Felix Salmon muses on why art prices keep rising. On the way, he discusses why some art becomes super-popular:
"Fine art has become the billionaire’s-club equivalent of a Louis Vuitton bag, slathered in logos. It’s not connoisseurship which drives values, so much as recognizability. Which in turn helps to explain why the most prolific artists (Picasso, Warhol, Hirst) are also the most expensive: the more of their work there is, the more exposed to it people become, the more they’ll recognize it, and therefore the more desirable it is."
posted by benbenson
on Feb 8, 2012 -
23 comments
This stealthy undertaking was not an act of robbery or espionage but rather a crucial operation in what would become an association called UX, for “Urban eXperiment.” UX is sort of like an artist’s collective, but far from being avant-garde—confronting audiences by pushing the boundaries of the new—its only audience is itself. More surprising still, its work is often radically conservative, intemperate in its devotion to the old. Through meticulous infiltration, UX members have carried out shocking acts of cultural preservation and repair, with an ethos of “restoring those invisible parts of our patrimony that the government has abandoned or doesn’t have the means to maintain.” The group claims to have conducted 15 such covert restorations, often in centuries-old spaces, all over Paris. - Wired.com
"The New French Hacker-Artist Underground"
posted by The Whelk
on Jan 24, 2012 -
20 comments
In the 1970s and 1980s, Chicago gangs distributed
gang cards to stake their neighbourhood claim. Full gallery available
here.
posted by gman
on Jan 20, 2012 -
44 comments
A decade on, the Coen brothers' woefully underrated
O Brother, Where Art Thou? [alt] is remembered for
a lot of things: its sun-drenched, sepia-rich
cinematography (a pioneer of
digital color grading), its
whimsical humor,
fluid vernacular, and
many subtle references to Homer's
Odyssey. But one part of its legacy truly stands out:
the music.
Assembled by
T-Bone Burnett, the soundtrack is a cornucopia of American folk music, exhibiting everything from
cheery ballads and
angelic hymns to
wistful blues and
chain-gang anthems. Woven into the plot of the film through radio and live performances, the songs lent the story a
heartfelt, homespun feel that echoed its cultural heritage,
a paean and uchronia of the Old South.
Though the multiplatinum album was recently
reissued, the movie's medley is best heard via famed documentarian
D. A. Pennebaker's
Down from the Mountain, an
extraordinary yet
intimate concert film focused on a night of live music by the soundtrack's stars (among them
Gillian Welch,
Emmylou Harris,
Chris Thomas King, bluegrass legend
Dr. Ralph Stanley) and wryly hosted by
John Hartford, an accomplished
fiddler,
riverboat captain, and
raconteur whose struggle with terminal cancer made this his last major performance. The film is free in its entirety on
Hulu and
YouTube -- click inside for individual clips, song links, and breakdowns of
the set list's fascinating history.
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Dec 22, 2011 -
107 comments
Most people know that Venice has long been threatened by chronic flooding, but in recent years the Queen of the Adriatic has faced a rising tide of a different sort:
advertising.
From the
Doge's Palace to
St. Mark's Square to the bittersweet
Bridge of Sighs -- named for the grief its splendid views once inspired in crossing death row prisoners -- immense billboards
lit late into the night now mar the city's most treasured places.
Allegedly built to cover the cost of restoration work in the face of government cutbacks, the ads have brought in around $600,000 per year since 2008 -- a fraction of the shortfall -- and show no sign of going away any time soon. Their presence prompted a consortium of the world's leading cultural experts led by the
Venice in Peril Fund to air
an open letter demanding the city government put a stop to the placards that "hit you in the eye and ruin your experience of one of the most beautiful creations of humankind." Mayor Giorgio Orsoni, for one, was not moved, saying last year "If people want to see the building
they should go home and look at a picture of it in a book."
posted by Rhaomi
on Oct 4, 2011 -
59 comments
Biomedical Ephemera, or, a Frog for your Boils is "A blog for all biological and medical ephemera, from the age of Abraham through the era of medical quackery and cure-all nostrums. Sometimes featuring illustrations of diseases and conditions of the times, sometimes fascinating ephemeral medical equipment, and sometimes clippings and information about the theories themselves." The
archive page is also a useful starting point.
via Things Magazine.
posted by Rumple
on Aug 29, 2011 -
8 comments
Ana Lee's fashion blog is in Russian but with its insane number of HQ photographs
[don't forget to click the "далее"], you won't care. For example, her two posts about
Carol Alt almost certainly comprise the greatest documentation of that model's career to be found anywhere in the world.
posted by Trurl
on Aug 28, 2011 -
6 comments
Circa 1850.
A curious document that had been filed away in a box for over a century.
Hundreds of pages of strange, crudely drawn figures, resembling stick figures, many of them appearing to be urinating, copulating, whipping each other, and displaying enormously swollen genitals. An extremely important document that revealed much that was previously unknown about Native American history and culture?? The scribbling book of a German child, "the leisure pencillings of a nasty-minded little boy"?? We may never know.
[more inside]
posted by ecorrocio
on Jul 28, 2011 -
44 comments
Your Paintings a joint initiative between the BBC, the Public Catalogue Foundation and participating collections and museums from across the UK, is a website which aims to show the entire UK national collection of oil paintings, the stories behind the paintings, and where to see them for real. It is made up of paintings from thousands of museums and other public institutions around the country. Currently the archive contains 63,000 of the approximately 200,000 publically-owned artworks that make up the national collection.
[more inside]
posted by dng
on Jul 10, 2011 -
12 comments
Larry Gonick is a veteran American cartoonist best known for his delightful comic-book guides to science and history, many of which have previews online. Chief among them is his long-running
Cartoon History of the Universe (later
The Cartoon History of the Modern World), a sprawling multi-volume opus documenting everything from the Big Bang to the Bush administration. Published over the course of three decades, it takes a truly global view -- its time-traveling Professor thoroughly explores not only familiar topics like Rome and World War II but the oft-neglected stories of Asia and Africa, blending caricature and myth with careful scholarship (cited by
fun illustrated bibliographies) and tackling even the most obscure events
with intelligence and wit. This savvy satire carried over to Gonick's
Zinn-by-way-of-
Pogo chronicle
The Cartoon History of the United States, along with a bevy of
Cartoon Guides to other topics, including
Genetics, Computer Science, Chemistry, Physics, Statistics, The Environment, and (yes!)
Sex. Gonick has also maintained a few sideprojects, such as
a webcomic look at Chinese invention,
assorted math comics (
previously), the
Muse magazine mainstay
Kokopelli & Co. (featuring the shenanigans of his
"New Muses"), and
more. See also
these lengthy interview snippets, linked
previously. Want more? Amazon links to the complete oeuvre inside!
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Jun 6, 2011 -
29 comments
Stephen Biesty is an award-winning British illustrator famous for his bestselling "Incredible" series of engineering art books:
Incredible Cross-Sections,
Incredible Explosions,
Incredible Body, and
many more. A master draftsman, Biesty
does not use computers or even rulers in composing his intricate and imaginative drawings, relying on nothing more than pen and ink, watercolor, and a steady hand. Over the years, he's adapted his work to many other mediums, including
pop-up books,
educational games (
video),
interactive history sites, and
animation. You can view much of his work in
the zoomable galleries on his professional page, or click inside for a full listing of direct links to high-resolution, desktop-quality copies from his and other sites, including several with written commentary from collaborator
Richard Platt [site, .mp3 chat].
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Feb 4, 2011 -
24 comments
Don't Make Excuses - Make Good! Between World Wars I and II, the U.S. economy was booming - workers had choices and employers competed for their time. How to motivate and gain loyalty from a labor force that knew it could walk out the door and find more work soon?
Charles Mather, head of a family printing business in Chicago, offered employers a solution: the
first motivational posters for the private workplace market. Printed between 1923 and 1929, Mather's "
Work Incentive Posters" used strong imagery and short, clear messaging to encourage workplace values like
teamwork, punctuality, safety, and loyalty. Today, some of his 350 designs can be seen in
traveling exhibitions and
poster galleries, and
Antiques Road Show - or you can soak up some motivation from his modern-day successors at
Successories - or
generate your own.
[more inside]
posted by Miko
on Oct 12, 2010 -
25 comments
Critical Past Claiming 57k historic videos and 7MM photos free to browse (pay to download). Single-link-dig-through-it-yourself-and-let-us-know-if-you-find-anything-great, okay?
posted by Ufez Jones
on Jun 24, 2010 -
29 comments
This past Spring, Duke University hosted concurrent exhibits that featured curated images of satirical political cartoons. Fortunately, the exhibits are free to enjoy from the comfort of your bed/couch/desk chair. From the Nasher Museum of Art, there is
Lines of Attack: Conflicts in Caricature, comparing pieces from as early as 19th Century France to post 9/11 US. From the Perkins Library, we get
Abusing Power: Satirical Journals, an exhibit of 19th and early 20th Century pieces from around the world.
posted by Ufez Jones
on Jun 10, 2010 -
3 comments
Chai Why? The Triumph of Tea in India : "But whereas I initially supposed tea-drinking to be as Indian, and perhaps as old, as the Vedas, I have come to know that it is, in the
longue durée of Indian history, a very recent development; one that (in many parts of the country) did not much precede my first visit, or that even followed it."
posted by dhruva
on Apr 19, 2010 -
18 comments
Museums build some pretty cool websites. To help people find them, use them, and give them props, the Museums and the Web conference has held an annual Best of the Web contest since 1997.
This year's nominees are here. Just a sample:
the MOMA on Bauhaus, the Center for New Media's
Bracero History Archive, the Textile Museum of Canada's
In Touch:Connecting Cloth, Culture, and Art, Perception Deception from The National Science and Technology Center of Australia,
The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh from the Van Gogh Museum, the Smithsonian's
Prehistoric Climate Change and Why it Matters Today, and more . If that doesn't wash out the remainder of your Friday, you can always dig into the
past nominees.
posted by Miko
on Mar 26, 2010 -
8 comments
