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By STEVE AISHMAN 07There once was an artist from Boston Who searched all the way to Austin “Where is the art?” He said with a fart “If this country had balls, we have lost them!” -A limerick by Steve Aishman Steve Aishman is a former resident of the Phantom Zone. Since his escape he has been a regular contributor Big RED & Shiny.
By MICAH J. MALONE What does it mean to sell something that does not have a definitive form? In my exploration of this question, I will focus on the generation that has led to many misconceptions about the commodity status of art: the Conceptualists from the 1960s and 1970s. For the next several Marketwatch columns, I will look at an artist from this generation and pair him/her with a contemporary who might share similar sensibilities. Many early critics, such as Lucy Lippard, tended to exaggerate illusions about the “dematerialization of the art…
By THOMAS MARQUET #54: Inside every artist, there is an opportunist waiting to emerge. Thomas Marquet is a cartoonist, sculptor, and critic, based in Brooklyn.
By MATTHEW BOURBON Raoul De Keyser’s diminutive paintings of loosely brushed forms appear dashed-off or nonchalant. On first glance, the fifty paintings peppering the walls of this exhibition appear lackluster. Yet somehow they lure you to keep looking. Still, you can almost hear the layperson complaining: ‘Look what this costs; my kid could make this’! That is to say, De Keyser’s art does not impress by means of obvious skill. In fact, the work almost seems purposefully deskilled. The thin canvases are lazily stretched with knobby triangle folds at the corners, mimicking…
By MATTHEW NASH On rainy days like these, Gravitron looks colorized — his lights, a fake smile in the dismal afternoon. No matter how he tries to make real for himself the sense that there are other state fairs, that there have to be other Gravitrons out there, he is alone, wants a little Gravitron of his own. He feels the riders gestate inside him and pretends that when they disembark, they will be imparted with something permanent. Time is too little to claim; being born is virtually the same as not…
By JAMES NADEAU I am on the verge of a journey that is going to take me to three cities in Asia. Thanks to the Asian Cultural Council I have the opportunity to visit Seoul, South Korea, Beijing, People’s Republic of China, and Singapore. The main motivation for this trip is to meet with artists, curators, and cultural figures that are investigating and immersing themselves in new media. I am looking at how new technologies are affecting not only the artists but the communities around them. How are these three cultures, each…
I don’t know if anyone else saw this but it is pretty depressing. The Mass Cultural Council has announced that it is forced to cut their program significantly thanks to the state’s decision to cut appropriation for Fiscal Year 2010 from $12.7 million to $9.7 million: a cut of just over 23 percent. They managed to do this by cutting staff and not programs thankfully but I can’t imagine having to make that decision. From the press release: The MCC eliminated five full-time staff positions, cut administrative spending, and ended several partnerships…
By BIG RED Wednesday September 16th, 2009 Big Red Night on the Town at the opening of Tim Murdoch solo installation of sculpture. Tim Murdoch Gallery360 “Tim Murdoch: Installations” is on view insert date at Gallery360 at Northeastern University. Photos by James Manning. James Manning is a Boston based independent curator, artist and film producer. He is a regular contributor to Big RED & Shiny.