The most obscenely hipster shit ever:

Plus: PS1’s Warm Up lineup (finally) announced, also pretty decent as far as I’m concerned…

Bespoke: The Handbuilt Bicycle
Museum of Arts & Design
2 Columbus Circle (SSE Corner)
New York NY 10019 [map]
212 / 299-7777
May 13, 2010 – August 15, 2010

Via Designboom, Coolhunting, PSFK, DB again & Gestalten; click image for original source.

Much more after the jump:

If you made it this far: Bike Snob NYC has a play-by-play of fixster roomies on Judge Judy.

» The Stooges – Fun House (Take 3) (11:29) – 10.52MB mp3 @ 128kbps

• Andrew Kuo’s “My Wheel of Worry, May 2010″ (Tiny Vices via TWBE)

• Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle is screening in full at IFC through June 3rd 10th.

• Matthew Barney and Björk also had their pictures taken (opposite Marina Abramović, of course).

• Abramović fanboy Paco Blancas has sat with her 14 times (and counting), which is apparently enough times to get MoMA to interview you for their blog.

• Roy Lichtenstein at Gagosian

When we think of still lifes, we think of paintings that have a certain atmosphere or ambience. My still life paintings have none of those qualities, they just have pictures of certain things that are in a still life, like lemons and grapefruits and so forth. It’s not meant to have the usual still life meaning.

–Roy Lichtenstein.

Roy Lichtenstein
Still Lifes
Gagosian
555 W 24th St (at 11th)
New York NY 10011 [map]
212 / 741-1111
May 8, 2010 – July 30, 2010

• The new Banksy work in downtown NYC have already been, um, vandalized by the likes of IRAK and Poster Boy (supporters).

• Tag by China’s ABS Crew (NeochaEDGE)

• Hedi Slimane recently posted a series of photos of Jonathan from the Drums on his blog (alongside images of Johnny Rotten and Joe D’Allessandro).

• James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem—who has been getting mediocre-to-good (but mostly good) reviews for This Is Happening—answers fan questions for Opening Ceremony.

I love a shitty idea that you just totally go 100% with.

–James Murphy.

• Greg.org has a neat list of commonly mispronunced artist names.

• Eva & Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org present No Fun—click through for the amazing video. Their latest show consists of bits of famous work that they pinched from museums and galleries. (Animal) (UPDATE: Commentary, and an essay on the Mattes’ virtual reperformance from a year ago. Thanks Greg.) (Almost but not really related: art theft in Paris.)

Eva & Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org
Reality Is Overrated
Postmasters Gallery
459 W 19th St (at 10th)
New York NY 10011 [map]
212 / 727-3323
May 15, 2010 – June 19, 2010

• 2010 FIFA World Cup Official Art Posters! A well-executed, if predictable, promotion; check out the rest from the likes of Marlene Dumas, Julie Mehretu, and 14 others. (TWBE) Footnote: Kentridge’s show at MoMA is worth seeing as well.

• Marijuana Fuels a New Kitchen Culture (NYT)

• Surface to Air – Colder Front launch event at Oak

Surface to Air
Colder Front
Oak
28 Bond St (at Lafayette)
New York NY 10012 [map]
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 20, 7–10pm

• Plus, a spot of Ai Weiwei coverage for good measure:

His cultural and political footprint is unique in a country where people generally face a choice between thriving within the confines of the system or shouting from the shadows outside it. For the moment, he is attempting to do both, and nobody is at all sure where that leads. As Chen Danqing, a fellow artist, puts it: “He is doing something more interesting, more ambiguous…. He wants to see how far an individual’s power can go.”

Ai Weiwei is an evangelical believer in transparency: He chronicles his own life online and on film and, in particular, he has taken to documenting his interactions with officialdom with blunt precision.

–Evan Osnos, Ai Weiwei’s Transparent Life,
Letter from China blog on the New Yorker, May 17 2010

Osnos also suggests some recommended reading on Ai Weiwei.

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Hyères, France, 1932 / Magnum

First of all, the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibit at MoMA is really quite remarkable, and I echo Kottke’s rave review (he mentions the image above, which was the first of many that caught my eye).

What he excelled at was seeing things in a different way from most other people.

–A Father of Modern Photography: A Hunter and His Prey, The Economist, April 15 2010

The retrospective has a personal resonance on several levels: I’ve become increasingly interested in photography, journalism and photojournalism in the past couple years; his photographs of early and mid-century China are vaguely nostalgic (probably because I recently spent a couple months living in Beijing with my grandparents, who lived through it); and I recognized HCB’s portrait of Sartre from a book cover.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Discovered while eating a turkey hoagie and contemplating the meaning of life at a roadside stand. Also, admit it: he’s cute as a goddamn bug!

–Mike Sacks, Famous Philosophers and How They Were First Discovered,
McSweeney’s, May 2010

(More on HCB at Vanity Fair via 3qd.)

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Liu Bolin at Eli Klein: an excellent show despite the blue-chippy crowd at the opening. It might be more of the same and it probably has a certain loaded cultural content that can only be appreciated as someone who has recently spent time in China, but I would still say that the pieces in On Fire are visually compelling even without the political subtext.

His works have been communicated via emails, blogs, magazines and journals on a massive scale.

Liu Bolin’s earlier Hiding in the City photography series, in which he paints himself into the urban landscape, was inspired by the Chinese government’s demolition of the Suo Jiacun Artist Village in Beijing in 2006. He drew attention to great landmarks in China, both old and modern, while highlighting the lack of recognition which was paid to the citizens that built them. He portrayed the tragedy of the increasing insignificance of the individual in China as the government focused on presenting a modern commercial and industrial image. Rather than trying to fight, people attempted to hide and adapt to these forced changes.

–Liu Bolin’s On Fire press release & additional images via Eli Klein.

Click images for larger versions.

索家村 – Suo Jiacun [Artist's Village] (apparently, Liu Bolin reps it); 中国当代 – Contemporary China

折 – fold, discount, break, bend, snap, lose, roll over, convert, rebate, twist, double up, be convinced, turn back, turn over, lose money in business, change direction, be filled with admiration, suffer losses (Google Translate)

Dude's shirt (bottom right) matches the photograph...

Liu Bolin
On Fire
Eli Klein Fine Art
462 West Broadway (near Houston)
New York NY 10012 [map]
212 / 255-4388
April 30, 2010 – June 4, 2010

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

I didn’t make it to the Scott Campbell opening, but it made it into other “emails, blogs, magazines and journals on a massive scale”: TBWE has a nice gallery of the work and the opening; OC has a gallery of the work itself; HB recap; Interview studio visit via HB; Terry stays relevant.

I did make it to Faile & BAST’s DELUXX FLUXX NYC opening (after stopping by Liu Bolin), but my photos didn’t turn out so well. Again, you can find more/better coverage elsewhere.

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Keith W. Bentley – “Cauda Equina” (1995-2007)

The New York Times has an interesting article on the kind of organic art that is currently on display at the Museum of Arts and Design.

Jan Fabre – "Skull" (2001); Fabián Peña – "The Impossibility of Storage for the Soul I (Self-Portrait)" (2007)

Of course, people have always used natural materials to make their art, for the simple reason that until recently nature was all they had, said Ellen Dissanayake, a scholar on the evolution of art [who notes that] from the beginning, art demanded transformation. “Even in hunter-gatherer societies, they tend to make their stuff look not organic,” she said. “When they’re painting, they’ll use geometric shapes, make a row of triangles or circles, as though to show humans are more than nature.”
…
As Ms. Dissanayake sees it, when people make art, or “artify,” they follow several “aesthetic principles,” whether they know it or not. “They simplify, repeat, exaggerate, elaborate and manipulate expectations,” she said.

–Natalie Angier, Of Compost, Molecules and Insects, Art Is Born,
The New York Times, May 3 2010

Billie Grace Lynn – "Mad Cow Motorcycle" (2008)

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

I didn’t particularly regret missing the Shepard Fairey opening until I saw this:

Classic.

Animal / TWBE

More Shepard Fairey and many more after the jump…

Julia Chesky documented the opening nicely. (TWBE)

Christal Smith interviews Fairey for Huffpo, including insight into his inspiration and process; see also: A Conversation between Shepard Fairey, Deanne Cheuk and Chris Rubino

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Designboom has more on those fantastical Shanghai Expo 2010 Pavilions. Meanwhile, Huffpo investigates the embarrassing backstory of the US Pavilion.

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

I completely forgot to mention last week, but I was quite impressed with Skylar Fein’s Remember the UpStairs Lounge at the new Empty No Longer space in Chelsea. (Thanks Greg.)

Skylar Fein
Remember the UpStairs Lounge
Empty No Longer
447 W 16th St (near 10th)
New York NY 10011 [map]
April 29, 2010 – May 30, 2010
Wednesday–Sunday 12–7

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Mark Ryden’s The Gay 90’s: Old Tyme Art Show at Paul Kasmin: recapped on HB and AM; also on WOM, my friend’s blog for CN Traveler, though she very recently moved to the newly-redesigned Businessweek—congrats Eimear.

Mark Ryden
The Gay 90’s: Old Tyme Art Show
Paul Kasmin Gallery
293 10th Ave (at W 27th)
New York, NY 10001 [map]
April 29, 2010 – June 5, 2010

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Obligatory infographic on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill; click image to see in full. (GOOD)

Air spill via Huffpo.

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Flash of Genius: A Gaga Journal by Matthew Williams for V Magazine via Huffpo.

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Os Gemeos’ new blog via HB / S×H

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Tim Barber’s gorgeous series of New York Creatives 2010

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Colours in Cultures via Information is Beautiful

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

I don’t use the internet at all.

–Paul Smith, interview on Designboom, Feb 2010

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Growth Spurt – T Magazine on rooftop gardens in New York

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

I had expected something rather more bohemian from this ‘metaphysical’ painter, but found, instead, an airy bourgeois apartment full of antique furniture, comfortable sofas and rugs. Not what I had predicted from this one time friend of Apollinaire, Picasso, and that arch surrealist André Breton, who had hailed de Chirico’s early dream-like cityscapes as pivotal within the development of Surrealism. Most odd was the tiny monk-like bedroom, Spartan in its decor except for a few books, with its narrow childlike bed under a white cover…

–Sue Hubbard, On being in Rome: visiting de Chirico’s home and Richard Serra at Gagosian,
3qd, May 3 2010

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

(Fake) Werner Herzog reads Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel, Where’s Waldo, other childrens’ books. I just wish it was the real Herzog…

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Henri Cartier-Bresson's portrait of Sartre is currently on view in his retrospective at MoMA

As with his entire body of work, Sartre’s theory of imagination refers to—and, naturally, affirms—his ontology, in which he explores Husserl’s tenet that “all consciousness is consciousness of something” in the context of the ‘detotalized totality’ of being-in-itself / being-for-itself dualism. Sartre postulates an admittedly underdeveloped notion of image consciousness in his early work The Imaginary (1940), though these writings are largely eclipsed by his later political [viz. Marxist] proclivities; nevertheless, his theory of imagination is a sufficient foundation of a phenomenological aesthetics.

Notably, Sartre implies that the imaginary (or ‘irreal’) has the same ontological import as the real: if the real is never beautiful, it is simply because beauty is, by definition, imaginary, where imagination is a permanent possibility of consciousness. A painting, photograph, film, song, performance, etc., necessarily transcends perception—i.e. consciousness of oil on canvas, ink on paper, a projection, an actor, etc.—as an object of image consciousness, which overflows with the meaning of the portrait (etc.): a particular arrangement of brushstrokes or sounds immediately presents itself to consciousness as an image or melody. The abstract, then, is that which escapes us in experience qua perception; colors transcend pigment to conjure mood or geometry.

Hence, Images (in no particular order):

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

KEY:

1. Liu Bolin opening in Soho this weekend (I used one of his pieces to illustrate my very first blog post). (ArtCat)

Liu Bolin
On Fire
Eli Klein Fine Art
462 West Broadway (between Houston & Prince)
New York NY 10012 [map]
212 / 255-4388
April 30, 2010 – June 4, 2010
Opening Reception: Friday, April 30, 6-9pm

2. Scott Campbell’s first solo show in NYC (OHWOW via S×H; also on Nowness)

Scott Campbell
If You Don’t Belong, Don’t Be Long
OHWOW
109 Crosby Street (at Prince)
New York NY 10012 [map]
April 29, 2010 – May 30, 2010
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 29, 6-8pm

3. Skye Parrott of Dossier curated a photography show at BAM

Younger Than I’ll Be
Curated by Skye Parrott
Natman Room
BAM Peter Jay Sharp Building
30 Lafayette Ave (between St. Felix & Ashland) [map]
Brooklyn NY 11243
718 / 636-4100
April 7, 2010 – May 23, 2010

4. Michael Joo & Damien Hirst: Have You Ever Really Looked at the Sun? (S×H) [A: Yes.]

Michael Joo & Damien Hirst
Have You Ever Really Looked at the Sun?
Haunch of Venison
Heidestrasse 46
10557 Berlin, Germany [map]
+49 (0) 30 39 74 39 63
May 1, 2010 – August 14, 2010

Hirst also has work at the Oceanographic Music of Monaco.

5. Barzman’s “Pink Terror” = slow-motion video and Stephen Hawking over a hot beat. (Barzart via 3qd)

6. Faile & BAST bring their street artcade to New York (TBWE; interview on Gothamist; previewed at AM; previous [London] coverage))

Faile & BAST
DELUXX FLUXX NYC
158 Allen St (at Rivington)
New York NY 10002 [map]
April 30, 2010-May 27, 2010
Opening Reception: Friday, April 30, 7:30-10:30pm

7. Maya Lin’s so-called last memorial What Is Missing at Times Square (DB)

8. Zaha Hadid for the 2012 Olympics in London (DB)

9. Longo-esque Trent Mitchell photography (ISO50 on FFFFound)

10. The Tribeca Film Festival saw the New York premiere of Tamra Davis’s documentary Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child (Nowness)

11. Bursts of Color in Public (KitsunéNoir via FFFFound)

12. Whistler’s Father (FFFFound via TBWE)

13. Dead or Alive at MAD (Animal)

Dead or Alive
Museum of Arts & Design
2 Columbus Circle (SSE Corner)
New York NY 10019 [map]
212 / 299-7777
April 27, 2010 – October 24, 2010

14. Marina Abramović Made Me Cry (via Marco Anelli’s flickr); for more on The Artist Is Present, Kottke aggregates so I don’t have to.

15. Shepard Fairey’s May Day marks Deitch Projects’ last hurrah. (Full mural image & coverage at AM (also on NYT); video and other news on Animal; listing on ArtCat)

Shepard Fairey
May Day
Deitch Projects
18 Wooster St (at Grand)
New York NY 10013 [map]
212 / 343-7300
May 1, 2010 – May 29, 2010
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 1, 6-8pm

16. Herzog & de Meuron Special (ArchDaily)

17. DQM Spring 2010 Lookbook (HB)

18. For the 13th-consecutive single-artist installation on the Roof Garden of the Met: bamboo. (NYT via Inhabitat)

…Twin brothers Mike and Doug Starn (born in New Jersey in 1961) will present their new work, Big Bambú: You Can’t, You Don’t, and You Won’t Stop, opening on April 27. The monumental bamboo structure, ultimately measuring 100 feet long, 50 feet wide, and 50 feet high, will take the form of a cresting wave that bridges realms of sculpture, architecture, and performance. Visitors will witness the continuing creation and evolving incarnations of Big Bambú as it is constructed throughout the spring, summer, and fall by the artists and a team of rock climbers. Set against Central Park and its urban backdrop, Big Bambú will suggest the complexity and energy of an ever-changing living organism.

–Doug+Mike Starn on the Roof: Big Bambú

Doug & Mike Starn
Big Bambú: You Can’t, You Don’t, and You Won’t Stop
The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Ave (at E 82nd St)
New York NY 10028 [map]
April 27, 2010 – October 31, 2010

19. Peter Root’s Ephemicropolis; see also NYC in staples. (DB; making-of video)

20. Shanghai Expo 2010 Pavilions (Dezeen / ArchDaily)

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Not as coherent but also interesting:

Images from the earthquake in Yushu, China (Boston)

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Mother for Stella; see also: Fading Ads, Pickled in Pixels (NYT)

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Parting Shot: [the view from Brooklyn Bridge Park] Glowingly (Animal)

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Interpol goes in a new [art] direction. (BV)

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Nike Music Shoe revisited: it was Ableton all along. (Core77)

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

fin.

Ken Solomon
Josée Bienvenu Gallery
529 W 20th St 2nd Fl [map]
New York NY 10011
212 / 206-7990
April 8, 2010 – May 15, 2010

Jonathan Jones on Google Images as an art critic:

Green’s point is that Google has its own insidious “number one” works by these artists, which are automatically determined by the number of hits. But even if they are, does it matter?

It’s hard to argue, critically, with some of Google’s choices. Any picture researcher at an encyclopedia would be likely to go with Impression, Sunrise to illustrate Monet, or the aerial photo of Spiral Jetty to embellish Robert Smithson.

-Jonathan Jones, Can Google Gauge the Greatest Art?, The Guardian, April 12 2010

Too much, too much—

Full coverage & photos at Arrested Motion

Exit Through the Gift Shop premiere in L.A. I missed it in NYC… guess I’ll have to throw down $12.50 to see it at the Sunshine. (AM)

NYT’s review speculates about some kind of deeper meaning; NYMag’s interview with the Thierry Guetta aka Mr. Brainwash yields no answers whatsoever. UPDATE: Jon Reiss reviews Exit for HuffPo; GOOD has another bizarre interview with the filmmaker.

(Meta Alert) A sneak preview into the sequel, Exit Through the Garage Door. (SlamxHype)

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

I Love Graffiti has a decent, if somewhat lengthy, interview with Os Gêmeos; worth checking out the photos for sure. (TBWE)

OGs doin' work last summer...

Apparently, the Brazilian twins’ awesome mural at Houston and Bowery is no longer: Animal reports that Deitch Projects has buffed it to furnish a blank slate for Shepard Fairey.

Os Gêmeos were also featured on an episode of W+K’s D.I.Y. America:

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

UPDATE (4/15): Blek Le Rat studio teaser. (Wooster Collective)

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

A nice interview with Serbian photographer Boogie. (True Slant)

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Sten&Lex’s ‘destroyed’ stencils. (PSFK / UPDATE: Also on Wooster Collective)

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

After Caravaggio’s “David with the Head of Goliath” in Venezuela. (NYT)

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Matzu’s got a book! (Reed Space; AM)

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Dolk & M-City at Brooklynite Gallery. (Animal)

Dolk & M-City
Eurotrash
Brooklynite Gallery
334 Malcolm X Blvd [map]
Brooklyn NY 11233
347 / 405-5976
April 30, 2010 – May 29, 2010
Opening Reception: Friday, April 30, 7-10pm

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Bonus pic: the detritus of a hard days’ work—

Pitchfork has just announced the final lineup for their wildly successful eponymous music festival, and it’s pretty much an indie kid’s dream come true: Liars, Wolf Parade, Major Lazer, Beach House, Why?, Big Boi, Robyn, and several other independent music luminaries will be playing across three days in Chicago come July, alongside previously-announced headliners Pavement, LCD Soundsystem and Modest Mouse… not to mention the likes of Broken Social Scene, Panda Bear, Raekwon, Titus Andronicus, Dâm-Funk, Sleigh Bells et al.

Prepped-out Malkmus

Liars stole the show in 2006—they’re easily one of my favorite live acts—and Stephen Malkmus was a highlight in 2007, but Pitchfork has really outdone themselves for the fifth time around. Honestly, the lineup is basically too stacked at this point (if the previous run-on paragraph is any indication), an extreme case of ‘festival oversaturation’: there’s simply no way that one would have the opportunity to see every single band he or she wanted to see.

Liars' Angus Andrew shredding

Related: Liars, St. Vincent (also playing this festival this year) and ’fork fest veterans Os Mutantes covering INXS for Beck’s Record Club (Stereogum); Awesome interview with Angus from Liars (Motherboard); LCD Soundsystem dates for what may or may not be a final tour (BV).

Shameless self-promotion, because it’s been a while:

» The Purple Ribbon Allstars – Kryptokraft 400 (K Hessel’s On It) (3:42) – 6.6MB mp3 @ 246kbps

» Das Racist – Combination Pon de Floor and Wallpaper (K Hessel’s Mas Lazer Mashup) (3:27) – 7.9MB mp3 @ 320kbps

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

1. Bracketology (1985-2009) infographic by Leonardo Aranda.

2. Jan Smith photographed the abandoned ships at Nouadhibou in Mauritania. (GOOD)

3. Jeff Koons × BMW (NYT / PSFK)

4. Domino Sugar Factory bombed by NEKST, ADEK, HAELER, and CHEW. (TWBE)

5. My boy Eugene from Hypebeast is curating a photography show in Hong Kong. (HB)

Day Job
curated by Eugene Kan
Above Second Gallery
31 Eastern Street [map]
Sheung Wan, Hong Kong
852.3483.7950
Opening Reception: Friday, April 9, 6-10pm

6. Photo gallery of construction for the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai. (Boston Globe)

7. Work by Beijing-based photographer Phoebe Jin. (NeochaEDGE)

8. Usugrow – Shinkai, from Hasadhu, in the Night Before a Storm. Juxtapoz / s.butterfly

Usugrow
Hasadhu, in the Night Before a Storm
StolenSpace Gallery
Dray Walk, The Old Truman Brewery
91 Brick Lane [map]
London E1 6QL
+44 (0) 207 247 2684
Through April 18, 2010

9. Zuriick website re-design: the Salt Lake City-based footwear purveyors are stepping it up this season with the new premium ‘Shug‘ silhouette, just in time for the nice weather.

10. Photorealist painter Emily Burns is cutting her teeth as a Koons studio assistant. (Notcot)

---- --- -- - -- --- ----

Bonus pic: Springtime at Nighttime in NYC (Terry Richardson)