Category Archives: contemporary art

ArtPrize: A ‘Radically Open’ Taste Test

Posted on by

If you didn’t follow the link to ArtPrize at the end of my post yesterday, don’t worry. Because if high-handed art-ad warfare deserves a post, so does a ‘radically-open’ art competition with the biggest prize in the world ($25,000 for first place) whose fate will be decided this coming October 1.

I’ve mentioned before how American taste and critical opinion can go separate ways (for example, see post on Andrew Wyeth and Norman Rockwell)–I can’t wait to see if that proves to be the case with Artprize.

Will some hot shot of the Whitney Biennial, an art fair that “characterizes the state of American art today,” win? Or perhaps an older, half-forgotten artist? Will it be a traditional oil painting, or a minamalist poly-resin casting containing nothingness? I feel like this is a litmus test for what America considers beautiful. What will it say about American’s ideas of beauty? When I consider the opinions of the various people I know, I’m really not sure how to answer that question. (The New York Times mockingly called it ‘Art Idol.’ )

ArtPrize is as much a social experiment as an art contest. Venues are provided by volunteers and matched with entrants. Entrants are encouraged to stay for the duration of the fair to promote their work. Voting can be done only by people who visit the fair, which is being hosted in Grand Rapids, MI. (The prize is funded by a Michigan politician) Grand Rapids might seem out of the way, but that $25,000 prize speaks pretty loudly. In fact, it screams “Pay Attention To Me.”

But what will the ArtPrize and its voting methods reflect about the state of populist American taste? I think the winner could be as follows:

  1. appeals to the lowest common denominator
  2. the prettiest
  3. the best social networker
  4. the next Leonardo da Vinci, who has been hiding inside a cave in Grand Rapids
  5. a perfectly reputable, established good artist with credentials*

*That would be the most unintersting result.

Human Carriage Gets Applause

Posted on by
Ann Hamilton created the site-specific Human Carriage for the recently closed Third Mind exhibition at the Guggenheim, and I wanted to share it with you because it was absolutely delightful. Her formal description of human carriage reads “Installation of cloth, wire, bells, books, string, pipe, pulleys, pages, cable, gravity, air, and sound.”

It was a playful and fun installation. It was also affecting: viewers clapped every time the book finally dropped. Every time. Once it got stuck, and I stopped in my tracks. What would happen now? (A museum worker with a pole pushed it along.)

The Guggenheim Museum described its working thus: “Hamilton devises a mechanism that traverses the entire Guggenheim balustrade, taking the form of a white silk ‘bell carriage’ with Tibetan bells attached inside. As the cage spirals down along the balustrade, the purifying bells ring, awakening viewers. The mechanism is hoisted back up to a post at the uppermost Rotunda Level 6, where an attendant exchanges weights composed of thousands of cut-up books that counter the pulley system that propels the mechanism itself.”

Anne Neely at Lohen Giduld Gallery

Posted on by

Ravels in Motion productions, as I like to call myself when I wield a video camera, had a busy time in Chelsea this weekend. Among the galleries I visited, I wanted to highlight the show at the Lohin Geduld gallery that will be on until April 25 entitled Where There’s Water. These oil paintings by Anne Neely are landscapes that verge on colorful abstraction. I’m thrilled to share painter Anne Neely’s work with you here, especially as the artist was in the gallery and speaks with us some about her work.

Enjoy!