A man walked by me as soon as I finished shooting this and I heard him saying “…that’s fuckin’ disgusting…(listening)…pigeons washing themselves in some street puddle…” into his cell phone. When I made eye contact with him he lowered his voice.

Watch the 11 second video on Flickr.

This is one of my favorite works from the season, and it’s on display during BETA Spaces in Bushwick tomorrow.

Sharon from Two Coats of Paint tells us a little about Moyse’s show, “The Otherside:”

At Norte Maar this month, [Jason] Andrew has installed [six] paintings by Bushwick artist Brooke Moyse. Moyse makes thinly painted landscapes with the slightest hint of horizon. “Many of the paintings develop around a specific historical work of art,” [she writes in her statement.]

While tackling Poussin, Constables, Bellini, Holbein, and Lawrence Weiner may sound like an appropriation nightmare, Moyse steers clear of obvious historic references. Her paintings seem to fit into two groups: interiors and landscapes. The smaller works feel like sketches, while the larger canvases are fully formed and ambitious. “Forest M.E.” is the centerpiece of the show, and my guess is it’s inspired by Holbein since it comes across as regal and poised.

More about BETA Spaces on BushwickBK.

I posted this on Art21 last week:

On October 9, over a hundred art fans arrived at the Apple Store Soho to gain insight into the work and life of German-American artist Florian Maier-Aichen. Organized by Art21, the early evening event featured a special advance screening of Season 5’s Fantasy episode, which features Maier-Aichen, and it provided an opportunity for the public to ask the artist about his artistic practice and inspirations.

It’s a report about Maier-Aichen’s conversation with the very knowledgeable Wesley Miller.

Check out the whole post here.

Hyperallergic just published: The Top 20 Most Powerless People in the Art World

Gotta love it…here’s a taste:

1. Everyone entirely unknown to Hans Ulrich Obrist – If the kingmaker isn’t on your cell phone, well, at least your mother is.
2. The guy in the bunny outfit who year after year protested in front of Gagosian’s 25th Street gallery — hey buddy, how’s the career?
3. Independent curators without trust funds – There’s a saying, “No trust, no love.”
4. Artists who can’t speak English, French, German, or Spanish. While the world is filled with approximately 6,800 languages, artwork must adhere to the linguistic realities of economics.
5. That man at all the openings who might be homeless. Wine at gallery openings may be the art world’s only form of social service to people outside their realm, but hey, it’s something.

Read the whole thing here.

I love to sign the praises of HragVartanian.com & Hyperallergic interns to people when I see them but I don’t do it nearly enough online.

So ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to one of them…Artie Vierkant.

Artie’s an MFA student, artist and writer based in San Diego, California, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I first met Artie on Twitter, where he started a fight with me over my critique of Cory Arcangel’s “Photoshop CS: 72 by 110 inches, 300 DPI, RGB square pixels, default…” (2009) and, well, I like people who have a strong opinion and can intelligently argue their point–even if we choose to disagree.

His Hypermedia column on Hyperallergic isn’t even two weeks old and it is already taking off. He’s already written about the idea of “Exposure” online and its role in new media art, and today he’s published a great interview with artists Daniel Keller and Nik Kosmas, better known as AIDS-3D.

Here’s a taste:

AV: So this sort of brings me to another point I wanted to raise, which is to what degree does your art engage with research? It seems like a number of your examples in your recent IMG MGMT essay [on Art Fag City] (William Blake’s “Newton,” Ruth Schwartz Cowan, &c.) are derived from the field of the history and sociology of science. Perhaps I’m asking for how much things like this inform your work, or whether they simply inform AIDS-3D’s general philosophy.

AIDS-3D: Well we are researching stuff all the time on the internet. I think that our work has gotten more research based in the past year. We were really reacting against our experiences in academia and maybe feeling a little bit too apathetic towards art theory.

Artie also regularly publishes his musings and great Internet finds on HyperallergicLABS.

If you want to learn more about Artie, check out artievierkant.com.

Needless to say, I’m delighted to have Artie onboard.

***********

Top image caption: Artie Vierkant, “Self Portrait with Wawa Bag” (2008), C-Prints on glass

After a great seven-month run at the now defunct ArtCat Zine (though IDIOM has picked up the mantle of being ArtCat’s online arts magazine), the Hyperallergic incarnation will continue its mission to caste a critical eye on the city’s street art scene.

Check out the latest “Re:Public” installments:

• Flipping Through MOMO’s 3am-6am; and
• iBlanket: “Ads” That Don’t Sell & Encourage Debate.

For a complete list of past “Re:Public” columns click here.

Boy, the stuff that goes on at the New Museum pisses me off. For an institution with so much promise, it has become a boring place.

Yesterday, I railed about their latest stunt to exhibit a trustee’s private collection: New or Same Old Museum (Hyperallergic)

Yesterday was the big day when my new blogazine, Hyperallergic, went online.

I’ve been thinking about this project for about a year now but only since August did I commit myself to making it a reality.

Many people have helped me put this all together, most importantly my lovely husband Veken, who had to endure my extensive anxiety and general zaniness. So thanks V!

I also want to thank my two interns (their enthusiasm was key in the whole process), Artie Vierkant and Elizabeth Spiers, an up-and-coming graphic designer who created our great new logo, Linda McNeil, and Wordpress developer John Sexton, who worked wonders.

Then there are all the writers, photographers and editors who pitched in to help, so thank you, thank you!

Hyperallergic is a work in progress and the blogazine is only one part of the puzzle. There is already a very active HyperallergicLABS visual stream online and soon these will be joined by a podcast and journal. All in good time, I assure you.

Make sure you subscribe to the Hyperallergic feed and newsletter and join us on Twitter and Facebook.

Want to know how you can help? We need help promoting the site, so, please email your friends, share this post (or any Hyperallergic post) on Facebook and Twitter, or just shoot me an email and I will mail you a small stack of postcards that you can hand out to friends or place at a local coffee shop, gallery or bookstore.

Hyperallergic is for everyone passionate about art and we’d appreciate your help getting the word out.

Thanks for all your support and blogging here will resume shortly.

This morning started off like any other Sunday I decided to go to our Williamsburg office, with two exceptions: one, we arrived before noon (a rarity for us on weekends), and two, when I veered a block off our usual path so that I could show Veken a graffiti mural on N10th Street a man walking a dog stopped to ask us if we have spray paint in our bags–we were carrying two tote bags filled with Perrier bottles, papers, books and sweaters.

He was aggressive in his tone but still Veken replied, “no.” He wasn’t convinced. He quickly became belligerent and acted like some vigilante who was endowed with the power to enforce the city’s insane graffiti laws. His tone peeved me off and I told him to mind his own fuckin’ business and keep walking.

The whole incident was a sad reminder about how angry people like him are just plain angry at graffiti. He yelled about being sick of seeing graffiti on the streets, though something tells me he doesn’t harbor the same level of animosity towards illegal corporate advertising.

Among the zanier things he ranted during our run in were accusations of being “degenerates” and not “being from here”and “invading his neighborhood”–he said we were probably from Ohio, LOL. Of course, he probably didn’t realize that “degenerate” was the exact term the Nazis used when persecuting modern art in 1930s Germany, but I’m sure that fact would’ve been lost on him.

I was fed up with his nonsense and I had nothing to be embarrassed about so I stood my ground and told him to get a life. This graffiti-hater then said he was calling the cops–to which Veken repled, “be my guest’–and he proceeded to fake call then snapped our photo with his camera phone. I decided to do the same (well, the photo part, who has time to wait for cops) and captured his image which I’ve posted on Flickr & here (pictured above). I would’ve loved to have waited for the police just to hear this crazy man explain that he thought his paranoid suspicions were enough to have us searched or arrested.

The venom he had for graffiti was borderline insane. He was quickly becoming unhinged and there was no getting through to him. I even tried to explain that I was an art critic and I enjoyed looking at this. He didn’t believe me, people with predetermined notions about people never do.

All I could think about when we walked away after our verbal confrontation were the artists who are persecuted by people like him. Perhaps these nuts wouldn’t feel so empowered if more of us who appreciate good graffiti and street art spoke up and explained it was our city too. What we really need to do is find ways for street art to coexist with the other visual elements of urban life without these type of flare ups.

One last thing buddy, I said it earlier today, but I want to say it again, “Fuck you.”