Everyone's a Critic
A security guard at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh has been charged in the vandalism of a $1.2M painting.
Timur Serebrykov, 27, is an immigrant from Azerbaijan, and his fiancée is due to give birth soon, lawyer James Sheets said. Concerns about his life and future caused Serebrykov to use a key to slash Night Sky #2 by Latvian artist Vija Celmins on May 16.
"He's under a lot of pressure, and he just snapped and did something dumb," Sheets said.
Pittsburgh police arrested Serebrykov on a charge of institutional vandalism May 20 after museum officials examined a surveillance tape. Serebrykov apologized and confessed, telling police that he simply did not like the painting.
crispy thinks there's nothing better than a quickie on a Sunday afternoon.
Marilyn Manson Opens Museum
Renaissance man Marilyn Manson is prepping for the grand opening of his latest artistic endeavor. Following several successful exhibitions in LA, Paris and Berlin, Manson is turning his artistic eye towards a future as a curator. On October 31st, Manson will open his own art gallery in Los Angeles.
The gallery will be located at 667 Melrose and the goth rock super star has dubbed his new museum The Celebritarian Corporation Gallery Of Fine Art. To celebrate the occasion Marilyn will be performing for the first time ever on The Late Show with Jay Leno.
Appropriately, he will be performing this Tuesday is his song "This Is Halloween.
Owl Museum, Korea
Somewhere in Seoul, Korea, there is an art and craft museum dedicated to owl themed works. It seems to be a tea house with a thorough collection of owl antiquities and craft. Frankly, I can't understand anything on the website, so if any readers can do a translation better than the one I got from Google, please divulge the secret text within.
It is second a son one army of the horned owl museum.
It will combine a museum public information in this time and secret intention personal blow it will be wrong and it made.
Something's definitely lost in translation, but a web search yielded some further interesting, mysterious and comprehensible results. On a Korean tourism website, useful information is provided in English:
If you are an owl lover or enjoy seeing handcrafted pieces of art, the Owl museum is the place for you. This owl themed museum is filled with pieces of art, crafts, useful household items and accessories. The items here come from over 70 countries including such countries as China, the United States, the Czech Republic, and Poland. Over 2000 pieces can be found all right under one roof.
This museum was originally a private residence. The structure was remodeled and made into a museum, but was still able to keep its original charm. The owners second son, who majored in design, chose owl wallpaper to add to the unique atmosphere. Visitors to the museum are treated to a tasty cup of tea for free.
Lotsa Museums Free in L.A. Tomorrow
This Sunday, October 1st in the Los Angeles area, twenty museums have agreed to open the doors to the public free of charge. Take advantage of this, Southern Californians; while there are some museums that are always free (such as the Getty), most are not.
The participating museums in the day event include:
Armory Center for the Arts
Autry National Center's Museum of the American West
California Heritage Museum
California Science Center
Craft and Folk Art Museum
Fowler Museum at UCLA
The Getty Center
Hammer Museum
Japanese American National Museum
Laguna Art Museum
Long Beach Museum of Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
The Museum of Television & Radio
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA)
Museum of Tolerance
Norton Simon Museum
Orange County Center for Contemporary Art
Pacific Asia Museum
Skirball Cultural Center
Southwest Museum of the American Indian.
More info and links to the participating museums are here.
Photo Location: Folk Art is Free Art on Oct. 1.
Decoding Suggested Admission
On the subject of admission fees, though people seem to be able to justify paying $10 and upward to see Snakes on a Plane, many are reluctant or unable to meet the cost of museum admissions. Is it because we still feel as though a traditional education should be free? Or because museums are asking for so much these days?
No matter, if your finances disallow meeting the steep price of museum culture, read the fine print or call and ask first. Some American museums admission fees are characterized as "suggested admission", meaning pay what you can, anytime. I used to visit the Art Institute of Chicago at least once a week when I was a kid, never able to cough up more than a couple dollars. Or change I found on the sidewalk. (The museum has since removed their flexible admission policy.)
While public financial contributions to museums are crucial to meeting the many overhead costs as with any business (from security to acquiring new collections), many museums reach out to the public with their flexible fee options. If not a pay-what-you-can admission program, many offer free days throughout the month.
The suggested-donation policy is a requirement of being part of what is called the Cultural Institutions Group, a group of 34 New York City-owned institutions that also includes the American Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Bronx Zoo. As part of the same deal, the city provides 11% of the Met's total budget, according the Department of Cultural Affairs. In the last fiscal year, this came to about $24,598,000, an amount that contributed to general operating costs, as well as paying for heat, light, and power.
Source
Here's a short list of art museums with suggested admission policies:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, The Fabric Workshop and Museum (Philadelphia, PA), Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, NYU's Grey Art Gallery, Seattle Art Museum, St. Louis Art Museum (always free), all Smithsonian Museums (in DC, always free), Hearst Art Gallery (Bay area)
If you know of another museum with a flexible admission policy, please post it here! And, of course, remember that many smaller museums and privately owned collections are free all the time and most museums have volunteer programs which will also gain you free admission.
How To Make a Digital Quilt
The Whitney and Tate Museums have collaborated to fund a sort of confusing but interactive internet based project called Screening Circle. The installation is somewhat akin to a quilting circle made up of live, anonymous contributers drawing pixelated "squares" to be bound into a video quilt.
Enter the portal and you'll be able to "help docs" (which means you can pick an existing "quilt square" and add to it). Using a palette of 9 basic screen colors, draw with your mouse and make your mark on the Screening Circle. Like I said, it's a little confusing at first, but you'll figure it out.
Screening Circle was inspired by the tradition of the quilting circle: a group of people who make a quilt together, each producing small squares that are later sewn together. Screening Circle reinterprets this popular craft tradition in the context of interactive electronic media. As you draw in this circle you may notice icons changing, because other people are drawing at the same time.
Photo Location
View the interactive "quilt" or participate here.
Société Anonyme, Inc.
Visiting the exhibit Société Anonyme: Modernism for America at the Hammer Museum, what struck me most, besides the sheer mass of work (some expected Legers and Kandinskys, some lesser knowns and surprisingly organic sculptures) was the personal care Société Anonyme, Inc.s founders, Katherine Dreier, Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray took to capture a movement.
They believed
it was important that the history of art be chronicled not by historians or academics but by artists.
from the exhibition text
Société Anonyme, Inc. was founded in 1920 as Americas first experimental museum for contemporary art. Société Anonyme or S.A., the French designation for corporations, literally translates to Incorporated, Inc. And with that nod to Dada, Dreir and Duchamp (Man Rays role was less significant) sought to promote Modernism in America, encourage international exchange, educate, and provide forums for discussion on Modernism. They tried to simultaneously capture and spread a movement through collecting art (a Modern collection, then unrivaled, and now matched only by MoMA and the Guggenheim, NY), curating over 80 exhibits, and distributing 30 publications.
The exhibition, set to tour museums for the next four years, does not have the focus of many traditionally curated shows, but it's not exactly democratic, or academic, or chaotic. It's a record of the time and taste of a group of individuals, artists, who saw the work through an artist's eye.
Société Anonyme believed that their business should be art, not personalities. Three cheers to that.
KCRWs show "Politics and Culture" aired a discussion yesterday with exhibition curator Jennifer Gross and Director of the Hammer Museum, Ann Philbin. Unfortunately, I had trouble downloading the show, but I hope thats only a temporary problem.
Societe Anonyme: Modernism for America
was organized by Yale University Art Gallery and will tour the following cities:
Hammer Museum
Los Angeles, CA
Apr 23 Aug 20, 2006
The Phillips Collection
Washington DC
Oct 14, 2006 Jan 21, 2007
Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, TX
Jun 10 Sep 16, 2007
Frist Center for the Visual Arts
Nashville, TN
Oct 26, 2007 Feb 3, 2008
Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven, CT
Fall 2010