“At its best, the “Revolutions” summit offered an immensely valuable overview of a wide range of engaged practices otherwise lacking visibility in New York, while the discursive format provided an appropriate alternative to the exhibition as a means of presenting this often visually evasive work. Socially, it was dynamic—and in this respect, it had much in common with the energy of Hans Ulrich Obrist’s marathons. On the other hand, the summit was only an overview and did nothing to problematize “public practice” as a direction in contemporary art. It assumed (along with many of the positions presented) that art as a discipline can and should be marshaled toward social justice. I would have liked to see more pondering of the specifically artistic competences that can be deployed toward these ends.”

In the Talkback section, Muniz, Fletcher, and several others weigh in with dissenting assessments of the Summit – and here is where the topic gets truly interesting. Creative Time curator and event co-organizer Nato Thompson offers a particularly thoughtful and measured rebuttal which, among other issues, questioned the usefulness of Bishop’s approach to the event– an approach that, in this instance, at least, may have missed the point entirely. Thompson explained,

We chose this format so that the work could speak for itself and the audience would be left to consider all the problems and solutions they provide. Another motivation was simply to provide a platform in NYC for this type of work. Certainly, there is much more to be said, and we intend to provide more spaces for this work. Ultimately, we need to re-engage the critical project of thinking through culture’s relationship to the issues and concerns of everyday life. We must stop this antipathy for thinking and market friendly pseudo-populism that has swept the critical stage (while admitting the disaster that jargon-laden Marxist art criticism has wreaked on political art) and instead, take seriously the potential for the arts to participate in the concerns that actually matter in the world. From this difficult vantage point (that is how projects actually transform the social landscape), the discussions around political public practice may possess an urgency capable of pushing the discussion beyond the prescribed domain of art.”

Go read the article and subsequent exchanges for yourselves, if you haven’t already. The discussion has generated some real heat, and should be of particular interest to artists and other cultural workers who frame their work as a form of “public practice” rather than as art with a capital A.

What’s in Your Library?

Claudine Ise — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:25:00 +0000

This post, about an exhibition of Martha Rosler’s Library at the Herter Art Gallery at the University of Massachusetts, got me thinking about personal libraries of various kinds. Mostly working libraries, filled with books that people have actually read cover to cover, as opposed to the coffee table variety. I’ve always loved sneaking a peek at the bookshelves in the homes of people I visit. I’ll admit it, I’m a snoop, at least when it comes to uncovering the secret history of what people like to read. I don’t mind if people snoop my bookshelves when they visit my place either. Bookshelves are like snapshots, in some cases they’re a form of family portrait. I love how over time, everyone’s books can mix together willy nilly, the Marxist analyses with the potty training manuals, but I also love seeing smaller tableaus containing just those books that are “in action” at the moment, like this one, from the home of Pamela Fraser and Randall Szott:

Family bookshelves mediate between public and private space. I would most likely be too embarrassed to ask someone if I could photograph the books in their bedroom (although who knows, maybe not), but the living room seems like fair game. So much art in Chicago takes place within domestic settings, and sometimes it can be really hard for me to keep my eyes on the art, so interested am I in everything else that’s going on in the room. Lately, I’ve been wanting to take pictures of the bookshelves in artist’s studios and in various public/private domiciles as a combination snapshot and local travelogue, a means of staging a different kind of personal encounter. Over the next few months I’ll occasionally post snapshots from the domestic libraries I encounter (with the owners’ permission, of course). So many clues about who we are and what brought us to this point are hidden in plain site right there on a bookshelf. It’s fun to look, to try and make connections, to guess at whose book is whose and to feel a sense of curiosity and wonder at what we find.

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Best Halloween Costume Idea of 2009 Goes To

Christopher — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:50:05 +0000

Why goes as yourself for Halloween when you can go as the 8-bit low resolution version of yourself? I don’t know the girls name but the work speaks for itself. The photos were posted on her blog kindacarsick and I look forward to what she comes up with next year.

Tuesday’s Video Pick | 11.3.09

Megonli — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:36:39 +0000

This may be revealing a bit too much but after watching this video yesterday over on Boing Boing I felt utter heartbreak. Who knew the IBM 7094 could induce such an emotional response?

via slavenr88

“Daisy Bell was composed by Harry Dacre in 1892. In 1961, the IBM 7094 became the first computer to sing, singing the song Daisy Bell. Vocals were programmed by John Kelly and Carol Lockbaum and the accompaniment was programmed by Max Mathews. This performance was the inspiration for a similar scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey.”

It’s Color Theory, Charlie Brown!

Claudine Ise — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:16:07 +0000

A little mini brush-up on color theory and its uses in animation, by way of Bill Melendez’ beloved 1966 TV special It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: this essay, written by L.A.-based animator Justin Hilden, contains a scene-by-scene analysis of the use of color on the special, focusing particularly on its emotional and dramatic effects.

Of the above images, Hilden writes,

“Although the sun is part of the painted background, it appears three different times, always a little lower on the horizon and always a slightly darker, more intense red-orange. The changing sun alters the tone of the painted sky, which becomes increasingly more saturated and textured, ultimately becoming fuchsia, and then a deep purple.”

Nothing groundbreaking here, of course, but it’s wonderful how Hilden breaks something so familiar down into its component parts, and makes you look at it in a whole new way. Read more from Hilden’s essay here. (Via Blur + Sharpen).

Photo Essay Documents the Last Days of Gourmet Magazine

Claudine Ise — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:12:59 +0000

Kevin Demaria, associate art director at the recently-defunct (I still can’t believe it) Gourmet magazine, created a website to document the publication’s last days. I don’t know why I was so surprised to learn that staffers at one of the world’s premiere food magazines worked in standard, if not exactly drab, office-y surroundings, surrounded by sticky notes and bulletin boards and colored files and the like, but I was. About them, Demaria writes,

“October 5, 2009. In shock and disbelief, using garbage pails for long exposures, I took these photos of the last days at Gourmet. Although at times it was hard for me to shoot the common places in the offices at Gourmet, I knew I needed to document where I loved working for the last 8 years.”

Through these images, Demaria is memorializing the camaraderie that existed within a particular office workplace more so than the spirit of the magazine itself. Then again, these banal – yet also strangely moving – photographs suggest that for the people who worked there, the spirit of Gourmet was very much embodied by their workplace, which sounds like it had been a happy one.

Via Eat Me Daily.

MCA Spoils Own Game of ‘Hide and Seek’

Claudine Ise — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:14:47 +0000

Ellen Rothenberg, East, 2005. Courtesy of the artist.

My vote for most unintentionally puzzling press release issued by an otherwise savvy museum press office? Gotta be the MCA Chicago’s email blast for Hide and Seek, a new exhibition (on view from October 20 – November 13, 2009) that’s a playful attempt to engage visitors with objects from the Museum’s permanent collection in new and creative ways.

The idea, says the MCA, is:

“to challenge viewers’ expectations and ideas of what art is and where it can be placed. Visitors have unexpected encounters with works of art that appear “hidden” in plain view throughout the MCA. A guide at the admissions desk offers a series of clues to assist with locating the art.”

So, o.k., it’s a bit on the corny side, but I happen to like corny, and I’m totally behind the MCA’s ongoing attempts to make people look at their collections differently (or at all). But I groaned out loud when I read further down the release, which proceeds to cheerily GIVE THE HIDING SPOTS AWAY. OK, maybe they don’t give out the exact locations of the artworks, but they tell you pretty specifically in which area of the museum each artists’ work can be found. Just in case, you know, we’re ultimately too stupid or lazy to hunt them down on our own. Where’s the fun in that? I mean, I know it’s a press release geared towards blase media folks who probably aren’t going to engage in this particular scavenger hunt, but still – it’s not like we needed to have the answers fed to us ahead of time, unless we wanted to ruin the concept for everyone else. And who knows – I may very well have wanted to play their little game, if I was in the right mood and had some time on my hands. You never know.

The Parlor | Jac Jemc Tomorrow Night

Megonli — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:28:39 +0000

Jac Jemc

Jac Jemc will be at The Parlor Tuesday November 3rd at 7pm!

Jac Jemc sells books at Women & Children First. Her first novel, My Only Wife, is forthcoming from Dzanc Books in 2012. In the meantime, she has work that will soon be out in Alice Blue, Barrelhouse, Front Porch, Pank and The Rome Review. She is the poetry editor of decomP and a fiction reader for Our Stories. Mostly though, she blogs her rejections at jacjemc.wordpress.com.

Following her 30 minute reading, Jac will take questions from the audience.

As always, the event will be recorded and published on-line for your repeated listening pleasure on iTunes and at www.theparlorreads.com

All readings take place at 1511 N. Milwaukee Ave, 2nd Floor

For more information, please visit www.theparlorreads.com or contact theparlorreads@gmail.com

The Parlor is a monthly reading series sponsored by Bad At Sports Podcast (www.badatsports.com).

Episode 161: Locals Only AHHHH!

Bad at Sports Site Redesign

Admin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:22:23 +0000

Welcome to the new website for Bad at Sports. With this major re-design we aim to strip away some of the site’s more cumbersome features in order to focus on the two things we do: the podcast and the blog. Now, you can access blog content from the website’s home page along with direct links to our most recent stories and related posts from our archives.

The weekly podcast’s content remains front and center (well, now it’s a little more left-of-center), with the past few weeks’ worth of podcasts available through direct links on the home page as well. In the coming weeks, we’ll also be adding some new Chicago-based bloggers to our mix of weekly contributors–stay tuned for those announcements soon.

In November, we’ll also be initiating a new weekly(ish) series titled Off-Topic, in which we invite artists, curators, writers, and other cultural workers to discuss a subject not related to the practice of making art. It’s a chance for people to geek out on aspects of culture that they’re passionate about outside the realm of fine art proper – topics they don’t have a forum to write about elsewhere – and based on the essays we’ve already got lined up, we’re pretty confident this new series is going to kick ass.

With the new site, we want to try out a few different ways of engaging community response to our blog content in an effort to make Bad at Sports feel like a welcoming place for everyone who wants to hang out here. Instead of a comments feature, we’ll have a bi-weekly “Letters to the Editors” post on Saturdays. Please send your thoughts, threats, and hate mail to mail@badatsports.com with the subject Letters to the Editor. We’re also going to be making a bigger behind-the-scenes effort to engage our listeners and readers more directly by soliciting your contributions to the Off-Topic series as well as a few other new content angles we’ve got up our sleeves but aren’t quite ready to roll out yet.

We hope you’re as excited about our redesign as we are. Take a look around, see what you think. And as always, thanks for hanging with us.

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Episode 218: Temporary Services

Admin — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:09:09 +0000

Download audio file (Bad_at_Sports_Episode_218-Temporary_Services.mp3)

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This week for your listening pleasure Bad at Sports has dispatched Shannon Stratton and Duncan MacKenzie to Illinois’ glorious Kankakee to meet up with the artists of Temporary Services. They query Brett Bloom, Salem Collo-Julin, and Marc Fischer about social practice and the group’s decade long history.

The new www.badatsports.com is here! Come check out our redesign!

Sunday the 8th we all need to once again make a trek down to Hyde Park to pick up the Artists Run Chicago Digest. In it you will find contributions by Lori Waxman, Dan Gunn, and little ole Bad at Sports!

What follows is from http://www.studiochicago.org/arc-release/

Artists Run Chicago Digest Release
Sunday, November 8, 2:00 – 5:00pm
Hyde Park Art Center
5020 S. Cornell
Chicago, IL 60615

Join the Hyde Park Art Center, threewalls and The Green Lantern Press, as they celebrate the release of the Artists Run Chicago Digest.

The A.R.C. Digest: Published by threewalls and The Green Lantern
Press, The Artists Run Chicago Digest documents Chicago artist-run ’spaces’ active between 1999 and 2009 offering a look at the various platforms that often act as extensions to studio practice.

As the official catalog of Artists Run Chicago, an exhibition that
featured 34 artist-run spaces from around the city from May 10-July 5, 2009 at the Hyde Park Art Center, The A.R.C. Digest acts as compliment to and extension of the exhibition, with interviews, essays, and an audio supplement presenting a 10-year time period in Chicago’s artist-run culture while providing history, reflection, critique and dialog about artist-run culture, its importance, difficulties, sustainability and necessity as well as its specificity to a community and generation.
Kankakee
Shannon Stratton
Marc Fischer
Salem Collo-Julin
Brett Bloom
Temporary Services
Artists Run Chicago
Artists Run Chicago Digest
threewalls
Green Lantern
Half Letter Press
NEA
The Library Project
Harold Washington Library
Hans-Peter Feldmann
Mess Hall
Groups and Spaces
Public Collectors
“Against Competition”
Chris Kennedy
Scott Rigby
Drupal
I Space
Prisoners’ Inventions

Triangle Neighbors’ 13th Annual 2009 North Halsted Halloween Parade

Christopher — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:45:58 +0000

Photos from this years Triangle Neighbors’ 13th Annual 2009 North Halsted Halloween Parade.

Where the Wild Things Are Dirty Hipsters Are!

Christopher — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:57:42 +0000

Hope everyone is having a great Halloween and in the spirit of dressing up as things you are not here is the latest movie trailer by Spike Jonze “Where the Dirty Hipsters Are” the sequel to the smash hit “Where the Wild Things Are”. Have fun!

Duncan MacKenzie and Lori Waxman on Eight Forty-Eight

Megonli — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:00:36 +0000

Can’t get enough Duncan? Well, if that is the case, check out Duncan and Lori Waxman on Chicago Public Radio’s Eight Forty-Eight.

“That crisp fall air wafting our way can only mean one thing, and this is the season to discover what’s happening in Chicago art. So we’ve invited a couple of critics who have their fingers on the pulse of both the established and underground art scenes. Duncan MacKenzie is Executive Producer and co-host of the Bad at Sports podcast and a Lecturer in the Art and Design Department at Columbia College. Lori Waxman writes about the visual arts as a freelance critic for the Chicago Tribune. She’s also an Art History Instructor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.”

Check it out on Eight Forty-Eight’s site.

In 1 More Day Everything Changes

Christopher — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:00:58 +0000

Only 1 more day before the switch and at this point we all are done working really. It’s almost Halloween (spelled it right Anna Maria Cerniglia thanks : ) and lets get real many of us are already out downing our second Pabst in anticipation for Saturday. So have a great weekend, see everyone Sunday with a fresh new show among other things. Here is a great music video of David Byrne & BPA’s “Toe Jam” directed by Keith Schofield that is definitely not safe for work [NSFW] but hopefully will get you amped up for a great weekend.

Have fun!

Top 3 – Halloweenie

stephanieburke — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:23:53 +0000

This week you are getting a Top 3. Why? Well, do you want the truth or a lie? Too bad, this is what you get: these are the shows I think are absolutly worth going to this weekend. All three at new (in one way or another) spaces, and all three (we’ll ok, the first two, I don’t know anything about what is actually showing in the parking lot) feature awesome work. This is my chosen route, perhaps I’ll see you out there. If you see two people dressed like bats, I’m one of ‘em.

1) Means Without End at The Chicago Cultural Center

This is where I’m going tonight. Means Without End is an ongoing project by local photographer Shannon Benine. I’m pretty bad at describing work, so here’s a quote from the CPC website, “Means Without End, 2009 consists of hundreds of 10” x 10” unfolded photograms of peace cranes tiled together to form a large installation. The number of color analog photograms represents the number of American deaths in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom on March 19, 2003.” I’ve seen these things in real life, they’re friggin’ awesome. The opening reception is tonight, Friday, from 7-9pm.

The Chicago Photography Center is located at 3301 N. Lincoln Ave.

2. Stone on Stone at ebersmoore

Formerly ebersb9, ebersmoore is featuring the work of Rob Carter for their first exhibition (their first exibition was actually the second half on and exhibition that opened at the old location, so I’m calling this their first). I went to the new space last week, it’s friggin’ beautiful, and I’m into this work. If you check out their website, be sure to wait for the video to load, then watch it. Opening reception is tonight, Friday, from 6-9pm.

ebersmoore is located at 213 N Morgan St., #3C

3. Helter Sculpture at Parking Space

Ok, so this is totally not Parking Space’s image. I made it because I went to their site and all they had was a show card with text, and this image instantly popped into my head. Regardless, this is another new space (not sure if it’s even going to have a second show, seeing as it’s operating in a abandoned parking structure, or so they say), and I have no friggin idea what the work is going to look like. Take a chance, I bet it will at least be weird. Helter Sculpture is the curatorial project of Andrew Greene, E.J. Hill, and Matthew Schaffer, and is hosting a reception Saturday from 4-7pm.

Parking Space is located at 1448 N Leavitt St.

Top three Halloween Picks

Guest — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:43:15 +0000

Guest post by Jen Gillespie

I am headed out of town for the Halloween weekend, a trip you will undoubtedly hear about next week. I am headed to Minneapolis to see Dan Graham speak at the Walker Art Center. Though I am extremely excited about this mini-break holiday weekend I am experiencing some pangs of regret, or perhaps just longing for the things I will be missing out on in Chicago. There are, as always far more things going on this weekend than any one person could hope to do, see, or experience. Though Halloween is often a time for mischief, costumes, and toying with fear, my suggestions are all to do with participating, since Halloween is also a time to get out and be part of the community.

Chicago Critical Mass If you have never been part of their monthly ride its likely you’ve at least seen them, the hundreds of cyclists clogging the streets that have come together to ride into the night… hard to miss. The last Friday of every month bicyclists meet at daily plaza and ride throughout Chicago. Critical Mass happens all over the world and Chicago’s turnout, especially for the ride this weekend, is definitely one to be a part of. The Mass always has a tinge of a political presence that reminds the public to be aware of cyclists by presenting an army of bicyclists coming together in their shared passion and support for biking in whatever role it takes in individual lives and greater civic culture. This ride, the Halloween ride, each year though it is festive with the spirit of Halloween throughout the crowd, it is also a memorial to those that have been injured and killed in bicycle related accidents. Everyone is welcome, costumes are encouraged, and the only thing you need is your bike.

5:30pm Friday, October 30

Chicago Critical Mass bike rides start from Daley Plaza, Dearborn & Washington at 5:30 pm on the last Friday of each month, regardless of season or weather. They are free and fun.

For more info:

http://chicagocriticalmass.org/about/newbies

Neo-Futurarium- An Andersonville safe-haven for a unique experimental theater project that has been around Chicago for nearly 20 years. Built on such platforms as “just when you thought we couldn’t neuter anymore dogma” and “theater that signs your yearbook with a puffy silver pen and promises never to seduce your brother again.”

Neo- Futurists- A local theater collective best known for their production of Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind: 30 Plays in 60 Minutes. This fall they present their Halloween performance:

“Fear”

Last shows- Friday October 30^th and Saturday October 31^st 7:30 pm

Conceived and curated by Noelle Krimm. The Neo-Futurists call this performance art tour “a thinking man’s haunted house.” Comprised of vignettes including, but not limited to, one with a creepy serial killer about fetishes and violent impulses, to do with Edgar Allen Poe and all things terrifying. As with all Neo-Futurist performances the ‘now’ is not evaded or ignored, they don’t go for the ‘suspension of disbelief’ gimmick. The Neo-Futurists’ ‘Fear’ should not be missed. At the Neo-Futurarium, 5153 N. Ashland Ave. $15; T: 773-275-5255

For more information about this show or others by the Neo-Futurists:

http://www.neofuturists.org

National Museum of Mexican Art

Day of the Dead is this Monday November 2^nd; every year this museum puts together a solid exhibition with a cultural education bent that is lovely. I’ve been several times over the years, if you haven’t been, you should visit this year.

Camino a casa: Day of the Dead

Exhibition runs through December 13, 2009

Museum Hours 10 AM – 5 PM  Tuesday – Sunday

The National Museum of Mexican Art’s 23rd annual Día de Muertos exhibition, the largest annual Day of the Dead exhibition in the Nation, featuring more than 20 artists from Mexico and the U.S., a special ofrenda (offering, usually made on or of an altar) created for Arturo Velasquez Sr. (1915-2009) and an ofrenda created by the acclaimed author Sandra Cisneros as a tribute to her parents. The National Museum of Mexican Art is the largest Latino cultural organization in the country and the only Latino museum accredited by the American Association of Museums. The Museum is located at 1852 West 19th Street, Chicago, IL 60608 in the Pilsen neighborhood, adjacent to Little Village. Closed Mondays. Admission is FREE for exhibitions. Performing Art events are subject to ticketing. Donations are graciously accepted. Contact Phone 312.738.1503 Museum Hours 10 AM – 5 PM  Tuesday – Sunday

For information on this exhibit:

http://www.nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org/dod09.html

I hope you have the very best Halloween, and if you can, try to support a local arts organization or participate in an event in your community in the process!

Fundraiser/Auction for Pilsen Open Studios this Thursday, June 18th

Liam Gillick: MCA, How Are You Going to Behave? A Kitchen Cat Speaks, Kafka

Guest — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:42:42 +0000

Guest Post by Jen Gillespie

Last week I visited the Museum of Contemporary Art to see Liam Gillick’s near retrospective, which the MCA is calling a survey and is really sort of a sample, of Liam’s work. Titled Liam Gillick: Three perspectives and a short scenario. This work typifies his interest in social idealism, the interplay of architectural constraint on psychological conditions and playful imagery or colors to punctuate and sustain an exaggerated tension throughout the space of the installation. The exhibit is up from October 10, 2009 – January 10, 2010. Though it is now old news, to an uncertain extent, Gillick’s project for the German Pavilion for the Venice Biennale is what I really wanted to share. I am in love with this talking cat project. Titled, How Are You Going to Behave? A Kitchen Cat Speaks the installation of a cat atop a maze of cabinetry with audio of Gillick’s voice speaking as the cat. The audio narrates a story of the speaking cat as the only one of its kind, it is both novel and wise. It is a thing unlike anything else and so is able to cause a new social interaction, though that newness is both guiding and constrained the speaking cat is therefore limited and doomed to loose its first blush of novelty within the narrative of the hypothetical interplay of cat and society. Gillick’s reference to hybridity and fragment as well as the banal loneliness inherent to being the only of a kind and to serve no purpose other than as a cultural or social fulcrum reminds me of Kafka’s A Crossbreed (A Sport) a very short story starring a lambcat, its owner and some children. I am intrigued by the similarities of the narratives so very relevant in their times of authorship yet separated by nearly a century. I am struck by the repetition. Check out Liam Gillick’s show at the MCA, this audio image of a Kitchen Cat that speaks and this very short story by Franz Kafka

Liam Gillick: Three perspectives and a short scenario

October 10, 2009 – January 10, 2010

http://www.mcachicago.org/exhibitions/exh_detail.php?id=193

Liam Gillick: How are you going to behave? A kitchen cat speaks

www.deutscher-pavillon.org image and audio

http://farimani.info/forum/?p=2724

http://www.lespressesdureel.com/EN/ouvrage.php?id=1608&menu=

A Crossbreed (A Sport)- Franz Kafka

http://www.serelsnauw.nl/users/marcel/kafka/acrossbreed.html

DOUBLE FANTASY @ Noble and Superior Projects

laurenvallone — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:46:08 +0000

Man, I love when the name of a gallery references where it is located. I mean, how convenient? Noble and Superior Projects had their first opening this past weekend with their show DOUBLE FANTASY featuring the work of Ivan Lozano and Kate Brock. The brand spanking new gallery is run by SAIC grad students Erin Nixon and Patrick Bobilin.

The space is an apartment that is not trying to be anything more than what it is. You enter through the kitchen. The show consists of an installation by Lozano and a small room of Brock’s photography. The installation is a projected video with sound, two circles on of video the wall, the bottom image falling onto a mirrored floor. The bottom is a male face, in agony or ecstasy, in extreme slow motion. The top image is more amorphous shapes, colors and patterns. The sound is repetitive and loud, like exceptionally unpleasant dance hall music. The piece is encompassing and engrossing, spilling off the wall onto the floor, changing the color of the entire space, with mesmerizing patterns. I couldn’t stop watching. Knowing a little bit of Lozano’s work, I understood the allusions to disco and could tease out the origins of the bottom face from some gay porn. However, because there wasn’t any literature available at the show, I think some of the subtleties that could have been enjoyed (where the footage came from, heck, even the title of the piece) were inaccessible.

Brock’s work was photography displayed in a small room off of the installation. There were four small black and white images, three slightly larger color, and four large color prints. They were all portraits of semi naked, thin, attractive people in various environments, sitting, standing, lounging, wearing brown paper bags to cover their heads. They are expertly executed portraits, visually stunning, with urban landscapes and intimate interior spaces as the backdrops. From the gallery website, the series (BAGHEAD, not sure why all caps) “highlights the shape of the body and forces the viewer to imagine each of her characters through the prism of an irreconcilable anonymity.” Well, yes. Because there is no face to connect your gaze, you are left looking at these people and their attractive bodies. I enjoy this idea of removing agency, and how the relationships between the characters are complicated by the lack of eye contact, in the series however it comes off as a sort of one-liner.

I did appreciate the dialog between Lozano’s work and Brock’s. There was delicate connection between where to place or locate the gaze in the photographic as well as an extreme emphasis on the gaze in the larger than life face in the installation. In the conversation between the work, Lozano’s work felt much more secure in a time and place (post-AIDS epidemic) while Brock’s work felt very contemporary it did not feel deeply attached to a history.

More so than the show itself, chatting with Nixon and Bobilin really excited me about the future of the space. They want to focus on two artists at a time; one working in a way that must be “experienced” (I’m thinking more video, installation, performance) and the other in a way that is able to be easily distributed. For this show, I got to take home a small photo of Brock’s work (packaged in a paper bag, no less). I think this could be a very dynamic experience, and with so many galleries or shows focused purely on one concept or the other, I am interested to see how this plan develops.

Noble and Superior Projects is located at 1418 W Superior St in Chicago, IL. They are open to the public Saturdays from 12-6 and monthly for openings. They can be contacted at nobleandsuperior (at) gmail.com

Acclaimed Photographer Roy DeCarava dies at 89

Claudine Ise — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:09:54 +0000

Acclaimed photographer Roy DeCarava, known for his empathetic images of the everyday lives of African Americans in Harlem, died last Tuesday at the age of 89. From his obituary in the L.A. Times:

DeCarava (pronounced Dee-cuh-RAH-vah) photographed Harlem during the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s with an insider’s view of the subway stations, restaurants, apartments and especially the people who lived in the predominantly African American neighborhood.

He also was well known for his candid shots of jazz musicians — many of them taken in smoky clubs using only available light. Shadow and darkness became hallmarks of DeCarava’s style.

“Roy was one of the all-time great photographers,” Arthur Ollman, founding director of the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, said in 2005. “His photographs provided a vision of African American life that members of the white fine art photography establishment could not have accessed on their own.”

DeCarava’s first major exhibit was at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego in 1986. Ten years later, he was the subject of a one-man exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

“What’s extraordinary about the pictures is the way they capture his lyrical sense of life,” Jonathan Galassi, a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, said in a 1996 interview with ABC.

“You see pain, you see anger and you see an extraordinary quality of tenderness,” Galassi said in a separate interview with CBS.

You can also read John Sevigney’s tribute to de Carava this month in Guernica. I interviewed Mr. DeCarava many years ago for Artweek and was struck by his kind and gentle presence. May he rest in peace.

Roy DeCarava, Nightfeeding, 1952

Roy DeCarava, Graduation, 1949

Roy DeCarava, Mississippi Freedom Marcher, Washington, D.C., 1963

UIUC’s I Space Gallery To Close.

Claudine Ise — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:21:42 +0000

It’s been a possibility for awhile now, but nonetheless I was surprised and saddened to learn that I Space Gallery will officially close its doors on December 31st. Last ditch efforts at fundraising, which once looked quite hopeful, ultimately could not overcome the hurdles presented by economic hard times, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s ongoing budget crisis and the University’s admissions scandals. Gallery Director Mary Antonakos will also lose her post. Antonakos tells me that a new UIUC Gallery is slated to open nearer to campus, which means students will still have a University venue in which to exhibit their work – just not one in Chicago.

The Gallery’s last two exhibitions, “The Philosophe’s Tango: Permanence and Flow, The Last Works of David Bushman 1945-2008,” and “Architecture of Crisis:
Roger Hubeli, Julie Larsen with Aptum Architecture In collaboration with Beat Steuri,” will have their openings on the evening of November 20th. “Its been a very tough and challenging couple of years,” Antonakos told me via email, “but I’m going to try to go out by celebrating what we’ve accomplished.”

Will I Space Close from Lack of Funds?

“Lucía, Luis and the Wolf”

Claudine Ise — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:09:04 +0000

Check out these enthralling, atmospheric, super-sinister art videos that were part of an installation at Galeria Animal, Santiago, Chile by the artists Niles Atallah, Cristobal Leon & Joaquin Cociña. Those chilling whispered voiceovers are probably going to give me nightmares. Which reminds me – only two more days till Halloween, creeps! (Videos via Beautiful/Decay, natch).

LUCIA from diluvio on Vimeo.

LUIS from diluvio on Vimeo.

Tuesday’s Video Pick | 10.27.09

Megonli — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:47:18 +0000

On this week’s pick we bring you a clip from the 1930’s film ‘Le Sang d’un Poete’ or ‘The Blood of the Poet’ by Jean Cocteau.

via netcomuk:

“Technically, The Blood of a Poet reflects Cocteau’s trials and errors as a novice filmmaker who had to turn irreversible mistakes to his advantage and improvise every celluloid foot of the way. During shooting, he used the dust raised by studio cleaning men to enhance the mysterious atmosphere of the final scenes. Special weightless effects were obtained by camera trickery to show the little girl flying up to the ceiling and the poet moving painfully along the corridor wall. Once Cocteau discovered that he could turn shooting disasters into happy accidents, he was off on a career of making films that carried his cachet of surprises…”

The Yes Men in Chicago

Guest — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:31:29 +0000

GUEST POST BY DAMIEN JAMES

The Yes Men, hoaxsters who have elevated civil disobedience to an art form by taking on the biggest, most socially irresponsible corporations and the government that allows those corporations to screw the people, will be making appearances in Chicago this week for the local premier of their new film, The Yes Men Fix the World.

On Thursday, October 29that 7:30pm, they’ll be hosted by Lumpen Magazine at Co-Prosperity Sphere, where The Yes Men will present their recent projects and hold a workshop to plan an action for Friday, October 30th,after the premier of their new film at the Music Box Theater.

If you haven’t seen their work, you should. If you have, you probably understand how important it is. The Yes Men might just have the right amount of courage, conviction, and insanity (think Ralph Nader meets Philippe Petit) to truly enact some kind of positive social change, but they can’t continue to do it without public support. In fact, they can barely afford to pull off their stunts, much less share them with us through their films.

The Yes Men recently posted a project on kickstarter.com to raise $30,000 for prints of their new film, which is in danger of not being seen by enough people. Through kickstarter, anyone can pledge from $30 to thousands, and pledges are only collected if the project gets completely funded. If not, no one loses a cent. If you can only pledge $10, convince two of your friends to do the same. If you can pledge more, you might just win a Survivaball! The project ends December 31st at 4:39pm EST.

Watch them pose as Dow and take responsibility for Bhopal, or reverse the Chamber of Commerce position on climate change! If you like what you see, help them do more.

The Survivaball. You'll need one soon enough.

Nancy Spero and Political Nostalgia

Claudine Ise — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:59:50 +0000

Writing in Artworld Salon, Catherine Spaeth reflects on political nostalgia and Nancy Spero’s legacy:

“Nancy Spero’s death the Sunday before last invites reflection upon what it means for an artist to be politically engaged at this time. Today the New York artworld appears to be more at home with the post-feminism of Lisa Yuskavage, Marylin Minter and Vanessa Beecroft. It may well be that, above all, it is Nancy Spero’s importance in the history of political engagement and feminism for which she will be remembered.”

Read the full piece here.

Public Art in Los Angeles Gets Crapped On, Too

Claudine Ise — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:19:20 +0000

You know, after giving it some serious thought, I think I’m coming to the surprising conclusion that newspaper articles about public art and the public’s reaction to it are my new favorite genre of art news. There’s just so much to chuckle over. Last week, a pair of articles in the L.A. Times told of skeptical police reaction to a recently-installed sculpture outside the L.A.P.D.’s new headquarters. On October 21st, Times columnist Steve Lopez, who has a direct view of this building from his office window, confessed his bemusement at the piece, which is titled “animaline.” But Lopez’s reaction was minor compared to the distaste expressed by outgoing police chief William J. Bratton. Writes Lopez,

The cast-bronze sculptures consist of six large black blobs, with two tall, skinny structures on either side. I wasn’t sure what to make of them, so I went straight to the top: It looks like “some kind of cow splat,” said Police Chief William J. Bratton, who sounded as if he were personally insulted by the installation. Bratton said he first drove past the work and later walked back to see whether “it’s as ugly up close as it is when you’re driving by.”The answer was yes, and he sounded mad enough to have the artist arrested.

Bratton said he was not alone in his opinion; it was the talk of cops and staffers who already have moved into the new police administration building. “I don’t think anybody can figure out” what the shapes are supposed to be, Bratton said. “Bisons and hippos maybe. I haven’t the faintest idea what the two tallest things are on either side.” Nor does he understand what any of this has to do with police administration, if anything. “I don’t get it,” he said. “It’s just a shame.” Myself, I didn’t see animals when I first looked at the sculptures. Peering down from my third-floor window, I thought they were giant molars. Not a good idea, I thought, to have a bunch of knocked out teeth on the grounds of the cop shop.

When I went outside for a closer look, I realized the molars were actually the torsos of animals with large rumps. Were the cops trying to tell me and my colleagues what they think of The Times, giving us a bunch of derrieres to look at? Not clear. But the animal on the northern end looked like a pig that had been knocked on its side. You have to wonder how that’s going to sit with the LAPD brass.

The same day, the Times published a more detailed story (by Yvonne Villarreal) on the L.A.P.D.’s new art collection, this one containing a tit-for-tat response to Bratton’s quotes by artist Peter Shelton, who was commissioned by The Department of Public Affairs to make the sculpture.

“I’d like to think he’d leave his post more graciously,” Shelton said in response to Bratton’s comments as he did the finishing touches on the pieces Wednesday afternoon. “He doesn’t need to bad-mouth something intended to be enjoyed by the city. I’m disappointed he thinks he’s an art expert.”

Shelton, of course, is a highly regarded L.A.-based sculptor who is represented by L.A. Louvre and has shown internationally, blah blah blah, facts I only mention in order to point out that even the so-called “good” artists make work that gets shit on sometimes. It’s outdoor sculpture, after all, and there are just as many birds in Los Angeles as there are anywhere else. I hope J. Seward Johnson takes some small comfort in that.

Peter Shelton, "animaline"

UPDATE: Last week the L.A. Times’ chief art critic Christopher Knight reviewed Peter Shelton’s new public sculpture series, titled “sixbeaststwomonkeys.” That review placed Shelton’s sculpture, designed for placement near the new police headquarters downtown, in in a larger historical context with respect to public art in L.A. as well as nationally. Knight also recalled the furor caused in 1955 by a sculpture by Bernard Rosenthal (1914-2009) for the just-built Parker Center, the L.A.P.D.’s former headquarters.

In 5 Days Everything Changes

Christopher — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:00:26 +0000

In 5 more days Bad at Sports enters it’s next chapter and in anticipation of that we wanted to make things better and easier for everyone.

One way was to put our podcasts in Dolby 5.1 surround sound but after hearing Duncan sing the “Art Reviews” song in virtual surround they stopped returning our calls.

Then we thought about doing the news in 16:9 widescreen but it broke Richard’s Iphone and only Brad Pitt looks good in widescreen (and there has been enough said about him to last a lifetime) so we ditched that idea.

So in the end among the many additions that are coming starting November 1st, the first of which is our new font for the site Helvetica LT Condensed.

Many already have it on their systems but if you don’t you can search for it online easily. See Bad at Sports as it was meant to be seen and we will keep working to bring you the best Art interviews & coverage for free as we have for over four years.

Maybe we can bring Hans Laube’s Smell-O-Vison back? Then again maybe not? How much Turpentine, Rope, Printers Ink, & BO can you take for 60 minutes?

Episode 217: Kitty Scott and Jan Verwoert at the Banff Centre for the Arts

Admin — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:15:05 +0000

Download audio file (Bad_at_Sports_Episode_217-The_Banff_Centre.mp3)

download

This week Duncan and Christian check in from the Banff Centre for the Arts.

They sit down with the Director of Visual Arts, Kitty Scott to discuss what the Banff Centre is and does.

Then they hijack a moment of performance art to “guerrilla” style interview Jan Verwoert, a contributing editor to Frieze magazine, a regular writer for Afterall and Metropolis M, and the leader of their summer residency.
Christian Kuras
Jan Verwoert
Kitty Scott
Frances Stark
Stuart Bailey
Banff Centre
Banff International Curatorial Institute
Banff New Media Institute
Walter Phillips Gallery
Royal College of Art
Education, Collection, History Symposium at the Banff Centre
Ken Lum
Olivia Plender
Ashley Neese
Adrian Stimson

In 7 Days Everything Changes

Christopher — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 08:46:07 +0000

Download audio file (maps_valium-in-the-sunshine.mp3)

Chicago Art Map Launches!

Claudine Ise — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:16:39 +0000

When I first moved to Chicago, shortly after the initial shock and depression wore off (KIDDING…just kidding…mostly), I set about exploring what Chicago’s gallery scene had to offer. Because so much exists off the proverbial beaten track, and I moved here with nary an art friend to show me around, there was a short time during which I thought River North was it when it came to art galleries in Chicago. Now, to be sure, there is much to love in River North, but we all know there is far more to Chicago art than one neighborhood’s offerings.

But there’s never been a book or newspaper or website that clearly maps it all out for you. Until now. Chicago Art Map is the brainchild of local artist/writers/fellow BaS team members Kathryn Born and Stephanie Burke, who’ve been slaving away under cover of night for months and months getting this extraordinary tool ready for public beta launch. Not only is the interactive Art Map literally a map that enables you to see what’s happening art-wise in Chicago by searching according to venue type (i.e. alternative or apartment gallery vs. commercial spaces, along with museums and art centers), neighborhood, and even genre (like 20th Century masters, outsider art, painting or furniture/decorative), it’s a magazine too.

A magazine that already has numerous feature articles online and a boatload of reviews, many of which first appeared on Art Talk Chicago. It’s an exciting new development on a number of levels, and as with all new launches they could use your help with working out the bugs. Go on over, click around, use the map to help plan your art weekend, and send Kathryn and Stephanie your kudos and constructive feedback; I know they’ll appreciate it. Have a great weekend everybody.

Jen Gillespie | Clowns

Guest — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:07:54 +0000

Bad at Sports is pleased to present our second guest blogger this week, Jen Gillespie. Jen is a local Chicago artist. She enjoys a thirsty mind with a taste for critical theory, diagrammatic oversimplification of narrative, heartstrings, and the uses for Lacanian psychoanalysis in explaining identity relationships. She also likes how the harmonium sounds like the accordion in such a way as to cause a physical experience of the synonym in the root terms: accord and harmony. If you have yet to check out guest blogger Damien James be sure to see his preview of the Chicago Humanities Festival.

John Wayne Gacy - Pogo the Clown

With Halloween nearly upon us, I am often thinking of costumes and lately most disruptively of clowns. I’ve been surprised how readily my mind keeps returning to clowns. How they have figure into costumes for hundreds of years that we know of and are still a prominent if somewhat nostalgic theme in entertainment and fantasy. Clowns have been on my mind since coming across an installation of clowns in an unlikely shop window. Though I don’t suffer to any degree from coulrophobia, I can’t seem to shake the image of terrible clowns in torn-up designer clothing.

The Marc Jacobs Halloween window display is haunting my thoughts. I first saw this window display on a recent walk down Damen Ave., in the Bucktown neighborhood, where Marc Jacobs Chicago is located. Occupying the whole front corner of the store are 7 of the most decrepit yet best dressed clowns I’ve ever seen seeming to mill about a dilapidated carnival ground, a partial Ferris wheel painting completes the setting. None of the clowns in the display are friendly or silly or even sweetly sad, these clowns are the scary kind the ones we make horror films about and read biographies of John Wayne Gacy to better understand. They are truly creepy. Choosing to dress-up mannequins to seem as people dressing up as designer clad clowns is a fantastic, seemingly self-conscious, nod to self-reflexivity from a place of authority in fashion and retail capitalism. Though window displays don’t usually rank in my visual and intellectual experience this one sparked a little curiosity into some of the examples of artists using clowns in their work.

Marc Jacobs Chicago 1714 N Damen Ave

Though the place for clowns in art is often right next to the velvet paintings and kitsch collectibles. Clown Torture a video installation by Bruce Nauman, in the Art Institute of Chicago’s Modern Wing, where the clown is not something that comforts or entertains but berates himself from all angles at loud volume obsessively repeating and correcting jokes. In 2003 Cindy Sherman started using clowns in her portraits, they are eerie images with extremely saturated colors. Sherman posing as an elaborate clown in each image, it is much the same as her other work with portraiture and in many ways a surprising continuation of her previous themes rather than the startling change it at first seems when, as the viewer I was first confronted with these antagonizing yet bright, almost playful images. That same year, 2003, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh devoted an entire exhibition to clown paintings from the collections of Diane Keaton and Robert Berman. Between them they have amassed thousands of clown paintings that typify this genre. The show met with mixed reviews and I have not been able to find an instance of its duplication. Since 2003 there are fewer major instance of clowns being used in contemporary art, but to my mind the Marc Jacobs window installation supplies a fantastically creepy visual experience. If you have not been past the Marc Jacobs window I highly suggest the field-trip.

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Zombies Live at Antena Gallery Tonight

Claudine Ise — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:33:20 +0000

Don’t forget that tonight is the opening for Zombies: A Mindless Affair at Antena Gallery.

And get there early, because from 6:30 – 7:00pm there’ll be a discussion between author Scott Kenemore, artist Mindy Rose Schuartz and collaborators Teena McClelland and Michelle Maynard from Death by Design Co. about “the darkness that enlightens their work” moderated by exhibition curator Edra Soto.

There will also be a screening of the film “Throb” made by Death by Design Co. immediately after the conversation.

Top 5? Well…not quite, but…

stephanieburke — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:47:54 +0000

OK, so here’s the deal for right now. Every week (well almost every week) I do a pick of shows that I think are most likely worth seeing (I am often wrong). The problem is that I sometimes don’t get to go to all the shows on my list (I generally see art on the weekend and usually just go to openings, I don’t have the “it’s so crowded in here, I can’t see the art” issue, I just shove my way through and look, but I digress). So this week I am giving ya’ll a list of where exactly I am going. I chose this route because I noticed something odd this weekend, there are seven apartment gallery show openings and closings in the next three days. I figured, what the hell, I’m going to be out, some of these places I like, some of them I don’t really like, some of them I’ve never visited, why not make a circuit of them all, a selection of this Chicago art institution known as the “Apartment Gallery” and see the “State of the Apartment” so to speak. And (this was added after the list was mostly done), I like openings that go till 10 or 11 at night, you can cram a lot more in that way.

APARTMENT GALLERY OPENINGS (AND CLOSINGS) THIS WEEKEND:

1. Australia at Concertina Gallery

Aron Gent, detail from Australia (Hugh Jackman & Nicole Kidman) 2009

And I quote, “Acting as a springboard for works by both Anthea Behm and Aron Gent, Baz Luhrmann’s 2008 movie Australia provides loaded content for each artist to pick apart and reconstruct. Though the artists work off the same source material, they diverge in form and intention. Triggering questions of cultural ownership and responsibility, Behm and Gent address the cultural transmission between those represented and those representing.” This is how the gallery describes the show. I’m most interested in going to see Anthea’s work, she’s a friend of mine and I’m curious to see what she’s been doing.

Concertina Gallery is located at 2351 N. Milwaukee Avenue, 2nd Floor. Opening Reception: Friday 7-10pm

2. Double Fantasy at Noble & Superior Projects

The card-announcement-thingie for Double Fantasy (why this? no other pics on their blog, that's why)

So this place is brand-spankin’-new. I don’t even know if it is actually an apartment gallery, though all indicators point to that (especially the directions that once you get to the address, “Rear House, Through The Gate!!!”). As you can see by the ever-so-informative card-announcement-thingie, the show features the work of Ivan Lozano and Kate Brock. I can’t find a website for Kate Brock, guess you’ll just have to go to the show.

Noble & Superior Projects is located at 1418 W. Superior St. #2R. Opening Reception: Friday 6-10pm

3. 2-for-1: After Effects at secondBEDROOM and Side Effects at Medicine Cabinet.

A two for one in Bridgeport. For those of you who haven’t been there, these two “galleries” are both part of the same apartment, secondBEDROOM located in, you guessed it…and Medicine Cabinet is the name for the installation space/bathroom.

Thad Kellstadt "what we do is a secret" (2009)

In the secondBEDROOM: “Thad Kellstadt’s After Effects attempts to explore the possible afterlife of objects, once dependent on human touch, now neglected but possessing a new presence. Some believe that the breaking of a mirror brings a lengthy stint of bad luck due to the soul confiscating power of the mirrors reflective surface.” Yep.

Side Effects by Jesse Mclean

and in the Medicine Cabinet: “Pharmaceutical marketing strategies and scenic nature photography combine to serve up a warning: Don’t get too comfortable on that plateau. While the view is spectacular there are other forces at work, just out of earshot and bubbling their way toward the placid peaks.” Uh huh.

secondBEDROOM and Medicine Cabinet are located at 3216 S. Morgan Street Apt. 4R. Opening Reception: Saturday 7-11pm.

4. The Trunk Show at Barbara and Barbara

The Trunk Show at Barbara and Barbara

Barbara and Barbara do love you, as their web address so astutely says. For this round the Barbara-ganza is putting on a show dealing with the idea of travel.The show includes the work of a crap-load of people, incuding: Sierra Berquist, Ben Bontempo, Peter McLean-Browne, Evan Burrows, Pete Cuba, Fred Frederick, Julia V. Hendrickson, Landon Manucci, Colin Nusbaum, Emma Powell, Scott Reinhard, David Schalliol, Elizabeth Stoutamire, Christopher Sykora, Sean Sykora, Jessie Vogel, Kelly Wallis, Rustél Weiss, Hannah Zurko

Barbara and Barbara is located at 1021 N. Western Ave. Opening Reception: Saturday 7-10pm.

5. Exhibition 2. 10242009 at MVSEVM

Exhibition 2.10242009 at MVSEVM

Ok, so I’m a bit confused as to who exactly MVSEVM are and whether or not there are two of them. So, instead of linking to the blog that seems like it might be theirs but says they are on vacation, I’m linking ya’ll to the On The Make (another wonderful site) page about the show and gallery. And I quote, “For its second exhibition MVSEVM invites eight diverse artists to contribute site specific works and installations that address the ambiguity of the space as both domestic and professional, private and public, as well as external concerns. In Exhibition 2.10242009 these inquiries manifest in an interrogation of social paradigms, raising questions pertaining to human relationships filtered through biological and technological themes.” Artists in the show: David Brooks, Joe Cruz, Chris Cuellar, Szu-Han Ho, Jesse Vogler, Gabriel Martinez, T UM’, Andrew Yang and Harley Young.

MVSEVM is located at 1626 N California Ave. #2. Opening Reception: Saturday 6-10pm.

6. Deedee Davis and Casey Roberts at Home Gallery

Deedee Davis and Casey Roberts - Works and Collaborative Works

Less of an apartment gallery and more of, well, a home (go figure), Home Gallery is located down in Hyde Park and run by Laura Shaeffer. For this round of exhibitions, Home will be featuring the work of Deedee Davis and Casey Roberts.

Home Gallery is located at 1407 E. 54th Pl. Opening Reception: Saturday 6-9pm.

7. Marginal Waters at Golden Gallery

Doug Ischar "MW 22"

So, this isn’t and opening, it’s a closing. Golden is also, like Home, on the edge of the “apartment gallery” definition, but what the hell. For this round of Golden-tastic-atude, they are closing out Marginal Waters, work from the 80s by Doug Ischar. And I quote, yet again, “Ischar will exhibit a body of photographs from 1985, never before seen in its entirety, taken on the now defunct Belmont Rocks in the city of Chicago, and a new single-channel video work.” The closing is also rolled together with the catalog release, and there’ll be an interview with John Neff.

Home Gallery is located at 816 W. Newport. Reception/Catalog Release: Sunday 3-6pm.

Mike Hoolboom’s MARK @ The Gene Siskel Film Center

laurenvallone — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:41:47 +0000

Presented by the Department of Film Video and New Media at SAIC, the Video Data Bank and the Gene Siskel Film Center, as part of their Conversations at the Edge series, Mark is a video portrait of Mark Karbusicky, created after his suicide in 2007.

Director Mike Hoolboom began his opening remarks by stating that there was a time in his life when all the good things happened in a movie theater, until a day in 2007 when he found out that his friend and collaborator of six years Mark had killed himself, which he was told right before a movie began. Yikes.

The film reads less like a documentary and more like a moving collage of stock footage, childhood portraits and relics, as well as interviews with his friends and family. Beginning with his oldest childhood friend, the film traces the life of a man you end up knowing less about in the end than you did to begin with. It is an odd portrait in that it seems to capture more the periphery of his life than actually attempting to memorialize the man himself. Or perhaps documenting the margins of his life, his politics, odd moments in home videos, Hoolboom was attempting to achieve a more genuine view of Mark as a person.

Created mostly of footage taken by his partner (who happens to be transsexual, although this is actually irrelevant), of her own performances and activism, Mark by default seems to be the supporting character in his own life memorium. Mark was clearly a tortured person. Deeply invested in animal rights, queer politics, and helping others with mental illness, a lot of attention was focused on how little he cared about himself and put all others before him. Hoolboom spoke after the screening about how the film was created in the space between the way things were before Mark had died and before things had settled into the way they would be after his death. The rawness of this period is apparent especially in the interviews, which were all done within the year after his death.

The film is edited to create an intense amount of tension. Many pieces of footage are overlapped, the hand-heldness is emphasized in upside down and shaky camera work, and shots seems to be just too short, or just too long or just too out of focus for one to feel comfortable. In an interview with one of Mark’s friend and coworker, the camera is at table height, and the woman is half obscured by a large candle holder. The focus goes in and out as she tells this heartwrenching rendition of their final interaction. After the screening, Hoolboom explains that he wanted to give his interviewees physical space, and referenced this shot in particular to demonstrate how he wanted the candle to mediate the space between her and the camera. Although I acknowledge the gesture after he spoke about it, during the shot I felt myself wanting to peer around the obstacle and actually see her face. Another shot I thought was more successful was that of Mark’s partner Mihra-Soleil Ross; the camera was focused on the deep red wall of their apartment, you could see a bookcase and a plant, and she walked almost around the frame while she spoke about her recurring dreams during their ten year relationship that he had left her. Her body was just present enough to give you a sense of agency, but the lack of her presence really caused you to focus on her words and storytelling.

I wish the voiceover was left out. Hoolboom in person is charming and eloquent and gesticulates beautifully; on screen his voice seems affected and melodramatic. I think the subtly is lost when documentarians feel the need to describe what has happened instead of letting moods come across through images.

The film was successful in that it felt vast and encompassing, through the use of stock footage that spanned decades, Mark’s own home videos and photos as well as different people speaking about him. It did not feel like the entire momentum of the piece lead up to a dramatic revelation of how he killed himself, which was refreshing. Hoolboom said that his death was not the most important thing that happened in his life, and I think the film reflected this sentiment.

Hot Topic Alert: Art Theory by Artists

Claudine Ise — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:55:47 +0000

There’s a great discussion going on right now at Edward Winkleman’s blog inspired by Winkleman’s post Thinking While Making Things, which was in turn inspired by an interview with Robert Storr conducted by The Art Newspaper, and an article written for Proximity by artist and frequent BaS contributor Mark Staff Brandl titled Artists Write: Thinking While Making Things. The discussion on Winkleman’s blog revolves around the ways that artists can/should/have engage(d) theory in their work and writing, the different forms that “theory” may take when it comes to artistic practice, and further on from there. Go check it out and add your voice to the discussion.

And on a side note, I have a small request of my own for current or former MFA students and/or art history graduate students, along with their professors and teachers: I’m trying to break down what often seem to be monolithic notions of what “Theory” constitutes nowadays by looking at it from more a text-specific level. I’m especially interested in what strains of “Theory” are being taught to younger artists who are engaged with / emerging from art programs TODAY (rather than, you know, 20 years ago, which was arguably when deconstructionist/ post-structuralist / psychoanalytic / postmodern / cultural studies-driven, capital T Theory was in its heyday and held greatest sway). Are there any new Theories out there that I should be aware of (she said, tongue planted firmly in cheek)? What are you proverbial kids reading today? It can’t be the same shit I was reading twenty years ago…can it? Let me know what your profs are assigning or recommending (links to full-on syllabi are welcome!), and which authors and theoretical texts you’re talking about with your friends and colleagues. I want to try and map out, in painfully literal fashion, just what it is we’re talking about when we talk about Theory.

Thanks. Now, go check out the discussion over at Mr. Winkleman’s house (and please make sure to restrict any comments here to the specific topic I put forth above…I don’t think it’s cool to siphon off discussion from another blogger’s post).

Curate This! Offers Latest Contest Model for Contemporary Art Exhibitions

Claudine Ise — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:22:48 +0000

Curate This! a city-wide international emerging contemporary art and design exhibition that starts June 24, 2010 in Denver, Colorado, is the latest example of how some regional arts organizations are trying to encourage a greater engagement in contemporary art among the general public by circumventing traditional approaches to group exhibition-making (particularly the top-down selection processes of curators or juries) in favor of a contest model, one which allows for the display of work by a wide field of entrants whose efforts are assessed and judged by the public. Unlike most group contemporary art shows, which tend to be organized around a theme or other connective thread, the contest model offers viewers something altogether different: a winner. A winner that the audience can help choose. A winner who, if the contest has the right backers, can earn big, maybe even big enough to be life-changing, cash prizes.

Unlike Grand Rapids’ recent, quarter of a million dollar ArtPrize, Curate This! offers its single winner a somewhat more modest prize of $10,000. And unlike ArtPrize, which relied entirely on the public to select the winners, Curate This! shoots for a kind of middle ground between juried exhibition and the pure populism of the contest mode. In fact, the title of Curate This! is somewhat misleading, because the public isn’t in any way involved in the curation of the artworks on display. That job is still left to a panel of professional curatorial “advisers” whose identity will remain hidden until the selections have been made. Once that happens, the selected entries will go on view at various Denver-area venues and at that point the public will vote on a winner. (There will also be a Curator’s Choice Award, but as far as I can tell there is no financial prize connected to it).

Unlike the ArtPrize, which for a number of reasons seems like an ineffective and somewhat suspiciously motivated model, I don’t see much that’s problematic in what the city of Denver and the BECA Foundation (the Foundation arm of the New Orleans-based Bridge for Emerging Contemporay Art) are trying to do with Curate This! For one, the $10,000 prize, while still generous and attention-grabbing, isn’t stratospherically out of proportion to what an artist might (once) have received from a regional grants foundation, pre-recession anyway. For another, the prize money comes from The BECA Foundation itself, a nonprofit organization whose goals–to “serve as a bridge by which new ideas and new art + design flow freely between New Orleans and the larger national and international contemporary art + design communities” and to “support innovation, exploration and the advancement of new ideas in contemporary visual art + design” are publicly in line with those of this contest.

Competitions like Curate This! and even ArtPrize suggest that the contest model will be primarily useful as a marketing and public relations tool for cities who wish to engage new audiences in contemporary art along with their region’s other cultural offerings. In the case of Curate This!, that city is Denver, but the exhibition goes beyond regional interests in its inclusion of international entrants, which serves to connect Denver’s art world with its counterpart in other cities and countries. That all makes sense, and for these reasons the organizers behind this particular competition seem to be approaching it in a thoughtful and notably anti-sensationalistic fashion.

Beyond its attractions to a general public, could the contest model offer something valuable to arts professionals, even to (gasp!) curators themselves? It’s hard to say, but what I am certain of is that contests like these pose little threat to the top-dog model that already characterizes the curatorial profession at large. Hans Ulrich Obrist will still be the winner, this year’s #1 guy (in Art Review magazine’s estimation, at least). It’s still too early to tell whether the contemporary art contest is just a passing fad or will ultimately prove popular enough (and a big enough revenue-generator) to be taken up en masse by other organizations and cities. If it does, I’m of the opinion that that wouldn’t be such a terrible thing–as long as we don’t inadvertently convince people that other forms of public financial support are dispensable when there are so many big cash prizes out there for artists to win.

Chicago Humanities Festival Preview

Guest — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:19:54 +0000

We’re pleased to welcome Chicago artist and writer Damien James as our new guest blogger! Damien will be covering the Chicago Humanities Festival for us, and today brings us a preview of what we can look forward to at this year’s Festival.

The Chicago Humanities Festival has just kick-started it’s 20^th anniversary programming with the theme of Laughter. “Not Happiness, mind you,” writes the Festival’s artistic director Lawrence Weschler. “Happiness is smug and bland and self-satisfied. Laughter, on the other hand, runs the gamut: from blithe to bitter, raucous to serious, fond to angry,” and so on.

Spread out in venues across the city, the Chicago Humanities Festival will giddily dance through Laughter in all its permutations with the same expansive worldview and near-reckless abandon it has brought to the table since 1989, when Richard Franke got the bright idea to bring intellectually stimulating, entertaining, and entirely accessible lectures, performances, and all-around amazingness to our Midwestern metropolis.

On hand will be such distinguished guests as Harold Ramis (sharing some of his favorite funny moments in cinema), Matt Groening in conversation with Lynda Barry, Pulitzer Prize-winner Alison Lurie, Pulitzer Prize-coveter John Hodgman, Chris Ware and his beautifully sad art, Bob Sabiston (of Waking Life fame), the Neo Futurists, Chicago Reader’s Michael Miner, the Guerrilla Girls, and 151 other presenters that you’ll probably want to see.

CHF has literally changed peoples lives, my own included, and I’ll be attending from now through mid-November and sharing some of my experiences with you. Maybe this year I’ll explode.

The Festival runs through November 14th. For more info and tickets, visit http://www.chicagohumanities.org/.

Damien James is a self-taught artist and writer living (barely) and working (constantly) in Chicago. He has contributed to Chicago Reader, New City, Saatchi Gallery Online, Art Voices, and the general goodwill of mankind, among other things. His art has been seen in Chicago’s Around the Coyote Gallery, Brooklyn’s 3^rd Ward Gallery with Art House Co-op’s Sketchbook Project, various apartments in Berlin, London, and a tiny village in Romania.

Without the good sense and inspiration of his paramour, Cassandra, he would most likely be a small blot of dirt about to be washed away by an only slightly larger puddle of inky water in some back alley.

Elimination of Park District Arts Program Begs Further Questions

Claudine Ise — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:40:58 +0000

Yesterday I read with great interest Lee Ann Norman’s story on the elimination of the Park Voyagers program on Art Talk Chicago, Chicago Now’s visual arts blog. Norman reported that the long-running (since 1998) Park Voyagers program–which takes a long-view perspective on youth arts education through its three-year long programs with area museums–will be cut by the end of this year (park programs already underway will be allowed to finish). As far as I know, the program’s elimination has not been publicly announced via press release, nor has it been reported anywhere other than on Art Talk Chicago.

Park Voyagers is a collaboration between the Chicago Park District and Museums In the Park (MIP), a coalition of 10 institutions residing on park district property. The MIP institutions include Adler Planetarium, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago History Museum, DuSable Museum of African American History, The Field Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Science and Industry, the National Museum of Mexican Art, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, and the John G. Shedd Aquarium, all of whom fund the program collectively through contributions from their individual budgets.

Art Talk Chicago’s editor and head blogger Kathyrn Born (who is also a frequent contributor to Bad at Sports) raised some interesting questions about the agreement that exists between the Park District and the MIP institutions. In an email to me this morning, Born wondered, “Why is the relationship between the Park District (which represents city government’s support in this case) a handshake deal? Why is there no legal, binding obligation between these entities? They [the MIP coalition] pay $1 a year as rent as a part of their deal with the park district…so why are there no legal safeguards?”

What we do know is that the number of Chicago families who have participated in this unique public arts program was not insubstantial. According to the MIP’s 2008 Annual Report, in the year 2008 the Park Voyagers program served 595 families (1635 individuals total including parents and children), providing them with 15,761 contact hours with Chicago cultural institutions.

Borne notes the difficulty of determining to whom the MIP museums ultimately answer in cases like these: is it the Park District, and if so, which person or office? I myself am curious if the Chicago Park District has an opinion about its loss of the Park Voyagers program, given that, according to Norman’s ATC post, there are currently no plans to replace it.

The Art World Mourns Nancy Spero

Claudine Ise — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:21:22 +0000

Late yesterday word that artist Nancy Spero had passed away at the age of 83 began circulating on Internet art blogs. Today, there is praise from around the country for Spero’s artistic contributions and her role as an outspoken feminist and critic of war, violence, and injustice. Here’s a brief sampling of some of the earliest press coverage:

Holland Cotter, New York Times: Nancy Spero, Artist of Feminism, Is Death at 83

“…Although Spero received relatively little art world attention during the early part of her career, she gained visibility in the 1980s and ’90s as socially concerned art came into favor. By this time her work had gained in formal complexity and variety, with its weavings of image and text, its time-consuming techniques of painting, cutting, and stamping, and its adaptation of aspects of Pop, Minimalism, and Color Field painting, styles she had previously distanced herself from.

…

Kiki Smith, one of the many younger artists influenced by Spero, once said in an interview: “When I first saw Nancy Spero’s work, I thought, ‘You are going to get killed making things like that; it’s too vulnerable. You’ll just be dismissed immediately.’”

Spero herself, who experienced both being dismissed and celebrated, said simply of her work, “I am speaking of equality, and about a certain kind of power of movement in the world, and yet I am not offering any systematic solutions.”

Adrien Searle, Guardian UK: Nancy Spero’s Death Means the Art World Loses Its Conscience

“Nancy Spero’s death on Sunday took a great artistic conscience from the world. The last time I visited her in the LaGuardia Place studio she shared with her partner Leon Golub – Leon died in 2004 – she looked frail but indomitable, though surrounded by a galaxy of medications, and getting about only with extreme difficulty. Cursed with arthritis, over the years she had developed strategies to make her art, getting studio assistants to cut and stamp out the stencils she made, printing them on paper, on walls, and even as a maypole of severed heads. This last was one of the most memorable works at the 2007 Venice Biennale, greeting viewers as they entered the Italian pavilion where the keynote show was held. Spero said the work, Maypole/Take No Prisoners, was “all about victimage”, though its grotesque aspect was leavened by her wit.”

The L Magazine: Nancy Spero, Pioneering Feminist Artist, Is Dead

“More than her art, though, Spero’s legacy will be defined by her leadership in New York’s feminist art movement, both as a member of several radical groups of artists and activists in the 60s and 70s, and especially as the founder of A.I.R. Gallery, which still operates in Dumbo.”

Phoebe Hoban for ARTnews: In Memoriam: Nancy Spero (posted online today in lieu of an obituary; an excellent profile of Spero from a couple of years ago):

“It’s difficult to think of the slight, spritelike Spero as a grande dame of the art world. But apart from Louise Bourgeois, few living female artists have carved out a similarly singular niche. Both are trenchant woman warriors who have invented powerful pictorial vocabularies that are simultaneously idiosyncratic and universal. If Bourgeois is Spider Woman, a provocative weaver of monumental webs, Spero is the High Priestess of Hieroglyphics whose lifework is the visual equivalent of an epic poem. Bourgeois has mostly made her mark with objects that forcefully occupy space, but Spero has chosen a more ephemeral path, often using mere paper to create mythic scrolls, collages, and “Maypoles,” that explore her ongoing quest, the eternal feminine.”

Take the ‘Donald Judd, or Cheap Furniture?’ Quiz

Claudine Ise — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:17:25 +0000

Test yourself: is this a Donald Judd Scupture, or a piece of cheap furniture?

I’m not generally a fan of the ubiquitous online quiz, but this one…I came, I took, I scored an embarrassing 83% (two answers incorrect). Take it yourself and see how you fare.

Donald Judd, or Cheap Furniture? (Edited to FIX LINK; sorry guys!)

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Nancy Spero Dies at Age 83

Claudine Ise — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:42:40 +0000

From Edward Winkleman we learn the very sad news that artist Nancy Spero has passed away at the age of 83. Spero earned a B.F.A. from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1949, and lived in Chicago with her husband, the painter Leon Golub in the early 1950s (where both were associated with the Monster Ronster group of Chicago artists, which also included Don Baum and H.C. Westermann) before moving to Paris to study painting. An interview with Spero conducted by Art21 can be found here. May she rest in peace.

: Nancy Spero, Space Wars, gouache and ink on paper, 1966

: Nancy Spero, War, handprinting on paper, 1986

: Nancy Spero, Torture of Women, handprinting and typewriter collage on paper, 1985-1989

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