Are times of recession good or bad for the contemporary art market and artists? "Affordable" is becoming a leitmotif: there are events, international fairs, as well as various galleries. Some collectors and artists are sharing survival tips and tricks; and there are plenty of special offers to be had: Josh Poehlein - screenshot collages, free ; Shepard Fairey - "Obey Eye" screen print, 18 x 24 inches, signed and numbered, at a random time on April 21st: $45.00 ; Michel Gondry - your portrait, signed: $19.95 (allow 6 to 8 weeks for delivery); 'Damien Hirst' - "For the love of Paris" postcard, 10.5 x 14.8 cm, signed and sent: € 1,80 ; Banksy - original, freely usable, high-quality jpg files: free.
posted by progosk on Apr 16, 2009 - 31 comments

Prospect 1. From the New Orleans Museum of Art in the City Park, to the Lower Ninth Ward's multiple installation locations, Prospect 1's curation is tasteful and moving, sometimes heart breaking but mostly promising. An unbelievable concentration of impressive artist's commentary on New Orleans. And it's free to get around (shuttle service available also) if you simply register. [more inside]
posted by priested on Dec 16, 2008 - 7 comments

Aether: lonely boy befriends a mysterious monster, leaves Earth to explore the galaxy. A quick, relaxing, hypnotic, motion-aftereffect-inducing flash game. Programming/music/design by Tyler Glaiel with further art/design by Edmund McMillen. [more inside]
posted by Korou on Oct 7, 2008 - 14 comments

FairyTaleFilter: SurLaLune Fairy Tales features 49 annotated fairy tales, including their histories, similar tales across cultures, modern interpretations and over 1,500 illustrations, 1,600 folktales & fairy tales from around the world in more than 40 full-text eBooks. Fairy Tale timeline. l Women Children's Book Illustrators l The Evolution of the Illustrated Children's Book l Some really beautiful free graphics and clipart from Grandma's Graphics. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Oct 1, 2008 - 11 comments

Anglo-Finnish artist Sanna Annukka's vibrant, flat design work (especially her Icons series) got me curious about her, well, iconography.

She mentioned The Kalevala previously, the Finnish national epic poem (in Finnish here), a tale of creation and heroism that arguably spurred the Finns to independence from the Russians.

Like so much else epic and awesome, it spawned a '70s prog band, with three albums.
posted by klangklangston on Feb 25, 2008 - 23 comments

PDF-Mags.com. "Free PDF mag's from all over the world with main focus on art, design, illustration and life."
posted by Burhanistan on Mar 26, 2007 - 8 comments

ArtPod --video art for your iPod, from Artnode Denmark
posted by amberglow on Dec 1, 2006 - 3 comments

"On September 30, 2006, for one day only, museums across the country will join the Smithsonian Institution in its long-standing tradition of offering free admission to visitors."
posted by moss on Sep 28, 2006 - 29 comments

The Toymaker offers over 40 free paper toys and pretties you can print out (PDFs) and make yourself, as well as "Stories to be Told by Firelight" - online versions of author/illustrator Marilyn Scott Waters' children's stories and lots of other fun goodies. For people who have kids, people who know kids, people who are kids, and people who love papercraft, illustration, toys, and tales. [more...]
posted by taz on Jul 24, 2006 - 18 comments

Web Gallery of Art - "The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque periods (1100-1850), currently containing over 14.500 reproductions. Commentaries on pictures, biographies of artists are available. Guided tours, free postcard and other services are provided for the visitors."

Direct Links seem to be turned off.... lame, but the search function is worth checking out. One of the coolest features is being able to search for artists based on country, style, or time period.
posted by sourbrew on Dec 17, 2005 - 14 comments

What would you say, given one free minute of anonymous, uncensored speech? via Wired
posted by pmbuko on Jun 14, 2005 - 49 comments

Back In Black, Bold, Semibold, Roman, and Light: Ever wanted to write your name in the font The Scorpions used? Or make your wedding announcements in the AC/DC font? Maybe you'd like to create nametags with the official Ozzy font? Here are all the rock fonts you'll ever need, all for free.
posted by fandango_matt on Feb 16, 2005 - 18 comments

MoMA Free Tomorrow for New York MeFi Readers! Well, everyone, actually. The Museum of Modern Art in New York reopens tomorrow and graciously offers a day of free entrance for all. Your chance to avoid the much-criticized $20 admission (views: con, pro-fessional, mayoral). Even good old free-admission Fridays bear the price tag of aggressive name-branding [paragraph 6] by an image-crazy donor (it's not charity anymore if it's advertising, folks, much less design-heady classiness-by-association). Some reports (scroll) from the press preview.
posted by Joe Hutch on Nov 19, 2004 - 20 comments

Microsoft is giving away a nifty piece of software. It's the beta of Expressions 3 by Creature House, something I used to use back in my Mac days but hadn't heard anything about in a long time. Apparently MS bought Creature House last year. I downloaded it (after filling out a somewhat arduous survey/profile thingy) and think it a nice drawing program. Both Mac and Win versions are posted.
posted by bz on Jun 9, 2004 - 30 comments

Free Words came first, a project of 2000 books stealthily placed in museums, libraries, and bookstores. Next, Sal Randolph spearheaded the Free Biennial during the Whitney Biennial. This week, she spent 15K and Ebayed her way into the contemporary art mega-exhibition Manifesta to present: Free Manifesta. Sal Randolph is single-handedly bringing free art "to the people, man."
posted by RJ Reynolds on Apr 24, 2002 - 3 comments