Following news that Simon de Pury is stepping down today as chairman of Phillips de Pury & Company, a colleague pointed out that this would be a fine time to revisit the auctioneer’s foray into music videos a few years ago. (See below.) Here’s hoping that Mr. de Pury, who’s also moonlighted as a DJ and reality-show star, can now find some more time for his musical endeavors. Read More
“Is this artwork hairy?” asks Carter Cleveland, the 25-year old founder of Art.sy, in today’s episode of The Sweet Spot at The New York Times site. “Is it shiny?” In the video, in which Melena Ryzik and David Carr discuss the new genome project, Mr. Cleveland gets some screen time to shed light on what is and how it works. So, what does hair have to do with it? Read More
The Brooklyn-based Liars released their sixth album WIXIW last month and commissioned the artist Ian Cheng to make an excellent video for their second single, “Brats.” Read More
When artist Sarah Sze recreated her installation The Unaccountables (Encyclopedia) in 2010 at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nice, France, she incorporated into her work things she was eating and things she found in the hotel. “Improvisation is crucial,” she says in a video just published by Art21 as she is shown clamping a piece of string to a table on which there’s a small potted cactus. “I want the work to be sort of an experience of something live. To have this feeling that it was improvised, that you can see decisions happening on site the way you see a live sports event, the way you hear jazz.” Read More
“Half of them have slept with each other,” says Michael Craig-Martin, a professor at Goldsmiths, about the Young British Artists (a k a YBAs), a group of students whose work he helped foster, in a new video by TateShots, “Michael Craig-Martin: Educating Damien.” Mr. Craig-Martin should know. He worked closely with the whole horny and artful bunch, which included Damien Hirst, Tracy Emin, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, who broke out into the art world in the 1988 exhibition “Freeze,” organized by Mr. Hirst. Read More
Conan O’Brien’s TBS show is in Chicago this week and to celebrate Mr. O’Brien has been flinging Chicago-related emphemera over the raised State Street Bridge, seeing if it can jump the gap between one side and the next. Last night he tried it with a reproduction of the abstract Pablo Picasso statue that’s made its home at Daley Plaza since 1967. Read More
Today, we were tickled by this video of painter Will Barnet talking about his 1954 painting Male and Female, which was posted by WhitneyFocus in anticipation of the artist’s inclusion in the Whitney’s “Signs and Symbols” show opening on June 28. The exhibition was organized by Donna De Salvo, chief curator and deputy director for programs, in collaboration with Jane Panetta. Read More
On the occasion of his newly opened exhibition at Tate St. Ives that shows British and international modern and contemporary art, New York-based painter Alex Katz led curator Martin Clark around his studio for the latest TateShots video, “Alex Katz.” The artist shows 30 canvases, from the early work up to the present, reminisced about his school days at Cooper Union in the 50s when Jackson Pollock “hit” and “New York changed completely.” Read More
It’s Memorial Day so you really should be outside, but if you do have to be inside, you should watch this video of Laurie Anderson giving the commencement address at the School of Visual Arts earlier this month.
Ms. Anderson, charming as always, discusses being the last artist in residence at NASA.
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