And Now For Something Different

This artist won the 'Ukraine's Got Talent' show (who knew such a thing existed?) with this sand painting. I've never seen anything quite like it.




Telegraph (uk): Sand artist Kseniya Simonova, winner of Ukraine's Got Talent, becomes internet hit

Hump Day Humor

Sheep! Lights, camera, action, sheep!

Shepard Fairey on CBS Sunday Morning

Watch CBS Videos Online

Hidden Gems

Davis Museum, Wellesley.
That's the title of an article in today's Boston Sunday Globe with a review of some of the small undiscovered museums in this area. I particularly like the Davis Museum at Wellesley College which has a lot of contemporary art in a large, light-filled space, as well as the more expected collections of older art.

Boston Globe: Hidden Gems

Here are links to the museums mentioned in the article:

Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester

Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton (Admission is free until 2/25/09 due to installation of next exhibit)

Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown

Tufts University Art Gallery, Medford

Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton

Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley

Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham

Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover

Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester

Shepard Fairey Arrested in Boston

I have been meaning to write about the AP's bullshit claim against Shepard Fairey for using their copyrighted photo to make his Obama "hope" poster (above); then I open the newspaper today and find that Fairey was arrested last night outside the Institute for Contemporary Art. I have no idea what that's about, but I'm pretty sure the AP's case against him is bogus. Did Campbell's Soup sue Andy Warhol? (runs to google to check...yes they did! But dropped the case, whether because they liked the exposure for their brand, or because they were going to lose on the merits of whether Warhol's work infringed on their brand.)

So, is the AP claiming a copyright on Obama's face? I would think if anyone has the right to "use" the photo, it's the subject.

We all know why AP is suddenly doing this more than a year after the poster came out. Newspapers are in the toilet, cutting costs left and right including cutting AP, and they need money.

Boston.com: AP wants credit for Fairey's Obama image

Boston.com: Street artist arrested on way to event at ICA

Shepard Fairey, the controversial street artist riding a roller coaster of publicity with his red, white, and blue posters of President Obama, was arrested last night on his way to deejay an event kicking off his exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art.

Fairey, 38, who is known for his countercultural style, was arrested on two outstanding warrants and was being held, according to a police official with knowledge of the arrest who requested anonymity. Police could not describe the nature of the warrants, but said they originated in Massachusetts.

Fairey has been arrested at least 14 times, he has told the Globe.

The artist was arrested at about 9:15 p.m. as he was about to enter a sold-out dance event at the ICA on Northern Avenue, known as "Experiment Night." The event is geared toward a younger crowd, with techno-style music, and more than 750 people were waiting for Fairey, some of whom had bought tickets on Craigslist for as much as $500.

Fairey was supposed to appear as a guest disc jockey for the kickoff of his exhibit, "Supply and Demand," which will run through Aug. 16. He was scheduled to go on stage at about 10:30 p.m., and an hour later organizers told the crowd that he was arrested.

"We're very disappointed," said Paul Bessire, deputy director of the ICA.

Rare Find

DailyMail: An auctioneer holds the Egyptian jar used as a garden ornament for 20 years

DailyMail (uk): Owner of garden patio ornament is told it's actually an ancient Egyptian artefact

A garden ornament that had been sitting on a patio for 20 years has turned out to be a rare, 3,000 year old ancient Egyptian jar.

The 13inch-high vessel was made during the time of the pharaohs to hold the organs of the dead ready for the afterlife.

With a distinctive top in the style of a face and easily recognisable headdress, the Canopic funerary jar had blended into its surroundings in an English garden for two decades.

[]

The terracotta jar with the top shaped with the face of the god Imseti was built to hold a human liver. The goddess Isis would have protected it.

Dating from the New Kingdom - 1550-1069 BC - the brown-coloured jar would once have been a painted receptacle fit for a pyramid.

Punk'd: The Art Episode

Times: In reality, [David Cerny] designed all the elements of his Entropa installation himself. Cerny did not create an entry for Britain because he said the country did not want to be part of Europe. Romania is depicted as a giant Dracula theme park in tribute to the Transylvania region of the East European country

Controversial artist David Cerny punk'd the European Union by creating a giant art installation (supposedly created by artists from each country) that mocks the member countries by portraying them as gross stereotypes. How to choose the best mocking? I have to go with leaving an empty space for Great Britain, as they never really wanted to be in the EU at all! But I imagine Bulgaria, portrayed as a giant lavatory, was the most upset. And that Romanian Dracula is hilarious.

Times (uk): Czech sculptor David Cerny admits £350,000 EU art hoax

It seemed like such a good idea at the time: what better way to celebrate the Czech Republic’s presidency of the European Union than a giant art installation, with input from every member state, showing what we really feel about our place in Europe?

True, some of the 27 entries were a little unusual. The eight-tonne work, entitled Entropa, depicted Romania as a Dracula theme park and the Netherlands as completely covered by water, with only the tops of minarets sticking out. The French component had the word “Strike!” emblazoned on it. And was that a hint of a swastika in the German entry, a bird’s-eye view of a series of autobahns?

It was several days, however, before anyone complained and the EU began to smell a rat. Only when Bulgaria – depicted as a Turkish lavatory – objected did the Czechs start to question the organiser of the project, the artist David Cerny. Yesterday Mr Cerny admitted that the whole thing had been a hoax, and that he had created all the sculptures himself and invented the names of the “up-and-coming” artists from the 27 member states.

There was also the question of what became of £350,000 in funding meant for the artists.

[]

The discovery explains why journalists were unable to find British artist “Khalid Asadi” to ask him why he chose not to contribute a sculpture – an omission explained in Mr Cerny’s brochure as a statement that Britain did not want to be part of Europe.

Photo Gallery: Entropa

The Arts Go First

Looks like I'm losing my studio space. The Worcester Craft Center, where I have rented space for the past two years, has announced it is closing its doors for a "strategic pause" [pdf file]. To me, strategic pause sounds very ominous. The Board is basically giving up and putting out an APB for funding. I'm not sure whether to use the past tense or the present tense in writing this post. The Center took the studio renters money for January so we are allowed to continue to use our spaces until the end of the month; but there are no longer any employees at the Center. No classes, no gift shop, no one to pay for supplies or clay, no one to fire the kilns, no one to maintain the equipment.

Everyone but the Executive Director was fired yesterday; a few people will stay on for a day or two, but that's it. They even closed the gift shop so apparently bringing in modest amounts of money is not considered important. (The gift shop was profitable.) The glass studio which is in a separate building is now offering all kinds of rentals, of space and different kinds of equipment.

The Craft Center has been in financial straits for years and the economic crisis has made things worse. Here's the financial situation according to the Telegram:

The decision, reached at a trustees meeting Monday night, came after pressure from creditors and a significant decline in tuition, donations and other revenue added up to a shortfall of about $700,000, said David J. Firstenberg, president of the board of trustees. To reopen, the center needs about $1.2 million, to retire debt and finance a restart, he said, while acknowledging that that is a steep challenge in the current economic climate.

Last summer, the Center for Crafts had just begun to recover from several years of serious financial struggles. The board had worked hard to stabilize the venerable institution, Ms. Walzer had been hired as a permanent director after a period when the position had been a revolving-door, and a $1.2 million capital campaign was showing promise. The board had hoped to use some of the money to rebuild the staff after several rounds of budget cuts in recent years had gutted it. There was no marketing director or accountant on staff, for example, and several craft areas languished without department heads.

Then, in October, the recession deepened and the money flow ebbed. Some capital campaign pledges didn’t come through, and investment portfolios deflated. Tuition revenue declined as prospective students became more conservative with spending.

[]

The craft center is hampered in borrowing its way out of the crisis by the debt it has already incurred. Among major creditors are vendors such as utilities and printers, who are owed about $140,000. “A significant portion of that is over 90 days and so we’ve been stringing vendors along and that gets dicey after a while,” Mr. Firstenberg said.

There also is a substantial institutional debt. The Non-Profit Funding Foundation loaned the craft center $330,000 in 2004, on which $290,000 is still owed. “We’ve been making interest-only payments for a period of time and they’ve been, not at all inappropriately, asking when we were going to begin making principal payments,” Mr. Firstenberg said. The Commonwealth National Bank in Worcester, where the craft center does most of its banking, also has been receiving interest-only payments on loans totaling about $29,000, he said. Other debt is in friendlier hands, he said, friends of the institution that had made loans last fiscal year to help hold the center over until pledge money came in.

I stopped in yesterday afternoon to check on the work which came out of the soda kiln the Monday before Christmas. (Which turned out really well, BTW.) The lights were off, but I figured that there was just no one in working. Nope. The head of the clay studio broke the bad news to me; of course, it's far worse for him, a loyal 15-year-professional who is out of a job. Apparently rumors had been swirling around the entire time I've been gone, so at least I missed the anticipatory anxiety. I just get the thud of loss and stress.

Angry deep thought: If the Craft Center had had the foresight to change its name to Worcester Center for Banking and Crafts a few years ago, we could fill out a two page form [pdf file] and get a billion dollars from Hank Paulsen.

This is a tragedy for the city of Worcester. The schoolkids who took classes at the Center, the high school students in the Teen Apprentice Program, all the adults who have taken classes, all will miss the school. Of course, part of the problem that the Crafts Center has had is that it is not the most well-known of Worcester's cultural institutions. PR was never their strong suit.

The clay studio is the largest of the Craft Center's areas by number of students, and that community will want to stay together. One of the great things about the Craft Center is the ability to work in a collegial atmosphere, with everyone getting great ideas and inspiration from each other. If the Center does close that will be my priority, being able to stay in touch and work near some of the artists I've met and become good friends with.

A sad day.


Worcester Telegram: Center for Crafts shuts doors

Slide Show: Worcester Craft Center Over the Years

Worcester Craft Center

Strategic Pause letter from WCC (pdf)

New Street Glass Studio Hot Shop Rental Rates

Daily Inspiration

BBC: A woman admires a New Zealand Maori Tekoteko, or house gable apex figure, at an exhibition in Sydney, Australia.

Daily Inspiration

I believe this little guy is the ancestor of Alfred E. Neuman:

Life: Pre Columbian Art
Photographer: Andreas Feininger

Compare and contrast:

Life Magazine Photo Archive Now Online

Artist Pablo Picasso wearing a cow's head mask on beach at Golfe Juan near Vallauris, France, 1949
Photographer: Gjon Mili

LIFE photo archive hosted by Google

Guardian (uk): Life magazine photo collection goes online

One of the biggest photo collections in the world that ranges from the 1880s through to the seminal moments of the 20th century and on into the present day was made available to the public online yesterday.

The bulk of the archive is from Life magazine, the premier platform for photojournalists in the 20th century. About 10m images will eventually be available, from Marilyn Monroe and JFK to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. About 97% of the pictures have never been seen before.

Google announced yesterday it had done a deal with Life to put their pictures online. Also available is work from other archives, much of it collected by the former Time publisher Henry Luce.

The collection includes the entire works of Life photographers Alfred Eisenstaedt, Gjon Mili and Nina Leen. Also available are: the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination; Dahlstrom glass plates of New York from the 1880s; and Hugo Jaeger Nazi-era Germany 1937-1944.

Carved tribal drinking mug from Africa.
Date taken: 1901

Daily Inspiration

Telegraph (uk): Balloon twisting sculptures by Jason Hackenwerth

Daily Inspiration

yahoo: A visitor passes by Vitaly Pushnitsky's sculpture 'Son' displayed at an exhibition during an independent national Russian award in contemporary art Kandinsky Prize at the Central House of Artists in Moscow, November 6, 2008.
(Denis Sinyakov/Reuters)

More Inspiration

A clay man sports an elaborate headdress at the Museum of Archaeology in Campeche, Mexico, which features various such depictions of ancient Maya in traditional dress.
(Paul Ross)

Experts describe the terra-cotta statuettes as the finest figurine art of ancient America. The museum in Campeche houses one of the most complete collections of Maya art in Mexico.
(Paul Ross)

Archaeologists say the Maya figures were buried with each deceased person on the island of Jaina, as many as 10,000 in all.
(Paul Ross)

Less politics, more art. From this Los Angeles Times travel section article.

Daily Inspiration

A dog with a steel grip: Another hubcap design

DailyMail: One man's treasure: The artist who turns abandoned hubcaps into animal sculptures worth £3,000

I love the artist's name: Ptolemy Elrington.

Ptolemy created this dragon, using 200 hub caps, measured 10m long, and took over a month to build. It sold for £3,000

Shepard Fairey Spoofs

Guardian (uk): Spoofing Shepard Fairey's Obama poster (10 pictures)

The original:



MoveOn.org will send you a free "Yes We Did" sticker designed by Shepard Fairey, or more if you make a donation.

We Love Lists

Ancient Americas: Colossal stone head, La Venta archaeological site, Mexico (1st millennium BC)
Photograph: Danny Lehman/Corbis

Guardian (uk): 1000 artworks to see before you die

Photo Gallery: 21 artworks from Volume One

Daily Inspiration

LATimes:

"Fading Scroll," a huge metal tapestry by El Anatsui that has graced the lobby of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's Ahmanson Building for several months, has been jointly purchased by LACMA and the Fowler Museum at UCLA. The acquisition, made with support from the Broad Art Foundation, gives the two museums a major work by a leading African artist who was born in Ghana in 1944 and has lived and worked in Nigeria since 1975.

Like many of Anatsui's works, in museum collections around the world, "Fading Scroll" is constructed of metal castoffs. In this case, the artist has gathered thousands of liquor bottle wrappers and tops and stitched them together with copper wire.

The Fowler introduced Anatsui to Los Angeles last year in a critically acclaimed traveling exhibition. "Fading Scroll" will remain on view at LACMA until Nov. 2. Its next appearance will be at the Fowler in "Transformations: Recent Contemporary African Acquisitions," Feb. 22 to June 14.

You can click on the picture for a larger version. Coach Mom & I saw an entire exhibit of El Anatsui's work -- I think at one of the Smithsonian Museums -- and they are very fascinating, huge, powerful and fluid from a distance, incredibly detailed up close. Plus they're made of consumer refuse so they're recycling projects.

Your Daily Inspiration

Photograph taken from the Hubble Telescope

OBAMAWARE!

Organized by Ayumi Horie (I own two of her mugs) 20 potters have made pottery to raise money for Barack Obama. Preview of the work available here. The sale was supposed to start tomorrow, but their server crashed, so now it will take place on Monday.

I'll post further information on the sale once it's online.