Glitch Generation

This Thursday, February 4th, the Brooklyn Arts Council's BAC Gallery is hosting a free reception celebrating the opening of "Glitch Generation." The exhibition, on display through June 25th, will display art containing a theme everyone can relate to: making mistakes.

The group exhibition displays the work of artists Brianelectro, Jude Broughan, Loren Erdrich, Scott Fitzgerald, Charles Grute, Valerie Hallier, Shannan Hayes, Nora Herting, Kennedy James, Pozsi Kolor, Mark La Rosa, Thomas Langley, LJ Lindhurst, Linda Stillman and Margo Wolowiec. The artists will be exhibiting pieces that portray mistake - either intentional or found (including "glitches" in the wiring of our brains). Some of the artists crafted unique environments to produce intentional flaws, while others' blunders were created unintentionally.

On April 1st, there will be a Music Performance and on May 6th, the Dumbo, Brooklyn gallery will show a video screening.

This Thursday's opening is from 6 to 8PM.

Click here to read more.

Click here to see what else is going on in the Brooklyn Art Scene

"Live from Detroit, it's Friday Night!"

The Detroit Institute of Arts is currently hosting "Friday Night Live," a series of events and entertainment occurring every Friday from 6-10pm. The family-friendly program features a mix of activities including live music, art-making workshops, drawing in the galleries and guided tours - all of which are free with museum admission.

Here's some info on the events going on this Friday evening (1/15):

FLY: A talented trio (saxophonist Mark Turner, drummer Jeff Ballard, and bassist Larry Grenadier) perform creative tunes that mix today's popular styles and jazz improv. (image, left)

Bookarts: The Altered Book: A hands-on drop-in workshop where attendees will recycle an old book, turning it into a fabulous work of art.

Drawing in the Galleries for Youth: Children ages 6 to 14 will learn to create pencil drawings. No experience is necessary and materials are provided.

Drawing in the Galleries for Adults: For adolescents and adults (ages 15 and up)

Guided Tours: Two tours, at 6:00 and 7:30 pm showing off museum highlights.

Art Miami Celebrates 20th Anniversary

Art Miami 2009, Miami's longest running contemporary art fair, celebrated its 20th anniversary during the city's Art Fair Mania in early December, and it seems there was much to be happy about this year. Miami City Commissioner Bruno Barreiro performed the ribbon cutting ceremony, which kicked off the fair on December 1st. The ribbon cutting was followed by a VIP reception. The 6,500-person gala included museum curators, artists (like James Rosenquist and Frank Stella), and famed art collectors from around the world.

It's reported that over 35,000 people visited Art Miami 2009 - up 10% from last year's attendance, and sales were better than anticipated.

Art Maimi is known for displaying high-quality work of a diverse nature. As New York and Palm Beach collector Carol Mack said in a recent Art Daily article,

“It’s a sensational fair, with a great variety of work, something for everybody, a balance of contemporary and modern.” Audrey Gruss concurred. “The fair has an open spacious feeling,” she said. “It’s nice to walk in the wide aisles and look at the art. This is very practical – you can see the art from the distance. It’s easy to find the galleries – the fair is laid out simply and practically. There are wonderful galleries and affordable prices.”

This art fair was also unique among the other Miami art fairs because it included decorative arts, African tribal art, Pre-Columbian Art, Japanese bamboo art, textiles and kiln formed glass.

To read more about the art fair - including the uniformly positive remarks from attendees and galleries and more details on Art Miami 2009, click here.

LA's Star-Studded MoCA Gala

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles celebrated it's 30th anniversary with a lavish reception this past weekend. In matching with the traditional glitz and glamour of the LA entertainment / party scene, the museum went to extremes to show that despite its somewhat rocky past (including a slew of funding deficits over the past decade, which ultimately led to the former director's resignation), the museum is back on top.


Dozens of Hollywood (and international) celebrities showed up to celebrate the museum's 30th anniversary - ranging from famed fashion designers like Miuccia Prada to actors, such as Christina Ricci, Eva Mendez, Jessica Alba, and Chloë Sevigny (to name a few) plus musicians including John Legend and Gwen Stefani.

Many art world dignitaries were also in attendance including Frank Gehry, Larry Gagosian, Dasha Zhukova, the Whitney's Adam Weinberg, LACMA's Michael Govan and artists significant to the collection: Paul McCarthy, David Hockney, Doug Aitken, Chris Burden, and Ed Moses , etc.

The list of celebs goes on and on, and to match the extravagance they're all used to, MoCA draped its walls in lavish red velvet and hung numerous immense crystal chandeliers from the ceiling. The guests enjoyed a private preview of the museum's new collection (which Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt seemed to take pleasure in, as evident by many of this week's tabloid photos of the two at the gala).



The party included a performance by the wacky (yet talented) Lady Gaga (image above - wearing a hat designed by Frank Gehry), and after her performance, the piano she played on was auctioned off and Gagosian bought it for $450,000.

To read more about the event (and get the full list of attendees), click here.

To see what's going on at the MoCA, click here.

Robert Bergman's Three New Shows

(Photo: Robert Bergman. © Robert Bergman and courtesy of the artist and Yossi Milo Gallery, New York)

Photographer Robert Bergman, whose last gallery show was in 1964 at age 20, is debuting his work at three venues. His portraits of everyday people, which are shot with natural light and unaltered surroundings, will be on exhibit at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Chelsea's Yossi Milo Gallery, and at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.

Bergman received some attention during the late 1990s when Pantheon published a collection of his photographs, but the artist has spent most of his career avoiding the spotlight.

In a recent NY Magazine article, the Photographer states,

“This curator offered me a one-man show when I was in my early twenties, which I turned down. He thought I had a mature vision, but I didn’t feel ready.” At one point in the seventies, wealthy collectors who were helping Bergman out financially began to meddle in his process, whereupon, he says, “I decided to just drop out of sight and not relate to the art world.” When people called to buy prints, he’d claim to be someone else, to make them go away. “I just didn’t fit in. I’m the obverse of a careerist: so isolated, so neurotic, so despairing, so tormented with various obsessions.”

Bergman discusses the essence of his three shows,

The core of all three shows is the set of lush, painterly portraits he took during an extended U.S. road trip, from 1985 to 1997. “It’s hard to say what drew me to certain people—I guess I saw my own vulnerabilities in them,” Bergman says. “Only a few people out of thousands said no.”

... three big "R"s

Last week, Americans for the Arts honored this year's recipients of the National Arts Awards:

Robert Redford, Ed Ruscha, and Salman Rushdie were among the honorees at last week’s 2009 National Arts Awards, presented by Americans for the Arts — the same organization that benefits from the sales of Shepard Fairey and Jennifer Gross’ new publication, Art for Obama.

The award’s ceremony, which was held at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York, was attended by an all-star group of artists, art patrons, politicians, museum directors, gallerists, and celebrities. Among the glamorous crowd were Chuck Close, Jeff Koons, Shirin Neshat, Eli Broad, Vera Wang, Caroline Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Weinberg, Thelma Golden, Lisa Phillips, Larry Gagosian, Tony Shafrazi, Dennis Hopper, and Kerry Washington. Buoyed by an Obama White House, award presenters and recipients relished the social, economic, and diplomatic roles the arts can now play.

Americans for the Arts president and CEO Robert Lynch got the evening underway by welcoming a full house of guests and declaring that we were there to “celebrate the transformative powers of the arts.” He thanked the artists present; the various chairs and co-chairs, such as Maria Bell and Eli Broad; Kate Davis, who sang and played base with a jazz ensemble at the cocktail party; and made special mention to Jeff Koons for designing the new award.

New Museum director Lisa Phillips presented the first award, the Artistic Excellence Award, to Ed Ruscha by naming the variety of media and styles he has handled in a masterful way, while adding that he has a “wonderful trait of being supportive of other artists.” After a video, which gave an overview of his long career and body of work, Ruscha suggested that the five honorees, including Bank of America’s Anne Finucane and philanthropist and Harman International founder Sidney Harman, work together on a project. He proposed a film, for which Redford could direct, Rushdie would write the screenplay, Finucane and Harman could fund, and Ruscha would do the titles, as well as the wanted poster.

-via Flavorwire... continue reading

Fashion Week

The past few weeks have been pretty crazy in the art world, as well as in the fashion world. As we all know, there is often a crossover of social scenes (among many other things) between those two worlds.

From WWD.com:

ANSWERING A CALL: British artist Tracy Emin took time away from her canvases to pop into Vivienne Westwood's after-show party Sunday in London. “I don’t really have time to be out: In six weeks I have an exhibition at my gallery in New York,” referring to the Lehmann Maupin gallery. Her new works, she said, "will be similar to my line drawings." Revelers also included Pixie Geldof, who had walked the runway for Westwood earlier, and model Tarifi, who was to participate in an installation being video taped by Nick Knight. “I am going to be sitting in a large transparent box, answering phones,” laughed Tarifi, who also just wrapped a John Richmond campaign.