Tickets are still available to my favorite art benefit.
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Momenta benefit this Saturday
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Categories: Culture -
Grad students on strike at Yale
Photo by Matt Connors from from April 11th march
Yale opposes the unionization of graduate students, who do a great deal of the teaching at most universities these days. Matt Connors, who recently had a show of his paintings at Jeff Bailey Gallery, is working on his MFA there, and wrote to me about it. There was a strike last week, and I believe Columbia grad students were involved in a solidarity action. Quoting his email:
The art school is one of the only graduate programs at Yale that receives almost no tuition remission, no health care and gets paid less than half of other graduate student teachers.
Knowing what it costs to get an MFA at Yale, and knowing the odds of an artist making enough money to pay off the debt required, this means the diversity of the student body becomes rather limited — those rich enough or crazy enough to risk it.
Here is a web page on the strike, plus an article from the Yale Daily News.
P.S. I have four(!) significant consulting projects going on right now, so I apologize for the rather light blogging.
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Margaret Evangeline statement
After I mentioned her statement in my last post, several people have asked me about it. Her web site is in the process of being updated, so I’ve put up a copy of the statement PDF here.
Also, James now has a post with images from the show.
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Categories: Culture -
Chelsea snapshots
Shell casings on the floor – Margeret Evangeline at Stefan Stux. Pick up a copy of the artist statement while you’re there. It’s one of the best I have read in a long time. This new body of work consists of stainless steel panels shot by the artist using various weaponry. I think it’s a strong show, but I didn’t get a good photo of the works, so you’re getting this one instead.
Details of a scuplture and a wall piece – Jim Drain at Greene Naftali. He is one of the founders of Forcefield, the first of the Providence, RI collectives to become famous. Most people first saw their work at the 2002 Whitney Biennial, but the cognoscenti discovered them via Dean Daderko and his Parlour Projects gallery.
Jesse Bercowetz describes this as the “Uri Geller eye” from the sculpture he and Matt Bua did for a group show at Alona Kagan. I couldn’t get a good photo of the live scorpion in the sculpture’s head. It think their piece plus Jane Benson’s are the strongest of the show. Their web site is here.
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Categories: Culture -
Momenta Art Benefit 2005
My favorite art benefit will occur on April 30th. Momenta Art is my favorite art non-profit in the city, and not just because their benefits are so good, and an incredible bargain. I appreciate their incredible curating taste, the fact that everyone running the place is an artist producing interesting (and political) work, and the fact that they publish a newsletter for each show with background information on the artists and their work.
You can buy one or more tickets via the enigmatic “Add to Cart” button on the home page.
Tom Moody has a post with some more images, plus a photo of the work he is donating.
We have gotten to know a number of artists whose work we first saw at one of the benefits, including Christy Rupp and Michael Cambre.
Speaking of Momenta Art, don’t miss the great group show they are presenting in the UBS lobby gallery in midtown.
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Categories: Culture -
Log rolling
Isn’t “log rolling” what Spy called their regular feature where they showed people trading positive reviews? Here is mine: Poet Alex Gildzen, who lives in Santa Fe and has a blog titled Arroyo Chamisa, mentions me as a blog he reads in an interview in Newtopia. Newtopia describes itself as “a journal of the new counterculture.” Snappy name.
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Reagan stamp?!
Today I received some mail from a Chelsea gallery with a Reagan stamp on it.
Were they being ironic?
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ArtCal links updated
I updated my links page on ArtCal today, including the addition of a similar guide in Tokyo called Tokyo Art Beat which has RSS feeds, email alerts, and more. Some day I’ll add RSS feeds, but my work that actually makes money is taking a lot of my time lately. In fact, I’m even doing a day trip to the middle of the country on Monday, for the first time since I started freelancing.
I’m sure I’ve left off some good things, so feel free to email me with suggestions, or add them in the comments.
Also, if you have contacts at any NYC area visual arts non-profits, let them know that I provide free ads for them.
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Categories: Culture -
Eric Heist @ Schroeder Romero
Eric Heist
detail Travel Agents (Baghdad), 2005
Pencil on paper
22 3/4 × 29 3/4 inchesWhile I’m on the subject of artists who can really draw, I should mention Eric Heist’s show at Schroeder Romero. I like the fact that Eric’s work combines conceptual art, strong political content (whether critiquing our perverse work/materialist culture or our foreign policy), and good drawing and craftsmanship. As a friend said at the opening, it’s good to see drawings like the one above from conceptual artists. It’s a handy antidote the New Criterion-esque school of “conceptualists and minimalists just don’t have enough skills” attitude.
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Categories: Culture -
Observations regarding art world press releases
The lovely and talented Dante Woo has started helping me keep ArtCal up to date. I’m still the editor (with some help from James), but I was having trouble finding time to put all of my picks into the database.
After only one day of looking at press releases and show announcements, he has some observations, titled things to loathe.
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Categories: Culture