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Fiendish (and Pretty Brilliant) Russian Art Forgers Arrested in Germany

By Reid Singer on

Start with one nation’s massive artistic legacy, and combine it with an unstable certification process. Then add voracious auction prices,… Read More

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Art

The Coolest Art Made With 3D Printers

By Reid Singer on

Volumes have already been written about the rising vogue for 3D printing. Stephen Colbert invited users to create variations on MakerBot renderings of his face, it’s easier than ever to replace your phone case, and sculptured trinkets of Yoda are widely available — for the first time. At the moment, the output of these marvelous, surprisingly affordable machines is mostly made up of hokey toys that already exist or alarmingly simple designs for weapons. It’s been almost exactly a year since the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened its doors to the scanners of MakerBot sculptors, and surprisingly little has been done in the way of old fashioned art-for-the-sake-of-art from these machines. A few outstanding exceptions, after the jump. … Read More

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Art

Public Art Installation Stolen Following Pride Parade

By Reid Singer on

Last fall, in the wake of a major theft of art works from the Kunsthal museum in the Netherlands, news sources… Read More

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Art

It’s Time to Stop Talking About Damien Hirst’s Boring Spot Paintings

By Reid Singer on

A year and a half ago, Larry Gagosian used all 11 branches of his eponymous art gallery to exhibit Damien Hirst’s spot paintings. My mom asked me in earnest if anybody actually bought those things. Among critics, she wasn’t alone. That month, opinion after well-informed opinion poured forth about how the paintings were not only bad, but also really, insanely boring. A lot of people whose talents could be profitably spent elsewhere — people who admitted they had nothing to say about the spot paintings — seemed to write about them anyway in part because the excessive, capricious market for Hirst’s work felt like a story in itself, and partly because Hirst’s name is a magnet for controversy. … Read More

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Art

‘The Cat Show’: Feline-Inspired Works by Your Favorite Artists

By Reid Singer on

The Internet loves nothing more than cats, but it’s rare that we look beyond the cute photos and memes to more seriously consider their place in our world. Flavorwire’s Highbrow Cat Week is an attempt to remedy that, with a series of pieces devoted to analyzing their impact on the cultural realm.

Great news: all of your favorite artists have eagerly contributed to a gallery show about cats. It’s true! “Art isn’t only for a meditative, aesthetic experience,” artist and curator Rhonda Lieberman says in a a press release. “It can also be a conduit for the redemption of pussycats and people.” The show opens June 14 at New York’s White Columns Gallery and is presented in partnership with Social Tees Animal Rescue, a non-profit organization that takes over 3,000 at-risk animals from kill shelters every year, gives them veterinary care, and finds them loving homes. … Read More

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Art

True Stories of Awful Studio Assistant Experiences

By Reid Singer on

In a recent post on the positive experiences people have had while working as artists’ studio assistants, I speculated that the reason the job may have a bad reputation is because you only hear about the negative ones. Consistency bias is a powerful thing, and the reading public is drawn to stories that confirm its worst prejudices about well-heeled art stars. Young people, in particular, cringe when they hear about famous creatives mistreating their staff, but we also kind of love it. I stand by this argument, even though I also believe that a lot of the really, really bad stories about life as a studio assistant are true. … Read More

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Television

An Amazingly Detailed Replica of the ‘Friends’ Apartment Made Entirely Out of Paper

By Tyler Coates on

Brazil-based artist Bruna Salvador Conforto has meticulously recreated the famous set from Friends — the apartment first shared by Monica and Rachel, and later Monica and Chandler — using only paper, and the results are quite amazing. The replica nails it down to the tiniest details, including the tins in the kitchen cabinets, the Guinness poster, and even Monica and Chandler’s wedding photos. It’s enough to make me want to climb in there, toss some banana slices to Marcel, and keep an eye out for the ugly naked guy in the apartment next door. Check out the amazing collection of images after the jump.  … Read More

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Art

Exploring the Work of 19th-Century Psychedelic Cat Painter Louis Wain

By Tom Hawking on

The Internet loves nothing more than cats, but it’s rare that we look beyond the cute photos and memes to more seriously consider their place in our world. Flavorwire’s Highbrow Cat Week is an attempt to remedy that, with a series of pieces devoted to analyzing their impact on the cultural realm.

Plenty of artists have attempted to capture the spirit of the humble housecat over the years, but no one’s ever done so in a manner quite so compellingly idiosyncratic as Louis Wain. Born in 1860, Wain was well known in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for his anthropomorphic depictions of cats, but the most interesting thing about his work from a modern perspective is the way that it grew gradually weirder as his career progressed. Fairly naturalistic in his early years, his style became decidedly more… well, psychedelic as Wain got older. … Read More

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Art

Tina Fey, David Foster Wallace, and Other Classic Portraits for The Believer by Charles Burns

By Reid Singer on

Our country’s leading literary authorities are getting older. Are we at peace with that? Maybe it’s too early, but there’s a general agreement that as Lewis Lapham, founding editor of Lapham’s Quarterly, and Robert Silvers, founding editor of The New York Review of Books, grow older, the torch is being passed to younger editors, like the co-editors of n+1 and Dave Eggers and The Believer. The same might be said of their illustrators, specifically, that Charles Burns’s portraits for The Believer may some day be placed on equal standing with the dearly admired illustrations by David Levine for The New York Review. Some of our favorites, after the jump, are now on display at the Adam Baumgold Gallery in New York, alongside the Before & After drawings from Burns’s graphic novel Black Hole. … Read More

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Art

The Year’s Most Notorious Art Lawsuits

By Reid Singer on

Civil rulings in New York are marked by their dryness and professionalism. But this can be tossed out the window when the dispute concerns a work of art. One such utterance, by state Supreme Court Justice Barbara Kapnick on Wednesday, concerned the current tiff between billionaire collector Ron Perelman and über-gallerist Larry Gagosian. “These two gentlemen ought to get together at a cocktail party in the Hamptons,” her honor ordered, and “see if they can’t get it resolved.” … Read More

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