Artist and filmmaker Ryan Trecartin is a bit of an art world darling. He rose to “fame” mostly by posting his videos to YouTube and as his rep grew, he was collected by art star-maker & collector Charles Saatchi. He is represented by Andrea Rosen, who happens to be my next door neighbor, and he shows with Regen Projects in LA. Now, as part of Berlin Art Week, which kicked off this month, he’s exhibiting “Site Visit,” a multi-channel video piece featuring drag queens and monsters. His videos sample the idea of reality TV with much more boiling just below the surface. They are hard to describe. In the video below, a guy jumps out of a locker to talk about his 5 boyfriends, among other things. In his installations there are 5-6 videos playing all at once and you can put on headphones for each. It’s insane. Just watch.
OLAFUR ELIASSON'S "YOUR RAINBOW PANORAMA"
Conceptual artist Olafur Eliasson’s <em>Your Rainbow Panorama</em>, is a transparent circular walkway on top of the ARoS Aarhus Art Museum designed by Schmidt Hammer Lassen. Lee Mindel visited for Architectural Digest and shot these gorgeous pics. Every delicious color, an Instagram dream come true, if there ever was one.
(Photos, Lee F. Mindel; via Architectural Digest)
MORBIDLY OBESE (BUT CUTE) POP CULTURE CHARACTERS
These fat fat fatties were created by the Chicago-based illustrator and graphic designer Alex Solis. Adult Swim, here's a new series idea! Biggest Loser for overweight superheros... you could do SO much with fat, animation and pop culture. You're welcome. (images, Alex Solis; via Sad and Useless)
(A REAL LADY) BUNNY'S $76 MILLION ROTHKO'S + $3 MILLION COFFEE TABLES
Bunny Mellon, who lived to 103, spent her long life collecting whatever she liked and her eye and taste were rewarded (posthumously) at Sotheby’s last night as all 43 master works brought in $158.7 million, topping the high estimate of $121 million. A 1970 canvas by Mark Rothko of brought in nearly $40 million but three paintings –two others by Rothko and one by Richard Diebenkorn– were not part of this auction as they were sold privately earlier this year for an undisclosed sum but they were valued upwards of $250 million!
The Sotheby’s auction was just the first in a series of works that Mrs. Mellon, and her financier husband, Paul Mellon, had collected over the years . They had also donated many masterworks to institutions such as the National Gallery of Art in DC, which got more than 900 works, including Cézanne’s “Boy in a Red Waistcoat.” The work had decorated their five homes, including Oak Spring Farms, the 2,000-acre estate in Virgina, where Mrs. Mellon spent the last years of her life. Bunny was a BIG fan of Rothko (it shows) and she LOVED blue, like Lucio Fontana’s “Concetto Spaziale (Blu)” from 1968 which hung in her Upper East Side townhouse bedroom and sold for almost a million and a Georgia O’Keeffe painting of a barn that hung in her Virginia dining room sold for $3.1 million.
The auction also included several examples of furniture by Diego Giacometti (Albert’s brother) whom Bunny met through designer Givenchy. She commissioned bronze furniture and sculptures but, not liking bronze, asked Giacometti to paint them off-white for her. The two coffee tables sold for $1.7 million and $1.4 million each! Most of these works were bought 50+ years ago for what seems like nothing now, but I’m sure was a fortune then –nevertheless, the return was phenomenal. Nothing appreciates like art and real estate, kids!
COMBO POST: KEITH HARING + NY POST = A WEDDING GIFT FOR MADONNA
My last two posts, the nude guy on the cover of the NY Post and Keith Haring’s new exhibit in San Francisco, gave me the idea for this combo post. When Madonna was marrying Sean Penn, Keith was invited to the wedding and he took Andy as his date. Around that time, nude pictures of Madonna were published in Penthouse and the Post cover screamed the headlines. Her famous quote about the picture scandal? “So what!” Andy & Keith made her four paintings as a wedding gift and here they are. (I think they each kept one, as there are 6 in total.) At a benefit at the Pyramid for Madonna’s longtime friend and former manager, Martin Burgoyne, who was kinda broke and suffering from AIDS at the time, I remember Keith showing me pics from the wedding in the dressing room. Madonna was there that night too. The rest is her-story.
KEITH HARING: THE POLITICAL LINE OPENS IN SAN FRANCISCO
When you get to the point in life when your friends start having museum shows, you have a mixed bag of feelings, not the least of which is your own mortality. I remember the first time I saw an exhibit in a museum (I can’t remember where?) with Keith Haring’s work in it…. there were club invitations to parties I had attended and work I remember seeing in the subway or the studio, etc. I was proud of him, but it was a weird sensation. (I’ve shown my own work and memorabilia from the same period and it didn’t feel that strange.) Keith and I met in 1980, the first summer I arrived in NYC. He had just done one of his first murals over the stairs at Danceteria, a club where he was still a busboy at the time. In ten years, he was unknown, a New York art star, world famous and dead. Shocking, he made so much work and had such an impact in the space of one decade.
A new show, Keith Haring: The Political Line just opened at the de Young Fine Arts Museum in San Francisco. It features 130+ pieces — including big tarp paintings, sculptures and subway drawings. It’s the first time a major exhibit has focused on his political messages. Curator Dieter Buchhart talks about the activist nature of the work;
“It is amazing that the question of social justice and change that Keith Haring devoted himself to has not been addressed before in a major exhibition,” says Buchhart. “Haring understood that art was for everybody — he fought for the individual and against dictatorship, racism and capitalism. He was no utopian, but he had a dream that ‘nothing is an end, because it always can be the basis for something new and different.’”
Many of have not been published or on public view ever. Keith fought –I would say tirelessly but he did get tired– but he FOUGHT to end the AIDS epidemic in his work and life. He established The Keith Haring Foundation in his last years to speak about his own illness and generate activism and awareness about AIDS. He died of it in 1990, at age 31, but his influence on our generation and those who’ve followed is a testament to his vision and intention.
Untitled from 1982, the cover of the catalogue (above), is a figure outlined on a large vinyl tarp in yellow and red paint, breaking a stick. Julia Gruen, a friend of Haring’s and executive director of the Keith Haring Foundation says;
“We felt that that image really in the simplest possible way spoke to a kind of political activism,” said “The image itself does not refer to a specific cause. It’s really about fighting against oppression. It’s about bucking the system. It’s about questioning authority.”
Yes, he’d have SO much to say about this last election, Ebola, the GOP, climate change, marriage equality – you name it. Look at the work and you can tell, he’d be fired up today. Btw, the online store has some great things of his so you CAN own a Keith Haring, if you like. Go here. I have a show across the bay in San Francisco in a month, so, I have an afternoon planned already… The Political Line runs through February 16th, 2015.
THE PANTONE HOTEL IS (INSERT COLORFUL PUN)
As a former graphic designer, the Pantone Color Matching System –or as we always called it, PMS– was part of my daily life for years. But it was always an insider-y sort of industry thing. But in the last 10-15 years, Pantone has taken branding to new levels to produce paint, products and now a hotel experience in Brussels. The Pantone Hotel, designed by architect Olivier Hannaert and outfitted by interior designer Michel Penneman, has 57 rooms that uses seven different colors, one for each floor. Of course, to make color pop, you need a lot of white. Personally, I think they wimped out a little. I could see each room done in 20 different reds or greens, but nevertheless, this is a designers wet, PMS dream. Color me ________. (Click image to see gallery)
JOSÉ PARLA'S 90 FOOT MURAL FOR ONE WORLD TRADE
One World Trade Center just opened its doors in Manhattan after 13 years and nearly $4 billion spent in construction. Asher Edelman was chosen by the Durst Organization to curate the art for the new spaces and visitors to the new lobby will be greeted by a 90-foot mural by Brooklyn-based artist José Parlá. He worked on “ONE: Union of the Senses” for about eight months in his studio and two weeks on site. Parla says;
“It was very important to me that this painting would reflect a massive respect to the situation and event and the families, and a massive respect for the site.”
Well, the painting is MASSIVE and with some 20,000 people seeing it every day, so is the audience. (The Met gets about 15,000 daily, as an uptown comparison.) Edelman elaborates on art in public spaces;
“I think that the role of the art is to create life within a building. It’s not just about white marble walls, it’s about spirit and life. From the building’s point of view, it’s about branding, and something that is beyond the simple walls.”
My alma mater Condé Nast Publications, occupies nearly a quarter of the building’s 4 million square feet and is moving in right about now. I might have to visit someone there to see this in person. In the meantime, I'm checking out this video. (T/Y Douglas)
HAIRY JOB: BJARNE MELGAARD NEEDS YOUR HANDS (FREE)
Openly gay, New York-based, Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard might have a job for you. (No, not that kind.) He’s looking for an unpaid intern –repeat UNPAID– to “create large hair based sculpture and paintings” in collaboration with hairstylist Bob Recine. (Recine is MAJOR, btw.) No $$, but Melgaard is possibly offering something worth having, besides the experience;
“Interns may receive a drawing by Bjarne Melgaard at the end of the project, provided the work was satisfactory”
To apply, go here. You have until December 1. Tweet me if you get an interview @treynyc. Good luck, kids!
WES ANDERSON: INTERIOR DECORATOR
A complex visual language is Wes Anderson’s calling card. With his eye, set design becomes both a storytelling device and character cue. His private house, so far, is off limits,Apartamento magazine follows the the art of his set design: submarines, intricate brownstones ands vintage color schemes are his stock-in-trade Apartamento’s Editor-in-Chief Marco Velardi says;
“You could compare Wes Anderson to an interior decorator. I always say that a picture of someone’s home tells you a lot more about that person than any portrait possibly can. I imagine in a movie the time you have to describe a character is limited, so using the interiors to do so probably becomes something of a necessity. Ultimately, if you look at his work there are a lot of interiors, with very peculiar and very precise work on the spaces and what people wear. Wes is passionate about every single detail, and that’s why it’s fascinating for us. ”
It sort of seems unfair not to mention his production designer here,David Wasco, Adam Stockhausen and others. My ex was an art director and production designer for film (Igby Goes Down, Made) and if I only mentioned the director, it'd be unfair to his collaborators. Having said that, the film is the vision of the director and this is where the eye comes from. The common denominator in all of Anderson's films, is obviously Anderson himself.
(via Nowness)