Happy Xmas to all. I’m taking a break until mid January, I’ll be spending new year in Tokyo and will probably bore you all stupid with things Japanese on my return. Until then have a good one.
Jon Ronson in the Guardian reports on the high school shooting plot in North Pole Alaska the most Christmassy (not to mention scariest)town in the world where 13 year old kids answer letters to Santa.
Cat power goes mainstream, sobers up, is the new face of Chanel jewelry (no really!) and becomes a Miami socialite.
For sale on ebay (current bid $25,100) one of only two surviving copies (the other copy said to be owned by David Bowie) of the acetate of the first velvet Underground recording (with alternate versions of what was later to be released as The Velvet Undergroung & Nico) The auction listing has a good history of the recording which was bought for 75cents in 2002
You know Christmas is coming when all the Christmas Sucks searches start coming in so here it is again Tom Waits and Peter Murphy Christmas Sucks (direct MP3 link up until my bandwidth goes)
Lets not forget the Christmas cheer of “childrens’” letters to Christopher Walken
Now kids drugs are all fun and games but sooner or later you’ll end up on the Bing Crosby Christmas special singing the little drummer boy…
Every good artist has at least one quote, aphorism or soundbite attributed to them, yet the new media artist barely has time to keep up with the rapid change of technology let alone spend time thinking of witty aphorisms.
Garrett Lynch’s Quote Me is a work, triggered by users to its web page, that reuses quotes and the date they were expressed from various online sources for the busy new media artist who hasn’t time. Quotes are relevant comments to current political and social events, both nationally and internationally, taken from the current headlines of a handful of global newspapers via their respective rss / xml feeds, yet placed without context or explanation.
more about the work here
I’ve been thinking about Warhol a lot recently and really seeing his influence on a lot of current ‘media art’ so I was amused when I discovered (via Kottke) that Barneys department store in New York are selling
limited edition soup cans with authentic reproductions of Andy Warhol designed labels. Printed on special quality paper and with Andy’s signature (reproduced). Campbell’s soup with Warhol labels
The must have xmas gift for the f**king eejit in your life and a snip at only $48, but nonetheless something which would have amused Andy as long as he got well paid for it.
Keeping with that theme I also discovered recently the BMW art car project which Andy did in 1979 painting, unlike other artists, directly on the car with a paintbrush and seemingly unlike other artists the only one who had a bit of fun with such a naff idea.
via hanne mugaas artblog
Art Forum has a fascinating account of the burgeoning Chinese contemporary art market (image from Chinese Crackers, 2006 film based on Ed Ruscha’s 1969 Crackers) booming with new money and I can’t help but compare it to the Irish contemporary art scene. Throughout art history important periods of development in contemporary art have tended to coincide with economic booms as new money got into new art, think of the Renaissance, the Impressionists, abstract impressionism etc.. It’s obviously happening in China right now so it would make sense that with all the new money in Ireland that there would be an almost Frieze-like unseemly scramble for the latest cutting-edge art, right? Well… not exactly. Have a look at the results from the latest record breaking Adams Irish art auction and it becomes obvious that there is a boom in the Irish art market alright but it’s not contemporary art that’s selling. I wonder what is about the Irish that sets us apart from this particular historical trend?
An interesting event next Tuesday 12th, 7pm at the Odessa Club in Dublin Dale Dougherty and Sherry Huss of MAKE magazine will give an informal presentation followed by a conversation about their work in creating Maker Faire, an event bringing together art, science and home-made technology.
via the excellent Blackletter Irish Arts portal.
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WalkSpace for the iPhone is an alternative walking app to let you navigate the city in a new and unexpected way.
