Nominate a project for Architecture for Humanity's "Design Like You Give a Damn 2"

Architecture for Humanity co-founder Cameron Sinclair, interviewed on Eyeteeth back in 2006, reports that the group's popular book Design Like You Give a Damn is getting a sibling: Volume II is scheduled for publication in September 2011. In preparation, he's looking for nominations of projects that

"...highlight breakthrough design solutions with the power and potential to improve our lives and the world. These designs may improve the human spirit, increase awareness of the environment, or respond to areas of need in the world, whether to provide shelter and clean water or address climate change and humanitarian crises."

Nominate projects here, or follow current submissions here, like the Thai Butterfly Houses (Soe Ker Tie), built for Karen refugees along the Burma-Thai border (pictured), by TYIN Tegnestue.

RIP Jeanne-Claude

Jeanne-Claude, wife and 51-year artistic collaborator with Christo, has died at age 74. She passed away Wednesday night in New York from complications of a brain aneurysm, the Times reports. The duo created memorable large-scale "temporary works of art" like The Gates in Central Park, Wrapped Reichstag and Surrounded Islands. In a note on the pair's website, Christo says Jeanne-Claude's body will be donated to science and that he's committed to completing works in progress, Over The River, Project for the Arkansas River, State of Colorado, and The Mastaba, Project for the United Arab Emirates.

Update: Here's PBS' Art Beat on the Colorado project. And here's the Times' full obituary.

It feels pretty good to not be dead.

Your moment of vaguely-uncomfortable-but-wholly-infectious inspiration. Via Slog.

Bits: 11.16.09

Artists displaced by wealthy urbanites in 1921 Greenwich Village. New York Times via Bloggy.

• Krzysztof Wodiczko describes his ICA Boston exhibition, …OUT OF HERE: The Veterans Project, an immersive soundscape based on soldiers' experiences of attacks in Iraq: “It could be an interior of a soldier who came back from war and who is re-living, remembering, recalling some scenes and moments — perhaps similar to the one that I’m trying to create." Listen to WBUR's segment on the installation.

• "Burning Man Obama," by Chinese artist Liu Bolin. Here's a Reuters video story on it.

• Billboard intervention by mob ster: "GO GO GO / WORK WORK WORK / PRODUCE PRODUCE PRODUCE."

• The Walker and eight other museums are in the early stages of figuring out how to give visitors "prodigious [online] access to artists’ works in the permanent collections," thanks to a new Getty grant.

• Anyone got a parlor I can borrow? Guessing who forked over $43.7 million for Warhol's 200 One Dollar Bills is "becoming something of a parlor game," the Times tells us.

• Minnesota-based cryptographer Bruce Schneier to get his own action figure.

• The Detroit Institute of Arts in LEGOS.

• Work at McDonald's Gitmo!

Is culture-jamming dead?

From Borat to Punk'd to The Yes Men, pranks have really taken off since the early days of adbusted billboards and "subvertisements." But with a surplus of flash mobs, fake newscasts and gag YouTube videos, it's worth asking: have political pranks jumped the, uh, snark?

Dave Gilson ponders the question at Mother Jones, noting that while The Yes Men's 2004 spoof, in which they posed as Dow Chemicals execs to take belated responsibility for the Bhopal disaster, cost that company $2 billion in stock losses, today we're saturated with pranks. He writes:

After [The Yes Men's] unveiling the Halliburton SurvivaBall—a "gated community for one" that turns the wearer into a giant beige gumball—to a roomful of insurance managers, Yes Man No. 2 Mike Bonanno laments, "Instead of freaking out, they just took our business cards. Our effort had been a failure. And come to think of it, all of our efforts had been failures...Maybe making fun of stupid ideas was a stupid idea." After playing the fool for so long, the Yes Men have come to suspect that they've become fools themselves.

Gilson says that pranksterism has become mere entertainment and, along the way, serious intentions behind such acts have, in many cases, been replaced by a serious desire for attention -- quick celebrity. Further, as the hijacked Obama TIME cover -- where he's depicted as Batman's arch-enemy -- suggests, it's no longer the domain of the left. Nothing wrong with rightwingers reading Rules for Radicals to muck up town hall meetings, I suppose, but the fact that they are suggests some of the beloved tactics of the left have, perhaps, outlived their usefulness.

Related: Where's all the rightwing street art?

Mail-art: Abe's Penny Vol. 1.8 (4 of 4)

A bit late, here's the final edition of October's issue of micro-magazine/mail-art project Abe's Penny.

Mail-art: Abe's Penny Vol. 1.8 (1 of 4)
Mail-art: Abe's Penny Vol. 1.8 (2 of 4)
Mail-art: Abe's Penny Vol. 1.8 (3 of 4)

Street-art: "Warn your kids about Glenn Beck!"

The Seattle Stranger's Slog blog posts a public-service announcement/street sticker by Narboo, spotted by reader Brian Geohagan.

Milwaukee street stencil: "A house divided..."

Via Just Seeds.

Bits: 10.29.09

Valerie Hegarty's Rothko Sunset (Thanks, Kristina)

• Fascinating: "Occult Symbolism in Corporate Logos," Part 1 & Part 2. Via Agenda Inc.

• Rest in peace, Roy DeCarava, a photographer whose images of the African American community sought to capture "not the famous and the well known, but the unknown and the unnamed, thus revealing the roots from which spring the greatness of all human beings."

• What I gave 250 words to, Minneapolis artist and SELLOUT Gallery co-founder Ruben Nusz dedicates hundreds of words to -- Rob Fischer's solo show at Franklin Art Works, which closes tomorrow.

• The Chicago Tribune's Blair Kamin reports that the city has demolished a Walter Gropius–codesigned building at the former Michael Reese Hospital campus; it's the first Gropius project destroyed anywhere in the world in decades, according to Grahm Balkany, head of the Gropius in Chicago Coalition.

• After getting spoofed by the Yes Men over its opposition to climate-change legislation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce got the group's internet service provider to shut down a fake Chamber website it was running. And now they're suing.

• R. Crumb's history of women and his book of Genesis.

• The Sistine Chapel ceiling, Second Life edition.

• Your moment of paper Nikes. Also, Run DMC: The Musical!

Tezuka wind turbine

Pink Tentacles has more shots of a 100-meter tall wind turbine in Tokyo adorned with images of Astro Boy and other Osamu Tezuka characters.

Mail-art: Abe's Penny Vol. 1.8 (3 of 4)

Part 3 of October's issue of Abe's Penny.

Mail-art: Abe's Penny Vol. 1.8 (1 of 4)
Mail-art: Abe's Penny Vol. 1.8 (2 of 4)

The Art World's Least Powerful

Hyperallergic is hitting its stride, as evidenced by its counterpoint to ArtReview's Power 100 list of art influencers. Its “Top 20 Most Powerless People in the Art World!” alternates between good clean fun, gentle ribbing and more pointed jabs at contemporary art's excesses -- citing among the least powerful the "faceless miners in Sierra Leone who procured the 8,601 diamonds for Damien Hirst’s sparkling skull" and the homeless guy that shows up for freebies at openings ("Wine at gallery openings may be the art world’s only form of social service to people outside their realm, but hey, it’s something.") Then there's this one:

Candida Home, blind art blogger. While unphased by a ban on photography in many major galleries and museums, Candida disastrously tried to cover the Lakeland Ceramic Fair in Derbyshire, England and caused over £80,000 in damage because of her proclivity to touch the art. She has since been banned from most major art fairs and institutions and is only writing about public art.

FEAST MPLS: Deadline Oct. 29!

FEAST (Funding Emerging Art with Sustainable Tactics) -- the Brooklyn-born "recurring public dinner designed to use community-driven financial support to democratically fund new and emerging artmakers" -- has a Twin Cities cousin! But before Nov. 14th's First FEAST, we need proposals from artists who'd like to be funded. Proposals are due this Thursday, Oct. 29.

I'd write something compelling to describe this worthy and fun project, but FEAST says better what it's all about, why it matters and how you can be part of it:

By getting together and pooling our money, wealth becomes a plural communal attribute. We can then share that wealth with people whose projects our community finds most the valuable to implement.

As a potential grantee, you submit a short and concise project proposal, which will be distributed to diners at the next FEAST dinner. If your project is selected by popular vote the night of the FEAST, you walk home with that evening's available grant money.

As a patron who attends FEAST, you make a cash donation on a sliding scale to receive supper and a ballot. At the end of the night, you cast a vote for which of a handful of artists’ proposals should get the evening’s proceeds. The winning proposal is funded directly from the donations collected at the door, and the grantee is asked back to present the fruits of their labor to you—the patrons—at the next FEAST dinner.

More to come on FEAST Minneapolis in the next week or so.

Bits: 10.19.09

A knit-covered subway greeter by Agata Olek, who's part of the Art in Odd Places Festival, NYC, through Oct. 26

• A fire has destroyed more than 1,000 works by the late Brazilian artist Helio Oiticica. A fire at his brother César's home in Rio de Janeiro destroyed 90 percent of the works stored there. (Via Nato Thompson on Facebook)

• Minnesota Public Radio looks at Silver Bromide, a new mural by artist Rich Barlow. Based on one of Fox Talbot's first silver-negative photos, the landscape is Barlow's first large-scale outdoor work and got funding through city graffiti abatement money. Earlier: Barlow's "Covers" series.

• The increasingly right-leaning U.S. Chamber of Commerce has reversed its opinion about climate change: it is bad for business after all and strong legislation must be supported! But hold on, the press release stating as much was really a Yes Men spoof. But that only came out after the Washington Post, New York Times and Reuters all ran with the fake report as news.

• Shepard Fairey has amended court records in his legal case against the Associated Press to indicate that he did indeed use the Mannie Garcia photo indicated by the AP as the basis for his Obama/HOPE image. On his website, he says that when he realized the AP was right about which photo he'd used -- something he long contested -- he "submitted false images and deleted other images" in "an attempt to conceal my mistake." Here's the AP attorney's response to the revelation.

• Shakira and Danzig, together at last. [via]

RIP Nancy Spero

Gallerist Edward Winkleman reports that feminist artist Nancy Spero died at NYU Hospital Sunday morning at age 83, and while the mainstream media hasn't yet confirmed, her Wikipedia page now shows yesterday as her death date. A dogged antiwar activist, she was married to artist Leon Golub, who died in 2004. I've always admired Spero's constant interrogation of modern society -- not to mention the male-dominated New York art scene -- and her unswerving dedication to a personal vision often at odds with mainstream culture and, certainly, market-driven trends in art. More than her art, it's her example of a steely knowledge of self that I most respect.

Condolences to her family and friends.

Watch Spero's segment on Art:21.

Update: The New York Times' obituary.

Health care

Via Reddit.

Yoko on Twitter: "Carry a picture of that spot in your wallet"

Here

Graphite-based implements for thought transference (i.e. Daniel Eatock's pencils)

Pencils by Daniel Eatock, long forgotten in my writing-implement receptacle until Jen Bekman's blog post reminded me about them.

Mail-art: Abe's Penny Vol. 1.8 (2 of 4)

The second edition (of four) in this month's issue of Abe's Penny, a "micro magazine" by Anna and Tess Koebel with art by Cornelia Hediger and text by Adam Wade.

Here's the first installment. Larger images here.

Bits: 10.16.09

Striped icebergs, which Inhabitat says are legit.

• As Utne introduces us to sound artist Diego Stocco's video "Music from a Tree," Matt Olson at ROLU points out a fascinating piece about the installation of Bruce Nauman's Microphone/Tree Piece (and other Nauman audio works) at the Walker.

• Nominate a "keeper": Metro Magazine is looking for artists of all disciplines to feature in its January issue. The twist: Nominate someone you like so much you don't want them to move off to New York or LA (hence, the "Keepers" name). In addition to good ink, the winner gets a party in their honor and a trophy designed by 2009 Keeper winner Andrea Stanislav.

• Call for media artists: Artists on the Verge is open to Minnesota-based artists working at the intersection of art, technology and digital culture; five winners -- who'll participate in a nine-month residency that culminates in the Spark Festival in Oct. 2010 -- will receive $5,000 as well as technical support and mentorship. Deadline: Nov. 16.

• Already a meaningless measure, ArtReview's "Power 100" list just got even worse -- with the addition of Glenn Beck at number 100.

• A jab at contemporary art marketing, Nika Oblak and Primoz's self-promotional billboard has a catch: installed in a remote Welsh forest, it features the art duo along with the headline "Recommended by curators worldwide." Via the Post Family.

• "Sorry I'm Late," Tomas Mankovsky's stop-action video was shot with a still camera mounted to the ceiling as the story plays out on the floor (don't miss the end credits to see how it was done).

• "Cutaway diagrams showing the anatomy of 85 traditional monsters from Japanese folklore."

• NYT on pop-up galleries not unlike one we recently saw here.

• A 1617 painting by Brueghel "appears to show a Keplerian-style telescope in a painting dating from 15 years before this design was thought to have been built," MIT reports. Via Bad at Sports.

Rob Fischer: Few Landmarks and No Boundaries

My Artforum review of the exhibition Rob Fischer: Few Landmarks and No Boundaries at Franklin Art Works, Minneapolis, through Oct. 30.

For years, Rob Fischer has been building strange hybrid vehicles: a glass-roofed rowboat with a matching greenhouse trailer, a single-engine plane with an ice-fishing shack for a cockpit. This exhibition continues the theme, although transport is more implied than depicted, and it’s unclear whether movement represents escape from rural America or, for a Minnesota native like Fischer transplanted to New York, a yearning for home.

Fischer captures the desolate winter landscape of northern Minnesota in four videos; liquid propane-tank sales lots, shuttered tourist shops, and fleet-supply stores are seen through the windows of a borrowed Buick. Handpainted signs propped against a wall suggest discarded wayfinders, while a two-dimensional wall sculpture, accented by colors seen in the videos, arranges slats of gymnasium flooring in a geometric maze reminiscent of country roadways.

Another personal habitat for Fischer is here, too: that of the art world. Submerged in a pond constructed in the gallery is the twisted hull of a boat, painted up in Mondrian red, yellow, and blue. A series of suspended clear plastic cubes reference a Jasper Johns set piece for Merce Cunningham’s Walkaround Time (1968), although Fischer’s version has a quirky, regionally appropriate tweak: Screenprinted on one are Hubbard County Sheriff’s notices, copied from a small-town paper, that highlight snowmobiling infractions, DWIs, and one count of failure to wear BLAZE ORANGE IN FIREARM DEER SEASON. Likewise, a deconstructed billboard of the kind towering over area roads might offer another art-historical reference––fluorescent tubes à la Dan Flavin. But the exposed wiring and rough construction, not to mention the lonely stretch of highway (complete with a Cindy Q gas-station sign), suggest that it’s midwestern pragmatism, not intended allusion, that dictated his choices.

Artist Hiroshi Sunairi named 2009 Utne Visionary

New York-based artist Hiroshi Sunairi is one of Utne Reader's "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World" for 2009. He's cited for his Tree Project, in which he shares seeds from plants that survived the atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima with people around the world: "By creating beauty from devastation, the creator cultivates peace."

Here's a shot of my hibaku ("A-bombed tree"), a persimmon I started from seeds Hiroshi sent me. And here's my interview with him on the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing in August.

Congratuations, Hiroshi!

"The revolution will be privatized"

Jerm IX, Vancouver

Bits: 10.14.09

Japanese town logos often incorporate typographical elements like "kanji, hiragana, katakana, and Roman letters." Via Pink Tentacles.

• New York art critic and street-art historian Hrag Vartanian lauches a new site, Hyperallergic, today and a Twitter account to go with it.

• Greg Allen writes about "dazzle painting," a pattern used in Word War I naval camouflage and the inspiration for a Jeff Koons yacht paintjob.

• "Omission is the beginning of history writing."

• Not new but fascinating-looking documentary: Guest of Cindy Sherman, which chronicles artist Paul H-O's breakdown after he interviews Sherman for his NYC cable-access TV show, they fall in love and he finds himself subsumed by Sherman's fame. (YouTube has some clips.) Via the Art Collectors.

• Minneapolis hosts the American Craft Council's “Creating a New Craft Culture” Conference this Thursday through Satruday. Speakers include illustrator Kate Bingaman, NYT "Consumed" columnist Rob Walker and others.

• Merkins! The Textile Center in Minneapolis is showing Intimate Apparel, an exhibition of artist-designed merkins ("artificial covering[s] of hair for the female pubic region"), through Oct. 24. (Thanks, Ellen.)

• Jen Graves talks with Stelarc, "The Man with the Ear-Arm."

• BBC: "A school has been fined £16,500 after a 16-year-old pupil lost eight fingers when her hands got stuck in a bucket of plaster of Paris during an art lesson." Only £16,500?!

• Waxy looks at Nikolai Sutyagin's wooden skyscraper.

• There's now a crater on the moon named after John Lennon -- the John Lennon Peace Crater. And, no, it's not the one left behind after last week's "bombing."