Sturtevant, Warhol Flowers c. 1969-1970. A female conceptual and appropriation artist, Elaine Sturtevant was in Artsy’s words most famous for re-creating works “by iconic 20th-century artists in order to explore authenticity, artistic celebrity, and… — Sturtevant, *Warhol Flowers* c. 1969-1970. A female conceptual and appropriation artist, Elaine Sturtevant was in Artsy’s words most famous for re-creating works “by iconic 20th-century artists in order to explore authenticity, artistic celebrity, and the creative process.”

Weekly Round Up... And A Few More Things

March 28, 2021

This past year, I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about how to readjust teaching the final weeks of my survey course in modern and contemporary art, and as now is the time the semester is finishing out, I am getting to see how my tweaks and new pedagogical approach have panned out. To be clear, this final section of my course is where I cover off the past 10-20 years of historical developments in the art world globally. As any historian teaching content up to the present day knows, this is always the toughest part of any course to teach, as we lack the critical distance to understand the full significance of changes taking place. But, as my own research interests have integrated more and more consideration of the art market, the influence of social media, and the rising influence of art fairs and spectacle events surrounding artists, along with growing income inequality globally, I am seeing the necessity to address the big shifts that are taking place right before our eyes in the world of contemporary art.

The trifecta of “outrage art” from 2019 proved to be a perfect case study and pedagogical tool in my survey Contemporary art history course. Shown here are: Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian (2019), Banksy’s, Love Is In the Bin (2019), and Rodney Graham’… — The trifecta of “outrage art” from 2019 proved to be a perfect case study and pedagogical tool in my survey Contemporary art history course. Shown here are: Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian (2019), Banksy’s, *Love Is In the Bin* (2019), and Rodney Graham’s *Spinning Chandelier* (2019)

2019, in particular, proved to be a watershed year in this regard, with a trifecta of well covered controversial art works, both local and global, that allowed me to set up a near perfect case study: Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian (2019), Banksy’s, Love Is In the Bin (2019), and Rodney Graham’s Spinning Chandelier (2019). Each of these works of art present an entire nexus of discourse and analysis on a range of issues that ideally require an understanding of modern and contemporary art history of the past 50-70 years. The cover art for my ARTH 2222: Contemporary Art & Visual Culture syllabus and online course presents these three works as a kind of persistent teaser, and over the 12 weeks of the class the goal is to have the works come into clearer focus, understanding, and relevance for my students.

Therefore, instead of attempting to capture a traditional historical approach and merely surveying the “important” artists of the past 10-20 years—something which I am finding is almost impossible to do without the necessary historical distance— I have taken to assessing the circulation of meaning around particular artists and controversial art works as a way to assess critical currents in today’s art world. I list for you below three of the videos I have featured in the final module of my ARTH 2222 course that undertake some of the analysis of the three controversial art works in question. Each provide a glimpse into what is driving conversation and change in the art world during these precarious times, but at the same time, allow for the understanding that none of these artists or art works may stand the “test of time” and enter into the canon of art history.

A few more things before the round up

As the end of the semester ramps up, I am always trying to encourage my students to avoid all of the distractions (especially of the screen variety). A quick and simple fix comes in the form of apps that disable your phone and/or computer for set times and types of notifications etc.. One that I have used recently is OFFTIME (for my iPhone) but I also love the old school app SelfControl (for Macs) or Freedom (for all platforms).
Academy Award season is next month (April 25th) and once this semester is done, I am planning to finally watch many films I missed while surviving the year of Covid. Here is a list to get you started in case you have similar goals, and I want to once again shout from the roof tops about how awesome it is that two women (Emerald Fennel and Chloe Zhao) are nominated in the Directing category. Slow but steady progress.

"The One Book You Need to Read Right Now Is About Canadian Colonialism"

hyperallergic.com

"How Beeple Crashed the Art World"

newyorker.com

"Women Pop Artists Are Finally Getting Their Due"

artsy.net

"Cory Arcangel on bot performance, machine learning, and online junk space"

artforum.com

"Mars House "is a fraud" says 3D visualiser of world's first NFT house"

dezeen.com

"The Pandemic as Inadvertent Artist Residency, a Silver Lining in a Year of Isolation"

hyperallergic.com

"Famed Art Philosopher Nicolas Bourriaud Has Been Ousted From the Museum He Founded"

artnet.com

"The Boom and Bust of TikTok Artists"

nytimes.com

"British artist sells world's largest painting The Journey of Humanity for $62m"

theguardian.com

"Recreating the world after the flood | Philip Guston (VIDEO)"

moma.org

Dana Claxton, Paint Up #1 (2010) in the permanent collection of the Audain Art Museum in Whistler, B.C. I will be offering a 6-week online course in Contemporary Indigenous Art History this summer and will be discussing Claxton’s practice, along wit… — Dana Claxton, *Paint Up #1* (2010) in the permanent collection of the Audain Art Museum in Whistler, B.C. I will be offering a 6-week online course in Contemporary Indigenous Art History this summer and will be discussing Claxton’s practice, along with other important First Nations women artists, as part of the course content.

Weekly Round Up... And A Few More Things

March 14, 2021

Grading… grading…. grading. I am in the thick of midterm and project evaluations, so I will keep this week’s musing short and sweet ahead of the links.

Summer course registration opens tomorrow at my university, and I wanted to share a very special online course that I developed, first offered, and worked the kinks out of last summer—a contemporary art history course focused on Indigenous art. This is a topic often overlooked in the consideration of First Nations cultural production, and while many universities and art history programs offer much needed courses in the history and development of Indigenous art of the last century and earlier (especially focused around the Northwest Coast), very few of them tackle First Nations art production of the recent past, or at least, not as the primary focus for an entire course.

ARTH 2124: CONTEMPORARY INDIGENOUS ART

ONLINE via Kwantlen Polytechnic University, May 10- June 21, with weekly one-hour synchronous Zoom sessions on Wednesdays 4-5pm

Instructor: Dr. Dorothy Barenscott

What are the current critical issues in contemporary Indigenous art and visual culture from across the settler- colonial areas of North America, and especially within Canada and our local communities? This course investigates how Indigenous arts in Canada are understood in the specific places and contexts in which they are made, and will further explore how Western art history and museum exhibitions have attempted (often very problematically) to provide meaning for the relationship between "historic" and "contemporary" understandings of Indigenous art. This course will rely heavily on content derived from first-hand accounts of contemporary Indigenous art production from First Nations artists, producers, and curators working primarily in Canada, together with providing a strong foundation in recent histories redressing what has often remained absent, silenced, or forgotten in the retelling of the Indigenous experience.

Image taken by @dbarenscott at Audain Art Museum in Whistler, BC. Featured artworks by Brian Jungen, Dana Claxton, and Shawn Hunt

A few more things before the round up

Beeple, Beeple, Beeple. I have been asked by so many people in the past few weeks on my take about NFT crypto art and the big $69 million dollar Christie’s sale of Beeple (aka artist Mike Winkelmann). I promise to get back to you on this with a future musing/post, and have provided many links in this week’s round up for your interest and education. Stay tuned!
Now that the sun is out and spring is almost here, I would be remiss not to mention the value of forest bathing, what the Japanese call shinrin-yoku, and hanami, the ancient tradition of enjoying the cherry blossoms. A few years ago, I traveled to Japan in mid-March to early April to experience the blossoms, and I have always associated this time of year with taking a complete day away from work a few days a month to get out into nature. I include a video here to get you started and understand the benefits.

"Beeple JPEG Fetches $69 Million at Christie’s Auction"

artforum.com

"NFT art: the bizarre world where burning a Banksy can make it more valuable"

theconversation.com

"‘This Is Going to Be a Billion-Dollar Piece Someday’: The Buyer of the $69 Million Beeple NFT on Why It’s the Greatest Artwork in a Generation"

artnet.com

"How Camming and Filmmaking Influence Each Other"

hyperallergic.com

"How to Put Out Democracy’s Dumpster Fire"

theatlantic.com

"Subverting Society’s Twisted Consumption of Breasts"

elephant.art

"Inside Breaking’s Debut at the Olympics"

dancemagazine.com

"Artists may have felt useless in lockdown, but we need them more than ever"

theguardian.com

"Beeple: We're just beginning to scratch the surface with NFTs (VIDEO)"

"What is Crypto Art? A basic explanation (VIDEO)"

Maya Lin, Wave Field (2008). March is Women’s History Month and tomorrow (March 8th) is International Women’s Day. I will be featuring women artists this month and cannot think of a more inviting work to kick us off as Springtime approaches. — Maya Lin, *Wave Field* (2008). March is Women’s History Month and tomorrow (March 8th) is International Women’s Day. I will be featuring women artists this month and cannot think of a more inviting work to kick us off as Springtime approaches.

Weekly Round Up... And A Few More Things

March 07, 2021

I have thought a great deal about how this past year of Covid time has made us all acutely aware of the weather and our natural environment. As we all know, our mood and disposition on any given day or time of the year is significantly impacted by the weather, the light, the temperature, and our access to the outdoors. Before the pandemic, the weather was not on my radar, at least not as much as it is now. I took for granted, for example, that I could escape the cold of winter by planning a vacation getaway, or if need be, spend a rainy day indoors with friends, or go to the movies, the gym, a group yoga class, or a museum. But as we all collectively avoid spending time indoors with groups, our immediate outdoors becomes our “playground”— nature controls much more of how we get to enjoy our socially distanced lives.

In the morning, I know I am not alone in immediately checking the weather forecast. We check to see what kind of temperature to expect, and to see how that weather may shape/alter/interfere with our plans and limited range of activities. In my world, if it is over 6C and not raining, I will go motorbiking. If the weather proves clearer in the morning, that is when I will plan my run. If the day looks like it may be cooler, I will bundle up and walk, etc.. etc.. I’ve even postponed a Zoom class when it was an especially sunny day. “Get out and enjoy this day.. we may not see the sun again for a while” I’ve found myself saying.

I found this deliberate arrangement of natural objects along the English Bay seawall close to home while on a morning run. There were a dozen or more of these “sculptures” placed anonymously by someone (I would call them an artist) and were successf… — I found this deliberate arrangement of natural objects along the English Bay seawall close to home while on a morning run. There were a dozen or more of these “sculptures” placed anonymously by someone (I would call them an artist) and were successful in capturing the attention of passers by and creating a dialogue with the surrounding environment.

Land artists and earth artists have always worked to draw our attention back to the natural environment we inhabit, and I have a new appreciation for how the movement negotiates and frames the sometimes difficult to describe changes and contingencies that shape our human condition (whether we like it or not). This past week, I happened upon some small land art objects on the seawall while on a morning run. There were probably a dozen or more of these works placed with care along the wall, presumably by an artist or other creative soul, and I was struck by how many people stopped (including me) to engage with and examine the arrangements. Importantly, the objects were all taken from the immediate environment, but in their re-ordering, the mini sculptures took on new meanings and reinvigorated the connection of the audience to the natural world around them.

In one of my classes this week, I have challenged students to go out in their own backyard and create such a small land art intervention. The video below, created with land artist Andy Goldsworthy, is part of an art assignment I am using for the activity. I am looking forward to seeing what they all come up with, and I too will be taking more opportunities to appreciate how thoroughly connected we all are to our natural environment. As Goldworth states, “We often forget that WE ARE NATURE. Nature is not something separate from us. So when we say that we have lost our connection to nature, we’ve lost our connection to ourselves.” I hope you too may be inspired to make your own land art work in the coming weeks and months as we enter a new season. You never know who’s eyes you may be opening, and who’s day you may be making a little brighter.

"Remembrance of Revolutions Past"

bookforum.com

"Andi Schmied’s Billionaire-Espionage Art Project"

newyorker.com

"How Crypto-art Might Offer Artists Increased Autonomy"

hyperallergic.com

"This Ain’t No Disco"

nybooks.com

"How Music Steered the Art of Jean-Michel Basquiat"

hyperallergic.com

"What Galleries Learned About Selling Art Online This Year"

artnet.com

"What Will We Want When We Can Travel Again?"

theatlantic.com

"Banksy reveals that Reading Prison graffiti is his—with a little help from Bob Ross"

theartnewspaper.com

"The Met x Wikipedia Virtual Edit Meet-up: Women's History Month (VIDEO)"

themet

"The Bauhaus painting made to defy the Nazis | Oskar Schlemmer's Bauhaus Stairway | UNIQLO ARTSPEAKS (VIDEO"

moma

On my research trip to Las Vegas back in 2019, I was captivated by this Frank Gehry building, The Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health (2010). Gehry’s birthday is today, and he is 92 years old! Photo: D. Barenscott.

Weekly Round Up… And A Few More Things

February 28, 2021

It only seems fitting that on architect Frank Gehry’s birthday I share with you writing that I recently published in the book The Politics of Spatial Transgression in the Arts (2021), edited by Gregory Blair and Noa Bronstein. The book chapter grew out of a research project that I completed as an Eadington Fellow at the Institute of Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2019. In short, I had become intrigued while on vacation in Las Vegas with the intensification of hotel architecture and resort design and, in particular, with the high visibility of contemporary art. From Jeff Koons, to Banksy, to Damien Hirst, works of art market darlings were increasingly on public display in hotels and casinos, and I could not help but wonder… why?

The questions I ended up exploring in this chapter touch on how, and to what ends, the rebranding of Vegas via art has capitalized on current art world conditions where space, affect, embodiment, and relational aesthetics take a central focus in art production and exhibition. The connective tissue between this project and the kind of work I did in my Ph.D. dissertation— exploring identity formation and technologies of seeing in the art and architecture of late 19th century Budapest— is spatial and set around the compelling role that architecture, in tandem with visual art, plays in constructions of identity, consumerism, and “value.” I am very proud of this work and hope that this case study helps contribute in a broader way to conversations taking place in the art world today around these same ideas.

I invite you to read it below (click on the image of my paper below to be taken to a PDF of the paper) and note that I attempted to write the chapter with an accessibility for a wide audience, and also for those, like me, who have always been fascinated and intrigued by Las Vegas.

I am very proud to be part of this important book that allowed me to take an idea I had been working on across a number of fields—namely architecture, spatial theory, and the business of art. Being able to travel to Las Vegas and take up a fellowshi… — I am very proud to be part of this important book that allowed me to take an idea I had been working on across a number of fields—namely architecture, spatial theory, and the business of art. Being able to travel to Las Vegas and take up a fellowship to pursue this project was just icing on the cake!

To read my chapter, click on this image to access a copy.

A few more things before the round up

If like me, you find Las Vegas to be as much an idea as it is a city, I recommend you look at the classic work Learning From Las Vegas, now almost 50 years old and authored by architectural historians and postmodern critics Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour. It is the definitive text arguing for the relevance and importance of Vegas’s built environment, and is also the book that inspired the title of my paper!
Now that we are midway through the academic semester, many of you may be finding the need to eliminate distractions and reduce the wasted screen time that is inevitable during our homebound pandemic existence. If you use Google Chrome as your browser, I recommend this list of Chrome extensions summarized in a recent Mashable article that I have suggested to a few of my students who are looking for ways to boost their productivity.

"Kenny Schachter Gets Sucked Into the Surreal NFT Vortex… and Makes a Fortune Overnight in the New Virtual Art Market"

artnet.com

"Banksy-style NFTs have sold for $900,000—but are they the real deal and does it even matter?"

theartnewspaper.com

"The Boredom Economy"

nytimes.com

"A Director Is Born: Steve McQueen on His Childhood TV Set"

vanityfair.com

"A French Appeals Court Has Found Jeff Koons Guilty of Copyright Infringement Again"

artnet.com

"Lawrence Ferlinghetti Dies at 101: His Pictures of a Gone World Remain"

artsjournal.com

"Most People Can’t Tell the Difference Between Art Made by Humans and by AI"

artnet.com

"Can Video Games Be a Healthy Outlet for Stress Relief?"

wired.com

"The Rise and Fall of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s Marriage, as Told by Her Infamous Instagram Posts"

slate.com

"Ed Ruscha | Featuring Flea, Missy Mazzoli, Vernon Reid, and Eddie Ruscha (VIDEO"

gagosian

Elmgreen and Dragset’s Prada Marfa (2005) is a permanent sculptural installation in the minimalist Mecca of Marfa, Texas. Image courtesy of YouTuber “Around the World With Asher” and his video Marfa Prada at Sunset — Elmgreen and Dragset’s *Prada Marfa* (2005) is a permanent sculptural installation in the minimalist Mecca of Marfa, Texas. Image courtesy of YouTuber “Around the World With Asher” and his video Marfa Prada at Sunset

Weekly Round Up... And A Few More Things

February 21, 2021

Minimalism has been on my mind a lot the past several weeks. It is normally this time in the spring semester when I start introducing the concepts surrounding one of the most enigmatic and difficult to apprehend post-WWII art movements in my Contemporary Art course. With a focus on form and materials, and a rejection of biography and metaphor, Minimalist art was a complete abdication of the traditions associated with the “genius artist” and the privileged art object. Instead, artists associated with the Minimalist art movement focused on challenging audiences to confront the experience of physicality, scale, materials, and light in a given space.

Right now and for the past few months, it seems that all of us are being forced into something of this position during the darkest period of the pandemic. With increasing limits on the spaces we can inhabit, and being limited to who we can interact with, we are collectively being made to look more closely to our own immediate environments. And along with looking, we are also being made far more aware of how we feel and embody the spaces we are living in.

In 2012, I visited the MUMOK Museum in Vienna, Austria to see a Dan Flavin retrospective. Room after room, and floor after floor, was filled with nothing else but Flavin’s iconic minimalist light installations, creating one of the most memorable exp… — In 2012, I visited the MUMOK Museum in Vienna, Austria to see a Dan Flavin retrospective. Room after room, and floor after floor, was filled with nothing else but Flavin’s iconic minimalist light installations, creating one of the most memorable experiences I have ever had in a vast gallery space. Photograph: D. Barenscott

Earlier this year, art critic Kyle Chayka, author of The Longing For Less: Living With Minimalism (2020) wrote an intriguing feature article for the New York Times titled “How Nothingness Became Everything We Wanted.” Therein he presents a compelling argument about how a pre-pandemic shared aesthetics of nothingness resulted in a kind of “jettisoning of possessions.” Whether it be through the popularity of lifestyle guru Marie Kondo who promoted ruthlessly reducing and then carefully arranging objects in lived spaces, or via stripped down minimalist fashion brands like Everlane, or the growth of the sensory deprivation industry and the popularity of meditation apps on our phones, there was a traceable precursor to a much more profound moment shaping our Covid and possible post-Covid world. Chayka writes:

“This obsession with absence, the intentional erasure of self and surroundings, is the apotheosis of what I’ve come to think of as a culture of negation: a body of cultural output, from material goods to entertainment franchises to lifestyle fads, that evinces a desire to reject the overstimulation that defines contemporary existence. This retreat, which took hold in the decade before the pandemic, betrays a grim undercurrent: a deepening failure of optimism in the possibilities of our future, a disillusionment that Covid-19 and its economic crisis have only intensified. It’s as if we want to get rid of everything in advance, including our expectations, so that we won’t have anything left to lose.”

While indeed grim and pessimistic in tone, what I take from Chayka’s analysis of our own 2020-2021 minimalist moment is also something productive and affirming. As with the Minimalist art movement of the 1960-70s that sought to radically redirect the energies and purpose of art making to more inclusive and democratic ends—directing audiences to confront the absence of distraction and “things” – there is an urgency and creative energy in our current circumstances. We are living with a heightened and acute sense of our space and place in the world, and this has the strong potential to recast the role and place of nothingness in our post-pandemic lives. Minimalists rejoice (maybe).

A few more things before the round up:

If all of this talk of Minimalism has you intrigued, I highly recommend the television show I Love Dick (on Amazon Video— see trailer below) set in the Minimalist Mecca known as Marfa, Texas. The show is based around an academic community where the main characters, a filmmaker and her husband who has taken up a research fellowship at the Marfa Institute, interact with a renowned scholar (played by Kevin Bacon) who also happens to be a minimalist artist.
And speaking of space, there has been much discussion in the academic community and on academic Twitter about the very real problems with remote learning. If teaching real bodies in real space is something you want to ponder further, I recommend this Chronicle of Higher Education article, “What We’ve Lost In A Year of Virtual Teaching.”