Sundance Channel

Opening night of Diego Rivera at MoMA

Matthew Rodriguez — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 19:17:44 +0000

I felt lucky to attend the opening night party for the Diego Rivera exhibition "Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art" last Tuesday. The (always welcomed) open bar aside, I was excited to get a preview of some of the works of an icon like Rivera, an artist for whom I also have a sort of nostalgic attachment; his relationship with Frida Kahlo was the focus of one of my earliest group projects as a freshman at Brown. In tribute to their mercurial relationship, I tried to convince my friend to show up with a unibrow. Alas, she refused...

Marina Abramovic: the video game experience

Matthew Rodriguez — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 19:47:57 +0000

In the overlapping center of a Venn diagram between the art and video game world is this 8-bit side-scrolling online game adaptation developed by Pippin Barr of Marina Abramović's live installation, "The Artist Is Present," which was presented earlier this year at MoMA. In one of the more buzzed about art exhibits this year, Abramović sat silent and still in the atrium of the MoMA, where visitors lined up for the opportunity to sit across from her, thus "becoming participants in the artwork."

Helix, a card game based on your DNA

Perrin Drumm — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 18:30:56 +0000

Among the many ooh and ahh-inducing technological wonders on display in MoMA's current "Talk to Me" exhibition is the card game, Helix, or rather its prototype. Why does a card game need a prototype, you ask? Because Helix is unlike any other game you've ever seen - seriously. For starters, it requires your DNA. Yep, before you can begin the game players send a swab of their saliva to a lab to be analyzed. From that data, the game's designers create a customized 50-card deck based on the traits and tendencies revealed by your DNA. One card might be for obesity, another for depression and another for curly hair. The game begins when each player lays their cards on the table and engage in duels that "reward strategy and decision making but are limited by genetic reality."

Warm Up all summer long at MoMA/P.S.1

Perrin Drumm — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 15:00:43 +0000

It's been four months since we announced the winner of P.S.1/MoMA's Young Architects Program. Now that summer is officially upon us, the museum has opened up its courtyard and unveiled Interboro Partner's winning design, "Holding Pattern," which will play host to the annual Warm Up party series. One of the first things you notice when you enter the space, aside from the fact that it seems to be undergoing some last minute construction, are the bright yellow tags on nearly every item in the courtyard (pictured below). They read "Hold For" and are stuck to the chairs, benches, planters, trees, chess boards and ping pong tables. The tags are marked with the names of local businesses and organizations who will receive the tagged item after Warm Up closes in September. When Interboro Partners was conducting their initial research they went out into the neighborhood and asked people, "Is there something you need that we could design and use in the courtyard and then donate in the Fall?" The community seems to have answered eclectically. In addition to seating, there's a sandbox, foosball table, lifeguard chair and even a self-misting modular stage for breakdancing performances.

Cy Twombly as sculptor

Perrin Drumm — Mon, 30 May 2011 17:30:39 +0000

Though Cy Twombly is best known, perhaps even exclusively so, for his paintings -those ferociously scribbled masterpieces - it's his sculpture - seven pieces of it - that MoMA has recently acquired and put on exhibition. Almost all of Twombly's sculptures are made from found materials, scrap wood and plaster that are assembled into composites and then covered in white paint, "unifying the various humble materials and giving them an ethereal presence." Sure, or he whitewashed them right into the gallery walls and they stand out only because they're mounted on a pedestal. Yes, his sculptural work possesses an undeniable textural quality - the variations in the monochromatic pieces of wood and fabric are quite lovely up close. From further back, however, they're about as emotionally exciting as their color palette is varied.

I went to MoMA and…

Matthew Rodriguez — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 21:19:26 +0000

Quoting Duchamp who once said “It is the spectators who make the pictures,” MoMA decided to engage the 3 million people who walk through their museum with a project called “I went to MoMA and…” where visitors could fill out a note card finishing that sentence and share their experience with the museum and public. [...]

Remembering the Whole Earth Catalog

Perrin Drumm — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 20:00:33 +0000

In 1968 Stewart Brand founded the singular publication the Whole Earth Catalog, a compendium of useful resources for designing and building with the 'whole earth' in mind. Heavily influenced by the work of Buckminster Fuller, the catalog "developed into an extensive reference tool for designing the environment, living spaces and new media practices." Far from being just a collection of products and prices, the Whole Earth Catalog is the only catalog to win a National Book Award for its eschewing of politics and a move towards grassroots change. "At a time when New Age hippies were deploring the intellectual world of arid abstractions, Whole Earth pushed science, intellectual endeavor and new technology as well as old."

P.S.1 MoMA’s Young Architects Winner

Perrin Drumm — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 21:30:01 +0000

Just when the winter blues really starts to get me down, MoMA/P.S.1 announces the winner of the Young Architects Program and summer doesn't seem quite as far away. That's because the grand prize is the chance to design P.S.1's outdoor courtyard, used all summer long for their jam-packed Warm Up parties in Long Island City, Queens. This year's winner is the Brooklyn-based urban design and planning firm, Interboro Partners, who take a decidedly minimalist approach in all their work. Many past winners have wowed the judges with elaborate conceptual pieces or striking visuals, but Interboro snagged the top prize with a simple overhead canopy made of tautly pulled rope that reaches from one end of the courtyard to the other.

Barbed wire typeface

Matthew Rodriguez — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:39:18 +0000

Fellow SUNfilterer Perrin Drumm’s recent write up about the MoMA’s acquisition of some typefaces reminded me to post about artist Andrew Effendy’s piece “The Devil’s Rope/Type.” Shaped to look like “sinister” barbed wire, the artist “makes you mull over the role of language and how—especially, in today’s world of information overload—language has the power to [...]

ART – looking back at Meret Oppenheim’s “Object”

Perrin Drumm — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 19:29:46 +0000

I first encountered Meret Oppenheim's "Object" in "The Erotic Object" show at MoMA, a 2009 exhibition of Surrealist sculpture. Many of the usual suspects were on display - Giacometti's "Disagreeable Object," a wooden phallus with three sharp points on the end as well as a few of Hans Bellmer's bulbous, flesh-colored deconstructions of the female reproductive system. But resting on a pedestal right in front was Oppenheim's show-stealing "Object."

Font geeks, rejoice!

Perrin Drumm — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 18:12:17 +0000

FF Blur by legendary designer Neville Brody

MoMA has been on something of an acquisitions spree of late, following up their recent purchase of artist David Woknarowicz's controversial "A Fire in My Belly" (that's the video of ants crawling over Christ's body that the Smithsonian took down after it ruffled some feathers in the Catholic League) with 23 digital typefaces for its Architecture and Design collection. Before this, Helvetica was the only font in the 30,000-piece collection, but it's now joined by equally famous brethren like Verdana and Gotham as well as less common fonts like Walker, Template Gothic and even OCR-A, which is used only in bar codes.

Andy Warhol’s motion pictures

Bradford Shellhammer — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 16:42:30 +0000

With so many soup cans and Monroe images out there its easy to forget that Andy Warhol was not a one trick pony. The artist was also a prolific filmmaker and a new exhibit at NYC’s MoMA spotlights those films. From MoMA: Among Warhol’s cinematic oeuvre, the black-and-white silent films are the most daring and [...]

MoMA redefines the line

Perrin Drumm — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 19:06:32 +0000

Painting, sculpture, drawing - you decide.

"On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century" isn't MoMA's first exhibition on drawing and it won't be its last, but this latest curatorial effort is a much more inventive take on the genre than in previous shows. Connie Butler, the museum's Chief Curator of Drawings and Catherine de Zegher, former director of The Drawing Center, have amassed a collection of works that span just over a century and include mediums beyond simple graphite on paper. One of the earlier works is a short film of the dancer Loie Fuller from 1897. Fuller experimented with what might be called early versions of ribbon dancing by using lengths of silk to create a sort of moving, visual line. She also sewed pieces bamboo into her skirts to stretch them into flat planes of fabric, and what is a drawing if not a line on a plane?

Jackson Pollock asks “Is this a painting?”

Matthew Rodriguez — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 23:35:03 +0000

I enjoyed this anecdote recounted by Ann Temkin, Chief Curator of MoMA’s Department of Painting and Sculpture about Jackson Pollock who asked his wife the same question that many of us ask when looking at art, especially abstract, modern, or contemporary pieces. When he was at his studio in the Springs in Long Island, he [...]

Book lovers unite! It’s the NY Art Book Fair

Perrin Drumm — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 17:50:21 +0000

Designed by Nieves If you’re one of the minions who’ve sworn an unholy alliance with the Kindle, if you’ve relegated your reading to the smooth, shiny surface of an iPad, read no further. But if you’re a member of the purer sect, those who relish the feel of a page between their thumb and forefinger, [...]

MoMA’s mystery film stills

Matthew Rodriguez — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:47:14 +0000

The MoMA posted on their website ten film stills and are asking their readers to help them identify the stills’ film titles, which the museum can’t quite figure out. The pictures portray scenes taking place in kitchens where “in film as in real life, kitchens are memorable settings for scenes of coziness and chaos, sex [...]

MoMA staff recreate art in LEGO versions

Matthew Rodriguez — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 22:23:16 +0000

Inspired by Christoph Niemann’s (a favorite over here at SUNfiltered) recreations of iconic New York landmarks using LEGO bricks, some of the MoMA staff spent a Friday afternoon made their own LEGO minimalist miniature replicas of pieces from the museum’s collection. Seen above is Richard Serra’s “Equal (Corner Prop Piece)” and “One Ton Prop (House [...]

The longest photographic exposure

Matthew Rodriguez — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 21:01:04 +0000

In 2001 New York City’s Museum of Modern Art invited Michael Wesely, renowned for “inventing and refining techniques for making photographs with unusually long exposures,” to photographically document the comprehensive renovation to the museum’s Midtown building. From the summer of 2001 to the building’s completion in 2004, Wesely’s cameras captured the construction site with their [...]

The Original Copy at MoMA

Perrin Drumm — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:41:41 +0000

Lee Friedlander's "Mount Rushmore"

For those too impatient to wait the 8 hours for exposure required by Joseph Niepce's camera obscura, 1839 was a pretty exciting time. It was the year Louis Dageurre perfected his daguerreotype, which didn't fade and needed less than 30 minutes for exposure. It's also the starting point of MoMA's upcoming exhibition "The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to today." Don't overlook that tiny preposition of. When the daguerreotype popularized photography, one of its very first subjects were sculptures. It satisfied a dual purpose. One, as sculptures were less mobile (if not entirely immobile) than paintings, sculptors needed their work photographed so it could reach a wider audience. Second, sculptures made ideal subjects. 30 minutes may be a lot less than 8 hours, but it's still a pretty long time to ask a person to pose without moving.

The Matisse you didn’t know, now at MoMA

Perrin Drumm — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 19:18:07 +0000

Though Henri Matisse is one of the most well known artists of all time, widely considered one of the three seminal artists of the 20th century (along with Picasso and Duchamp), the work he produced from 1913-1917 is the least studied and arguably most innovative of his career. 1913 falls several years after his popular fauvist period, a style he would return to later in life, and marks the beginning of an experimental time during which he allowed the mark of the artist or "the means of making" to show in the finished canvas.

Warm Up at P.S.1

Perrin Drumm — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:49:06 +0000

The rendering

The real thing

Remember back in January when P.S.1 MoMA announced the Brooklyn-based husband and wife duo SO-IL winner of this year's Young Architects Program? If you got excited about the renderings for their winning design, the cheekily titled Pole Dance, get even more excited now that the actual space is up and ready for you to play in all summer long. As a refresher: Pole Dance is made of 100 free-moving poles, centrally anchored in a shallow pool and held together by a net that's only 'taut enough.' The interactive structure encourages visitors to engage with the poles, to yank them around and tug on the net that holds up lots of big, bright rubber balls, creating and playing a kind of 'rule-less' game.

The silent treatment

Perrin Drumm — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 17:20:48 +0000

A scene from Ernst Lubitsch's "So This is Paris," of which only 10 minutes of films remains.

MoMA has been running a phenomenal program of silent films for the last two years, giving audiences a comprehensive look at the birth of cinema. But in case you missed out on two years of investigating the careers of the era's most innovative directors, MoMA has put together a 'best of' before they switch over to talkies.

Shepard Fairey’s new mural in downtown NYC

Matthew Rodriguez — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:44:58 +0000

Earlier this week on Tuesday night, Shepard Fairey painted a mural in front of a large crowd in downtown Manhattan, on the corner of Houston and Bowery to be exact. You can see the final result in the photo above. I learned about this that night via the MoMA’s twitter which re-tweeted @hrag’s on-the-scene twitpics [...]

Every Painting in the MoMA on 10 April 2010

Matthew Rodriguez — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:58:02 +0000

One of my favorite art bloggers Hyde or Die shared this ambitious YouTube video titled “Every Painting in the MoMA on 10 April 2010,” which incidentally was the same day I too dropped by my favorite museum in New York City, primarily to view their new Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibit (one word review: captivating!). Set to [...]

Picasso the printmaker

Perrin Drumm — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:49:56 +0000

Picasso's "Portrait of a Young Lady (After Cranach the Younger)"

Even Picasso's admirers have to admit that their beloved painter would be nothing without the masters. I don't mean only as sources of inspiration but as actual source material. Owing his legacy to his famous interpretations of even more famous original paintings like Manet's "Luncheon on the Grass" and Velazquez's "Las Meninas," Picasso is one of the great cover artists of the 20th century. But what he lacked in original composition he more than made up for with a long and prolific career that included nearly every medium available to him. The medium that the new MoMA exhibit is concerned with, however, is printmaking. "Picasso: Themes and Variations" (a real snoozer of a title, unfortunately) showcases 100 of his etchings, lithographs and linocuts, many of which are based on the work of other artists like Rembrandt and Lucas Cranach the Younger (and the Elder too).

The Cinemagicians: Kentridge and Melies

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:13:34 +0000

I caught up with the shows at the MOMA last weekend, including the William Kentridge exhibit. A show that grapples with heavy subjects like apartheid and colonialism, Kentridge’s animated charcoal drawings get smudged, erased, and redrawn to tell stories about characters that are often heavy, egotistical and morally adrift. Kentridge said, “I am interested in a political art, that is to say an art of ambiguity, contradiction, uncompleted gestures and uncertain endings. An art in which optimism is kept in check and nihilism at bay.” My favorite part of the exhibit however was where the weighty politics of the stories disappeared and Kentridge does seem to let loose with a cinematic fun that is both surprising and welcome...

More at MoMA

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:58:56 +0000

Marina Abramovic's astonishing retrospective and mesmerizing performance at the MoMA (reviewed here by Perrin and Patrick) has earned a lot of buzz, and I highly encourage you to visit, however while visiting be sure to also check out two interactive installations that will bring a smile and sense of wonderment. The first is Yin Xiuzhen's extended van sculpture "Collective Subconscious" which the public can enter and "find a cozy refuge complete with low stools and soft pop music—a space that invites visitors to break the silence of the hushed gallery, reinventing it as a place for conversation and discussion." The second piece is Ernesto Neto's "Navedenga" where "visitors are invited inside its hollow chamber to engage their visual, tactile, and olfactory senses." I went this past Saturday and the sensations felt at both installations must be experienced in person. After the jump are some photos.

Marina Abramovic at MoMA

Perrin Drumm — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:03:41 +0000

In the MoMA's Atrium Marina Abramovic sits at a wooden table dressed in a high-necked, long-sleeved navy blue dress that gathers in a pool of fabric at her feet. She's lit on all sides by 5ks - big, bright, hot lights. Her face is serene and statuesque, her gaze completely focused, and you're welcome to take the chair on the other side of the table and sit with her for as long as you like. Meanwhile the rest of her retrospective, "The Artist is Present," is happening upstairs, and really, it's a happening.

William Kentridge at MoMA

Perrin Drumm — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:04:14 +0000

After William Kentridge graduated from art school in South Africa, he decided to study theatre and mime in Paris, but "was fortunate to discover that [he] was a bad actor...and was reduced to an artist." His hopes of acting may not have panned out, but it's no wonder that performance is such a big part of his work as the latest exhibition at the MoMA highlights. "Five Themes" surveys the last three decades of Kentridge's work, which includes print, books, collage, drawing, sculpture, animation and performance art. The themes tend to revolve around political movements like the first South African democratic election in 1994 to projects like "The Nose," Kentridge's most recent undertaking.

Time-lapse Richard Serra at MoMA

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:55:16 +0000

The MoMA’s digital media team’s initial inchoate forways into producing and sharing content online of their exhibitions involved time-lapse videos of the installations of various pieces. Their first attempt was this recording of the installation of a Richard Serra steel sculpture in the museum’s Sculpture Garden in 2007. [Via]

Film Forum turns 40

Perrin Drumm — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:58:31 +0000

Bruce Weber’s 1988 LET’S GET LOST, one of 30 films in the Film Forum screening at MoMA. When Film Forum opened in 1970 in Manhattan’s Upper West Side it operated with one projector, 50 folding chairs and a $19,000 annual budget, but when Karen Cooper was hired on as director in 1972, things changed. Now, [...]

James Victore at MoMA

Bradford Shellhammer — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:22:24 +0000

It is not everyday that you venture to the Museum of Modern Art and you stumble upon work you own. It is ever crazier when the artist is a friend. This happened to me last week. While I strolled through MoMA to see wonderful exhibits on both Tim Burton and the Bauhaus I came towards the elevator. And there lining the wall were four posters designed by my pal James Victore. I was shocked!

The View From Here

Perrin Drumm — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:46:15 +0000

Clockwise from upper left: Larry Sultan, "My Mother Posing for Me," (1984) Henry Wessel, "Southern California," (1985) William A. Garnett, "Contour Graded Hills, Ventura County, California" (1953) and Ansel Adams, "Clouds, from Tunnel Overlook, Yosemite National Park, California" (1934)

Children growing up everywhere, in the middle of nowhere, middle America or in the backwoods of the Northeast all have specific visions of California. Of all the states in the country, why California? Why do people I meet today tell me how when they were children all they wanted to do was go to California? One reason: photography. Whether their impressions are of the Ansel Adams variety or the vastly more popular surfer/life guard/beach bum/eternal party culture California, they can all be traced back to specific images from photography both low (think neon bikini postcards) and high.

A Tim Burton ancestor: the hugable somnambulist

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 18:23:26 +0000

As part of the Tim Burton show at the MOMA (showing through April 26^th), they are exhibiting a series of films called "Tim Burton and the Lurid Beauty of Monsters." These are films that according to the MOMA staff have “… influenced, inspired, and intrigued Burton, and which reflect the motifs, themes, and sensibilities of his work.” Just scanning the list of monsters, mummies and evil villains, one of them caught my eye. THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, a landmark German Expressionist film directed by Robert Wiene in 1920. One of my favorite early films, it’s a visual journey into a bold and hyper non-realistic world, with geometrical and striking high contrast sets. The backgrounds are often absurd and light and shadows are painted on walls and floors. It’s as if we’ve stepped into an insane but brilliant artist’s point of view. No wonder Burton was inspired by this film.

MoMA: The New Typography

Perrin Drumm — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:13:07 +0000

Graphic design has undergone many incarnations in the last century, but before even Alexey Brodovitch's name rang any bells in the United States, the so-called New Typography movement was taking hold in countries like Germany, Russia and Czechoslovakia. Modernist designers rejected the traditional two or three column layout for text and instead of working from a grid, they began instead from the blank page. Free from constraints, images moved across the plane, often with little adherence to spatial relationships. But before image and line came into play, typography was at the forefront of the design revolution, and leading the pack was designer and author of the seminal book, "Die Neue Typographie" (1928), Jan Tschichold.

Jacques Tati, new 35mm at MoMA

Perrin Drumm — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:30:55 +0000

Some things never get old. I've seen MR. HULOT'S HOLIDAY at least 2 dozen times and I still laugh out loud during the tennis racket scene. The same goes for PLAYTIME, the first of six newly struck and lovingly restored 35mm prints of Jacques Tati's films, now being screened at MoMA. PLAYTIME was a phenomenal flop when it was first released in 1967, but Tati's radical use of sound, color and meticulously choreographed, city street chaos make it my personal favorite. By 1967, Tati had been playing the beloved Mr. Hulot for 14 years and he was ready to try something new, but audiences weren't yet ready to let go. In fact, Tati wasn't going to include Hulot in PLAYTIME at all, but without him he couldn't secure much-needed funding for the film, money that Tati quickly blew on his outrageously costly set design.

Comedy, Italian style

Perrin Drumm — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:16:51 +0000

Still from IL SORPASSO (THE EASY LIFE) (1962) If you’re still recovering from post-THE ROAD depression, head over to MoMA for a week of Dino Risi’s smart, if bitter, comedies. Kicking things off is SCENT OF A WOMAN (1974) – that’s the original, not the 1992 Pacino remake. If Risi can make light of a [...]

More Tim Burton: PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE

Perrin Drumm — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:22 +0000

It's a strange thing to reach adulthood and see, for the very first time, a film everyone else saw before they hit puberty. For me that film is PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE. I'm not going to lie; When I was a kid, Pee-wee really freaked me out. I thought he was creepy and weird and unnecessarily loud. But as part of Tim Burton's retrospective, MoMA is screening all of his films, starting last night with PEE-WEE, his 1985 feature film debut. After Paul Reubens saw FRANKENWEENIE (a full-length remake is due out in 2011) he chose Burton to direct PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE, which had, until that point, been a stage-show at the Roxy in L.A. and of course, an HBO special.

Everything Tim Burton

Perrin Drumm — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:45:05 +0000

Tim Burton fans came out in droves to the opening of his retrospective yesterday at MoMA. Dressed in red and black stripes and lace and crazy hats - even painted on stitches - they were hard to miss. And with the massive collection of drawings, set pieces and video I doubt they left disappointed. To get to the actual exhibit you have to walk through the mouth of one of Burton's classic freak show creations, down a hallway lit only by TV screens playing his animated series "The World of Stainboy." At the end of the hallway is a dark room lit by black-lights where some of his glow-in-the-dark pieces are on display.

Bauhaus at MoMA

Perrin Drumm — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:05:53 +0000

A lot of things separate Bauhaus from other art movements. It's the only one (that I can think of anyhow) that values control, precision and rigor as necessary qualities in both the art and its maker, perhaps because it began as an actual, physical institution. But it's also one of the few movements that changed so quickly in so short a time. In 1919 the students' projects were less about function and more about form: paintings by artists (and professors) like Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky, textiles woven into patterns reminiscent of Native American blankets and pottery crafted by artisans that did not conform to 90 degree angles. These works served no other purpose than to be hung on a wall or put on a shelf to be looked at.

MoMA’s rejection letter to Warhol

Matthew Rodriguez — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:13:59 +0000

From the archives, check out this letter dated October 19, 1956 by the first director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art to Andy Warhol informing the pop artist that the museum was regretfully rejecting his generously free gift of his drawing entitled “Shoe.” The letter is currently part of the Andy Warhol Museum’s archives [...]

P.S.1 goes back to 1969

Perrin Drumm — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:34:32 +0000

Swingeing London 67, Richard Hamilton

1969 was a big year; so big, in fact, that people like me, who weren't alive at the time, have vicarious memories of what it was like. Things like Vietnam, Civil Rights, sexual revolution, and the moon landing spring to mind. To commemorate not only the year itself, but its lasting impact on artists today, P.S.1 has devoted its entire 2nd floor to what it meant to live in 1969. "By juxtaposing the meditative space of the white cube gallery of the transplanted MoMA exhibition with the tumult of the outside world, 1969 reflects the expansive concerns held by artists of the time" like Lee Friedlander, Gary Winogrand, Robert Irwin, Joseph Beuys, Robert Morris and Sol LeWitt, including brand new work from Bruce Nauman, Mel Bochner and Robert Barry.

Spike Jonze: The First 80 Years

Perrin Drumm — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 21:10:57 +0000

Spike Jonze planned his upcoming release of WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE very well. He seems to be all around us. For starters, the latest issue of Wholphin includes three short Maurice Sendak-based pieces he directed. They're very DIY (as in not very good) but they're cute and kooky and serve a purpose, namely, to get us all amped up for the real, long-awaited, much-anticipated thing itself, in theaters Friday.

Not much to look at: conceptual art at the MoMA

Perrin Drumm — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:42:42 +0000

Gilbert and George

Conceptual art can be funny, poignant and clever, but overall, with a few exceptions, I find it to be one of the most visually underwhelming schools of art. I suppose that's bound to happen when the artist lays out the framework or provides only the idea (the concept) and leaves the rest of the work - in some cases the entire visual element of a piece - to the viewer. It's curious then that the artist I like best out of the bunch is Lawrence Weiner. It has a lot to do with our mutual love of the letterform, but I also genuinely enjoy thinking (conceptualizing) about the concrete thing his words describe.

Tim Burton at MoMA

Bradford Shellhammer — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:47:01 +0000

This November MoMA will house a major retrospective of Tim Burton’s work. The show, Tim Burton, will showcase his career as a ”director, producer, writer, and concept artist for live-action and animated films, along with his work as a fiction writer, photographer and illustrator.” It will feature his drawings from early childhood through his most current [...]

Mad about Arad

Bradford Shellhammer — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:07:07 +0000

MoMA will be showing the first ever major retrospective of designer Ron Arad in the United States starting August 2, 2009. The show will run through October 9, 2009 and will feature the Israeli industrial designer’s furniture, sculpture, and chandeliers for Swarovski, which display text messages from strangers that are sent to the lamps by incorporating light-emitting diodes. Regardless [...]

Alice wonders Burton and Leibovitz

Sundance Channel — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:01:23 +0000

As artists continue to draw inspiration from childhood fears and fairy tales, it comes as no surprise that classic stories like Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (more commonly known as Alice in Wonderland) are being tapped. Coming up on the 2010 film lineup is Tim Burton's much anticipated ALICE IN WONDERLAND with Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter (who else?), Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen. But Burton is hardly the first to put a unique spin on Carroll's tale. With the first official photographs of WONDERLAND released last week, photographer-extraordinaire Annie Leibovitz's editorial for Vogue US December 2003 have "resurfaced," thanks to the efforts of bloggers everywhere.

The Erotic Object

Perrin Drumm — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:00:37 +0000

On the fourth floor of the MoMA is a roomful of objects that fit the bill of being both surreal and erotic. Some are obvious, like Giacometti's smooth, bulging, wooden "Disagreeable Object" (a refreshing departure from his withered little alien people), and some are less so, like Dali's "Retrospective Bust of a Woman" (That's the one with an inkwell on top of a baguette on top of a woman's head). But there was only one object that I was instantly, insatiably attracted to: Meret Oppenheim's fur-covered cup.

Cruel and Unusual: the art of American slapstick

Perrin Drumm — Wed, 20 May 2009 19:58:26 +0000

Starting tomorrow, for ten days only, the MoMA will screen a collection of uproarious, irreverent, silent, American slapstick comedies, all accompanied by live piano. First up are five short films united by a general cross-dressing theme with silent favorites Stan Laurel, Buster Keaton, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, and Wallace Beery.

Do It Yourself: It Is Greener (and Fun)

Sundance Channel — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:00:00 +0000

We’ve been talking all week about simultaneously going green and saving green. One of the best ways to do so is to take some initiative, and do it yourself. Not only can you save some cash, but can actually improve upon some ideas — think bicycle plus crank generator for your own power generator. Here [...]