With all the alarmist, Xeroxed hoopla around nudity in Marina Abramovic’s current performance art retrospective at MoMA, MSNBC joins in. Apparently, “the artist says that’s she’s shocked by how upset people are by the nudity.” ORLY? As part of the main performance, Abramovic is remaining silent through the end of the exhibit in late May. Read more »
First write-ups of the massive “Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present” retrospective/performance art exhibit are starting to filter in and, thanks to the AP, most are pivoting around an unfortunate 18-year-old visitor Morgan Wolfe, who was uncomfortable and “decided not to walk between two male [nude] performers.” Read more »
Outside of those long business-card-related passages in American Psycho, fonts aren’t usually given their due. MoMA knows what I’m talking about. There are a few of us out there excited by that one perfect font, and here’s my ultimate fetish: MoMA Gothic. The “g” is so beautiful. Just look at that little half curl! Come here, MoMA Gothic g! |c-monster|
It’s kind of hard to hide my giddy excitement over this one. The self-proclaimed grandmother of performance art Marina Abramović returns to NYC from a month-long total purification process in India for her MoMA retrospective, opening March 14th. The 62-year-old artist’s first retrospective exhibit at a major museum includes a chronological exhibition of 50 works spanning over four decades and all art mediums, “interpreter” reenactments of five past performances, and the world premier of The Artist Is Present (2010) — the longest solo performance of her career that will last over 700 hours. Read more »
Somewhat surprisingly, the Museum of Modern Art backed a recent takeover of illegal outdoor advertising. Jordan Seiler of Public Ad Campaign spotted a group of teenagers with the MoMA Red Studio summer program pasting their artwork over illegal NPA ads on a construction shed in Manhattan. The takeover was conducted with the landlord’s permission, but it’s still shocking since MoMA doesn’t like people messing with public ads, at least not their own. Earlier this year, the museum fired its creative agency, The Happy Corp, after CEO Doug Jaeger hired Posterboy to remix their Atlantic-Pacific Avenue subway station campaign. Still, it’s a great lesson in public space policy for the kids. But MoMA shouldn’t be surprised if the fledgling ad activists take aim at their own use of the marketing medium, especially their wildpostings of questionable legality.
Photos by Public Ad Campaign
The Museum of Modern Art doesn’t appreciate their ads getting vandalized even if it does make them slightly more relevant, increases media attention, and most importantly, fosters a discussion about modern art. After learning that the creative agency responsible for designing their prolific marketing campaign for a Brooklyn subway station in turn hired ad altering artist Poster Boy to give it a face lift, the venerable art institution fired The Happy Corp. and condemned the action with strong words. “The Museum deplores any kind of vandalism and is profoundly distressed that the posters were defaced,” said MoMA spokesperson Kim Mitchell. Right! Because they would never EVER invite vandals to take part in an exhibit.
Earlier this month, the Museum of Modern Art launched an ambitious ad campaign, plastering the entire Atlantic-Pacific Avenue subway station with 57 mostly staid works of art that you’ve probably seen before, that was, until Poster Boy got his hands on them. New York magazine reports that the constructive vandal joined up with Doug Jaeger, the CEO of the creative agency that executed the campaign and altered the pieces—Aakash Nihalani also added his signature stye. Not only did the artistic action breathe new life into the marketing initiative, but it also was an interesting way for Jaeger to offer his client some excellent added value, even if they supposedly didn’t ask for it. Click below for another visually arresting modification that pushes Poster Boy one step closer towards the dark side.
This past Sunday night, the hacktivists at the Graffiti Research Lab screened their new DVD, “The Complete First Season” at the MoMA. The hilarious, Hip Hop-laced film—a must when making cinema nowadays—detailed the history of GRL, their antics, and the how founders Evan Roth and James Powderly quit their day jobs to give the public tools to hack public spaces. In the true spirit of open source, ANIMAL shot this ugly ugly bootleg of the first five minutes complete with people’s heads, lots of background noise, and from the 2:18 to 2:44 mark, really bad angles.
The Graffiti Research Lab presents their new The Complete First Season DVD at the MoMa this Sunday, May 4th at 8PM. The film documents GRL founders James Powderly and Evan Roth in their ultimate quest for “free speech in public, open source in pop culture, the hacker spirit in graffiti, and not asking permission in general.” There will be a Q&A after the film and a reception on the 6th floor too. Get your tickets here.
There’s an interesting exhibit at the MoMA examining the shift in the art paradigm when ready made and mass produced colors became normative for artists from the Mid-20th Century till today. It marked a time where artists “forfeited their personal take on color and gave themselves over to the dictates of the mass market.” Sponsored by Benjamin Moore, “Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today,” features the works of 40 artists—dead and living—including skull raiser Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol, who exemplifies this pivotal transformation with his iconic “Do It Yourself (Landscape)” painting (1962), a play on the paint by number kits of yesteryear, as well as the philosophical ‘What does it really mean to be an artist?’ question. The show runs through May 12th, and if you can’t make it in person at least check out it out online. |TMagzine|
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