Artist Keith Haring was born on this day May 4th in 1958. Keith passed on when he was just 31 years old — so young! But his art and message live on, and today Google honors what would have been Keith’s 54th Birthday with a fun Doodle inspired by his art. If you live in the tri-state area, be sure to see the Keith Haring retrospective up now through July 8th, 2012 at the Booklyn Museum.
It was a few weeks ago now, back on November 11, 2011, that I had my first in person experience with Italian-born artist Maurizio Cattelan’s most unusual retrospective exhibit, All, when I visited the Guggenheim that Friday evening for a live performance by the very excellent pop band, MGMT. The band performed a tight, 45 minutes set of mostly instrumental new material specifically inspired by the 128 separate works now suspended from the ceiling oculus of the museum’s rotunda. The songs fell very much within the surf-psychedelia vein of MGMT’s well-loved sound with a bit of a soundtrack vibe befitting the evening’s experiencing in general. Also, gee whiz, but what a spectacularly hallucination-inducing light show they had! I’m still having flashbacks. Music! Art!
The following week I had to pay another visit to the museum to take in All once again, because when I was there for the MGMT show I had a beer in my hand and the Art Nazis (guards) wouldn’t let me go up past the second ramp with a beer. And you really do need to trek all the way to the top of the ramp to fully experience the innumerable subtle nuances of this exhibit, which literally reveals itself further and further at every turn. The time lapse video above shows the installation process by the museum staff, which will answer your most pressing questions about “just how they got that stuff up there.” See it while you can.
Maurizio Cattelan’s All is on Exhibit until January 22, 2012 at the Guggenheim, Located at Fifth Avenue and 89th Street. Museum hours are extended to 7:45 PM on Monday and Tuesday nights (from 5:45 PM on other days) from December 6, 2011 to January 17, 2012. More information is available at This Link.
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When artist and sculptor Louise Bourgeois passed away in 2010 at the age of 98, she left behind a staggeringly rich legacy of art created in a multitude of mediums. Geoffrey and I were fortunate to be able to attend the Guggenheim Museum’s ambitious and highly successful 2008 Retrospective of her life’s work, which was possibly the most comprehensive and impressive retrospective I’ve yet seen. I mean, the woman did everything. What an amazing talent and what a huge loss to the art world, but how lucky were we to have her for 98 years? So lucky. Continue reading Louise Bourgeois: The Fabric Works at Cheim & Read
Beginning Monday May 9th, the Museum of Arts and Design will host David Bowie, Artist, a multi-platform retrospective re-framing Bowie’s daring, multi-discipline career as that of an artist working primarily in performance. From his roots in such performance-based practices as cabaret, mime and avant-garde theater, to Ziggy Stardust, his revolutionary tour that synthesized theater, music, and contemporary art into a rock spectacle, as well as his innovative video collaborations, and his work in cinema and theater, David Bowie, Artist presents Bowie as one of the most iconoclastic cultural producers of the 20th century.
Continue reading Museum of Arts and Design Presents: David Bowie, Artist
NYC’s Boo-Hooray Gallery announces the first retrospective gallery exhibition by subversive toy-making geniuses, SUCKADELIC. Intentionally confusing, misleading, disappointing and really funny, SUCKADELIC’s limited edition parodies of action figures reverberate with a vicious wit and are oddly eyeball-pleasing in the manner of all kinds of toothsome 20th/21st century collage and montage art. The toys and their aggressively situationist piss-take packaging comment on pop culture commodification and the consumer habits of compulsively shopping kidults: The very process that made KAWS, Takashi Murakami and Michael Lau art-stars on the Art Basel Miami/Armory Show/Venice Biennale tip.
Continue reading The Suckadelic Art Toy Universe: Retrospective and Pop Up Store