January 2010
10 posts
Lisa Cooley Fine Art : Exhibitions →
lisa-cooley.com
The young West Coast artist both sends up and pays homage to radical crafts. A scruffy tapestry titled “House Plant” is studded with bulbous spores and embellished with campy plastic pins with slogans like “Sorry Girls, I’m Gay.” Another piece involves a big denim bow, a laminated flyer for housecleaning services, and a button that reads, “Sorry I missed church. I was busy practicing witchcraft and becoming a lesbian.” Faught’s live-and-let-macramé attitude may be best represented here by a pair of tapestries whose embroidered ribbons read “My Bag” and “Not Your Bag.” Through Feb. 14. (Cooley, 34 Orchard St. 212-680-0564.)
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/events/art/2010/02/01/100201goar_GOAT_art?currentPage=4#ixzz0dkKRY18Y
Visual constructions of 'the great white hope'
Neo-Imperialist infantilizing of Haiti by Red Cross.
Flo McGarrell, FTM Artist, another tragedy of the Haitian Quake
I’m grateful @calebcasberry @homegrownboi and devastated to discover Flo McGarrell a talented visual artist who perished along with 75,000 Haitians (can this number really be true?) in the quake. NPR mentioned Flo in this piece.
Here some excerpts of an interview Flo gave,
The work I do in the States is conscious of the struggles of my friends living in Haiti, of how hard it is to get food, and to get one’s basic needs met. So, as an exercise I try not to buy anything in order to make the work, everything is found in the trash or stolen. It works really well for me over here in the States, but that process is nearly impossible in Haiti, where it is very rare to find something useful in the trash (because everyone is already ingeniously reusing things), and it goes without saying that I wouldn’t steal anything in Haiti.
His parents remember him for his passion, dedication, confidence and generosity — and for boldly living his own unique life.
After receiving the tragic news, Ann McGarrell said she was watching an unending film of Flo’s life in her mind throughout the day. One of her favorite scenes from that movie starred a 12-year-old Flo McGarrell at school in St. Louis.A tornado was approaching, Ann McGarrell said, and the skies were darkened and ominous. She had gone to school to pick her child up and take her home. “Everyone was huddled inside,” Ann McGarrell said. “Flo was outside, dancing in the rain.”http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20100115/THISJUSTIN/1150333
Disaster Porn, CNN on Haiti
I am dismayed and agree with BAGnews latest post “Why and How I Lost It (Over CNN “Getting Off” On a Haitian Victim Rescue).
The current (but far from new) obsessive coverage of tragedy, the lack of respect for the victims, showing horrific images that would never be shown of North American and European victims, calling victims who are homeless and starving “looters” for trying to survive, money to cover each unfolding moment of horror but it is not a tragedy that the status quo in Haiti is abject poverty and underdevelopment and that is neither newsworthy or investment worthy and on and on… The coverage is blatantly racist and amounts to dehumanizing visual exploitation by CNN.
Ten US Museum Exhibitions to see in 2010 →
artinfo.com
This is a pretty good list that isn’t even NYC-centric! Of course it has the Marina Abramovic show at MOMA that I couldn’t be more excited about and the John Baldessari show that is travelling to LACMA, but it also has the Cattelan show at the de Menil in Houston that I was so upset about missing.
Here are a few more shows that I am also looking forward to seeing this year…
- Robin Rhode, the South African photographer who’s pieces are too creative to describe, will be showing at LACMA.
- Rachel Whiteread’s drawings will be shown at the Hammer. Do I even need to explain why? She’s above and beyond ethereal.
- Mi Casa es Tu Casa: A Land Project at MOCA.
- I know I still need to make it down to San Diego to see the Tara Donovan they have up at MCASD, but at the end of February they are opening the exhibition which highlights the highlights of their acquisitions over that time period. And we all know how I feel about Pleasure Point: Celebrating 25 Years of Contemporary Collectorsmuseums showing their permenant collections. Very good.
- I don’t know much about Urban Panoramas: Opie, Liao, Kim at the Getty, but it sounds good to me.
The Pink and Blue Projects by JeongMee Yoon
My current work, “The Pink and Blue Projects are the topic of my thesis. This project explores the trends in cultural preferences and the differences in the tastes of children (and their parents) from diverse cultures, ethnic groups as well as gender socialization and identity. The work also raises other issues, such as the relationship between gender and consumerism, urbanization, the globalization of consumerism and the new capitalism.”
