1. Cool Karaoke art show in Knoxville with Abe ! and MO ! (and other “a list” art stars.)

2. Check out The Art Gallery of Knoxville’s website. It’s total “jimpuckolinaish”. Right on Knoxville. permanent link to this post

The LA Times writes..

The FBI is investigating allegations that self-styled “Painter of Light” Thomas Kinkade and some of his top executives fraudulently induced investors to open galleries and then ruined them financially, former dealers contacted by federal agents said.

[…]

“It was a program of lies and deception, predicated on Christian values that weren’t there,” said Joseph Ejbeh, the Michigan attorney who tried the arbitration case.

via Boing Boing

addednum:
My wife points out what the The Mercury News wrote about this affair:

Critics - including highbrow art aficionados, satirical bloggers and starving artists annoyed by Kinkade’s marketing success - snicker at his work.

And then asks…

My question is, which category are you in, honey? All three I suspect…. :-)

To which I reply, yes, except for the starving part of course! permanent link to this post

Edward Winkleman blogged about Stuckism today.

I think I missed the joke. Reading the later comments on the post, it looks like it was a ‘movement’ started by Tracy Emin’s pissed-off ex-bf, Billy Childish.

It seems that perhaps it became a real ‘movement’ of not-so-talented painters and that’s when the one of the co-founders (Childish) left. This comment claims to be from the the other co-founder of the group, Charles Thomson.

Regardless of the sincerity of its inception, the painting examples linked from Ed’s blog post are all entirely horrible. Perhaps on purpose? (Who cares?)

You can go to the Stuckism web site (which has a marquee! Is it an ironic marquee? (Who cares?)), or read about it on Wikipedia. permanent link to this post

Some old (way back in 01 folks) tinjail.com gif.art in the new This is (Not) a magazine Issue 18:

“Click to go forward, never go back”

This is (not) a Magazine proffers the new 2-bit-good-for-nothing Issue compiled entirely from animated GIFs made or found by artists working in and around the internet today. permanent link to this post

I love foie gras unapologetically. My wife and I dined on it almost every evening while in Paris on our honeymoon so it will always hold a special place in my heart.

It’s now officially illegal in Chicago to sell it. How stupid. The NYT reports on the foie gras rebellion taking place in the city!

In one of the more unlikely (and opulent) demonstrations of civil disobedience, a handful of restaurants here that never carry foie gras, the fattened livers of ducks and geese, featured it on the very day that Chicago became the first city in the nation to outlaw sale of the delicacy.

Defying Law, a Foie Gras Feast in Chicago

m.river (the non-meat eating part of mtaa) adds: Get over it Tim and Chicago. It’s not good for you, animals and farming in general.

To which T.Whid retorts:
I didn’t say it was good for me, but it’s not like I eat pounds of it a day. It’s a delicacy that I eat, at most, 3-4 times a year. No one’s arguing it’s good for the ducks or geese. But eating an animals liver is never good for an animal. Factory farming is worse for the environment. Regardless, I’m against prohibitions on drugs, alcohol, cigarettes etc. Why would I be pro foie gras prohibitions?

More on foie gras at wikipiedia, including the controversy surrounding it. permanent link to this post

Another in our series (1, 2) of gallery reception desk mods/interventions, “3’ High & Rising, Newark” took Aljira’s reception desk and placed it 3 feet above the gallery floor.

read more »

permanent link to this post

If you find it
If you like it
If it was made in 06

then tag it “net_art_06”

del.icio.us/m.river
permanent link to this post

Gnarls Biggie

by Sound Advice

…Gnarls Barkely mashed-up with Biggie Smalls

phat permanent link to this post

AIOTD - Reception Record / Self Portrait as an Open Mic.

On October 24, the New Museum bookstore will hold a reception for the Rhizome 06 commissions. The event will include MTAA’s net based audio art work / community ”2bl2”

At the Reception, MTAA will be create a new sound artwork called “Reception Record”. This work is a recording of the reception held for the artwork being produced. In other words, an artwork will be created from the material generated by the celebration of the artwork being created. It’s kind of a horse / cart thing.

Yes, you can say that the New Museum/ Rhizome reception is really for the “2bl2” project NOT the “Reception Record” project (which will be hosted within the “2bl2”) Let’s consider this detail only a small conceptual glitch akin to a hic-up.

So, if you find yourself in New York at the New Museum bookstore on the evening of the 24th of October and you see a microphone standing by itself in some corner, please go say “Hello”. Wish the microphone congratulations. Tell it a story or a joke. Get a few free reception drinks from the bar and chat it up. Have one of those awkward art opening conversations that just drift off and end. “Hey! How’s it going? What have you doing lately? Yeah? Cool…Excuse me, I’m going to go get anpther drink and say “Hi” to someone. Let’s hang out sometime soon” permanent link to this post

…with an article full of tired cliches.

Or perhaps they’re just trying to be funny?

Whatev.

Check it out… permanent link to this post

It’s sort of a weird article that seems to mostly diss new media. Check it out…

I’m proud to say that this…

So are artists at the cutting edge of new-media technology? No, says Charlie. One of the problems is that other stuff on the net is so much more mind-blowing. A site such as Google Earth is so much more awesome and thought-provoking than something an arty hacktivist can knock up on her PC.

…is something I’ve been saying for years. Except the ‘thought-provoking’ part. That’s bullshit.

Artists don’t need to be at the cutting edge of technology to be relevant. They need to be at the cutting edge of expression. Being steeped in digital culture gives new media artists access to new modes or angles of thinking and feeling. permanent link to this post

The Residents + MOMA + You + YouTube = New Media Public Art (NMPA)
permanent link to this post

AFC has a good post today about the realities of new media artists crossing-over into the larger art world. Here’s the bit that should be common sense to new media artists (but often isn’t):

Unlike many professions, there are a great number of people within the art world who could give a shit about the Internet. […] This sort of thing can create problems for artists who are making work in the medium because the people who understand it best are often the sixteen year nerds [sic] who spend 18 hours a day in front of a computer, as opposed to art world professionals who are responsible for the evaluation of art.

There are some new media artists who cross-over and make it look easy. Cory Arcangel and the McCoys come to mind. Arcangel succeeds by acting a bit like a ethnographer who travels into hacker culture and exports the bits that make sense to the art world. The McCoys succeed by addressing the older tradition of film and not letting themselves geek-out when addressing the art world.

MTAA recently had our worst fears realized when speaking to some traditional art world types about a new piece we’re developing with RSG. We were told bluntly that phrases like ‘peer-to-peer’ and ‘file-sharing’ are jargon and the art world doesn’t give a shit about them anyway. At first, I was defiant. These file-sharing networks are part of the subject of the piece, I told the art world pro. It’s like saying you don’t like apples so you don’t like paintings of apples. It’s just not your subject.

But then we realized, with some help from the art world pro (who’s remaining nameless but was very sharp and helpful), that we were failing to communicate what is interesting about our subject. (At least our 7 minute presentation about the project didn’t communicate it.) What we find interesting and exciting culturally about this technology needs to be expressed to folks in the present that may be ignorant of it or fail to understand it. We also need to communicate to people in the future that may have no idea what happened in the late 90s / early 00s.

MTAA has been wanting to move into the gallery for quite some time now. In order to do so, we’ll need to start thinking that our audience is completely ignorant of digital culture. We can’t expect them to be geeks that are excited about a good hack. We’ll need to communicate our emotion, interest and excitement. We can’t expect them to share it until we communicate every bit of it.

I can’t believe it took me so long to realize this… permanent link to this post

Congrats to Rhizome for 10 great years.

MTAA will be joining the year long Rhizome party on October 24 at the New Museum bookstore with the rest of the 06 Commissions. (Hans Bernhard and Alessandro Ludovico, Peter Horvath, Jason Corace and Vicky Fang, Andy Deck, Jason Freeman, Sean Kerr, Ethan Ham and Tony Muilenberg, Thomas Laureyssens, and Adriaan Stellingwerff.)

It’s a one night stand and we’ll be doing something with 2bl2
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We’re just back from the Creative Capital “Art Boot Camp” to find a review in the NY Tiimes of Aljira Emerge

Tristate Talent Search Hits a High Note

“Mr. Sarff and Mr. Whidden have done their best to be noticed, reinstalling the gallery front-of-house reception desk on a three-foot-high wooden podium. It seems a slightly hostile gesture, for visitors are confronted by someone looking down on them as they enter the gallery. It will be interesting to see what Mr. Sarff and Mr. Whidden have to say about their work during the artists’ talks that accompany the exhibition.” permanent link to this post