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Todd Gibson is doing a bang up job of subbing for Tyler over at Modern Art Notes.  Today, in response to criticism that the Andy Warhol Foundation has been on the receiving end of in relation to their Art Writer’s Grant Program, he asks the question -

If Andy Warhol were alive today, and if he were personally giving his foundation’s money to arts writers, who would he bankroll?

The answer to that is easy - Andy Warhol would give the money to whomever was blowing him, in print, or otherwise.

Technorati Tags: Andy Warhol, grants, Andy Warhol Foundation

I guess these don’t really count as action figures, they’re really figurines, since they’re non-poseable, but I’m a simple, simple man.  What matters is that they were collectible, and in this case the the design seems totally proto-anime.  The action figure or figurine is possibly one of man’s oldest art forms, and it’s no coincidence that they remain so freakishly popular today, even if our mythological canon has mutated from the Venus of Willendorf to Sgt. Slaughter.

This pair of Chinese 5th-6th century earthenware figurines, from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, really capture one of my favourite museum moments - discovering that something seemingly new and fresh is really ancient and established - plus ça change and all that, you know.  You could scan them with a laser, pump them out in vinyl, have them painted in China (again…) and drop them onto the shelves at your local Giant Robot and no one would know they weren’t designed yesterday.

Here’s a rear view for reference, and here’s a shot of the label.

Technorati Tags: art, Chinese Art, Sui Dynasty, figurine, ceramic, scuplture, Nelson-Atkins, earthenware

…and I checked out the Grand Avenue museum store, and it’s surprisingly well equipped, from a book selection standpoint. The selection of non-book stuff, bags, pens and household goods is surprisingly good, too.  But it’s not without the evilly cute finger of Takashi Murakami’s devious merchandising empire. No Vuitton in sight, though.

above - Buy this flower, be mesmerized by its hypnotic powers, and it’s $9 price tag.

above - Buying one of these will make you feel like you’re with it, and keep the monsters at bay at night. It will also put you into debt - the cheapest one was $60 and the most expensive was $95. There was also a dusty Takashi Murakami designed soccer ball on a high shelf nearby - I just found one listed on Ebay for $450. Thank you Michele for being my glamorous hand model for the above products.

Oh, and There’s a Museum Too

MOCA’s not a place where one is usually able to shoot photos, but they let me snap two of their new acquisitions.

above - Thomas Hirschhorn’s Non-Lieux - Basically a melted candle wax mountain, covered in cut out Taliban fighters and topped by the faux-wind blown from a pair of two air conditioners that blow twin lavender flags emblazoned “Democracy.” It’s sort of Tora Bora-ish. There are two walls of what looks like full page fashion ads, and the landscape is strewn with boxes of laundry detergent. A train goes around and through the mountain as well. I’m not sure what the purpose of the piece is, but it sure is fun to look at. It has a skirt with lots of pages of text, both pages from a book, and photocopied. I couldn’t help but look at it and think “Wow, what a big ass crate MOCA has to keep in storage for this thing - there’s no way to break it down, and it’s not like a statue that can be mounted on a stand and wrapped.” That’s what I think of when I think of art. Label here.

above - Roxy Paine’s Weed Choked Garden - I’ve seen images of this before, and I wasn’t too into it, but it has a real presence in person. That’s Jessada Kongsommart examining the piece in the background. I think he really liked MOCA. Label here.

We also toured the Poetics of the Handmade show,since it closes tomorrow. Really excellent installation throughout, good work. I’m not sure if a lot of people saw the show, though. The giant oval pedestals with hand molded lipsticks was intense, and intimidating. All of the pieces in the show seemed to really be in conversation with one another.

And Back to the Museum Store, Because I Just Remembered This

They now sell “graffiti stencils” in the store at MOCA.   Stencils of wrestler’s masks, spraypaint cans, turntables and other staple images, in little kits.  Graffiti is now officially over.  You read it here, graffiti is dead, now all that’s left is irony and pain.

Technorati Tags: MOCA, MOCA Grand Avenue, Thomas Hirschhorn, Roxy Paine, fake plants, sculpture, art, art museum, Takashi Murakami, Murakami, plush toys

Michele and I had a meeting with some folks at the Getty today, and it ended up being quite the interesting visit. Maybe I was in a good, post-got-that-grant-in-the-mail mood, or maybe it was the overpowering power of the GRI Exhibition Gallery that just ices any cake, but I was primed for viewing. Maybe it’s because I made a pile of chilaquiles for breakfast. Maybe it was because my visit to the Getty began by taking a quick survey for which I received a free glitter filled Getty novelty pen (check out the awsomely frilly skirt on this survey wrangler). Who knows. So, below, I sum up.

Manet’s Bar at the Foiles-Bergere

This isn’t my forte, but it’s worth noting that this show consists of a single object, in a lone, dark red gallery, accompanied by a mirror on the opposite wall. There’s a fantastically informative pamphlet (with a great diagram showing the various perspectives in the painting), but the installation and the piece seemed really confusing to viewers, especially the mirror. Interesting, but a strange and somewhat alienating installation.

Recent History: Photographs by Luc Delahaye

Of particular interest is his large format image of the Palestine hotel in Baghdad, home to an isolated and out of it journalistic corps. The hotel and the army of satellite trucks that surround it dominates the painting, and the sweep of Baghdad behind it seems almost sleepy, except for two distant and rising columns of smoke, locking our awareness into the place and time of the image.

The body of his work is of the same deep impact and significance. We’d probably be living in a more informed and impassioned world if major newspapers simply printed full color images of his work, with little more explanation than the titles, rather than the gibberish that currently goes for news. This is a don’t miss exhibition - I really wished that there was more of his work on display.

Defining Modernity: European Drawings, 1800-1900

Lots of “behind the scenes” drawings and sketches by a host of early modernists. I’m only mentioning this because of one image, in a sub section of the show devoted to “non-drawing” media, of an unknown painter by an unknown photographer from the dawn of the photographic era. One of the most thought provoking objects I’ve come across in a while, and a really simple and humble gesture.

Oudry’s Painted Menagerie

I watched the PBS special on the restoration and I really didn’t have too much interest in seeing this, but I was there, and it was free, so I’d be an ass not to check it out. What a surprise. It’s really two shows, one an exhibition of the Painted Menagerie, centered around the restored painting of Clara the rhinoceros, and another show, all about the rhinoceros craze that swept Europe. The animal paintings are interesting, and seeing them together (they’re really well installed, great flow and layout) is cool, but you just get sucked into the general rhino action in the second half of the exhibition. By the time you walk out, you’re just in love with Clara, who’s career as “exhibition rhinoceros” took her all across the European continent.

Oh, and the show has a blog, too.

Evidence of Movement

Once again, the GRI Exhibition Gallery is the best curated space in the Universe. Michele said it - after the Art, Anti-Art, Non-Art show, how were they going to top themselves? Well, I don’t know if they’ve topped themselves, but they’re definitely keeping up the pace that they’ve set for themselves. This show doesn’t have a catalog like the last one, and the installation is sparser, but it holds up. Instead of a catalog, they have nice one sheet folded newspaper - excellent design, and it has a full back poster of Tehching Hsieh and Linda Montano’s Art/Life One Year Performance 1983 - 1984 piece. It’s focused and uncluttered - you have real intimacy with each piece and project they’ve included in the show.

I’m a little tired, and having trouble articulating my joy, but I am joyful. I’ve become more passionate about two things lately - documentary photography and performance art, in no small part due to the last GRI show. So when I heard that they were doing this show, I was hot with anticipation. The selection of works is awesome, and the quality of the images and objects is top notch.

There’s a large section devoted to the Vienna Actionists, with a ton of Hermann Nitsch images. I was fortunate (from a people watching point of view) to share the gallery with a trip of over-perfumed, aging socialites and hearing them try, try to seem sophisticated about Nitsch’s work and at the same time expressing profound disgust was a performance in itself. There’s some really amazing images, including a proof sheet from Nitsch’s 1978 performance in Los Angeles, a rare and unrepeated event. I was amazed to learn that in the year of my birth that for $2 you could see Nitsch perform in Venice, what a crazy, crazy bargain/opportunity.

I haven’t had much time to listen to it, but the real highlight of the exhibition is the audio content, which is available online. There’s a telephone in the gallery (I believe it’s the Yoko Ono telephone from the last show, on the same small table, re-purposed) From 1976 - 1979, KPFK broadcast a series of experimental radio programs with artists and performance artists called Close Radio - you can listen to all of the Close Radio content on line, and you can subscribe to the podcast here. Now everyone who rides in my car for the next few months is going to either be really pleased or really irritated, since I have a feeling I’ll be immersing myself.

The Getty BLT

Yes, I’m mixing obsessions here. The Getty makes a mean BLT, even if it costs an arm and a leg. This thing had a ton of bacon on it, and the tomatoes were good. That potato salad meant serious business, too. Those onion rings hiding in the background were good to go as well - nice portion size too.

Friday Off the 405

I’m not really one to get the peanut butter of DJs and drinks in the chocolate of my art viewing, but it looks like the Getty gets packed to the gills on Friday nights. Hipsters and beautiful people galore, really packing the place for what looked like a great cheap date and good time. Somehow I was surprised. There were at least two cash bars running, with multiple lines each, although it was early, and they weren’t doing much business. I liked the freak and hippie crowd at the De Young late night a bit more - too much sunglasses and dudes wearing their “maybe I’ll get laid” vintage T-shirt for me to not feel weird and out of place. The DJ was solid, if lonely looking, though. And the galleries were as empty as I’ve ever seen them, a great time for viewing - looks like the party crowd is more into the outdoors than the collection.

As we were leaving there were lines on the tram, and a half mile of cars trying to get into the parking garage. Driving out of the parking garage was like a demolition derby in a concrete tunnel, lots of dangerously frustrated folks dueling over parking spaces. Good times…

Technorati Tags: Getty, Getty Center, GRI, Hermann Nitsch, art, art museum, BLT, Manet, Luc Delahaye, rhinoceros, Oudry

I was out cruising the art blogs and I discovered this on the Walker’s Off Center Blog - Takashi Murakami’s cover art for the upcoming Kanye West album, Graduation. I used to have shades like that bear is rocking - in purple with pink stripes. Damn I miss feeling cool. I normally hate pop music, but why is Kanye West so compelling?

Does this mean that the upcoming Louis Vuitton sponsored opening gala for MOCA’s Murakami retrospective should have Kanye, for the sake of maintaining the credibility of aggressive curation?

Technorati Tags: Takashi Murakami, Kanye West, art, cover art, cool sunglasses, superflat, Murakami

The LA Times has gotten a confirmation out of MOCA that they’re planning to have a fully functioning Louis Vuitton boutique smack dab in the middle of the Geffen Contemporary, as part of the upcoming Louis Vuitton show (rendering shown above).  Modern Art Notes’ Tyler Green quickly noted that this is very different from what he was told last week by MOCA spokesperson Lyn Winter, who seems to have misstepped in her attempt to control the story - likely because the museum is walking a thin line on this one and really wants to get across that this is a curatorial move and not a business one.

I’m so glad to learn that they’ve gone all the way on this one, taking it beyond a marketing move, and into the realm of the curatorial.  The museum is taking no profit from the sales of the nearly $1000 handbags that will be on sale, nor any rental fee from the vendor and it’s part of a 20 room display MOCA plans for the exhibition.  There is also a one room display of objects from Murakami’s company Kaikai Kiki, although it’s not articulated if the objects in display will all be Murakami products or if there will be products by other artists from his group.

Looking at the rendering of the store, above, I’m a little disappointed, though.  I would have loved to see them construct a completely free standing structure.  What the rendering looks like is almost a corner-bound installation.  I’d like to see a more transitional and separated space, one that requires visitors to go in.  I’m already wondering if there’s going to be a pile-up of viewers in the Louis Vuitton area, and what that might mean about the public’s interest in art in general.  Maybe the viewers and the ring of registers will lend it a sense of performance and spectacle.

From the LA Times article:

“When Paul Schimmel invited Louis Vuitton to participate in this way, he really felt that the act of buying, the way one approaches the objects when they are consumable within the museum environment, spoke to the unusual nature of his work.”

“We really didn’t need a faux boutique,” Schimmel said. “I felt that the experience could only be achieved by having an operational one, rather than a fixed, embalmed replication. The fact that there is a new product that is only available here is very dynamic and represents that kind of relationship between the viewer and the consumer.

The only image of the show’s exclusive products is the one above, and those don’t look like $1000 purses to me, they look more like $100 wallets.  So I’d be willing to bet that there will be a range of products on sale, beyond the purses.  So get your credit cards ready, art lovers.  Of course the regular gift shop will be doing killer business, selling shirts and doo-dads, so it’s not like MOCA isn’t going to make a ton of gift shop money on this show, regardless of the lack of Louis Vuitton income.

An Aside - The title of the LA Times Article is “MOCA show asks: Is it business or art?”  Of course it’s business - art is a business.  Almost every painting you see in LACMA or the Louvre was once sold by the artist or their representative so that the artist could make a living.  That is business! The biggest problem I have with working with younger artists is that so many of them don’t realize that they’re entering a professional field or a business, and they make really poor decisions as to how to plan their individual business and then whine about how hard their life is.  Being an artist is being a small businessperson, and you may fail, lose your shirt or find out that you’re in the wrong business, just like any other.  Or you may go on to be Thomas Kinkade.

Technorati Tags: MOCA, art, Murakami, Takashi Murakami, Louis Vuitton, merchandizing, botique

I was visiting with Edith at work today, and I got a peek at one of her “handkerchief delivery systems” for her installation Cry Me a River, from her upcoming show, Salty: Three Tales of Sorrow at El Camino College.  I get to install the piece, since it’s based on the the Lim(b)it installation that she did at my gallery in 2003, and we’re going to replicate the overhead hanging system that made that piece possible - probably the most challenging and delicately installed piece I’ve ever hung.

The box above, being held by Betsy Lohrer-Hall contains one handkerchief, a pen and instructions for participating in the piece.  Edith has contacted a ton of people, some almost blindly, asking them to participate by using the enclosed ball point pen (she had special pens ordered up from one of those companies that writes stuff on pens, these have the installation and exhibition title on them) to draw on the handkerchief.  I thought that the little boxes were such a good idea, and a reminder as to why I work with Edith every chance I get.  Hell, these boxes are beautiful multiples in and of themselves.

Technorati Tags: Edith Abeyta, art, installation art, box, handkerchief

I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, so I’ll be slightly vague here, but I was in conversation with a group of people today, one of whom had recently participated in a talk at MOCA where a curator or other employee had talked about the upcoming Takashi Murakami retrospective.  During our conversation, we were talking about museums, and I was riffing on gift stores, which are very much on my mind at the moment, and I brought up the issue of the possibility of there being a Louis Vuitton store attached to the exhibition and someone chimed up and confirmed that they had been told that directly during their visit to MOCA.  So although the nature of the beast isn’t exactly clear, I’d say it’s safe to presume the existence of the beast.

After putting some more thought into it, I’m even more convinced that the presence of a fully functioning Louis Vuitton store inside of the exhibition is possibly the most “curatorially strong” element of a potential Murakami retrospective, and that to not have it present, preferably as a totally free standing structure (inside of the cavernous building), with its own staff and all the trimmings of a retail location would be a mistake of the highest order.  If they’re going to do this, I’d much rather see them go whole hog, and not hesitate or restrain the concept in any way.  Be bold, MOCA!

I’m also completely convinced that this represents a potential danger of significant magnitude to the increasingly blurry relationship between the museum as public space and the museum as marketing space.

Technorati Tags: art, Takashi Murakami, MOCA, Louis Vuitton, merchandizing

Jessada Kongsommart, who in a manner I can only describe as beyond generous, hosted me in Thailand, is in the States now, preparing for his solo show at LA Artcore (which has been slightly delayed due to the miracle of post 9/11 US customs, but that’s a whole other post…) and for Five Feelings, this years’ AGCC international exhibition.

Today we went out to dinner, which was followed by a quick trip to BevMo to try and provide a visual explanation for the sheer variety of beer available in America, possibly the surest proof of our nation’s genius.  While we were in the car, we were talking across our respective languages about California, the weather, climate, mountains, the sprawl of Los Angeles, etc…, and I brought up the desert.  I quickly realized that he wasn’t even familiar with the term and that no explanation I could give could seem to close the distance between his Thai experience of geography and climate and the idea of the desert, which of all of the concepts that we’ve had trouble explaining to one another for the past six months or so somehow seems the strangest and most compellingly complex.

My favourite biblical subject for painting is the Book of Judith, specifically paintings depicting any part of the beheading of Holofernes by Judith, a Jewish widow. So it was with great joy that the pathways of the internet drove me to the website of Isabel Samaras, who painted Golden Silence, in which Barbara Eden plays the part of Judith to Larry Hagman’s Holofernes. Thanks to BME’s Shannon (who also just posted this mindblowing interview with post-gender body manipulator Ashley Crawford) with for the link to Who Killed Bambi? that got me to this excellent treatment of one of my favourite things.

Technorati Tags: I Dream of Jeannie, Judith, Golden Silence, Isabel Samaras, painting, art, Holofernes, Barbara Eden, Larry Hagman