You may remember artist Cory Arcangel’s Super Mario Clouds, a modified cartridge of the Nintendo game Super Mario Brothers “minus the game.” The piece, a series of floating clouds that would normally serve as a backdrop to the activity of the game Super Mario Brothers, was his breakout work when it was included in the 2004 Whitney Biennial. Thus, Arcangel’s new exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art — Cory Arcangel: Pro Tools — is a homecoming of sorts. While hacks and re-appropriations of old computer systems like Nintendo and Atari are Arcangel’s preferred media, his new exhibition includes — in addition to video games — bronzes, kinetic sculpture, cell phone signal amps, and pen plotter drawings created using tools that incorporate professional technologies with a taste for the aesthetics of old-school video. Following is a series of works you can see at the exhibit, including the artist’s Photoshop Gradient Demonstrations, a set of unique, eye-popping prints created with Photoshop’s standard gradient tool.
Italian artist Laurina Paperina has been killing her idols for the last four years in a series of drawings titled How to Kill the Artists. Banksy’s rat takes a hit out on him, Bjork drives a chainsaw into Matthew Barney, and Marina Abramovic runs into her lover one too many times. But Paperina, whose real name Laura Scottini, slays her art world heroes more as an homage than anything malicious, and with each crime scene comes a witty nod to art history. Holed up in her bedroom in the small Italian town of Mori, Paperina infuses her clever videos, paintings, installations and illustrations with pop culture references, political commentary, and American humor culled from the internet. We caught up with her for a brief Q&A and a sampling of her best art murders after the jump.
The ninth edition of Art Basel Miami Beach, which runs through Sunday, got off to a big start last night with Isabella Rossellini, Lance Armstrong, Naomi Campbell, and Danny Glover purportedly prowling the aisles and a roster of international galleries reporting healthy sales. Particularly strong this year is the Art Positions section, with its younger galleries surrounding an artificial, rolling, grassy lawn, complete with real palm trees. Three New York galleries look especially good here: Foxy Production, with a single sculpture by Hany Armanious, Australia’s representative to the next Venice Biennale, that repositions traditional monuments; ZieherSmith’s bold offering of Eddie Martinez’ graffiti-inspired, expressionist triptych that filled the whole booth; and Simon Preston Gallery’s enchanting presentation of Kara Tanaka’s mechanically spinning silk skirt.
A cat playing the piano is funny, but a sequence of cats playing an atonal composition by Arnold Schoenberg is both brilliant and absurd. One of the latest works from digital artist Cory Arcangel, Drei Klavierstucke, Op.11 is a compilation of fragments from found YouTube videos that captures a variety of cats walking on piano keys, each producing a note. Edited together, they recreate a dynamic piece of modernist music.
Bursting on the Rome art scene like a giant rave, New York Minute: 60 Artists on the New York Scenedrew thousands of visitors on opening night and has continued to pack in a curious crowd. Presented at MACRO Future, a former slaughterhouse in the hip Testaccio neighborhood of Rome, New York Minute is a massive, energetic show, curated by renegade Deitch Projects director Kathy Grayson and organized by the adventurous DEPART Foundation.
Pablo Picasso once said, “It takes a long time to become young.” That wisdom is evident in the playful paintings and prints he made in his 80s and 90s, which are currently on view at New York’s Gagosian Gallery. Further downtown at the New Museum, a new group of artists is being celebrated for simply being young and, of course, talented. Presenting 50 artists under age 33 from 25 countries, The Generational: Younger Than Jesus explores work in a variety of media — ranging from painting, sculpture, and installation to photography, video, performance, and video games. Selected from a list of 500 artists; assembled by an international team of curators, writers, teachers, and critics; and fully documented in Phaidon’s accompanying Artist Directory, YTJ offers a surprising mix. Read More »
