Art Basel announced today that Nicholas Baume, the director and chief curator of New York’s Public Art Fund, will organize the Public sector at this year’s edition of Miami Basel, which runs Dec. 5 through Dec. 8. Read More
The full airport-style security checkpoint that greeted guests at the Public Art Fund’s fundraiser at the 82 Mercer event space in Soho on Thursday night seemed a bit much. Sure, the art industry is getting glitzier and more moneyed every year, but was there really going to be anyone in attendance among the usual gang of curators, collectors, dealers and writers whom someone would wish to harm? Don’t answer that.
The security guard looked familiar; it was artist Ryan McNamara. The checkpoint was actually an artwork that he dreamed up with David Colman. Guests could skip the whole charade, but those who braved the line received a little bottle of Absolut in one of their shoes. A nice surprise. Read More
Here’s some fine news with which to end the week. The Public Art Fund has extended Tatzu Nishi’s project at Columbus Circle, “Discovering Columbus,” through Dec. 2. The installation, a living room built on scaffolding around the elevated statue of Christopher Columbus in Columbus Circle, had been scheduled to close Nov. 18. Read More
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24
Talk: Monika Sosnowska’s Public Art Fund Lecture
Polish artist Monika Sosnowska, who’s famed for installations and large-scale sculptures that often take outmoded architectural styles and forms to twisted, unsettling ends, will discuss her work as part of Public Art Fund’s long-running lecture series. These talks have a habit of being intensely engaging. Ms. Sosnowska’s latest project, a public sculpure at the southeast corner of Central Park, also goes on view this day. —Andrew Russeth
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Tatzu Nishi’s new installation in Columbus Circle is, by a wide margin, the most audacious public artwork that has appeared in New York City in years. Granted, competition for that title has not exactly been fierce, but that can’t be counted against the mid-career Japanese artist’s weird and beautiful work, which is presented by the Public Art Fund. Read More
The next time you have 10 minutes to spare, read this 2007 conversation between Tom Eccles, the former director of the Public Art Fund, and the late Franz West, who died today at the age of 65. It’s a beauty.
West discusses growing up in Austria immediately after World War II, his dentist mother (“There was always a lot of screaming and blood”) and various series he’s produced over the years. Read More
New York is, famously, a city whose seen-it-all citizens are above doing double takes when celebrities walk by. Neither, as it turns out, do some of them raise an eyebrow at a six-passenger, 35-foot-long twin-engine airplane spinning above their heads. How I Roll, which has been somersaulting above Fifth Avenue at 60th Street for a few weeks now, is a monumental kinetic sculpture by the Italian artist Paola Pivi and, jaded New Yorkers notwithstanding, it’s remarkable. Read More
TUESDAY, MAY 22
Party: The Party in the Garden at MoMA
Last year Kanye West went gorillas in the garden, this year it’s Santigold’s turn. Don’t be surprised if Balzac starts dancing. —Dan Duray
Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, New York, 7 p.m., after party at 9 p.m., tickets start at $150.
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MONDAY, APRIL 16
Gala: The Art Production Fund
We’re generally of the opinion that if your party’s already furnished with a mechanical bull and a full-service barbecue, you don’t need much else. And yet, the Art Production Fund went above and beyond, filling its fundraiser with artists as well. The party Read More
The Public Art Fund announced today its summer exhibitions, which will include a group show, “Common Ground,” in City Hall Park with a 30-foot-tall inflatable sculpture of a ketchup bottle by Paul McCarthy, impromptu gatherings of singing choir boys and a bullhorn that will be activated once daily with a positive message. In parks elsewhere around the city, as Carol Vogel of The New York Times reported, Paola Pivi and Oscar Tuazon will create site-specific works. Read More
