As 2011 draws to a close, it’s worth noting that it has been exciting year for the art world — and not just for all the “sacrilegious” work that was banned, abducted, and attacked with crowbars. Let’s take a look back at some of the year’s most controversial exhibits and shows, and the tempestuous responses they provoked in critics, visitors and sensitive observers. Granted, not everything in here is as loaded as a portrait of Charles Manson painted by Pogo the Clown aka serial killer John Wayne Gacy, but if next year is anything like this one, the tabloids will never run out of “Outrage!”-related headlines. Read More »
File under hilarious but not at all surprising: A reader tipped us off to Hyperallergic’s post on a brand new street-art send-up of MOCA’s high-profile Art in the Streets show, which opens next week. LA Anonymous’s circus-style poster depicts MOCA’s controversial curator, Jeffrey Deitch, and financial backer, Eli Broad, as ringmaster and clown in the “safest show on Earth.” In a blog post, LA Raw explains that the image is a reaction to the city’s “all out attack on ‘street artists” and the irony of charging admission to see graffiti and providing museum visitors “with a ‘safe’ venue to purchase exhibit related merchandise,” as well as alluding to the infamous incident back in December in which MOCA censored a mural it had commissioned from Blu. “Culture Wars are on,” LA Raw concludes. If that means more funny and subversive street art, then vive la révolution!
Next month in Los Angeles, the Museum of Contemporary Art will present Art in the Streets, the first major US museum show to examine street art and graffiti in the context of contemporary art history, and by all accounts, a bit of a coming out party for new museum director Jeffery Deitch. The exhibition will showcase installations by 50 artists, including Swoon, Shepard Fairey, Os Gemeos, and JR, and will reunite Steve Powers, Todd James, and Barry McGee for a new iteration of their legendary Street Market show. There will also be a custom skate ramp in the museum designed by pro-skater Lance Mountain and artist Geoff McFetridge, with live demonstrations by the Nike SB skate team. While the show doesn’t officially open until April 17th, in the meantime you can click through to preview a few images. And New Yorkers, take solace: Art in the Streets moves to the Brooklyn Museum next March.
And the Blu controversy rages on… Culture Monster reports that last night a group made up of 20 street artists and war veterans gathered in the empty parking lot of MoCA to hold a protest against the museum’s director, Jeffrey Deitch — and show their support for Blu and freedom of speech. Using a handmade laser graffiti gun, activists took turns tagging the museum wall with what looked like dripping paint and messages like “Dump Deitch!” and “Give us back our walls!” They also projected a photo of Blu’s mural back onto the whitewashed wall, superimposing it with the word “censored.” Click through to get a better look at what went down, and let us know what you think.
As we slopped through the slush and dirty snow in New York this morning, we longed for the days we spent just weeks ago at the art fairs and parties in Miami and Miami Beach. Looking back at our Miami Basel snapshots of art world players and celebs schmoozing on rooftops, at pool’s edge, and under palm trees, we shuffled through the selection to pull together a colorful mix. From Pharrell Williams and Craig Robins previewing Design Miami, Tilda Swinton sporting a Ryan McGinley-designed sweater at the Pringle of Scotland party and Isabella Rossellini receiving the “Key to the City” of Miami Beach to Nate Lowman and Jeffrey Deitch hanging out at the LCD Soundsystem concert and Paper’s Kim Hastreiter and David Hershkovits hosting Shepard Fairey at their Friends With You/Pharrell Williams party, the two cities pulsated with fun and culture.
We’ve spent quite a while celebrating the people and things we liked best in 2010, from underrated albums, actors, and films to art shows to comic books. But we can’t end the year without a look back at the folks we — and seemingly everyone else on the internet — loved to hate. From deranged actors and mouthy musicians to a controversial art-world player and a film and theater director who seems to be having the worst year ever, these are the ten cultural icons who pissed us off most this year.
1. ArtsBeat is reporting that the opening of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Lights will now be pushed from January 11 until sometime in February. This will allow time for the creators to make several changes, including changing the final number, rewriting the dialogue, adding new music from the composers, U2’s Bono and the Edge.
2. Watch David Letterman’s hilarious tribute to Larry King, who hosted Larry King Live for the last time last night, complete with a Larry blooper reel. [via Gawker.tv]
3. Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman are pitching a new movie! According to the LA Times, “While the plot is being kept under tight wraps — it’s a pitch, so a script has yet to be written, and Kaufman movies are famously hard to describe in a few sentences anyway — two people familiar with the project said it has been making the rounds to independent financiers in recent weeks.”
4. Yesterday Anne Hathaway surprised the kids from the PS22 Chorus with the news that they’ll be performing at this year’s Academy Awards ceremony on February 27th. Watch a video of their reaction.
5. An anonymous LA street artist has put a new work in response to MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch’s decision to paint over another artist’s mural that he had commissioned: “The wheat-pasted mural depicts the face of Deitch on the body of an Iranian ayatollah holding an extension pole with a paint roller at the end — and it’s set against Italian street artist Blu’s now-controversial anti-war imagery.” [via Culture Monster]
Between his art projects, his stint on General Hospital, and his newfound literary career (oh yeah, and his highly successful film work…), James Franco is constantly all over the news. Just today, we read about him starring in a book trailer and bringing Jeffrey Deitch along for the second round of his magical GH adventure. Considering that he’s got hands in cinema, literature, TV, and visual arts, we’re going to go ahead and crown Franco the new King of All Media. So, how did he come to dominate the news cycle? Perhaps it has something to do with folks he’s chosen to collaborate with, befriend, or simply name check. After the jump, we look back at the 10 people we think have been most influential in boosting Franco-mania to unprecedented levels.
Art reporter Lindsay Pollock (one of our Twitter Followables) posted some tasty gossip this morning concerning an upcoming show at Los Angeles MOCA, the first under the forthcoming directorial leadership of New York gallerist Jeffrey Deitch. Pollock has a Los Angeles source that puts Dennis Hopper — not Edward, mind you — on the shortlist for LA MOCA’s inaugural show under Deitch, in an effort to incorporate “broad appeal” into the museum’s exhibition schedule. Dennis Hopper, in case you were wondering, is not just an actor but an avid photographer. We’ve got work samples and a Hopper primer after the jump. UPDATE:The exhibition is confirmed, with Julian Schnabel as curator.
