For years, artist Amber Hawk Swanson has lived with a RealDoll replicate of herself. She had commissioned her own silicone clone for art performance, academic inquiry and yes, companionship. Unlike most mates of “doll husbands” found within the RealDoll community, Amber Doll has had a venturesome life, playing the “literal object” to a series of artistic performances/social experiments. Exploring the notions of power and the social narrative that declares women as objects, the artist has left her exact replica unattended at a football tail gate party, a roller skating rink, a theme park, and an erotica expo, documenting the interactions. Read More »
By now you’ve probably heard the news that in the next few weeks artist Marni Kotak plans to give birth at Bushwick’s Microscope Gallery in front of a live audience. Whether you’re a fan of the unabashed concept or skeptical if the audience alone warrants this being called art, certainly it has grabbed your attention. Suddenly, this usually private, explicitly corporeal physical ordeal/bodily function/miracle has turned into a public spectacle. How could you look away? It’s not the first time that a performance artist has incorporated a shock element into their work. Sometimes, the results have been amazing and mind-freeing. Sometimes, not so much. Let’s take a look at some of the physically daring, sexually risque, disturbingly disgusting, and potentially deadly performances.
As every artist knows, it’s good to get your hands dirty every once in a while. And there’s something undeniably wonderful about messy, filthy, dig-your-hands-in art, a departure from pristine lines and immaculate form. Recently, The Pace Gallery opened its summer season with “Through the Claw,” a performance piece by Kate Gilmore in which several women decimated a block of clay with their bare hands, getting understandably filthy in the process, and we were inspired to come up with some of our favorite messy artworks for your visceral viewing pleasure. After all, it’s summer. What better time to get a little dirty? Click through to see some of the messiest artworks we’ve ever seen, and let us know which of your favorites we’ve missed in the comments!
Writer Heather Woodbury takes on the day’s most pressing issues, from the environmental crisis to Christian fundamentalism and crazy TV lust, in As the Globe Warms, her serialized video “performance novel” and avant-soap digest.
As with previous works What Ever and A Tale of 2Cities, ATGW is written live on stage in real time, with plenty of audience advice and online chronicling. The new, expanded production picks up with Episode 25, but the vaguely circus-like energy and freshly baked character-driven nature of her narrative collages make it easy to dive right in.
In every geeky gamer’s life, there comes a time where he realizes he really, really needs to stop playing video games and get outside. Sometimes the fresh air and sunlight isn’t enough to set ‘em straight, though — in fact, we’ve found an almost alarming number of real-life video game recreations, from life-sized Tetris with human pieces to supermarket rounds of Pac Man. Below, check out our favorite off-screen video game love letters, which are precisely 35% awesome, 15% disturbing, and 50% “How on earth does anybody have that much free time?”
Art Los Angeles Contemporary, which opens tomorrow and runs through January 30, wraps up a month-long, city-wide pageant of international art shows that included photo l.a, artLA projects, and the Los Angeles Art Show, along with a handful of smaller niche projects. Staging its first annual return with a move from the Pacific Design Center to Santa Monica Airport’s Bark Hangar, ALAC features more than 70 galleries representing 11 countries, a jam-packed roster of tours, performances, panels, and special events throughout the weekend.
The go-to site for technological experimentation, Rhizome offers a riveting array of new-media art, networked culture, and creative internet information.
Founded way back in 1996 to support a developing community of digital-art pioneers, the savvy site now boasts more than 2,500 avant-garde works in the ArtBase, its online archive. Affiliated with the New Museum since 2003, Rhizome also publishes a dynamic blog, commissions emerging artists to create new-media projects, organizes exhibitions and events, and provides a powerful platform for the discussion and promotion of experimental art.
Offering a curatorial overview of the most compelling contemporary visual art from Israel, Artis provides an important bridge to a dynamic, developing art scene.
Supporting and promoting avant-garde Israeli visual artists worldwide, Artis features artist profiles, articles, news, and videos, as well as an exhibition and events calendar, newsletter, and art guide to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and beyond. From painting and sculpture to photography, video, and performance art, Artis is the primary platform for discovering the exciting realm of current Israeli visual art.
Handing over control of his daily life to the online community for a month, artist and comic Marc Horowitz follows “The Advice of Strangers” on his whimsical website.
Horowitz polls his audience on such important questions as what he should discuss with his shrink and for whom he should vote, as well as more mundane matters, like whether he should drink a 5-Hour Energy drink or take a nap. Afterward, he videotapes the act of fulfilling the viewers’ choice. Presented by Creative Time as a public-art project, Horowitz’s real-time experiment takes social networking to new heights.
Work of Art finalist Peregrine Honig takes our intertwined obsessions with youth, fashion, and celebrity, and turns them into quirky, unsettling art.
Perhaps Kansas City’s best-known art-world export (thanks to her star turn on the Bravo reality show), Honig makes paintings, sculptural installations, and performative, fashion-based projects that combine folk-art inflections and a childlike love of color, cuteness, and baby animals with a worldly, satirical voice that’s not afraid to get profound, funny, and even scatological.
