I finally invigilated my last exam yesterday and have settled in for an intensive period of marking. I keep telling myself that by this time next week it will all be over….. Thankfully, however, I have had the pleasure of working with some very creative and passionate students this term, so I am very much looking forward to what I am settling in to read and evaluate. A large pile of wonderful books I acquired in NYC are sitting at the corner of my desk waiting for me, so I have no time to waste. To those of you still writing exams, hang in there, it is almost over! And oh yes, for those of us tuning into the Stanley Cup Playoffs this afternoon, GO CANUCKS GO! For procrastinators or those lucky enough not to worry about exams, here are a few of favourites from around the Twitterverse:
A frightening new piece of performance art is coming to Times Square in May. Check it out here:
On our radar: books you should know about some of which haven't hit stores yet
Google Wants to Teach Computers Regret
Awesome new Banksy piece at the MOCA. Called Stained Window, it's made with the help of students from L.A.
Roland Barthes - Mythologies [1957] (complete, PDF)
The premise of the movie Limitless is that your brain becomes the internet, with all the attendant problems
Fear eating the soul of the Chinese Government: Release Ai Weiwei now
Missing posters of Ai Weiwei have been popping up on Twitter as twitpics all week.
Ai Weiwei's "Perspective" series was part of MoMA's
exhibitions this past week (my photo) and served
as a gathering spot for discussion about the artist's fate
While in NYC, the news of artist Ai Weiwei’s arrest and detainment by the Chinese government was a much discussed topic in both local papers and arts media outlets. At the Museum of Modern Art, his “Perspective” photographic series (which includes the wonderful and now fitting flipping of the bird at Tienanmen Square) was included in the “Staging Action: Performance in Photography Since 1960” exhibition and served as a wonderful reminder of his persistence and well established place in the history of contemporary art. While I was standing there admiring the work, the photographs also served as a gathering spot for visitors who were sharing information and educating newcomers to Ai Weiwei, his career and current situation.
"Who's Afraid of Ai Weiwei" graffiti has
been popping up in Hong Kong this past week
The truth of course is that no one really has a clear sense of what has happened to the artist since he was taken into custody by the Chinese authority April 3rd. With vague accusations of “economic crimes,” it is clear to many that the artist has been silenced as part of an escalating crackdown on Chinese intellectuals, artists, critics, and academics accused of sparking internal dissent towards the government. Just today the Guardian reported that a lawyer and designer linked to Ai Weiwei have also gone missing. An open letter by Ai’s wife has called for an investigation into the disappearance: “"The people ... all disappeared or got kidnapped in a very short period of time and we request that the public security bureau investigate the matter. We are deeply concerned about the situation Ai Weiwei and his colleagues are in now. Kidnapping citizens or making them disappear is a severe crime and it immensely hurts people, relatives and friends around them. We believe justice can only exist if every administrative procedure is carried out in accordance with the law. Otherwise any conclusion or result that's been drawn does not hold water ... We hope that the public security bureau can act according to the law and protect people's rights."
Ai Weiwei's Fairytale (2007) project was part of the most recent Documenta.
For this work, Ai invited 1001 Chinese residents (who applied through his blog) to Kassel, Germany
to allow them the experience of both the exhibition and the small German city over three months.
The project now serves as inspiration for the latest call for protest on the artist's behalf.
In the meantime, the worldwide art community has gathered to call for the artist’s release through a widely circulating petition. And just in the past several days a new call for action emerged via Facebook with the “1001 Chairs for Ai Weiwei” movement, a collective protest set to take place this Sunday, April 17th at 1pm local time calling upon artists and curators to hold sit-ins in front of Chinese embassies and consulates worldwide to protest the detainment. The 1001 Chairs is a reference to one of Ai’s better known installation and performances Fairytale (2007) exhibited at the last Documenta (see image above). Ai’s situation has also inspired an unnamed graffiti artist, working in Hong Kong, who has stenciled graffiti images with the words “Who’s Afraid of Ai Weiwei” all over the city. No doubt the arrest of one of the world’s most respected contemporary artists will not go unnoticed or continue without a call for action.
For a compelling look at the evolving dynamics of Ai Weiwei’s relationship to the Chinese government, I recommend a wonderful and recent article written by Ben Davis for ARTINFO. Also check out the insightful documentary by filmmaker Alison Klayman Ai Weiwei Never Sorry.
The Andy Monument (2011)by Rob Pruitt
(my photo, as are all subsequent images)
Rushing around New York City the last day of my trip, I was determined to find the new monument dedicated to Andy Warhol that I had read about a few days before leaving Vancouver. Created by artist Rob Pruitt and unveiled at the end of March, the 10 foot tall silver statue is placed in front of the last version of Warhol's famed Factory studio in Union Square operating in the 1970's and 80's (the original Factory operated on East 47th Street from 1962-1967). For those of you who have lived in or visited New York, you know how busy this part of the city can get (especially on weekends) and how vast the square actually is, so it was very difficult to find among the crowds on the weekend. I gave up and returned Monday morning to look for it and nearly gave up again until I finally saw the top of Andy’s silver head peeking out at the end of a very long corridor of food vendors set up at a farmers market near 17th and Broadway.
There he stood, Bloomingdale’s shopping bag in hand, a Polaroid camera around his neck, hanging out in a relaxed stance without much interest from local passers-by. That was of course until I started photographing him. And then, just as Warhol would have predicted himself, the buzz of celebrity and recognition hit the crowd. “It’s Andy” a man whispered to a child holding his hand, “he made really cool art.”
Doing some research, it turns out this was the same spot Warhol used to stand handing out free copies of Interview magazine and was also very close to the place he was shot in 1968 by Valerie Solanas. Pruitt began making the statue last October and completed it, according to an interview he did with New York Post, through a combination of hand sculpting and digital scanning of both a live model and photos of Warhol. As Pruitt explains, “Warhol would tell friends, ‘Death is like going to Bloomingdale's because it's heavenly.’” For now the monument is on temporary display until October, but Pruitt hopes to see the monument find a permanent home in the same part of New York that helped shape Warhol’s career. For more information about the artist Rob Pruitt (written by James Franco no less), see this link.
Just arriving back from a day of museum going in NYC—Guggenheim this morning and the Met this afternoon with plans for MoMA tomorrow. Yes, I am beyond exhausted, but I have a camera full of images and plans to blog over the coming week about what I have seen and experienced. My plans for doing all of this while here proved ambitious and nearly impossible—time seems to pass at warp speed in this city, and each day of my trip has been absolutely full as a result.
As for the Twitterverse, it has been buzzing all week with the arrest and detainment of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. Calls for his release have been circulating all week and gaining steam as word of the Chinese government’s crack down on artists, intellectuals, and academics continues. If you are interested in signing the petition to call for Ai Weiwei’s release, see this link.
The trailer for Lars Von Trier's Melancholia is both very promising and very terrifying!
For those of you who can't seem to embrace new technology but don't want to be left behind...
You don’t sit there at 25, unpublished, and respond to Susan Sontag’s editorial suggestions like a little snot."
Art and inflation
Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2011
Learning From Las Vegas: Readers Respond to Our Takedown of Sin City's Art Scene:
Message from the founder of Wikipedia: RT @jimmy_wales Dear China, the entire world is watching how you treat Ai Weiwei..
The mosaic memorial at Strawberry Fields as seen today in NYC (my photo)
Each time I visit New York City, I make a point of visiting Strawberry Fields, the memorial in Central Park dedicated to John Lennon’s life and legacy. As a child, I grew up in a house filled with Lennon’s music and still recall vividly arriving home from school the day he was tragically murdered-- my parents’ sorrow joining the thousands of New Yorkers I saw on the television who spontaneously gathered in Central Park to hold a candle light memorial in response to the unimaginable event. To this day, whenever I hear any song from John and Yoko’s Double Fantasy album—the music my parents played for months following Lennon’s death—I am taken back to that time.
The outpouring of grief eventually lead to the plans for Strawberry Fields, a 2.5 acre landscaped section of the park just outside the Dakota, Lennon’s home and site of the fatal shooting. The focal point of the memorial is a circular mosaic set in the ground with the word IMAGINE placed at is centre. Made by Portuguese craftsman in Lisbon and modelled on an original mosaic design from Pompeii, the memorial was officially inaugurated on what would have been John Lennon’s 45th birthday on October 9, 1985.
As a public space of ritual, John Lennon's memorial also operates
as a site of continually changing artistic expression (my photo)
But more than just serving as a site of pilgrimage for Lennon’s fans, the mosaic has also evolved into a form of public art, becoming a place and space of expression for both known and unknown contributors who admire the ideas of peace Lennon wrote, talked, and sang about. When we arrived today, fresh flowers, leaves and, yes, strawberries decorated the entire mosaic. Other visits, only the centre portion has been treated with flowers, or strawberries alone lining the mosaic creating a peace sign (simply Googling "Strawberry Field Memorial" gives you a sense of the creativity). Listening to one of the “keepers” of the memorial today—a fan who devotes a good deal of his time to maintain the art work and educating those who visit the mosaic about Lennon’s life—the mosaic is in constant transformation and is found decorated in a range of materials from the more typical flowers and strawberries, to pine cones, other natural materials from the park, and even pennies. This is very much part of the draw to Strawberry Fields, seeing the ritual of artistic expression unfold daily in the same park that Lennon loved so much and in full view of the Dakota where Yoko still maintains their home.
If you ever find yourself in New York, make sure to visit.
Here is a wonderful clip from the PBS American Masters documentary LENNONYC showing John Lennon and Yoko Ono strolling through Central Park. A longer trailer that examines Lennon’s connections to New York can also be found here.
