Month: November 2010

Cops to Urban Explorers: “This is not a gallery”

underbelly-project-mainImmediately after I’d read about it on Vandalog.com, I wanted to go see The Underbelly Project. But even as I was plotting, dozens were being arrested for nearly killing themselves to gain access to the already decaying and vandalized artworks.  The vandals can claim, “first!”

Said one police officer: “This is not a gallery.”

This story will surely be ongoing. For now I leave you with the links below.

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LINKS:

The Underbelly Project

The Gothamist Story of Arrests

LTV Squad (photographs of Underbelly artwork)

Slim Pickin’s in Lean Times = $69 Mil for the Big Mo

Modigliani’s “La belle Romaine” is large.

No use talking about the art market as if it had ANYthing to do with the real world… Auction prices are back to mind-blowing even while our unemployment rates hover around 9%. An examination of performances by Sotheby’s and Christie’s  evening sales of contemporary art this week will show you only that a luxury market —a collector’s luxury market — responds to a slowly recovering economy with sheer, unabashed, indulgence.

The story these days is about rarity. And rarity speaks only to desire and competition, a combo that makes for dramatic auctions. So when every last brushstroke and cast is sitting on Mr. Moneyfeather’s veranda, and collectors are left scrabbling over the leavings or the occasional toss-away, we are left gasping at record prices fetched for middling Modiglianis and lackluster Monets.

Continue reading “Slim Pickin’s in Lean Times = $69 Mil for the Big Mo” →

BITS: Art for Art’s Sake and Art for Espianage

THE UNDERBELLY PROJECT

This past week, Vandalog,  and The New York Times (amongst very few others) reported on a very elite art viewing experience. This was not for folks with paddles, not for Armani-suited champagne-sippers, and not even for the hippest hipsters, consulting Flavor Pill and attending the latest Winkle and Balktick events.

TrustoCorp Photo by RJ Rushmore. See more thorough coverage of this story and lots of amazing photos by Mr. Rushmore, Workhorse, and PAC on the Vandalog site.

Nope. This was for a select group of intrepid insiders. Journalists, who were, by invitation only, escorted into the unhallowed depths of our unfair city to view an art show that was created soley for, and in tribute to, art itself.

Continue reading “BITS: Art for Art’s Sake and Art for Espianage” →

How to Talk About Art: Always throw in a ringer.

Hermes bearing the good person by Praxiteles. Parian marble, H. 2.15 m (7 ft. ½ in.). Archaeological museum of ancient Olympia, Greece. From the German excavations of the Heraion at Olympia, 1877.

Jeff Koons, at the 2010 Whitney Gala and Studio Party, listing the “influences” for his latest oil paintings and marble works : “Dali, Manet, Velazquez, Titian, you know… DaVinci, Praxiteles.”

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