30 ARTIST'S TAKES ON OUR DIVIDED STATES OF AMERICA

November 06, 2016

Paddle 8 has a nice selection of works on paper inspired by America and politics. I have a new book, Yes: Transform Your Life with Color By Number that comes out on Election Day, so I thought I’d put the two together. Never have we seen such a contentious election as this that has divided our country in two. I created a HOPE painting for President Obama‘s first run in 2008 (based on a vintage paint by number of the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor) and I just revised it for the book and a commission, VOTE. (You can download the blank with palette here and enter to win a free print and a signed copy of my book.)

Let’s just HOPE that people do exercise their right and let’s also ask that God, PLEASE –bless America in three days.

MATTHEW BARNEY SUES BJÖRK

April 06, 2015

Björk‘s ex Matthew Barney, just filed a lawsuit over the custody of their 12-year-old daughter, Isadora. The complaint, filed against Björk Gunmundsdottir, Barney claims that he is not getting his fair share of time with daughter Isadora, and that the couple’s daughter would prefer to split her time evenly with both parents. In the suit, reports Page Six, the artist accuses Björk of:

“effectively sacrificing Doa’s [Isadora’s] emotional well-being in favor of her own selfish desires”

The couple split in 2013 after some 13 years together. Barney also claims that Björk’s..

“self-focused mindset . . . flows, in part, from her belief that as Doa’s mother, she has far greater rights than I do as Doa’s father; and, in part, from her insistence that I am solely to blame for the breakdown of our relationship and the end of our intact family.”

Björk’s has a widely-panned retrospective up at MoMA right now and she just released her new album Vulnicura, which has a 10-minute-long Barney-trashing track, Black Lake, including the line…

“family was always our sacred mutual mission/ which you abandoned.”

According to the suit, Isadora spends the fall in her mother’s native Iceland, then returns to NYC in the spring to attend St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn Heights. Björk splits her time between Reykjavik and New York. Matthew Barney was dating artist Elizabeth Peyton and as recently as December, he was rumored to be dating Sheryl Crow. (via Artnet)

BJORK AND MATTHEW BARNEY SPLIT

September 16, 2013

It seems artist Matthew Barney and Bjork, his long time romantic partner, have split. Barney and Bjork have a daughter, Isadora. Barney, it appears is now romantically linked to painter Elizabeth Peyton. Barney and Peyton had a joint exhibition, The Blood of Two, at mega-collector Dakis Joannou’s Deste Foundation in Greece in 2009 and the show included several portraits of Barney by Peyton. Peyton is divorced from her husband, artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, who both show with Gavin Brown’s Enterprise and she also shows with Barney’s gallery, Barbara Gladstone in New York City. No fun these break-ups, but all are hugely successful and will presumably be fine. (photo of Bjork: Pacific Coast News, painting of Barney and self portrait: Elizabeth Peyton)