Monthly Archive for May, 2011

Can art regenerate a community?

Published on May 23, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

Can art regenerate a community? Can building an architect designed gallery in a socially deprived area change its fortunes? Everyone wants a Bilbao Guggenheim. Almost overnight Bilbao was transformed from a culturally moribund commercial centre in an unfashionable corner of Spain’s Basque region to a must-see destination. After its opening in 1997 hundreds of thousands of tourists began to pour into the city just to visit Frank Ghery’s new building. Then came the knock- on effects: the new hotels, the expanding of the airport, the upgrading of facilities and extra employment and, hey-presto, Bilbao was changed forever.

It was a far sighted decision by the local burghers even though there was, at the time, much opposition. But the result is one of the most extraordinary and beautiful modern buildings you will see anywhere. Tate St. Ives, above Porthmeor beach, has also been a success. But here the project was built on an historic legacy, for St. Ives has, due to its especial clarity of light, had a thriving artistic community since the 19^th century. The tiny fishing village, a popular middle-class holiday destination, already attracted people who might be expected to visit a gallery. More…

What Is Totalitarian Art?

Published on May 22, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From Kanan Makiya at Foreign Affairs…

Earlier this year, the government of Iraq, in a misconceived act of outreach to the country’s once dominant Sunni community, began restoring a dilapidated monument in Baghdad. Originally constructed in the late 1980s as a celebration of Iraq’s supposed triumph in its war against Iran, the Victory Arch was partially dismantled in 2008 by Sadrist elements who were eventually stopped by orders from the Iraqi prime minister. The monument consists of two sets of giant forearms and hands brandishing swords, draped with a net containing a gruesome collection of enemy helmets. Conceived by Saddam Hussein himself and carried out by the Iraqi sculptor Mohammed Ghani Hikmat using casts of Saddam’s own arms, it is such an outstanding example of totalitarian kitsch that I used it as a lens through which to view the degradation of culture in Iraq under the Baathist regime in my 1991 book The Monument.

But what exactly makes something totalitarian art? In his important and encyclopedic tome on the art produced under the twentieth century’s four most brutal political systems — the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, Fascist Italy, and the People’s Republic of China — Igor Golomstock makes it clear that he is writing not about “art under totalitarian regimes” but rather about “totalitarian art,” a particular cultural phenomenon with its own ideology, aesthetics, and style. This type of art did not arise because of common threads running through Soviet, German, Italian, and Chinese culture; the cultural traditions of the countries, Golomstock holds, are “simply too diverse” to explain the stylistic and thematic similarities among totalitarian works. More…

What is computer music (or does it matter)?

Published on May 20, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From Dave Maier at 3quarksdaily.com…

As everybody knows, with the proper encouragement computers can make bleeps and bloops, and so: computer music! That’s been true for many years, and there are plenty of histories of computer music which will tell you all about the Telharmonium, the Synket, and the RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer (pictured here). This thing, which was once the state of the art, is the size of several refrigerators and was decidedly not a real-time sound production device. Nowadays, on the other hand, everyone who has a laptop, or even an iPad (or iPhone!), and access to the Internet, can download, often for free, sound generation and manipulation programs which make even the most powerful tools of the previous century look like TinkerToys. Yet our understanding of the significance and meaning of “computer music” remains mired in the compositional and ontological assumptions of the distant past.

This is unfortunate but entirely understandable. As plenty of wise guys have pointed out over the years, we rarely understand change as it happens and only get it, if at all, in retrospect. Still, we should try to keep up; so let’s see what we can do. What is “computer music”, and why should we care? More…

Matisse and Picasso: The Redemption and The Fall

Published on May 18, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From Eric Michaud at nonsite.org...

We should give ourselves up to the lies of art to deliver ourselves from the lies of myth: it is by this very paradoxical and singular way of absorption into the framework of one of the “great works” of the Occident that Picasso belongs to myth. For if it is true that he always sought to combat myth, making him even more dependent on it, he only succeeded by turning myth’s own arms onto itself—that is, the “lie.”

The declaration he made to Marius de Zayas in 1923 is generally well known:
We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.

But his ideas confided twelve years later to Christian Zervos are less remembered:
We have attached ourselves to myths instead of feeling what motivated the men who painted them. There should be an absolute dictatorship…a dictatorship of painters…the dictatorship of one painter to suppress all those who tricked us, to suppress the cheaters, to suppress the objects of trickery, to suppress customs, to suppress charms, to suppress history, to suppress a heap of still more things.

Upon closer reading, these concepts would suggest that in Picasso’s eyes there existed two distinct kinds of lie, or two opposing types of lies. First, the lies that only trick, which would be nothing but surface and opacity, whereas the others would give access to the truth—a truth assuredly terrible, since it would be without attractiveness and having escaped from history. More…

Islamic and Indian art: The more the merrier

Published on May 11, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

“Faridun in the Guise of a Dragon Tests His Sons”

By P.W., The Economist

EVENTS in London last week proved that competition can be good for business, at least in the art world. The three leading auction houses—Sotheby’s, Bonhams and Christie’s—were full of Islamic and Indian art. Some rarities, some masterpieces; most of it a treat to see. Sotheby’s announcement late last year that it was going to sell a chunk of the late Stuart Cary Welch’s famous collection (written about in this week’s paper) must have prodded the others to get moving. After all, few collectors, curators and dealers were likely to miss the Welch sale. An active collector for over 70 years, Welch’s eye was good, his approach bold, his judgments acute. Last week Sotheby’s auctioned off his Islamic pieces, saving his Hindu material for another splash in May.

To Read More…

EVENTS in London last week proved that competition can be good for business, at least in the art world. The three leading auction houses—Sotheby’s, Bonhams and Christie’s—were full of Islamic and Indian art. Some rarities, some masterpieces; most of it a treat to see. Sotheby’s announcement late last year that it was going to sell a chunk of the late Stuart Cary Welch’s famous collection (written about in this week’s paper) must have prodded the others to get moving. After all, few collectors, curators and dealers were likely to miss the Welch sale. An active collector for over 70 years, Welch’s eye was good, his approach bold, his judgments acute. Last week Sotheby’s auctioned off his Islamic pieces, saving his Hindu material for another splash in May.

Creating Dynamic Paintings with Nike+ GPS Run Data

Published on May 5, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From information aesthetics

Nike + Paint With Your Feet [yesyesno.com] uses some clever data metrics captured by the Nike+ sensor, including speed, consistency and the unique style of each person’s run to create a distinctive set of 3D visuals. Participants were able to play with the mapping rules and adjust the composition of their run, such as its color, texture, size and 3D rotation, which was then outputted as a high resolution print and an engraved shoe box to take home.

To Read More…

Ai Weiwei’s Artwork Travels, Despite Detainment

Published on May 3, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By Laura Sydell, NPR

Twelve large sculptures by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei will be unveiled Monday in New York, but the whereabouts of their creator remain unknown.

Ai was taken into custody by Chinese authorities nearly a month ago and, according to his family, the government still has not told them where he is or why he was taken.

Ai has always been outspoken in both his art and his life, but recent events in China and the Middle East have brought greater government scrutiny to one of the country’s best-known artists.

To Read More…