Newest Features
2008 ICA FOSTER PRIZE FINALISTS: A CONVERSATION WITH RANIA MATAR By Matthew Gamber On November 12th, the 2008 James and Audrey Foster Prize exhibition opened at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Rania Matar is one of the four artists competing for the $25,000 biennial prize, and Big RED editor Matthew Gamber caught up with her for a conversation about her work. This is part of a series of interviews with the Foster Prize finalists. —- Matthew Gamber: Your recent body of work focuses on women and children who appear positive despite…
MARKETWATCH By Micah J. Malone How are artists affected by a down economy? With artists being both inside and outside of the general market, it is often difficult to gauge the effects a poor economy actually has. On the one hand, art is a luxury item and when the good folks of Wall Street have less disposable income, less art is bought. This is simple enough, however, the majority of artists, even household names, usually have other forms of income to supplement sales, since reaching the economic stability of, say Julian Schnabel or…
“THE WHITE CUBE” By Thomas Marquet #39: One way to answer the “What’s Up?” question. But not necessarily recommended. Still, it’s seasonal. Thomas Marquet is a cartoonist, sculptor, and critic, based in Brooklyn, New York, which is an admittedly unoriginal place to be pursuing any of these things.Get The White Cube every day at Tom’s blog.
FIRST DOUBT @ YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY By Megan Driscoll The work at First Doubt, Yale’s latest contemporary art exhibition plays with our instinct to find the informational detail in a photographic image. Our eyes are put to the test with photos that focus on remarkable optical illusions within mundane objects, create unfamiliar compositions, and use the latest technology to capture images our eyes can’t normally process. Photography has always differed from other mediums in the way it directly documents and represents scenes from the world we know and live in. Images…
A REPORT FROM THE PHANTOM ZONE By Steve Aishman So I was giving a talk other day and when I was done, I heard someone in the audience say under their breath: “That’s not the way a real artist talks …” So here are some of the ways real artists talk about their work. Enjoy and feel free to steal the lines or add more in the comments section: “My work primarily deals with beauty.” “I love color.” “My artwork defies categorization.” “I was born to be a painter. I can’t conceive of…
Tim Griffin, the Editor-in-Chief of Art Forum wrote an introduction to the annual year-in-review December issue of Art Forum titled “Snapshot of 2008”. In his somewhat bland prologue that reads like the wall text of a neophyte curator’s first big show, he makes an error. Griffin writes of the photographs of Barack Obama and his family on election night that the campaign posted on its its flickr page: “Decidedly vernacular—blurry, poorly lit, and haphazardly composed—the photos are staged less to seem “intimate” than to appear utterly familiar to anyone who has ever…
THOUGHTS ON MY ARTISTIC EDUCATION By Jennifer McMackon I attended primary school in Burlington, a small city between Hamilton and Toronto on the Northwest shore of Lake Ontario in the early seventies. My alma mater was called Strathcona Public School. If I really, really think about my early education, considering the extensive value it placed on creativity, exploration and play, perhaps it should come as no surprise that I became a visual artist. Obviously, other kids went through the same system, making other something else of their lives, pursuing different dreams, and…
2008 ICA FOSTER PRIZE FINALISTS: A CONVERSATION WITH ANDREW WITKIN By Micah J. Malone On November 12th, the 2008 James and Audrey Foster Prize exhibition opened at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Andrew Witkin is one of the four artists competing for the $25,000 biennial prize, and Big RED editor Micah Malone caught up with him for a conversation about his work. This is the first in a series of interviews with the Foster Prize finalists. —- Micah J. Malone: I wanted to first ask about the photographs. Perhaps you could…